Girls Night Out 2008: Circus version

On Saturday night we gathered the girls and headed out for our 2nd annual girls night out. This time we went to the Seminole Hard Rock casino. Neither of us had been there and it seemed like a good place to go with one stop shopping if you will.

We were going to go to Tatu for dinner, but the 90 minute wait dissuaded us and we chose to eat at Tequila Ranch instead (which probably ended up having a 60 min wait anyway). They had some live entertainment which I'm sure is fun and wonderful if you're not sitting right next to the speaker. Fortunately I had my trusty Tylenol in my purse with me (that my doc said I could take), but when the ladies at the table started telling me that it was too strong and that I was going to irreparably damage the child by taking that dosage, I kind of felt bad and didn't take it.

The only good thing about being close to the stage was that we were also close to the dance floor where we witnessed a small old man getting frisky with whichever female was brave enough to step foot on the dance floor. During dinner I passed out some bachelorette dare cards (it wasn't a bachelorette party, but nobody else had to know that) that we could do throughout the night (to spice things up a bit...OK fine to entertain me since I wasn't going to be drinking), but unfortunately, half of the girls don't drink enough for me to persuade them to do the dares...and only a few of us are crazy enough to do them without the alcohol.

After dinner, the bull rides began...no don't think nasty, literally, they had a bull there. There was a bachelorette having a party and she was the first one to get on. I didn't really see any guys trying to ride the bull, but there were lots of ladies having a go at it. It seemed to me like each one was wearing fewer clothes than the last, but I think it's because the bull operator was making the bull shake in such a way that butts and boobs were being flashed at an alarming rate. It seemed like fun and I really wanted to go, but I didn't want to unhinge the child within, so I refrained. Boohoo. None of the old ladies that were with me wanted to ride the bull (and the one that would have, was wearing a skirt....I think she did it on purpose if you ask me), so we headed off to check out the clubs.

Our first stop was to chat it up with the door guy of one of the clubs to ask him about cover charges and which club plays what music and which clubs were good and by the way, have you done any modeling and do you have a twin brother...oh you do....and does he work here too and how old are you and I tuned out about halfway through the conversation because I couldn't handle knowing that there were two of him.....must walk away. I'm such a goody-goody.

So we went to Spirits first and that lasted a whole 5 minutes while we went to the bathroom en masse and quickly departed...we hadn't brought our fake grillz with us that day, so we kind of felt out of place. After that we headed to Passion where Lisa helped us get into the VIP section. We picked a lovely couch and sat down and later noticed there were some old decorations still hanging there from a baby shower (um...a baby shower in a club? erm...ooookay). They all thought it was a sign...I told them yes it was...it was a baby shower sign...they also have "it's a boy" signs too in the stores. I guess only time will tell because I've had about 3 dreams about little wiggly and demented as all the dreams are (oh my god are they crazy dreams...I don't remember having crack is whack dreams with Christian), it's always a boy baby...so isn't that a sign too?

Anyway, we partied like rockstars at Passion...well, if rock stars wear wigs, do the robot, the egyptian, the running man and the cabbage patch while partying that is. I guess we were 80's rock stars. Take note: the only one that hadn't had a drink is the one with the clown wig. Judging by the pictures it looks as if I'm the only fool dancing (no, but you were the only one dancing like a fool), but that wasn't the case, we were all dancing at some point or another. It just happens that Lilli (the photographer that night) was specifically very amused by my dance moves, either that or I'm a camera hog.

Around one-ish, 2/3 of the group decided to call it a night. I was in that 2/3rds because I was exhausted (from all that dancing perhaps). The following day though, I felt like a train had hit me. I never knew you could feel hungover without actually having had a drink. I need to accept that fact that I am no longer in shape for this sort of thing. Remind me to never go out and party while pregnant, or old, or pregnant and old.

Carnival of Carnage Review

Oct 24th, I hopped in a car with Jenny, Amber (her niece) and Ricky (Amber's bf) and drove four hours North to Orlando. Our friends Claude, Meg, and Laurie met up with us over there. Once again it was time for Halloween Horror Nights (HHN). Unfortunately the little camera that could...couldn't anymore, so I had to take my old camera hence the sucky pictures.

