Vegas Baby!

So recently, as many of you probably already know, I was elected to serve the 4th Circuit of the American Bar Association Law Student Division as Governor for the upcoming term.  As a result, I am heading to Vegas on Thursday and am in the process of packing and figuring out what all I want to do/see while there.  I began searching for fun things to do in Vegas and thought I would share my list with you.  (You knew there had to be a list... haha!)

1. Find the famous Las Vegas sign and take a picture (southend of the strip near Mandalay Bay)
2. Ride in a gondola in the Venetian and see the beautiful painted ceilings
3. Visit the Eiffel Tower at the Paris casino (in hopes that someday soon I will get to experience the real tower)
4. Watch the fountains show at the Bellagio (shows are every 15-30 minutes in front of the casino)
5. Visit Freemont Street (old Vegas)
6. Go to the top of the Stratosphere (but I won't be riding the crazy zero gravity thing there...)
7. Walk up and down the strip to get the "full Vegas experience"
8. Eat at an awesome restaurant (maybe Emerils'? any other suggestions?)
9. See the Rio Masquerade Show in the Sky (a free carnival-like show where performers hang from tracks on the casino ceiling!)
10. Go shopping at the Forum Shops at Caesar's palace (and probably not buy anything...haha) (as a side note, maybe I will even ask the receptionist at the desk if I am standing in the real Caesar's palace... like in the movie Hangover... you can check out a clip of the movie here)
11. See the Volcano at the Mirage (explosions at the top of every hour starting at 6p-11p)
12. Eat at a buffet... for cheap! :)
13. Continue my love for Hard Rock Cafe's...
14. If we get really adventurous, stop in the Minus 5 Ice Bar (and pay $25 to freeze to death for 30 minutes wrapped in parkas and fuzzy boots...wouldn't that make for some awesome photos??)
15. Oh how could I forget... GAMBLE???? (and return home with my Player's card- haha) I mean I don't intend to blow large sums of cash (because who am I kidding? I don't have large sums of cash to begin with!) But none-the-less, I want to at least come home and say, I gambled in Vegas... I mean I would be the only person to come home and say I did NOT gamble while there... haha!
16. Take a FREE limo ride (and pretend I'm a rockstar, or at least someone famous) to Casa di Amore (which is said to be an awesome Italian restaurant)
17. Take a photo of the pyramid at the Luxor hotel

--other places that **might** happen...
a. Visit the Wynn/Encore (I have read lots of reviews that say this place is amazing... we shall see!)
b. Visit SushiSamba for a lovely sushi dinner and lesson in how to roll my own sushi (how fun would that be?? especially now that we can't stop eating sushi!!)
c.  Experience Bonanza Gifts (the World's Largest Gift Shop)
d. Experience the Tower of Wine at Mandalay

In all honesty, I am probably shooting for the moon with all these ideas of places I MUST go to... but here is to hoping!  I will try my best and fill you in on all the details/photos when I return... :)

Here is a little food for thought that I found while reading an article about the best things to do in Vegas...


"To find the best deals, do some planning upfront. The biggest mistake people make when they get to Las Vegas, Curtis said, is that they haven't thought about what they are going to do.

"They get here and there's sensory overload from the ads, the billboards and all the things that are flashing at them. They don't know what to do," he said. "Once you get here, I would open everything, in terms of freebie magazines, things they put you in your room, things they want you to sign up for at the club booths. I would do all of those things. People tend to shy away from giving your name out. In Vegas it's the other way around. You want to give your name out."" - you can find this article here

Happy Birthday!!

Happy Birthday to our little ring bearer!!! Have a great 4th birthday Tate!!!

Sneak Peak at our fun and games...

St. Patty's Day is right around the corner... that means bar crawl in Charlotte!  The streets were lined with people celebrating the green holiday... and there was my future hubby all decked out...

Wedding Wire...

While taking a break from reading for class, I found this adorable hanger that I am dying to have... My good friend, Julie, got one for her wedding and I have to tell you... I am in love with it... How adorable is this??

Have You Missed Us?

So I know this has been a long time coming... but the truth is... my life is absolutely CRAZY and INSANE... but you probably knew that already.  You probably also believe that I, Mallory Duley (soon to be Willink - YAY!) am crazy planning a wedding while in school... But I am here to tell you that I have not yet lost my mind and I will make it! :)

So here is a re-cap of our lives for the past few weeks... A few weeks back, I was having a super stressful day and had class until late.  I got home and found that my amazing fiancé made me a great dinner!  Here is a photo of the yumminess...

The SuperBowl also happened since I was last able to update the world on our lives.  We hosted a SuperBowl party at my house.  My roommate and I were so excited... we re-arranged furniture, brought a TV into our kitchen area (so we had two tvs showing the game) and made all kinds of food.

While Jeff and I were out shopping for what we needed for the party, we saw this cake... see anything wrong with this picture?

