My 25th Birthday!

Friday was my 25th birthday and I had a blast. I have such good friends!! Here are some pictures from the night:

Ultimate Hot Chocolate from Panera Bread the morning of :)

Panera Bread Red Velvet cupcake!

BIRTHDAY TIARA!

We saw Thor 2 and it was awesome!

Best. Picture. Ever.

2nd visit to the Cheesecake Factory - they sung Happy Birthday to me!

Birthday chocolate-covered caramel cookie at Lot 3

More friends :)

happy !!!

I may have felt like a 5 year old walking around a movie theatre, a restaurant, and a lounge wearing a huge tiara, but I didn't care. It was an awesome day, I have awesome friends, and it's gonna be an awesome year!!

The Costumes I Wear

I skipped my run AGAIN last tonight because I'm really not feeling well - sore throat, coughing, etc. etc. Bleh. The weird thing is I always feel fine in the morning but ever since I got back from Vegas, I've been sick at night. Hmm.

So, in the meantime, I thought we might take a little trip down memory lane.

I'm a little late to the Halloween Costume blog post party, but hey, better late than never right?

I used to be a model for a dance costume company called Georgie Girl. I was a cute little sucker.

Circa 1994

Yep, ADORABLE. The costume bug (hah) bit me early.

To clarify, technically it was the dance costume bug that bit me. I dressed up for Halloween when I was trick-or-treating, sure, but I was mainly just a witch or a cat, nothing really creative. I was dressing up in costumes so much for dance that it wasn't really anything new to dress up on Halloween.

As I got older, I participated in musicals a lot, which involved more dressing up in costumes. Ever since I was a freshman in high school, with colorguard, ballet, and musicals, I was almost always in some kind of costume. Halloween became less and less like a cool thing to do.

But, I did occasionally dress up for the random party here or there.

2004: As Christine Daaé, for a friend's birthday party

2006: As a Flapper for the same friend's birthday party

2006: For our Homecoming Dance, it was neon themed... or something

It wasn't until 3 years later, the second semester of my sophomore year in college, that I dressed up again for a party - and it wasn't Halloween, either. It was April 2009, and it was a pirate party. I found all my gear at Goodwill!

JW is playing his part well - he's not this mean :)

After studying abroad and not participating in Halloween (again!), I got back to the states and in February 2010, my new roommate was having a themed party for her birthday. I decided to dress up in my mom's 60s garb and pass myself off as Agent 99 incognito.

Rockin' that middle part

My next costume-themed party was the next month, at a karaoke party at a friend's apartment, where I dressed up as Lady Gaga.

I had to borrow the wig and hair bow from the same roommate, but hey, I still felt pretty damn cool.

It wasn't until later that year that I actually went to a Halloween party and attempted to try to be creative with my costume. It was the last legit Halloween party I could go to while still in college, so I figured I had to go.

If any of you remember Katy Perry's infamous skit on SNL a few years ago, you'll recognize this costume. The episode happened to air right before Halloween, which gave me the idea.

2011 kicked off with a themed Valentine's Day party, where I dressed up as the devil.

You can tell I tried real hard at this costume.

Later that year, I made an even better last-minute Halloween costume as a "teacher".. or something.

From Day to Night in about 4 seconds

And then it wasn't until two years later, this year, that I dressed up for Halloween again - not before procrastinating until October 28th to buy our costumes, though.

So there you have it. All my party/dance inspired costumes throughout the years.

Looking back, I sure do wear a lot of RED, don't I???

Favorite Halloween costume?

Vegas!

On Halloween, JW and I picked up our friend Sam and drove to the airport. Of course Sam wore one of her Halloween costumes on the plane, but neither JW or I were that courageous :)

Sam as a Bavarian Barmaid :)

We arrived in Vegas without a hitch (along with free drinks because it was Halloween on Southwest - score!), met up with our friend Aaron who was on a different flight, and our generous host Micah picked us up from the airport. We had arrived!!

