Dollar Dollar Bills---Casino Night

We took a trip to Turning Stone Casino to try our hand at a little gambling on Friday the 13th. We were hoping to win big so we could pay off our Hawaii debt. Turns out we had a great time and just broke even. First we had to stand in a long line to become Diamond Club Members because you can't eat at any of the restaurants or play slots without this card. After assuring the staff we were their high rollers for the night, they escorted us to a nice steak dinner.

We thought it would be nice to dress up a little for a Friday night out at the casino...with jeans, cute shirt and heels, we were still very overdressed. Clearly, the people watching was pretty great.

That's me posing with the holiday decorations as we make our way over to the slot machines. I promptly lost a large sum of money because I didn't know what I was doing.

That's Lauren with her Diamond Club card. I believe she just put more money on her card when I took this picture. We had a blast playing Village People slot machines! Lauren was on my right and the old lady in her wheelchair was to my left. Old lady kept getting Village People Parties and I was very jealous. I wanted to roll her just far enough away from the slot machine so she couldn't reach. Also very distressed that they did not serve alcohol on the casino floor. You could only choose from an assortment of soda and juice...guess they cater to the old lady crowd (please see old lady reference above). If you wanted alcohol you had to stand in the corner to drink it...I wasn't in the mood to feel like I was in trouble or time-out for having an adult beverage. So we abstained.

After Lauren won her money back on the slots and it was already after midnight...we stood up from our machines and made our way to the door. On the way we walked by a roulette table. Lauren already acknowledged that she was familiar with this wonderful gambling game...so I urged her to just play once to show it to me. 2 hours later still sitting at the roulette table...we were HOT! I loved it and we even won on #13 (because it was Friday the 13th)!

We continued the holiday photo shoot as we left the casino. I could definitely make that trip again!

Hiking in New York

We pulled out the trusty New York State travel book and head out for an outdoor adventure. We drove about 30 minutes to Chittenango Falls. The Falls were beautiful. We took a short little trail down one side of the falls, across a bridge and then up the other side.

This picture and the next are views from the bridge.

View from the far side as we hiked back to the top.

We did a little exploring down another trail and Lauren hiked us straight into a mobile home park. We high-tailed it out of there.

It was nice to get outside and do some activity.

Pick Me, Squeeze Me, Make Me WINE at Seneca Lake

4 of Lauren's friends came to Syracuse to visit. We had so much fun with Alyson wine tasting on the Finger Lakes, we decided to go again. This time we headed to Seneca Lake. We rented a driver and van. It was pretty snazzy! That's the StarCraft above. They picked us up at our house. Deb, our driver, seemed to enjoy the mix of music we brought with us...definitely saw her bobbing her head a few times and she knew to turn up Whitney Houston without us asking!

Lauren made us wine glasses for the trip. We had a few champagne cocktails on the trip over to Seneca Lake.

Michelle, Lynsey, me and Lauren all in the backseat!

Roomies!

Here we are at the first winery.

Lynsey, Amy, Lauren, Ellyn, Michelle, Lauren

After our first stop, we get a box for ourselves to fill throughout the day. We assigned Care Bear stickers to everyone so we could keep every one's wine straight. Of course I was Friend Bear (that was my childhood Care Bear)!

Second winery and we already broke one wine glass.

Starting to get into it by the third winery. I was loving the red wines on this trip. No sweet wine this time.

Fourth winery we encountered some rude staff. There was a small confrontation which explains my face. I like to avoid conflict if possible.

I snuck around the confrontation and politely asked for 4 bottles and then ran out the door.

Took pictures outside at the fifth winery. They had a nice deck overlooking the lake. We spent a lot of time at this vineyard. They just keep pouring more and more wine. It was never ending. We visited one last winery called Penguin Bay before ending the day. The penguin liked the wine at Penguin Bay. In the end I had 2 more cases of wine. I now have a grand total of 3 cases of wine.

We had a fun ride back home in the StarCraft. We enjoyed some cocktails, music and dancing. Someone may have lost an article of clothing, but I'm disclosing details. Fun was had by all!

Glass & Pumpkins & Glass Pumpkins

Our road trip the next day consisted of driving to Corning NY which is 2.5 hours away to visit the Corning Museum of Glass. The front of the museum was all glass, imagine that! That's Lauren and I heading to the door.

