What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas...

By Katie Cardinal

Hello all! Sorry I haven’t been on here for a while. I’ve been so busy with schoolwork and working at the Roadhouse that I haven’t really gotten a chance to read, let alone post on the Cardinal Blog for a while. So here, I will make up for lost time!

As you all know, I FINALLY turned the big 2-1 last Thursday!!! I’m pretty sure my brother has been waiting for that day since I was about 10 years old, bringing him and his friends up beers from downstairs and playing “The Cardinal Puff” with my nice tall glass of Diet Coke.

Anywho, on my actual birthday I went to work at Coe Brown in the morning just to see Mom, Dad and the girls. Then I went to my one class for the day and got out early to go to a concert with one of my best friends, Sydney. She works at the Roadhouse with me and is an absolute riot – you’d all love her!

So I got out of class like a half hour early in order to make it to Lowell for the Lady Antebellum / Jason Aldean concert. For those of you who know my taste in music, you know that I absolutely LOVE country music, and that Lady Antebellum is my favorite group in the whole wide world (EXCEPT KEITH URBAN OF COURSE). The wicked sweet thing about the concert is that I’m a nerd, so I’m a member of the Lady Antebellum Fan Club, meaning I got a chance to apply for a Meet & Greet before the show... and guess what – I GOT IT! So Sydney and I got there super early and got to go into a neat little private room to meet Hillary Scott, Dave Haywood and Charles Kelley.

Let me tell you…these boys are FIIIIINE in person. So as you can imagine, Sydney and I were on cloud nine before the concert even started. After the Meet & Greet I went out to the FULL BAR and ordered my first ever (legal) alcoholic beverage in the U.S. I wasn’t really sure what to order, so I told the nice lady to make me whatever she thought would taste good. She fixed me up a Sex on the Beach, and when she found out it was my 21st birthday, she gave it to me for FREE!!! Awesome way to start off the night!

So the concert started around 7:30, and the sneaky little devils that Sydney and I are... we naturally ended up FRONT ROW for Lady Antebellum. At this point the guys in the band know what losers we are and how much fun we have at their concerts, so they were TOTALLY making us go crazy. Right at the beginning of the show Charles (lead singer) came over to me and sang RIGHT at me with a little wink at the end. Yes, I almost died.

So once Lady Antebellum finished their set (they played about ten songs... I know because I got a set list) we went out to the bathroom before Jason Aldean came on. Unfortunately, in leaving the front stage position for a bit, we lost our terrific placement, but were able to weasel our way back to the second row by the time Jason finally hit the stage. To be completely honest, Lady Antebellum blew Jason Aldean out of the water as far as the concert was concerned, but Jason was still really great. He had a little trouble with his volume stuff at the beginning of the night, but by the end of the concert he was spot on. Fortunately, I had done all of my Jason Aldean homework... to the tune of ONLY letting myself listen to his CDs in my car for three weeks... and actually knew all the words to every song he sang – now THAT’S dedication. The awesome thing is at the end of the concert he was going and shaking people’s hands and stuff and there were a ton of girls all in front of me putting their hands up and I was like, what the heck... I will too. So he came over, and rather than like giving everyone a hi-five, he came over, grabbed my hand for a good ten seconds, looked straight into my eyes, and did this cute little look. So yes, I know I’m really gay, but Jason Aldean and I had a “Moment!”

Wow, that was long, sorry...

So on Friday night my friends and I went out to Portsmouth to REALLY celebrate my birthday. The Crew consisted of: Me, Mom, Dad, KJ, Angie, Sammy, Anna, Mike Gilmore, Caitlin, Jason, Evan, CJ, Brent, Lorraine, Rich, Norrene, Dustin, Mike, Doc and Josh. The awesome thing is that we stopped at Margaritas first to get a drink and to say hi to Caitlin, and Tiffany surprised me to buy me my first shot! So the first actual shot I had was called “Rough Sex.” I’m not exactly sure what was in it, but Mike Gilmore and I shared it, linking arms of course, and it was my first real shot as a 21 year old. Since the bartender gave me that one for free, Tiffany wanted to think of a really awful one for me to have to try to knock me out before my night had even started. Brent’s genius idea was this really bad named shot that consisted of Johnny Walker, Jim Beam, Jose Cuervo and Jack Daniels. OH MY GOODNESS WAS IT AWFUL!!! I took it like a champ though, and it didn’t even knock me out!

After Margaritas we went to the Roadhouse for me to have a few more drinks and get on the saddle. I thought it was SO nice that all the waitresses came out for me to get on the saddle. Working there, I know it’s like pulling teeth to get people to follow you to go do a birthday, so thanks all of my Roadies for coming out. So at the Roadhouse I had a frozen 1800 Jamaican Cowboy Margarita (I highly recommend it), a GIGANTIC Kamikaze shot with Dustin, a Strawberry Daiquiri, a Butterball shot, and I want to say one or two others. Keep in mind, I had been eating drunk gummy bears all night... so I was feeling pretty fine by the time we left the Roadhouse.

From the Roadhouse we stopped at our Hotel (thanks Evan) for a bit, then went out to the Gas Light. I know it wasn’t really my Dad’s thing, so thanks so much for sticking around and checking your coat in, but it was pretty fun. I only danced a little bit, but it was fun just to kind of hang out with everyone and get drinks all night. Best part of the Gas Light: Lorraine Bell. Haha... she was a little bit schnuckered by the end of the night and was absolutely HILARIOUS. From the Gas Light we just hung out at the Hotel Room and had a gay old time.