Crappy camera + they don't really let you photograph inside the houses + there were no scare zones = I didn't take more than 5 pictures that night. Jenny and I were discussing what haunted houses we liked better than others (Dead Silence, Friday the 13th, Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Psychoscareapy) a couple of days later and we decided that we needed to make a little video on youtube of us sitting at a table drinking coffee and discussing the pros (lots of houses) and cons (no scare zones!!!) of the event and then we decided that we needed to be in a focus group for Universal so we could tell them what we thought about their event (because we really did sit and discuss details and such) and then we decided we needed to get a life.

The haunted houses were great (except there weren't enough people to scare you inside of them) and the Bill and Ted's show was fun (especially the SAW and Michael Myers bits), but the fact that there was only one quasi-scare zone really sucked. I look forward to getting the crap scared out of me on the streets of Universal because unfortunately, I've become somewhat immune to the haunted house scares, so not having that made the event feel somewhat incomplete. Oh well, at least I still had the backstage tour to look forward to.

The following day, we headed to Universal again for our behind the screams tour of HHN. We were in the far left lane of the parking entrance, and unfortunately the preferred parking entrance was on the far right (can we say BIGGER SIGN people? especially since the day before the prefered parking entrance was on the LEFT), so of course I missed it. We had to go up and down the parking garage and out all over again and wasted 10 minutes. Because of this we got to the tour late and some guy named Philip was quite mean to us. He treated us like children that had misbehaved "you're two minutes away from not going on the tour"...yeah OK dad. Last year we arrived to the tour on time and they had us waiting for a couple of minutes, so we assumed that the same relaxed attitude was in play here. Wrong. Philip the drill sergeant was going to make sure we were put in our place.

Thankfully we had David as our tour guide again (we requested him from last year since he was so nice...unlike Philip). When we finally broke free of Philip, Dave was just outside the door and was calmly telling the rest of the tour group about the history of HHN and was not on his way to the haunted house and was not angry because he was waiting for us to get there and we were not holding the group up (like Philip had led us to believe). David greeted us nicely "hey, it's nice to see you guys" and it almost seemed like he remembered us. I figured that was impossible since he must see thousands of people a year while leading tours. He must say that to all his guests. So the tour began on a crappy note, but nothing was going to kill my buzz because I love HHN.

Our first stop was the Dead Silence Haunted House (eeeeek! jumps up and down with excitement). The attention to detail was awesome and they had some pretty cool effects with mirrors and such. This is the only house that really startled me the previous night. I was taking furious mental notes to see what I could incorporate into my own haunted house. I was pleasantly surprised to see that many of the scenes that I had planned for my house were also in this one. Their wall of dolls left alot to be desired though.

After that we saw the wardrobe and makeup areas and then headed towards the next haunted house, Psychoscareapy: Home for the holidays. This is an old favorite of mine, so we really enjoyed getting a closer look at this one. The premise was that the asylum patients were on a field trip when their van crashed into a community of homes, letting loose all the wackos within it (including the one standing by the door in this picture). This was a pretty cool house because the whole time you really felt like you were in someone's house. The path would lead you in and out of different homes. It was very effective and I was able to get the perfect picture for my Christmas cards this year. The only bad thing about this house was the lack of asylum actors (I think it has to do with what night of the week we went though).

Side note: On our way to the haunted houses David our awesome tour guide asked me if I was having a haunted house again this year. Can you believe that people? He remembered my crazy ass a year later? That's pretty impressive.

Our next stop was a lovely home on Elm Street (oh look it's for sale!). Our favorite scene from that house was Johnny Depp's bedroom (not for the reasons you're thinking) because they had completely turned it on it's side and had you walk right through his bloody bed. Pretty neat effect. I never got a sense that I was in the boiler room though, and the Freddy masks were kind of cheesy. I mean, if you're going to use $5 Walgreens masks, then at least don't shine any lights onto your actors...keep them in the dark please so I can at least imagine that it's real for a split second. At the end of this haunted house Philip was bugging David on the phone that we had to hurry up, so we went over to a little museum they had set up for HHN freaks fans such as ourselves.

