When Good Girls Go to Bret Michaels

Wild Boar sandwiches. Air brush tattoos. Bret Michaels. What do all these things have in common, you ask? WELL, since you asked.... they all made an appearance during my Labor Day this year.

It all started when my friend Trisha called me up and asked what I thought about Bret Michaels. As it turns out, he was going to make an appearance at the Taste of Colorado that weekend, and she wanted to go. I'm admittedly not much of a 80's Glam Rock fan, but it sounded like it could be pretty funny, so I said I'd be there!

The Taste of Colorado is basically like the State Fair... although I've only been to the Texas State Fair, and NOTHING quite compares to that. But there were games, rides, and lots of good food. Here I am with my newly purchased tickets...

And Trisha in front of a giant banana...
"Prisoner of Love"
There were a LOT of people roaming the streets, but luckily we had Trisha leading the way.
The State Capitol...
The Stunt Jump cracked me up. For a small fee, you can send your kid up a couple stories and have them jump into a giant foam pit. There's no way my overprotective mother would have EVER allowed me to do that! But as she would point out, "You're still alive, aren't you?"
After perusing all of our options, we decided on Wild Boar BBQ sandwiches.
I was a little nervous because I've never had boar before...
... but it was delicious!
After my sandwich, I started looking around at the types of people Bret Michaels attracts and realized I was far too clean-cut. I needed something to help me fit in.

Something like a tattoo.

Luckily for me and my street cred, there was a booth doing airbrush tattoos! I settled on the word "Faith" spread across my wrist.
Here I am super pumped about how it was all coming together.

And the finished product!

NOW I was ready for Bret Michaels.

As we were heading to the stage, we walked past a tent full of steam. I got nervous about how my hair would react to all the moisture, but Trisha and her naturally perfect hair enjoyed themselves.

We finally made our way to the concert area, which happened to be in front of the City & County Building (the same building where I served on a jury and helped convict a man for attempted murder).

As we waited for the concert to start, I was able to do some good people watching. For example, why is this person not wearing shoes???

And I spotted my old office building....

Still loving my tattoo...

... and finally Bret Michaels started!

Considering the only song we knew was "Every Rose Has its Thorns", we were done with Bret Michaels pretty quickly. So we headed over to the DirecTV tent to watch football...

... and take pictures in front of cardboard cutouts.

We then stopped at a tent where you could get free beads, and I made friends with the wheel guy.

After spinning the big wheel a few times, Trisha and I did a little hat shopping.

I never realized how scary Matt is!

The robot?

I wonder who will be at Taste of Colorado next year? Hopefully, it'll be someone REALLY bad ass, so I can justify another tattoo.

A Tale of Trains, Wine, and Spatula Spankings

Take a trip with me now. A trip backward in time. A trip to Napa Valley, California that occurred way back in June....

The weather was warmer, my hair was longer, and I was enjoying my one week of unemployment between jobs.

I traveled to Napa for my friend Terra's wedding, and I was joined by Miss Amy Ernst, Mr. Ernst (aka her fiance, Dan), and our friend, Rachelle.

We all took separate flights into San Francisco, and my flight was unfortunately 3 hours late. That wouldn't have normally been a problem, except for the fact that I got in SO late that all the shuttles to Napa were done for the night! Rather than paying $200 for a cab, I decided to get a hotel in San Fran for the night and then head to Napa the next morning.

When I arrived in Napa the next day, I met up with Amy, Dan, and Rachelle at the pool.

I like our semi-matching polka dot bikini's. Totally unplanned and totally cute.

Before we knew it, it was time to get ready for the wedding!

Terra and Rob had chartered a bus to take everyone from the hotel to the winery where the wedding was held.
I'd never been to a winery before - and it was so pretty!
The wedding spot was beautiful....
And here is the happy couple!
Congratulations, Terra & Rob!
After the wedding, we had cocktail hour at the winery. Amy took a ton of "candid shots" that were not entirely candid. Case in 2 points:

After cocktail hour, we boarded the bus and headed to the Napa Valley Wine Train for the....

Hands

Down

Best

Wedding

Dinner

of

All

TIME!!!!!

The wine train takes about 3 hours and travels all through the wine country. Since I hadn't seen much of Napa yet, it was really exciting for me to get to see everything while enjoying dinner.

As we boarded the train, I couldn't even imagine the deliciousness that I was about to encounter.

Have I mentioned how awesome the dinner was?! There were 5 courses, and each course had several different items you could choose from. For the first course, I chose the prawns:

Course 2: Lobster Bisque:

"No... I mentioned the bisque."

Course 3: Sorbet
Dan particularly enjoyed his sorbet. He cracks me up!

Main Course: Beef Tenderloin

... and I ate every last bit!
Before the dessert came, we decided to take a tour of the train. This was particularly challenging considering the train was moving and everyone had been drinking wine all day (or for multiple days depending on when you showed up in Napa!). Rachelle did a good job of keeping it together, though. Good work, Rachelle.
We walked right through the kitchen car... should that be allowed?!
Here we are in the "Old West" car:
And once we got to the caboose, we stepped outside to watch the Napa scenery go by...


Here's Rachelle and Heidi... Heidi is coincidentally the sister-in-law of one of my co-workers, but I didn't know that yet because I hadn't started my new job yet! Small world.
Somehow, I missed a picture of my dessert, but trust me that it was delicious. :)

After the wine train trip was over, we all headed into the train station for dancing, cake, and.... more wine!

Dan and Amy showed how compatible they truly are when they busted out their similarly awesome dance moves.

For two pale white kids, we're pretty street.

Mid-spin:

In our signature pose, we all whipped out our sunglasses and put on our mad faces.

To add a little something to the party, Terra bought enough spatulas (as in the kitchen utensil) for everyone, and the intent was to use them as fake microphones on the dance floor.

That is, unless you've been drinking all day. Then you use them to spank people.

I was the lucky recipient of a few good spanks.

Rachelle was very excited about her parting gifts!

I wonder if it ever crosses her mind how she spanked me with that spatula when she uses it to scramble her eggs.

The next day, we all headed out of Napa Valley and into San Francisco to catch our flights. Amy was a very impressive navigator.

One of the highlights of the trip was driving over the Golden Gate Bridge.

SO COOl!

It was a short, but awesome (and wine infused) trip. I'm so happy to have been a part of Terra and Rob's day!