Cheers to the New Year!

Well it's New Years Eve, and another year has passed. This New Year's Eve I will be spending it in Atlanta with my fathers family. I'm thankful for the year of 2014. I've finally figured out who I am, and the direction I am heading with my life. I was able to travel all other the country, and next year I hope to do the same thing. So, my 1st New Years resolution is travel somewhere I have never been before. 

My next resolution is to live a more healthier life style. Let's be real though that's everyone's resolution. So let's bring in the New Year with a bang! 

Happy New Year Y'all 

With love, 

Jess 

Looking Back at 2014: Las Vegas, Nevada

Happy Holidays!
This is my fourth and final part in my Looking Back at 2014 series. Now from December 21-24  I was able to make my first trip to Fabulous Las Vegas. Sorry its so long but we did so much on this trip and I want to give it a comprehensive review. Feel free to leave questions in the comments and I will happily respond!
Disclaimer: Any photos used in this blog are my personal photos. Please do not copy or reproduce.

Now, around Halloween I was browsing on Groupon and saw a deal for the Riviera Hotel and Casino for $19 a night. I talked with some of my friends and we decided to buy a Groupon for the dates earlier and the total was $57 dollars plus tax. We decided to fly Southwest, and it was around $350 for roundtrip plan ticket. It was nice not to pay for baggage fees. Quick Tip: The biggest rip off that we had in Vegas were the cab rides. We paid $30 for cab for 10 minute cab! So, I would never take a cab in Vegas after paying the ridiculous fairs.  Now, what we were not aware of is that upon checking in is that you will have to put a $100 deposit down on your credit card. Second, they charge $17 a night as a resort fee, so that doubled the cost of our stay when we checked in. The Riviera is an okay hotel, and when I say that I mean that in the nicest way possible. for us it was just a place to sleep and do a little bit of gambling at the casino. The hotel room was a decent size, but our room particularly was a little beat up. The water pressure in the shower was horrible and if someone flushed a toilet the pressure would drop. The Casino was older looking but the tables were affordable which was lucky for us since we didn't want to play expensive tables. The hotel casino was advertising $1 blackjack. Those tables were filled about 75% percent of the day and those were the tables that we hung out at when we played at our casino.
The Riviera is across the street from Circus Circus. The Riviera is on the strip but it is a little more than a mile a away from Treasure Island which you can see when you walk outside of the casino. We did a lot of walking up and down that part of the strip. It was a nice work out after some of the meals we ate!

Day 1: After arriving in Vegas and checking in to our hotel we were starving for some lunch! The first restaurant we ate at was at the Wicked Vicky Tavern, it was located inside of our hotel. It was about a $30 meal with drinks. The food was good. I got a burger with bacon, cheese, fried egg and the fries and it was good. We walked up to Treasure Island to play a little blackjack. The table minimum was $5 when we first started. About 15 minutes we were playing the minimum bumped up to $10 a hand. So after we lost $20 we went back to the hotel to get ready for our show! For dinner that first night we went to Excalibur and went to the Tournament of Kings show and had dinner there. That dinner was a three course meal that consisted of soup, Cornish hen and green bean and potatoes, and a apple turnover desert.
Quick Tip: They do not give you silverware for the meal. Since the middle ages did not have silverware they try to stick with that theme throughout the show. Eat with caution. We bought the tickets the day of the show at some discount stand on the strip and we paid $55. At the show we spent an additional $16 for one cocktail that comes with a souvenir cup. When you pick your seats for the show you are choosing which country you want to cheer for. We sat in the Dragon section, he was the bad guy and the section was in the middle of the arena. We had a nice view and was able to see everything that was happening in the entire arena. After the show we were tired after getting up to catch a 8:50 flight from Chicago we decided to hit the hay.

Day 2: We decided to sleep in the next day until around 9:00-10:00. For lunch that day we decided to go to Guy Fieri's Vegas Kitchen + Bar. Its located near the Linq Hotel. We ordered cocktails and I had one of the best Bloody Mary's that I have ever had in my life! Everything looked good on the menu, but I decided to go with the Bacon Mac and Cheese Burger. My friend decided to go with a pulled pork sandwich. The burger was really good! I just wish that I didn't feel like I had to eat the whole thing since we didn't have a fridge or microwave at the hotel. Our meal there was $30 a piece. $10 for the cocktails and the burger was $20. Personally I thought it was one of the best burgers that I have ever had in my life and the fries had a seasoning that was sweet and spicy. After we ate our wonderful lunch we headed back and played $1 black jack at our casino all day. We made some lovely friends for Detroit, Charleston and we were all just having a blast! I was lucky enough to get a black jack 4 times in a row! Again it was another exhausting day! Who knew that gambling could be so stressful and tiring. So, yet again we turned in around midnight and got another good night sleep.