They kept boasting that they had the largest glass pumpkins. They were gorgeous!

5 little pumpkins sitting on a fence...or maybe just 3.

We were super excited to make our own glass pumpkins. We headed outside to blow our own pieces of glass. Alyson and I choose to make pumpkins and Lauren made a Christmas ornament.

In this picture they are applying the little bits of colored glass to the clear glass.

Here she is blowing the glass into a mold that creates the ridges on the pumpkin.

Then came my turn to blow my pumpkin.

While I blow air into the hot glass, the professional glass blower keeps rolling the pole back and forth so the glass stays balanced and doesn't drip off the end of the pole.

Another angle.

She keeps working the hot glass while I blow. You can see the furnace in the background.

There's my hot pumpkin without its stem.

This is her pulling the stem from a new piece of glass.

Here it is all done! They go into an oven to set and then they mailed the glass they made to us a few days later. I love my little pumpkin! It was completely worth the long drive.

Here's Lauren's ornament. It is purple, pink and white.

Alyson made a white pumpkin with a green stem.

After enjoying all the glass we could we headed back towards Syracuse, but first we stopped at Critz Farm for apples and pumpkins.

I found my lucky pumpkin. Can't wait to carve it up!

Look how cute our pumpkins look on the scale.

Sisters in the hay. I loved the barn! It was all very autumn from the barn to the pumpkins to being bundled up. I'm ready for some fresh pressed cider!

That's me moving our pumpkins in the wheelbarrow.

We headed home to eat pot roast and carve pumpkins. Looks like Lauren is having fun getting the goo out of her pumpkin.

Here we are carving. I'm getting pretty serious at this point. Lauren got us an awesome kit that had different designs for us to do. Alyson was picking out pumpkin seeds and cooking them up for a snack.

Here's our final products! Lauren had a tough time with the blinds, but her pumpkin turned out super spooky!

And here's my little pumpkin monster!

Happy Halloween!

Finger Lakes Wine

Our first adventure into New York wine country. It rained a lot as we left Syracuse, but cleared up by the time we made it to Cayuga Lake. Cayuga Lake is one of the many finger lakes. It was about an hour drive from Syracuse. That's Alyson in the car...she was taking tons of pictures out the rainy windows. Cayuga Lake is the Eastern most of the finger lakes and one of the bigger ones. No one knew how much fun we were gonna have at the start of the day.

So happy to be out of the car and at the first winery.

Alyson, which way do we go?

Sister's tasting wine! Alyson was trying all the different fruit flavors at this first winery.

Some of Lauren's handy self portrait work!

Yummy!

First winery was a success! Our first of many boxes.

Alyson and Doobie, the namesake for the wineries "Jackass" Wine.

Grapes at Goose Watch, the second winery we visited.

Very picturesque here! We tasted wine in the building in the background and you can see the lake in the far background.

Which way Alyson?

Pictures out by the grapes after we did a little tasting and shopping. It was turning into a beautiful day!

Sisters and the burning bush at our next winery.

They had lots of barrels and were decorated for Halloween. The man directing our tasting was a super cute old man that had a rhyme for every wine! (Did you catch that?)

Even though we didn't like many wines at this vineyard...the house cat was a big hit with our resident cat lady, Alyson.

Sisters, sisters, there were never such devoted sisters! Caring, sharing, every little thing we are wearing!

The real story is there was a bug in my hair and my sister was helping me get it out!

The fourth winery was a little further off the lake, but very nice scenery and more animals...

This is Melody the Scottish Cow.

We bought treats to feed Melody and the goats.

I love that Alyson and Lauren are leaning and so are Melody and the goat!

Happy Hallowine!

This is the view we had while driving between wineries. I didn't mind being the driver, I had lots to look at.

Grapes at the fifth winery!

It was so nice outside, we were able to have lunch outside under a canopy of leaves.

We had lunch and wine lakeside at the Thirsty Owl Winery.

We made a little discovery during our wine tasting...while Lauren likes whites and I like reds...turns out I have a new found affinity for some sweet wines. They're so NICE! A little sweet, but NICE!

Our last and favorite winery. We bought more wine at Lucas Winery than any other place. I believe it was 6 bottles for each of us.

We made it home with all these boxes of wine. I personally bought a case and a half. I can't wait to start drinking them! Finger Lakes wine tasting was a huge hit!