Britney Spears: Piece of Me in Las Vegas

In light of Britney Spears' recent concert in the Philippines, I've decided to blog about the time I watched her concert in Las Vegas last year. Hubby, P and one of my sisters went there for our sister's wedding (which I'll try to blog about soon!)

Like anyone who was a teen-ager in the 90s, I'm no stranger to Britney Jean Spears. While her singing voice is not stellar, her dance moves and showmanship more than make up for her voice. Whether you like it or not, you are bound to know the words to her songs. (Toxic forever!!!)

Thanks to my new brother-in-law, my sisters and I watched Britney from the pit.

As a resident at The Axis, Planet Hollywood, she had performances two to three times a week. Hence, she lip-synced to her songs. Understandably, her dancing prowess was not the same as in the 90s but who cares, it's Britney, b*tch. She performed for almost two (2) hours straight.

Spring in CA 2016

This post is a year delayed, haha. From NYC, we made our way to visit hubby's relatives in California. While we were discussing the itinerary, the FIL made it sound like it was a short ride from LA to Visalia to San Francisco. And we were there for five days only, we spent most of the days driving aaak!

In LA, we visited the Hollywood Walk of Fame, Grauman's Chinese Theater, Beverly Hills (sign, haha), and Rodeo Drive.

We also tasted the famous In-N-Out burgers and fries for the first time. Yum!

We then drove for four (4) hours to hubby's relatives in Napa Valley and San Francisco. We made quick visits to a small vineyard and Fisherman's Wharf and a drive-through of the San Francisco traffic. We did not even see Lombard Street for super lack of time!

NYC 2016

From muggy Florida, our next trip was to New York City where the forecast was cold and rainy, waaa. This was one of our biggest challenges in our trip, the change in weather.

We were going to be in NYC for 4 days. Too short, we know. When we landed in Newark, it was raining. We were supposed to take one of the Circle Line Sightseeing Cruises as soon as we arrived but we were sure we won't be able to see anything with the rain. Hence, we decided to bond with hubby's uncle and aunt in Queens before checking into the Courtyard by Marriott-Chelsea.

We arrived at the hotel at around 6PM. After freshening up, we decided to go to the Empire State Building after checking Google Maps and seeing that it was a 15-minute walk. We were freezing though! We were there at past 9PM, it was windy and cooold. The upside is that there are no long lines but there were still people coming in even when we left close to midnight.

By the way, SIL bought us New York Passes so we can skip long lines.

Sooo cooold.

My shots are taken with my iPhone 6 only. 

With a heavy toddler, I no longer attempted to bring my own camera.

Kennedy Space Center

I'm devoting a separate post for this because we loved this place! Hubby and I are geeks but he's a bigger science nerd that I am. In fact, it was his idea to have "outer space" as theme for P's first birthday. Too bad I forgot to pack P's astronaut costume and hubby's NASA shirt. Sayang!

 Anyhoo, the Kennedy Space Center is a two-hour drive from BIL's house in Ocala. A two-hour drive in the USA, we've learned, is farrr, considering we took the Interstate.

We're heeeere!

Rocket Garden

Daddy inside a mock-up capsule. He enjoyed NASA more!

Florida 2016

From Narita, we flew around 12 hours to Chicago. Before the trip, I saw that while we will land in O' Hare's Terminal 5, we will be flying out from Terminal 1 to Tampa, Florida, with around two hours between the flights. However, that would mean going out of the airport and riding the airport train and once again go through Immigration and Customs. I was nervous about missing the flight to Florida.

The 12-hour flight to Chicago was pretty uneventful because I breastfed P during take-off and he just slept. The plane was not full so the two of us transferred to two vacant seats where I laid him on one seat as I tried to sleep. Before landing, I decided to go back to our seats, but, not to our original seats but on the adjacent row one seat away from a Caucasian couple. I figured we needed space to get the bags and rush out of the plane as hubby, me and MIL were crammed in one row. However, for the last five minutes of landing, P decided to bawl his eyes out, as in all-out wailing! And I suddenly got shy about popping out the boob infront of my seatmates. I was so mortified, huhu. Lesson learned: just pop out the boob!

It was raining in Chicago and this was the time when the Belgium airport bombings occurred so I guess security was extra tight. We barely made it to the gate in Terminal 1 and saw that the plane was delayed. We spent around two hours waiting then boarded another plane to Tampa. 

Tampa was an hour drive to my BIL's house in Ocala. I was expecting the kiddos to be tired after 19 hours of travel but they still had the energy to watch Disney Junior.