Day 3 and our FINAL ONE: With my aunt being a travel agent and traveling to Vegas several times she recommended to me and my friends that we go to the breakfast buffet at the Mirage. The buffet at the Mirage goes from 7:00 a.m.-11:00 a.m., so we got our day started a little bit earlier than the other days because yet again we had to walk a little over a mile to get to the Mirage Hotel and Casino. The buffet is called Cravings, and it is not too far from the poker room. The Buffet was about $20 a person if you weren't staying at the hotel, I believe that they give you a deal if you are staying  the hotel. The buffet was AWESOME. They had a carving station, omelet station, and they had basically every breakfast food that you could want. It was the cheapest meal that we had while we were in Vegas. 

Now I am a Texas Hold Em player, my dad taught me when were camping at Olympus National Park when I was 12 years old. So while I was in Vegas I wanted to participate in a Texas Hold Em tournament. Now the hotel gives you a list of the times that the tournaments start, and what casino where they are at. The more affordable tournaments are earlier in the day, and the prices goes up throughout the day. I decided on a $60 tournament at Harrah's casino. I was lucky enough to place 4/20. I was the youngest person playing. The guy who took my last chips even told me that he was impressed with how well I played. After that we gambled at the slot machines at Harrah's. Unfortunately,  I was not starting to feel well as the day went on. Our final meal we had was at our hotel steakhouse called R. They had a top sirloin steak meal for $20,and it came with salad. The steak had way to much salt and pepper on it. The mash potatoes were good, and so were the green beans. We had a 7:30 flight the next morning, so we had to leave for the airport at 5:00 a.m.. Unfortunately, I am still not feeling well, and was sick over Christmas...
All in all I had a great 1st experience in Las Vegas. I didn't get to do everything that I wanted to do, and if I ever go again I will do some things differently.
Sorry that this post is so long. Hopefully this gives you some direction when planning your trip to Las Vegas
With love,
Jess

Twitter Account

Happy Saturday! 

Well just wanted to let y'all know that I started a Twitter account for the blog! It will be another way to communicate, make suggestions and keep y'all updated on the blog! 

Feel free to follow me at 

@withlovejess29

www.twitter.com/withlovejess29

My next post will be about my recent trip to Las Vegas. Have a great day! 

With love, 

Jess

It's Once Upon a Time day!

Good Afternoon Dearies!
I know that its my second post of the day, but its Once Upon a Time day! Today is the midseason finale of Once Upon a Time and we are saying goodbye to the Frozen characters. Now, this game is meant for anyone 21+ (don't want to encourage under age drinking)  Me and a friend decided to create a drinking game dedicated to the show Once Upon a Time. The rules of the game are take a drink anytime one of these things happens...

• Title sequence
• true loves kiss
• Finding or looking for someone
• When Rumple says "dearie"
• Charming flips his sword
• Granny's diner
• When grumpy says "sister"
• When Hook and Emma flirt
• When Emma is referred to as "The Savior"
• When Operation Cobra/Mongoose is mentioned
• When Rumple makes a deal
• When Regina says "someone ruined her life"
• Elsa uses magic
• Sven

Of course some of these rules will have to change since the Frozen arc is over, but a majority of these rules apply to this season and seasons past. My friend also typed it up and made it look like old time paper.
Disclaimer: Any photos used in this blogs are my personal photos. Please do not copy or reproduce

Enjoy tonight's episode and remember "Magic always comes with a price"

With love,

Jess

Looking back at 2014: Charlotte North Carolina

Hey everyone! I know it has been about a month since my last post, but I have been so busy with work and school. This post might be lengthy. The holidays are just around the corner, and Christmas is my favorite time of year! I love how cities get all decked out (get it)! This is a time of year where I like to take time to reflect on the past year. So, that being said the next few blog post I will be reflecting back on some of the travels that I got to do this year. The first trip that I am going to reflect back on is my trip to Charlotte North Carolina back in April. Now, in my first post I talked about how I am in the Model United Nations Club. This year we traveled to Charlotte to participate in Southern Regional Model United Nations. Charlotte is a small city, the population is about 700,000 people. Charlotte has charm though. It is a very clean city and very easy to navigate. A few suggestions if you ever decide to go.
Disclaimer: Any photos in this post are my personal photos. Please do not copy or reproduce
1) I recommend that if you do decide to go you should be on drinking age because the bar scene is a lot of fun.
2) I recommend a restaurant called Merts Heart and Soul and is located at 214 N College St

3) Remember to have fun there are some pretty cool spots to hit in Charlotte and some United States history there!