The museum had little stations set up for each house where you could see the wardrobe and floor plans of each house. My first love was architecture, so I wanted to pocket the floor plans, but unfortunately I wasn't wearing a trench coat, so...so much for that. Oh and Philip was there once again ranting to poor David about how he thought we would be done by now (you know, since it was 1:01 and the tour was slated to end at 1:00pm and all). Put a sock in it Philip...you really put a damper on our tour experience (can you tell I didn't like Philip too much at this point?).

After the tour we headed over to the Twister Ride, the Mummy ride (awesome) and to the Jaws ride. We all had a good laugh later when we were comparing pictures because Meg and I had more pictures of the tour guide than of the shark. After this we went on a couple more rides and then it was time to leave. I wanted to hide in the bushes and stay for another night of HHN, but I don't think everyone was on board with that plan (there's roaches in the bushes). We hung around for as long as possible, but the security guards had their little kick-everyone-out-parade and that was the end of that (Noooo, but it's only 6pm!).

After Universal Studios, we headed over to City Walk to grab some dinner. While we waited for our table at Bubba Gump Shrimp Co., we heard that Thriller was playing on the loud speakers outside so of course Jenny, Meg and I did what anybody in that position would do and broke into a choreographed Thriller dance in the middle of City Walk (oh, you mean you wouldn't do that?). The song played three times in a row until they finally noticed that there were lunatics dancing in the street decided to change the CD for some reason.

Once inside Bubba Gump, we got a lovely table with a view of the whole restaurant. I quickly picked out my favorite waiter to stalk admire and shared him with the rest of the ladies at my table (aka Mr. hot-shrimp-waiter-man from hereon in), but unfortunately he was not our waiter. Jenny and I never have the same taste in men, but she grew fonder of him as the evening passed and repeatedly got busted staring at him. This situation led me to share a humorous story with my tablemates (which I will also now share with you) about the time that I was 15 and my friends and I went to Bennigans to celebrate my friend Ayleen's birthday. We had a cute waiter named Dan and the whole evening I kept talking about Dan and how cute he was and how I wanted him for dessert (you know stupid 15 year old stuff). When Dan actually came to ask us what we wanted for dessert Cristy's mom pointed at me and blurted out "well she wants YOU for dessert". I have never wanted to be swallowed by the earth as much as I did that day. Fast forward 17 years and there we were sitting at Bubba Gump and I knew I shouldn't have shared that story because I had paid too much attention to our waiter that evening. I had a feeling that would bite me in the ass later.

At this particular restaurant, they have signs on each table that you're supposed to flip when you need the waiter to come. This is pretty cool because ANY waiter that passes by has to come and help you regardless of whether he is your waiter or not. You can see where this is going right? Well, someone had immense luck and good timing and flipped the sign at a moment when NO other waiter was in sight and Mr. hot-shrimp-waiter-man was walking by. He stopped at our table and everyone pointed to me saying that it was my birthday and that they should sing happy birthday to me. I denied the birthday accusations and refused the proposed serenade. But alas, my tablemates were not satisfied because they noticed that they had not embarrassed me, so of course they threw this little gem in at the end of the conversation "...oh and she wants YOU for dessert". It's amazing what 17 years will do to you. I wasn't embarrassed at all this time and found the whole thing to be hilarious as did Mr. hot-shrimp-waiter-man.

After our lovely dinner. Claude Meg and Laurie headed back to the hotel because they were driving home that night. Jenny, Amber, Ricky and myself went to the movies at CityWalk and we watched the Nightmare Before Christmas in 3D. I think that was the perfect end to a wonderful Halloweenyfied weekend! Sigh. Goodbye Universal...see you next year (maybe)!



ps. I didn't forget to get gas before leaving this time.

You may want to read this in installments

I'm feeling alot better now...and that was the shortest lived weight-loss ever. I guess Lilli's birthday cake from Saturday night didn't help, neither did the chocolate chip cookies I had last night, neither did the cake I just ate here in the office for someone else's birthday. You can see where this is going, but I bet you didn't come here to read about cake. Ah yes, California. Have a seat, we'll be here a while.

