Trip to the Ship!

Last weekend was probably one of the best weekends of our lives! It's hard to explain it all in words, but hopefully some of the pictures will help!

It all started once we got to the Nashville airport, waiting to fly to Dallas (on our way to Las Vegas). We saw they had a Tootsie's there, with live music, so of course we had to stop in to feel like we were in downtown Nashville, one of our favorite places to be!

Afterwards, we still had some time, so I walked around to one of the shops, and almost bought this shirt for Jack! It is hilarious, and if it hadn't cost $38, he'd probably be wearing it right now!

As we were descending to land in Las Vegas (from Dallas), we flew over the Hoover Dam! I just happened to look out the window at the perfect time, and here is a picture of it! Yes, its small, but we are thousands of feet above it! :-) Our landing into Vegas was one of the coolest things we've ever seen, too. Lights as far as we can see, and then when we saw the Strip, it was amazing!

When we landed, we turned our phones on and had a sweet picture from Uncle Clay! He sent this picture of Auntie Em and Jack in the new AU pajamas Em bought him from Target! He was ready for the National Championship game, now! Thanks Auntie Em!

When we landed in Las Vegas, it was 8:30 local time, but 10:30 Birmingham time, so even though we were exhausted, we got cleaned up and headed out! I always love a chance to get dressed up, so here I am in my new purple dress I got for Christmas from Mama Becky and Daddy Mer. Vegas worthy? :-) We only stayed in our hotel casino that night, The Luxor, plus the adjoining one, The Excalibur, but there were still enough slots and tables to play just in those! We had a blast our first night in Vegas!

The next morning started early because we knew we had a lot to do in just that one day. We headed out down the strip to find a good breakfast buffet, and on our way enjoyed the sights!

MGM Grand

Excalibur

New York New York

The Strip (from the South end, by our hotel)

Bellagio and Ceasar's Palace

Paris

Bellagio Fountains

The Mirage

The Venetian

Three dice Kurt found at a gift shop to match our names!

Kurt let me stop at Serendipity 3 to try their famous frozen hot chocolate! It was amazing!

Night 2! We pretty much had shin splints from walking around straight from 830 am - 5 pm, but we had to come back, get cleaned up, and head back out! We had dinner reservations at 6 at Mon Abi Gabi at Paris. It's a French restaurant Papa and Sherbo love when they visit Las Vegas, so they gave us a gift card for Christmas so we could enjoy it, too! It's directly across from the Bellagio, so we got to sit out on their patio and enjoy the fountains every 30 minutes! The food was delicious, and it was very romantic! Probably my favorite moment from Las Vegas! Thanks again Papa and Sherbo! (Also another night for me to dress up! Vegas worthy again?) :-)

Monday! Day of the Auburn National Championship Game!! We woke up early again, but this time so we could catch our bus by 8:00 am. We rode on one of 4 BCS Buses headed to Glendale. It was fun to be with other Auburn fans, but it was a long trip. It took us from 8:30 am (Vegas time) to 2:00 (Vegas time, 3:00 Glendale time). The scenery wasn't bad to look at, though. (The 4th picture is of a Chinese restaurant advertising Roast Duck that day. Knew that was a good sign!) :-)

Glendale! We loved seeing that beautiful spaceship-looking dome in the middle of the desert! We knew we had to be in the right place! Once the buses dropped us off, we walked around and enjoyed the game-day atmosphere. It finally started to sink in that we were coming to watch the Auburn Tigers play in the National Championship game! We even saw Tim Hudson from the Atlanta Braves and Ann Curry from the Today Show! Ann was a Duck fan, though, but I at least had to get a picture of her!

Game Time! It's finally time to head into the dome and get ready for the game. We hoped to get in there by 5:30, but the line to get through the security people was outrageous, so we didn't get inside until 6:00! We were pretty peeved about that, but once we got in and saw how amazing everything was, we quickly got over it! The whole place was just unbelievable! Our seats were in the upper deck, but still very good (and hey, we were at least inside!) We were in the Auburn section (which pretty much covered 70% of the dome!), so we were glad to be around family! Speaking of, we even got a cute picture from Mama Becky and Daddy Mer showing us Jack was ready for the game, too! :-)

Well, we all know what happened during the game!! AUBURN WON! NATIONAL CHAMPIONS 2010! We beat the great team of Oregon 22-19! The whole game wasn't pretty, but we still won! It was such an amazing feeling when Wes Byrum kicked that winning field goal through! We had a blast celebrating with each other and all the other Auburn fans there! War Eagle! :-)

Toomer's Corner after the win! Thanks for the picture, Granna!

Even though the win was amazing, we still had a 5 hour bus ride back to Las Vegas to catch our flight the next morning! We left Glendale at midnight (Glendale time), and made it to Las Vegas at 5:30 am Glendale time, 4:30 am Las Vegas time. Our flight wasn't until 8:15, so we just had to sit there in the airport, exhausted, and pass the time! We slept about 2 hours on the bus, which wasn't enough, but we had to make it work! At least we got to see the beautiful sunrise over Las Vegas!

We finally made it back to Nashville around 5:00 pm, and it was snowing! It was gorgeous to fly over the whole city of white, but it was freezing when we landed and had to go get our car! We finally made it on the road headed to Birmingham, but had to drive slower than normal because of all the ice still on the roads.

When we finally got back and got to see Jack for the first time in 4 days, we all got a little emotional! We had a blast on our trip, but we missed him way too much! He definitely was one of the best sights of the whole trip!

Thanks to everyone who helped make this trip possible for us! We appreciate the tickets from Mama Becky and Daddy Mer, the money from Granna, Poppy, and Pops, plus the dinner gift cards and new gameday shirts from Papa and Sherbo! Also, thank you to Mama Becky, Daddy Mer, and Granna for keeping Jack for us. We knew he was in good hands the whole time and we appreciate you taking good care of him. We love you all so much! Thanks again!