Aaron

We found our way to the Flamingo, Micah dropped us off, and waited in the hour line to check-in (ridiculous) and managed to get two rooms adjacent to each other so we could spread out :)

Excited for the night!!

Micah, his wife Leiszle, and their friend Stephanie arrived and we got ready to go out. Our plan was to catch a cab to Fremont, watch the parade, eat there, and then get back by 10:30ish to go to a party at Hyde, a club in Bellagio.

JW and I did literally last minute costumes, so I'm pretty happy with how we turned out -

His mustache is upside-down and mine is in necklace form, but Mario & Luigi!!

Micah and Leiszle found their inspiration on Buzzfeed, but tweaked it, and were a pair of boobs with nipple tassles:

Bahahha! Aaron is Scotty from Star Trek.

And last but not least, Sam was Jessica Rabbit.

She's in the middle :)

Our cab driver was awesome because she started to hit on JW immediately - she was like 65, haha! She kept saying, "You don't make fun of my boy!" (she had a Russian accent), "He is a good one!" hahhaha they were great one-liners.

We made it to Fremont, where Micah and Leiszle were an instant hit. Seriously, everybody wanted to take a picture with them and everybody smiled when they approached. Boobs just make people happy :)

We walked around for a bit but pretty much missed the parade that was supposed to go on. We decided to go get something to eat - and let me tell you, sitting in a fancy restaurant dressed as Mario and Luigi with a big pair of boobs is really funny and awesome.

I didn't take a lot of pictures at the restaurant - we were the middle of attention anyways :)

We left the restaurant and were ready to go back to Flamingo to then walk over to the Bellagio. We were ready to have some fun!!

We took the above pictures in front of Hyde while we waited in line. Waiting in line was pretty frustrating - at first they didn't have our reservation, and then we had no service to bring up the e-mail, and then we had to fill in our e-mail addresses on this random form to get free drinks but we didn't end up getting any free drink tickets...

The solution to everything in Vegas, in case you were wondering, is to be a female in a dress. Once we got in and asked the bartender about free drinks, which he knew nothing about, we were then shepherded over to the bouncer, who knew nothing about it either, and we ended up right back where we started with the people who we gave our e-mails to. I was a little frustrated and went into a speech about how we've been going back and forth between people and nobody's been able to tell us anything... and the guy gave us about 10 free drink tickets. Welp, that did the trick!

Pretty pink drink tickets

We went back inside and started partying!

We met another Mario & Luigi!

The girls

It was a great night! We got back in around 3am and went straight to sleep.

The next morning, we went to brunch at this nice place called Mon Ami Gabi, near Paris. It was delicious!

After that, we wandered around the strip for a little bit and walked back to the Flamingo to find a happy hour.

We were basically biding time before we had reservations to go to a speakeasy back in Fremont. We took the bus and arrived around 10:15pm.

The drinks were delicious and the ceiling was made of doors.

We left around 12:30, and were hankering for some pizza.

"Good pizza made with love warms the heart" <3

The next day, we checked out of the hotel and put all of our stuff in Micah and Leiszle's car to drive back to their house to stay that night.

We were a little squished.

We parked in the Planet Hollywood parking lot and walked over to Burgr to have lunch.

YUM.

After we ate, we walked around to find another happy hour before we got back on the road. We were wanting those tall slushies that we kept seeing everyone holding.

After some more walking around and gambling, we drove back to Micah and Leiszle's house, where I finished my fantastic 7 mile run.

That night, we ate a delicious homemade gnocchi, corn, and grape tomato dish with an apple feta cheese salad that Leiszle made. It was SO GOOD. We finished off the night watching Hocus Pocus, complete with some more drinks at midnight on account of the official start of Sam's birthday!

The next morning was the beginning of our last day in Vegas. We started the morning with (unpictured) mimosas, chocolate chip banana pancakes, sausage, and blackberries. Such a good start to the day!

Before we knew it, it was time to pack, go to the airport, and get on our flight back. We had such a great time - I can't wait to go back!

Plus, we got free drinks on the plane on account of this birthday girl!

Until next time, Vegas! :)