Day 1
Well, I got there on Friday around 11am and Jen picked me up at the airport and we headed over to Downtown Disney. Our first stop was the Rainforest Cafe where we met up with a hairy friend. Afterwards we walked around and looked at the pretty stores and restaurants. We went over to Disneyland and California Adventure so we could get a preview (we were going to go on Monday) of the Halloweentime decorations they put up during this time of year. After that we headed back towards the car because I was kind of pooped, but not before walking into a store that had a couple of Halloween decorations in the window. "Should we browse in here? sure, why not". Well, I'm glad we decided to go in because that store contained the mother load of all Halloween villages. If you think the Michael's spooky village display is large, you ain't seen nothing yet. Jen and I almost collapsed at the sight of it. The people around us were staring at us because we were freaking out so much and going "wow, look at this...and look at this one...oh my god, look at the little arm....and this one has dangling legs...oh there's more back here....there's a train...and a carousel....a swing!...and look at this little bench and check out the lights...." You get the point.

Day 2
The next day we headed out for some shopping at the dollar store. They have so many Halloween things at the dollar stores over there that we don't have here. I bought so much stuff it almost didn't fit in my suitcase. After that we spotted an Ecuadorian restaurant and a Salvadorean restaurant next to each other, that was funny (R is from Ecuador)... of course we picked the Salvadorean one where I promptly ordered one of everything in sight....to go. We went back to Jen's apartment and I was amazed at the size of the pupusas from the restaurant. They were almost as big as my hand! After my eat-fest we stayed in and rested. We would need all the energy we could get for Knott's Scary farm that evening.

After our nap (you know you're getting old when you start scheduling naps into your vacations) we were on our way to Knott's Bery Farm Haunt, but first we made a quick stop for some aspirin for me because I had a major headache (another sign of old age) and a funny stomach (hmm...I wonder why). We went into the park and stopped at the buffet for a quick bite and something to drink and then we were on our way. Knott's had 13 haunted houses and 6 shows (plus the rides), so we had our work cut out for us because we only had about 6 hours to do everything. Fortunately Jenny had the hookup, so we got a VIP wristband that admitted us to the front of the line for (mostly) everything. We saw all but one of the haunted houses, but we only saw one show called the Hanging. It had alot of funny pop culture stuff in it (kind of like the bill & ted show at Halloween Horror Nights) and alot of men jumping around and fighting in their underwear. Who's complaining? Not me. We got on a couple of cool roller coasters and this thing that drops you from a height of 254 feet (excellent for those of us that don't like heights). After all the rides, houses, underwear, decorations and scares, we were pooped and called it a night around 2:30 am.

Day 3
On Sunday we took it easy and stayed home most of the day. We needed to recuperate from the last couple of days and we needed to save up our energies for Disneyland the next day. At night we went to the movies to see Good Luck Chuck. I live in a cave and hadn't ever seen Dane Cook before, so I kept saying "hello...who is that?"....of course all the gratuitous naked Chuck shots in the movie had nothing to do with it. The man has dimples on his ass...that's impressive.

Day 4
The following day we crawled out of bed, grabbed a muffin and headed to Disneyland to enjoy the day. I snickered silently at the throngs of parents struggling with small children, trying to navigate the park, and I thanked my stars I wasn't one of them that day. Ha ha. Sorry Christian, you're going to have to wait till you're older, theme parks and toddlers (that don't like strollers and don't like to walk) do not mix well. Thankfully the weather was gorgeous and the park wasn't very full, so the lines were manageable.

First we went to Adventureland and we rode the Indiana Jones ride, then we headed over to New Orleans Square to ride the Pirates of the Caribbean and the haunted mansion (which deserves a whole post to itself) which had been completely converted (inside and out) into a Nightmare before Christmas haunted house. After taking 999 pictures (there's always room for one more) of the haunted mansion, we headed over to the Winnie the Pooh ride in Critter Country. Afterwards we took a stroll through Frontierland to go ride on Big Thunder Mountain Railroad. Splash Mountain was next in line (with a fastpass), then we got on the Disneyland Railroad and headed to Fantasyland. We didn't ride It's a Small World because the line was outside in the hot sun (wimps) and there was no fastpass for it, but we did go on the Matterhorn (very short line). The Alice in Wonderland line was long and the teacups make me nauseous (getting old), so I just said hi to Alice and went on my way to Tomorrowland. The line for Space Mountain was only 15 minutes long, so our fastpass was useless since the lines were combined into one.