As a little tidbit to add in, on Saturday my friends also threw me a little bash at Evan’s house. Caitlin got me this AWESOME Keith Urban picture for my birthday that I’ve been wanting for months now. CJ made me a pretty sweet penis cake... yes, you heard that right, and got me a gift card to go get some bras at Victoria Secret, since I normally don’t spend more than $6 on them.

Ok, so the week after my birthday, Mom, Angie, Ashley Park, and I went to VEGAS BABY!!! We decided to make it just a girls trip this time and boy was it FUN!

We left at the crack of dawn on Thursday (Thanksgiving Day) morning. We were flying on Jet Blue out of Boston at 6:05 and arrived in Las Vegas around 10:30. After getting our bags, checking in at Paris and taking a few showers, we were ready to hit the strip. Due to the time difference we were all absolutely starving so we decided to hit up Jimmy Buffet’s Margaritaville. I love that place! It’s so neat inside with all the planes and cool music and the food wasn’t too shabby either. After eating we decided to hit the RIGHT side of the strip from our hotel, so we went to the Flamingo, the Venetian, the Wynn and all of those fun places. Unfortunately it was raining that day, so it was a little chilly around the edges to be outside. We were all super tired from the flight and everything so we decided to turn in early on Thursday night so we could party hard on Friday.

Friday morning I got up at like 6:30 and went downstairs to find Mom. When I found her she had already been gambling for a little bit and her breakfast consisted of two alcoholic beverages – I knew we were in for a great day!!! On Friday we decided to hit the LEFT side of the strip. We went to M&M World (where we have a pretty awesome picture of us all in a photo booth), the Coca-Cola store (where we tried al the floats from around the U.S), MGM Grand, the Luxor, Excalibur and New York New York. Probably the best part about the day besides the fact that we drank from seven in the morning until three the next morning, was when we went into the Excalibur and looked for a snack. Mom, for some reason, had a craving for McDonalds and I went with Angie over to the Krispy Kreme shop. When we got the doughnuts I asked the lady for one of the wicked sweet hats they have. She gave me one, and I naturally put it on Mom’s head. Little did I know that she would keep it on for the next SEVERAL hours walking around Las Vegas. It was absolutely HILARIOUS watching people look at her like she was regarded. I’ll have to find a picture of it somewhere because it is absolutely priceless.

On Friday night Angie had planned a special trip for me off of the strip to this place called Stoney’s. It’s a really cool country western bar that has line dancing and yes, a mechanical bull! So after learning several new line dances (including one to one of my favorite Lady Antebellum songs) and drinking many, many drinks... the mechanical bull was ready for service! Knowing that I wanted to make it back to the strip before 11, I decided to be the very FIRST rider of the bull. I had to sign a consent form and all of that fun stuff, and climbed on the bull for a ride of a lifetime! First the guy started me off with a stupid vibrating bull just to make my boobs go everywhere, then he put it on at like medium speed. I was doing well until the controller got my attention and waved “bye-bye” to me. I looked at him and said, “Just don’t knock my teeth out please.” With a smile and another wave he kicked the bull in full gear. I made it almost two times around when I went flying off the bull onto the padded flooring. It was SO MUCH FUN I couldn’t even believe it. Unfortunately, after seeing me get thrown, Ashley chickened out, so we got our things and headed back to the strip.

One of Ashley’s long lost dreams was to one-day dance on the bar at Coyote Ugly. Fortunately, they had a Coyote Ugly at New York New York, so Ashley’s dream was about to come true. Upon entering the bar, Mom and I were a little terrified. It was all about just watching the scantily clad girls dancing on the bar to awful music, and Mom and I didn’t really want much to do with it. After a half hour or so Mom left to go do some more gambling and Ashley finally got on the bar. I believe she danced to a Journey song (Matt would be so proud) and it was so hilarious. After she danced on the bar we had a few jell-o shots and SOMEBODY let the cat out of the bag that it was my 21st birthday (cough-Angie-cough). Once the girls on stage found that out, there was NO WAY I was leaving that place without getting on the bar. The great thing about dancing on the bar is that our Coyote Ugly girl LOVED us and just fed us free shots all night – YIPPEE!!!

After almost falling off the bar due to my intoxication, we decided to walk back to the hotel. On the way back we stopped at this really cool danced club called Diablo. It was so much fun in there, but my feet were absolutely killing me. As gross as this sounds, once we let Diablo I decided to walk with just my socks on to Paris – boy that was a long walk!!!

Saturday was pretty low-key for us all. We were all pretty tired from the night before and were just kind of waiting for our red-eye flight that would depart at 11:10. We did a little shopping on Saturday, watched the Bellagio water show, and did a little gambling. Angie seemed to be the lucky winner of the trip when it came to gambling – CONGRATS ANG!!!

Needless to say, we arrived home on Sunday morning absolutely pooped. I don’t think my legs have hurt that badly since volleyball tryouts freshman year. It was a FANTASTIC trip and I can’t thank Mom, Angie and Ashley enough for coming with me to make my birthday trip to Vegas absolutely perfect. Next time, Tiffany is coming!!!!

Oh, and as one last note….KEITH URBAN IS GOING BACK ON TOUR IN MAY!!!!