Water falls and beer

The last two weeks have been busy. Things are picking up for me at school. Things are picking up for Ian at work. We really look forward to the weekends these days. Over the past two weeks we have had a lot of fun in the area. One of our local favorite hiking spots, the Cascades, has been calling our name. Unfortunately, my low blood sugars have ruined the past two attempts we have made. So third time is a charm. We packed up an entire bottle of glucose tabs, a couple of juice boxes, and this time we finally made it to the falls.

Attempt at hiking a few weeks ago. Blood sugar crashed, not enough juice boxes. Had to turn around. Tried again the next week.

The next attempt. Ian gets annoyed when I take pictures of him. See.

Look. A mini waterfall. How cute.

Ian at the big waterfall. How cute.

There I am.

This weekend we entertained ourselves with a beer festival. We went with a few of Ian's work friends. Its hard not to have fun when a lot of beer is involved. Enjoy some pictures.

When Ian drinks he gets less annoyed at people taking pictures of him.

Creigh Deeds was there. He is running for governor. Ian was impressed.

Here we are. Drinking beer. Pretty similar to the last beer fest we went to. Only less cool cause the family wasn't there. You guys should come next time, ok?

Viva!

So. Vegas. I had a good time. But wow. Its expensive. And sleazy. And flashy. And fake. What was I doing there you ask? Well, I was in Las Vegas for this years annual Pack Expo to receive my award for the Italian Packaging Technology Award competition (you know, the Italy trip). The Italian Trade Commision had a little extra money in their budget, so they flew us award winners to Vegas and put us up in a hotel for a few days, and paid our way into the Expo. Pretty cool. The thing about Vegas is, its expensive. And when you are a poor grad student, its hard to justify buying a 20 dollar sandwich and an 8 dollar beer. After one day of just walking around, sight seeing, not gambling, and not seeing any shows, we decided maybe we need to spend a little money to make if feel more like the Vegas experience. After we went to Pack Expo, we found a message on our hotel phones saying we could get Cirque de Soliel tickets, 2 for 1. And...the cheapest tickets were 80 dollars (divided by two for the 2 for 1 deal, only 40 bucks a person, hey not bad). So I splurged and bought a ticket. I am so happy that I did. It was really cool. Afterwards I spent the rest of my money on drinks out on the strip (not that I bought a ton of drinks, I bought a couple of drinks for really expensive), saw the flashing lights and water shows and volcano eruptions, and said "Thank you Vegas but I think I have had enough". So, that pretty much sums it all up.

My room at Treasure Island. Thanks to the Italian Trade Commision once again.

My room was on the 32nd (out of 36) floors. Here's the view.

At Pack Expo. This motorcycle is made completely out of corrugated board.

Here's a close up. Impressive.

And now..the sights...
Ceiling of blown glass at the Bellagio, I think?

The Bellagio's Autumn themed botanical garden.

Since we all got to know each other in Italy, and had not interacted anywhere else before Vegas, we got a kick out of the Venetian.
The Venetian, fake Rialto.

Venice, Italy. Real Rialto.

The Venetian, Las Vegas. Fake San Marco's square.

Venice, Italy. Real San Marco's square.

So Vegas was pretty close to the real thing, but we knew where we really were.
Anyway, back to Vegas...

Volcanic explosions every half hour!

Kathleen, Erin and JD sight seeing.

Cirque de Soliel, Mystere

Last scene of Mystere. I know my camera could never capture it, but it was an amazing show. You can see a two minute clip of some of the shows highlights here...
http://www.cirquedusoleil.com/en/shows/mystere/default.aspx
(click on "view trailer")

After the show we walked down here, to the Eiffel tower. There was a restaurant at the top where we got these drinks...

and watched the Bellagio water shows from the bar. I would recommend it.

So Vegas was fun. But now I'm poor.

Virginia State Fair time

We went to the Virginia state fair a couple of weekends ago. Let me state that it is no Indiana state fair, but we still managed to have fun. The fair is in Richmond, which is about a four hour drive from here, so we stayed the night at Jerry's parents house. We got a whole day of the fair in on it's first Saturday open. The weather was perfect, overcast but no rain. My friends were most excited to go on all the carnie rides, I was more interested in looking at the animals and all the exhibits in the barns (I guess this is where the age difference shows, huh?) I went on one spinny swingy ride and it made me sorry that I did. None of us vomited the whole time we were there, so that was a plus. We got your basic fair food staples; funnel cake, candied apples, Ian got fried oreos. I think the highlight of the whole thing was the pig races, and I think every one who went would agree. You would be surprised at how entertaining a few pigs running around a small track can be. We also so a cool stunt dog show but I didn't get good pictures of that. We had a really good weekend, and just might go back one of these years.

Our first ride: the swings. Barf city. I was done with rides for the day.

Mona and Nick on the hang glide ride. Looks like fun!

Doggie stunt show. One dog was trained to walk on his front legs. My camera wouldn't work at that moment.

Alpacas. Neat.

Chicks, man.

Fluffy haired chickens.

Ian and Jerry shootin' em up!

Pig races! Run, pig, run.