Although I had been to Disneyland twice before, Space Mountain had been closed for renovations both times. This was my first time riding it in this park. I was expecting it to be the same as the one here, but boy was I wrong. Florida needs to get with the program, the Disneyland ride is so much better! It's darker, longer, faster and plays spacey techno music (sounded like something else for a second there). After our ride through space, we went over to Sleeping Beauty's Castle to take a jillion pictures in every pose known to man (of which I will spare you). We walked through the castle and were once again in Fantasyland where we went on the Snow White and Pinocchio rides (and faked it on the teacups). We hopped back on to the Disneyland Railroad and this time we passed through these weird caves that have animals and dinosaurs in them. I don't remember seeing this in Florida, but I haven't gone on the little train here in a while, so perhaps we have it here too.

Our next stop was the Blue Bayou which is a nifty little restaurant in New Orleans Square. You have to make reservations (Jen made them a week in advance) and it's an indoor sit down dining experience where you really feel like you are outdoors (except for the bugs and heat). Jen and I ate there the last time we came and we liked the ambiance so much that we wanted to come again. The last time we got a table that was in the middle, so we were disappointed, but this time we were happy because we got "waterside" seating which meant that the people in the Pirate's ride would pass by your table in their little boats and wave to you.

It was super cute:

"Hello people eating" ...frantic waving from the boats

"hello Pirate peeps"...frantic waving back (oops I dropped my butter knife)

After you've done this throughout dinner though...it's not so cute anymore, you just start ignoring the people in the boats and wishing the pirates would let you eat in peace.

After a very heavy and delicious dinner I ordered dessert to go because I didn't want to miss the parade. If you're paying attention you will notice that this is really my first meal of the day because I had been feeling queasy all day long; that right there, is a sign that there is something very very wrong going on in stomachland (I didn't see this area on the Disneyland map Claudia).
We didn't make it on time for the parade, so we decided to go to the Finding Nemo submarine ride during the parade in hopes that the line would not be an hour long as it had been earlier in the day. Unfortunately our passage from New Orleans Square to Fantasyland was blocked by said parade, so we had to find our way around it. I stopped for a couple of quick pictures before I expertly navigated around it (by this point, I didn't need a map anymore...what a pro). We made it to the Nemo ride, but the line was still long. We had no choice...we had to wait because neither of us had been on it. Fortunately the line went pretty fast and before we knew it it was our turn to get in the sub. The ride was just as I remembered it (the old 20,000 leagues under the sea ride closed in 1994) with pretty fishes except it was souped up and it had screens with Nemo scenes playing on them, so it seemed like he was right outside your sub. It was lovely and all, but all these days of walking were beginning to take their toll (oldness strikes again) and we were tired. That is...until we discovered that the dude that drives the sub was standing on a platform right there behind us...ha ha...Hey Jen...I dare you to grab his crotch. Nothing like a little mischief to perk you right up.

The line and the ride took 45 minutes, so by the time we got out, the park was closing. I ventured over to Fantasyland to see if perhaps we could sneak in one or two more quick rides, but nope...everything was deserted (that sure made for nice uncrowded pictures though). Reluctantly (it was only 8pm!), we headed down Main Street towards the exit and hit the gift shops where it took me ages to decide what to buy for Cman. I ended up getting him two tshirts and a small mickey mouse. I didn't get anything for R there because he hates all things Disney and wouldn't wear whatever I got him anyway. I just realized that I didn't buy anything for myself (another sign that something must be wrong)

Day 5
My last day there I found out exactly what was wrong. I woke up with the worst nausea and I couldn't handle the smell of the bacon that Jenny was cooking. I know what ya'll are thinking and if I didn't know better I'd swear I was pregnant, but fortunately, I did know better, so no, that wasn't the case. I spent the whole morning making trips from the toilet to the couch and then I had to go and sit on an airplane for 5 hours. Good times, good times I tell you.

