Sin City Recap

Warning: extremely long post ahead:
Vegas.

Hmmm.....not my cup of tea. However, some quality alone time with my main squeeze? Tea, please!

We really laid low. Both of us are not gamblers (casinos make me nauseous) so we really rested, watched movies and went to lots of yummy meals. We worked out together, shopped, walked around a lot and found ourselves laughing pretty much the entire time. Example: We first get there and go to the hotel gift shop to grab a few waters for the room. Simple task, right? Out of no where the cashier (who by the way, never spoke or made any sort of eye contact) hacks up some spit (louder than a man in a nursing home) then proceeds to slap my change down on the counter. We were all looking around at each other like, "What the?" Dallas and I left snorting we were laughing so hard. We had some random cab driver conversations too that I will not go into detail about.

Monday, was by far the best. We woke up and met Fiore (agent) for breakfast. The Bellagio was filled with media and lots of really tall people who seemed important, but most of whom I had no clue who they were. Turns out this was actually the "baseball winter meetings" uhm, duh, Jenn. I thought it was just a little minor league party. Minor mistake on my part. As we are going up to Boras' suite Bobby Cox walks right past us. I nudged, no, I slammed my elbow into Dallas and said "Tell him we've moved back to georgia!" Dallas rolled his eyes. Well, next thing ya know Mr. Bobby Cox is right in front of us. He wanted to say hi to Dallas and congratulate him for "swinging the bat so well this season," he had followed him. I was ready to call the Mr. Fish president himself and tell him peace out baby! Turns out there is this little thing called a contract and we're theirs til Spring Training unless they release us or he doesn't make the big league team. minor detail. Then we saw Bud Black (padres coach) who we loved in Anaheim. So that was great. We headed up to the suite (just a tad nicer than our vegas quarters) and shortly thereafter they all had to leave to go do Greg Maddox's retirement in the hotel. (Guess we know where we fall on the ole priority list). 23 years vs. 3 years, that's comparable right? Kidding.

Then we were off to Dallas' award luncheon. Once again, call me Mrs. Oblivious, but I thought it was a small luncheon. I didn't stress about what to wear, Dallas didn't prepare a speech...wouldn't cha know, it was kinda a big deal. oops. Everyone, staff, presidents, from minor league baseball was there. Even some big league GM's. Dallas and I spent the entire lunch running his speech through our heads like we were preparing for the oscars. I had punch lines, a little humility and so much to offer him. Once he got up on stage in front of 1,000 people it came out like this "Um, I'd like to thank the Marlins for giving me this opportunity. Thank you to everyone here for this award. I am honored." Okay, not funny, but we'll take it. I had a casino joke about his check, reimbursement for his fines from the guy at the head table, nothing. He got up there and just kept it simple. We heard it was better than the 2007 guy though. He literally took the trophy and check and ran off stage. Yeah, and Miss. photographer brought her point & shoot and took poop for pictures. Hello, we have braces. I am laying off the self portraits these days. Thought there was no need. By the way, together with braces we sell "cheesy" like no other. That was awesome meeting all those people with braces. His award is so cool. When it arrives (they shipped it) I'll post.
Here's the one picture I took from my seat. Seriously, Dallas is your wife really a photographer??

Afterwards he did interviews and talked to media people. Saw some cool espn people that I recognized from watching it in the background of my life everyday but couldn't for the life of me, tell you their names. We also saw Angels front office staff that I missed so much. They spotted us across the mall and we caught up for a while. It was great.

Okay, so you've all been requesting some "braces" pictures. I am aware, however, that your requests are simply a means to a quick laugh, not friendly support .. I mean really, is someone going to say "wow, you look amazing with your shiny, new braces!" I think not. It's more like, "They're not that bad..." You were getting this shot. When I saw this one on my card I thought, PERFECT! Check out how Dallas cropped me just at the right angle...

Then, I saw this one.

Oh, well, Enjoy your laugh. Chuckle a little. That's what I'm here for.

We took a red eye at 2:50am ga time and landed here at 6:30am. So, needless to say yesterday I was on crack. Today, I'm better. This rain keeps canceling my shoots, but I've got another one on Saturday. I'll be sure to get some shots of Reese too! Glad to be back!

We brought Reese back the cutest pink sock monkey. She bypassed the monkey, went straight for the FREE winter meetings hat and ran off! Seriously, why do we spend the moola?