Well thanks for reading

With love, 

Jess 

 

Looking Back at 2014: San Antonio Texas

Happy Saturday Everybody!
This is my 2nd post in my looking back at 2014 series, and I am going to talk about the trip that I took to San Antonio Texas from June 17th-23rd! My friend Victoria and I decided to make a trip down to Texas for a vacation and we have a blast! We were able to stay at her cousins, so that kept cost down instead of paying for a hotel room. Now we flew out of O'Hare airport on Tuesday morning at 8:00 a.m. Unfortunately, after we bought our airplane tickets her cousin informed us that he was going to be out of town until Tuesday night. So, after finding out that information we decided to rent a car and go to Austin Texas for the day. Now, Austin is about 60 miles away from San Antonio, but on the Texas highway it took us around 1hr 15 min to get there. Austin is a very cool city, but we didn't get to see it busy. We grabbed lunch at a small local Mexican restaurant. The day we spent in Austin was the hottest day we experienced in Texas. After grabbing lunch we decided to walk around the capital building. Fun Fact: Did you know that the Texas flag is the only flag that can fly equally or higher than the American Flag? 
Disclaimer: Any pictures that are used in this post are my own pictures. Please do not copy or reproduce these photos.

After walking through the Capital Building we decided to drive around to some of the cool murals that they had around town. I'll post some pictures but if you want the locations for some of these please post a comment and I'll get back to ya! What was cool about these murals is that they are located in the hipster neighborhood of Austin which was pretty awesome. I wish we had more time to check out those shops and restaurants in that little neighborhood.

Our last stop in Austin was the University of Texas at Austin. That campus was beautiful. We walked around and checked out the cool buildings. My next trip to Austin I will be going in the fall to go to a University of Texas football game. The campus was beautiful and to go there for a football game would be a blast!

Our trek back to San Antonio we stopped at the San Marco outlets and shopped around before we made our way back to the airport to drop off the rent a car and go back to my friends Cousins house.

 

Another fun thing we did during our trip to San Antonio Texas was go to a water park called Schlitterbahn (http://www.schlitterbahn.com/new-braunfels) This water park consisted of three small parks and they had what you would call water coasters. The park was so much fun and it was warm, but not to warm that day. We had a blast!! It was about $50 to go for the day, but I think that it was totally worth it.

 

 

Another fun thing to do in Texas is the lazy river. We got in some inner tubes and packed a cooler with drinks and snacks and we just floated down the river for 4-5 hours and it was lovely.

 

Our last big outing on our trip was going to down town San Antonio and exploring. I finally got to see the Alamo. What's interesting about the Alamo is that you are not suppose to talk once you are inside to honor those who lost their lives at the Alamo.

 We hit some of the restaurants on the Riverwalk, ate some tableside guacamole and drank margaritas. In between one of the restaurants we did the River boar tour which told us some history about the city. Unfortunately we did not get to go to the Tower of Americas. All in all downtown San Antonio was the perfect way to end our trip. The next day we flew back to Chicago. I am very thankful that I got to go on this trip with my good friend Victoria! Well if you have anymore questions about this trip or are planning your own trip to Texas feel free to leave a comment!

Hope y'all have a wonderful Saturday!

With love,

Jess

 

Merry Christmas Charlie Brown!

My mom LOVES Snoopy, so much to the fact that we have three snoopy blow ups in front of our house every Christmas

This post is about how grateful I am that she is my mom and that I have the best mom out there! Tell your mom you love her and watch her smile as you tell her you love her just for the sake of saying it outside of the normal context! 

With love, 

Jess

Jingle All the Way Shadow Box

Good Evening! I know I said my next few post would be reflection about this year but I did another DIY project!!! 

Supplies

1) shadow box 

2) 1 piece of scrapbook paper,scissors and a glue stick

3) decal for the glass of the shadow box

4) scissors 

5) Christmas colored bells 

How to make it

1) Take the back off of the shadow box and flip it over to the matierial that would pin the stuff into the shadow box. Place the scrap paper on to see how much you need to cut off. Cut off the excess scrapbook paper. Glue the matierial and the back of the scrapbook paper and put it together. 

2) Now this step is devoted for the decal. I ordered my from a shop on Etsy www.etsy.com/shop/AmberRockstar

Now the one I got is five inches, so with the decal I put it on the outside of the glass. My decal came with instructions and I followed those instructions and put the decal where I wanted it. If you have questions leave a comment

3) Honestly, with the bells I just shook some red and silver bells put them in the shadow box and let them fall into place when I put the back on my shadow box. If you really want to glue them individually go ahead 

Here is my finished product if you have any questions please leave a comment! 