My dearest friend, Steph, and I decided that we wanted to make "brownie-pops" for the party.  I bought a pan to make the brownies and she got the decoration materials...  We tried so hard to make these in hopes that they would be easy to do and turn out really well so that we could make them for the wedding... We weren't too thrilled with our end product... they were Diabetes sticks... what do you think?

Poor little brownie pop...it was rather deformed...

 Yay Brownie Pop pan! :)

End products...

One of our friends (who we call the Canadian - because he is from Canada) had a great idea to build a snack-food stadium.  Here are some photos of the epic stadium... :)

All the supplies for the stadium...

 Cooking the corn dogs for the bleachers...

 The field and goal-posts... before the rest of the stadium...

 Let the building begin...

 The master-mind of it all... 

Lovin the SuperBowl!

Before the Super Bowl weekend, we went to Morgantown to meet with the caterer to see some centerpiece options and get some details figured out and questions answered regarding our reception venue.  Here are some photos of the centerpieces I loved... these won't be ours... but aren't they amazing??

After the SuperBowl came Valentine's Day.  I don't know if you all remember a few years back when I attempted to make Jeff a heart shaped pizza, since we are pizza connoisseurs, and I failed miserably.  This year, though... I think it was a success!  (Thanks to the Canadian for letting me use a heart shaped cookie pan!)

We decided that in order to continue saving money, we weren't going to get each other a valentine's day gift and instead would just cook a meal for each other.  Jeff **kinda** broke the rule... He brought me home a few lillies since he knows it is my favorite flower... Here they are a few days after Valentine's day after they opened up.  They were beautiful! 

Jeff made eggplant parmesan and it was AMAZING!  Here are some photos of Chef Willink who hand breaded the eggplant himself!  Delicious!!!

We concluded our Valentine's day weekend by shopping for our wedding bands.  I am happy to say, we have both rings and the only thing left to do with them is to have mine sized down to fit my little hands! :) Yay!

In the midst of all the craziness... Jeff changed his license plates... AGAIN... This time, he seemed much happier about the change... :)

In law school I have learned a lot of things.  I know what is required for the court to declare your document is an enforceable contract... I have learned how to conduct legal research... I could go on and on... but one important thing I have learned is that you need to kick back once in awhile and enjoy the company of your colleagues.  I have also learned that every once in awhile you come across someone who you might not realize at the time, but they turn out to be an amazing friend.  Since the first day of classes, Shannon (who we now refer to as Snookie... and she refers to me as Dena - for those of you who enjoy the Jersey Shore you will understand this reference) and I have been besties.  Always there for each other and always up for a good time.  Since I last updated the world on our lives, we asked Shannon to be a bridesmaid in our big day. She was so excited she demanded a celebration - and of course we complied... haha! :)  Here are some pictures from the celebration...

The past week and a half has been a complete blur to me... I have been preparing for mid-terms, keeping up with coursework, working on a few fundraisers to help our friend Graham reach his goal with the school wide charity, working on a project with a professor, volunteering with the DA office... the list goes on... On top of it all, I received a call from a member of the National Board of Governors from the Law Student Division of the ABA... long story short, they encouraged me to run for Governor of the Circuit (which is kinda a big deal for many reasons that I will spare you from).  I went back and forth for days weighing my options, but I finally decided that running for the position was the best idea... Jeff and I drove to Williamsburg, Virginia so I could attend the meeting at William & Mary and run in the election... I was successful in the election and I am now Governor Duley... which will change to Governor Willink in July! :-)  Taking this office requires a bit of time, but nothing I can't handle.  It requires some travel (the first trip is one in March to Vegas) and will require some organization on my part.  (we all know how much I love organization!)  Anyways... on the way home from Williamsburg while Jeff was driving I worked on a sample of an idea we had to spice up the centerpieces... what do you think?  We are still working on tweaking the ideas... but it's a start... what do you think... do you like them? hate them? indifferent?

Here is a link to the site we got the idea from... we still have some ribbons to add to ours... but we got a start... :)     http://diy.weddingbee.com/topic/ribbon-pomander-centerpieces

I know I have told you all before... and if not, I will tell you know... Lindsay Hood (also known as "little") is the best Maid of Honor and best friend a girl could ask for.  She somehow knows when I'm having a terrible day or something has happened that has frustrated me and so on.  On the way home from working at the DA office yesterday, I got a call from the apartment complex office informing me I had a delivery.  I explained it must be a mistake because I didn't order anything and they insisted I stop in to take a look.  So I stopped in the office, the woman seemed incredibly excited to see me and informed me that she would  need to get the delivery out of the fridge........ I stopped and said, wait... why is the package in the fridge??  Here is what she pulled out of the fridge.... Thanks Little!! :)

On the wedding planning front, we have started the invitation design and assembly process.  Step one of designing everything is almost complete.  The part we have finished designing has been printed and the assembly process with that portion has been started.  We hope to have it finished by the end of March... :)  I am sure there are a million other things we are forgetting but right now I must study for mid-terms! :)