So that was my trip, very exhausting and very fun (I've put most of the pictures here) and we're not even done. Jenny is coming to Miami in 12 days (on my birthday!) for part II of our Halloween Extravaganza (Halloween Horror Nights). Hopefully no one will get sick this time.

Until next time my friends...

If you're still reading this, you deserve a cookie because this was a freaking long post.

Pirates Gone Wild!

Aha...the long awaited girls night out (GNO) post has arrived. Cristy wrote a wonderful post about it on the girls blog, so I may steal borrow some of her words and pictures for this post.

After much deliberation (2 weeks) we finally decided to go to dinner for GNO. Those that were feeling up to it, could continue on elsewhere.

We settled on P.F.Chang's because it's "unique and magically delicious", but we'll get to the leprechaun's later. We all looked fabulous especially since we spent so much time primping specifically for this event. Because I didn't get to wear my pirate patch and hillbilly teeth on my anniversary dinner (I forgot them at home by mistake...can you believe it?), I decided to bring them along with me for the girls night out. I also decided to up the sparkly dressy factor by wearing a bow tie. A little early for St. Patty's, but really, who cares when you look this good.

After dinner we headed out to Martini Bar at Sunset Place. We had a couple of drinks and had a fun time dancing. Cristy "got to meet the shark guy!" and I had to pull out my costume props because when I go out, the men are always swarming around me. I usually have to beat them off with sticks, so I'm glad I thought of bringing my props along. It was fun watching everyone do a double take that night. Usually the Miami dancing spots are packed with people that are full of themselves, so it must have been odd for them to see someone that was deliberately trying to look ugly and unattractive. We even ran into a couple of friends who declared me to be "insane" for having such beautiful teeth (and large healthy pink gums).

When the music started to get a little too youthful for our tastes, we headed over to Vice/Soho (whatever it's called). My brother told me that only weird people go there, so I guess we were definitely in the right place. The dancing and drinking got better continued there. Everyone was going crazy on the dance floor, but I was subdued and demure. They were showing off their skills and having fun dancing, but then I decided to show them how it's really done (Lisa was probably wishing she had gone home after P.F. Chang's at this point).

Fortunately for her we decided to call it quits around 3 or 4 am (I forget). When we couldn't hold our drinks anymore (literally), had no more energy and were too pooped to party, we finally stumbled headed out.

Thanks for a wonderful night out ladies. I can't wait for the next one; I'm already getting my costume ready!

{special thanks to Marilu, Amanda and Lilli for the photos}

Hugs and Mussels

For our anniversary dinner, Ren took me to this nice Italian place in Coral Gables called Caffe Abbracci. Once again, everyone except myself has apparently already heard of this place. The ambiance was dark and cozy, but unfortunately, it was very loud in there, so he and I had to be screaming across the table at each other. I wish we would've gotten a corner table then perhaps we could've talked a little more. The decor looked like a little outdated (think calle ocho banquet hall) with neon lights and flowery sculpture looking things, but at least the food was yummy.

We shared the mussels in white wine as an appetizer (an action we would later regret). R had filet mignon which was delicious, and I had the black lobster ravioli in a white sauce...heaven. Our dessert consisted of mixed berries over a creme brulee type custard in a bowl made out of hardened melted sugar. I don't know about you, but I love it when I can not only eat my food, but the receptacle that it comes in too. The only downside was that both Ren and I got sick that night....and the following morning....and several days after that. We're thinking that it was bad mussels because that was the only thing that we had shared.

We had a wonderful evening out and it was nice to go to a place that didn't have combo meals, high chairs or paper placemats and crayons for a change. My mom stayed home with Christian to make it all possible and for that I am totally grateful. Regardless of the ongoing digestive disruptions R and I have had this week, the food was good and we will probably go back. Although next time, I think we'll get the mozzarella appetizer instead.