Talk to y'all soon 

With love, 

Jess

Apple Pie Shot

Because fall is still with us, and sometimes we all need that drink to get a good buzz going. With thanksgiving around the corner here is a fun drink to have with your adult guest. It's called an apple pie shot! Here is the recipe for this delicious fall treat

Apple Pie Shot 

1) get a shot glass

2) Pour .5oz of Apple cider and .5oz of plain vodka 

3) put some whip creme on top and a dash of cinnamon. 

4) Cheers!

With love, Jess

DIY no sew Tutu

Good evening everyone! This is my Halloween costume for this year this easy no sew Tutu. My costume is Minnie Mouse, I am wearing a black tshirt and leggings and then a no sew tutu! Here is the video that I used this blog is tips and lessons I learned while making my own 

http://www.diynetwork.com/decorating/how-to-make-a-no-sew-tutu-skirt/pictures/index.html

Tips

1) I used elastic instead of ribbon that requires some sewing 

2) I recommend 100 yards of tulle the 75 yard was not enough it was close

3) Glue the white dots for Minnie costume before you tie the slip knots 

4) patience is a must when tieing all of those knots 

You can make this tutu for personal use or Halloween. If your a disney fan try making other characters and tell me how it works out! 

Here is my final product

With love, 

Jess

DIY Fall Hurricane or Vase decoration

At my house we have a credenza in my dining room and it was lacking some fall love ;) 

So we had an empty hurricane at home and decided to get some use out of it.

What you need

1) a hurricane 

2) flowers and other fall foliage 

3) green styrofoam come

4) a bag of rocks or pebbles

5) straw

6) scissors 

Directions

1) Buy the supplies you need. Again you can go it michaels, hobby lobby, and your local craft store. Now when I was making this project a friend of mine told me that when you are buying flowers you buy them in odd numbers (I.e. 1,3,5) the rest is filler and other foliage. 

2) Now grab your hurricane and place your green styrofoam cone in the hurricane

3) Now you can start to envision where you want to put all the pieces into the green styrofoam. Now once you figure out how you want to have everything placed. You are going to have to cut the flowers and filler items wth scissors so it's not ridiculously tall, and you can cut them at different lengths to give it more depth. Now you can stick your flowers and fillers to its final place. 

4) After everything is in place you are going to take the rocks or pebbles and pour them into the hurricane to hide the green styrofoam cone. After you do that you place the straw on top to hide the top of the cone.

5) Your done! this looks great as a center piece or on credenza that needs some fall love 

With love,

Jess

Frame Wreath DIY project

Hey there!
Hope you all are enjoying this wonderful fall weather (its my favorite time of year)! I love the apple pie, the fall leaves, and finally the cute outfits you can wear. So, today I am going to share with you my first DIY project that I made for the fall season. Now, about a year ago I found this picture frame wreath on Pintrest, and I wanted to make it! This project took around 2 1/2 hours to make.

What you need: 

1) a wooden frame (we went with a worn darker frame)

2) fake fall foliage (there will be a picture at the end to get an idea) 

     I.e. Leaves, straw, small pumpkin 

3) A glue gun

4) Patience ;) 

Directions:

1) Buy the supplies you need. You can go to hobby lobby, Michaels or your local craft store. We spent around $30 for all the supplies we needed. Our fake foliage was 40% off , and or frame was around $17 after the 40% off coupon we used.( I try to buy as much of it on sale as possible cause this stuff can get expensive rather quickly) And we already had our glue gun and glue sticks at home which saved on cost.

 

2) Prepare a work place (i,e, a basement, a porch, a craft room) you can use a plastic wrap or tarps to cover your work space and not have it be a messy clean up.

3) Next off is placement. This step is rather important. Before you start gluing, you need to figure out where everything is going to go. We bought a rectangle frame and we utilized about 1/2 of the frame. We used a pumpkin in the bottom corner as our focal point for the project.  We started near the top of one of the long sides for placement and worked down to the corner and placed items not far passed the corner. Feel free to utilize as much of the frame that you want.

4) You are now ready to glue. This is where a lot of paitience and glue is required for this step. Again we atarted at the long side of the rectangle and worked our way to the corner. You will need enough to get it on to the frame or on a piece of foliage that will be hidden. You will have to maneuvar the glue gun around foliage so you dont ruin pieces youve already glued . Now after you are done gluing let it dry. Once it is dry you are done! You can choose to hang this on a door, wall or simply place it on a mantle.

Here is my final product. If you have any questions please just post questions in the comments and I'll happily respond!

With love, Jess 

Hello

Hey!
My Name is Jess, and I am a 22 year old girl living in the suburbs of Chicago. I am a senior in college studying Political Science with an emphasis in Public Administration with the hopes of going to law school. I have decided to start a blog of my life experiences , DIY projects, and share my love for travel and for photography. I hope y'all enjoy!
With love,
Jess