The Perfect Weekend

Michol and I snuck away for Mother's Day weekend to Foxwoods for a Cranberries concert at the MGM Grand casino. We got up really early on Saturday, dropped off Mallory at the Merrimans, and hit the road. Since check-in wasn't until 4pm, we took our time driving down and decided to head to the Mystic Seaport. We walked around the shops and grabbed some lunch. The weather couldn't have been any better.

On our way back to Foxwoods, we made a quick stop at a winery called Jonathan Edwards (http://www.jedwardswinery.com/), for some wine tasting. Nothing really stood out for us but it was a nice place to check out.

Upon checking in to the Two Trees Hotel (one of the 5 hotels), we immediately realized why the rate was considerably cheaper than the other hotels. The location of our place was about a half mile from the actual MGM building. Not the end of the world, but definitely good to know for the next time.

The concert was at 8pm, so we decided to hustle over to the MGM for an early dinner. We ate at a semi-fancy restaurant called Alta Strada. After choking down a dish we think was an "Antipasti Platter" (still not sure), we ate as much as we could of the Chicken Parmigiana we ordered and then headed out to do some sight seeing.

The MGM and connecting casinos were incredible. There were so many people (of all walks of life) and places to check out. We covered just about every square inch as we could and stopped in front of this neat waterfall for a quick snapshot. 

We made our way to the concert and sat through an interesting opening band called Vintage Trouble. They were pretty good and definitely warmed the crowd up. Our seats were really close to the stage and the entire theater holds about 4,000 people, so it was a very intimate setting. The Cranberries sounded great and played a lot of the favorites. I captured a couple of songs on my phone, which I posted to YouTube (located under the "Favorite Links" section). The audio and video quality is not the greatest.

                                                     

The next morning, we woke up early, ate a nice big breakfast and headed home. It was no nice to get away, even for just part of the weekend, but we really missed Mallory and couldn't wait to pick her up. Mallory went to her first Tulip Festival in Albany on Saturday which tired her right out and helped her sleep through the night. The pups were also well taken care of while we were gone by a "team" consisting of our regular pet sitter, my Father, and Michol's cousin Jeanette and boyfriend Andy. Jeanette and Andy were able to stay the night so the pups were not by themselves through the night. When we got home, they couldn't get enough of us....perfect ending to a perfect weekend!