Trip to Reno with mom/Brittney's Wedding

Hey everyone..I know I've become such a blogging slacker lately. I am going to get better though I promise. But as most of you know I just recently went on a trip with my mom to Reno. It was so much fun...but at the same time such a fiasco. Why we went there? My cousin Brittney Paden got married, and the trip down to Reno with mom was my birthday gift. They got married on April 25th, 2009.

So here's a abbreviated itinerary of mine and my mom's trip to Reno.

So Friday the 24th-
1:00 Dad drove us to Seatac Airport
2:45-2:50-Plane takes off for a 1hr and 1/2 flight to Oakland, California
4:30-Arrive in Oakland, California for a 2 hour layover flight to Reno, ate dinner and ice cream at the Oakland Airport
7:15-Take off from the Oakland Airport to Reno
8:30-8:45-Arrive in Reno, Nevada, Aunt Kathleen picks up and we start on our way to the Peppermill Hotel (the hotel where we were staying and the hotel where the wedding was) that's when the fiasco starts

*So the "Fiasco" I am taking about is my mom had RESERVED a 2 bed non-smoking room in the Peppermill Tower. When we got there the front desk lady was not wanting to be helpful, and said that they only had a king sized bed in non-smoking or 2 beds in smoking, and us of course being LDS and not around cigarette smoke and mom not sure if she'd brought her inhaler....ugghh!!! And my aunt was staying with us the first night so we needed a 2 bed. So we settled on smoking and the front desk lady said to call down in the morning to see about being moved into a different room...well here is what are rooms are supposed to look like (minus the couch and table because that's where the other bed would be) Well, when we got there that's not what our room looked like. It was not as nice...there was smoke on the walls, it just was not as nice. But oh well...we were only going to be in it for one night. oh and also since my aunt was going to stay with us 1 night they wanted to charge us for a 3rd person, and my mom was frustrated at this point and said no and that Kathleen had her own room reserved for tomorrow. uggh frustrating....anyways so we got up to our room and it was about 10:00p.m. at this point and we are all tired and exhausted, but we socialized for awhile and I went exploring to see where the pools were, and the gym..
12:30-1:00-Went to bed

Saturday April 25th (Wedding day)
5:00a.m. I woke up (yes I woke up at 5:00 in the morning) so I could work out in the fully furnished gym and I must say I WAS impressed with gym they had individual t.v's on each machine so you could watch t.v. while you worked out and watch what you wanted to.
7:00- people started to come into the gym to work out so I decided that it was time to go back up to my hotel room. (yes I worked out for 2 hours....I was EXTREMELY proud of myself)
7:30-got in the shower and mom and Kathleen started waking up and got dressed so we could go and get breakfast. Mom called the front desk regarding switching rooms, they said to call back at 12.00.
9:00-We decided that we were all hungry for breakfast. We met my cousin Scott (Kathleen's son and uncle of the bride) with his daughters (Lauren and Emma) so they could see their grandma and we had breakfast. Scott left to go and get his hair cut, and the girls and I decided we wanted to go swimming before the girls had to get ready for the wedding and get their hair done etc... so we went and swimming and hung out there for awhile.
12:15-Mom ran back up to the room to see about the room about switching rooms. They said to check back at 3:00 when check in time was...and they had the nerve to tell my mom while she was already talking to the person at the front desk to hold on because a big party was checking in when she was already helping my mom first!!!!
1:30-We got out of the pool, mom and Kathleen went to run errands, mom to buy a gift for Britney, and Kathleen had to run and get some flowers that were needed for the wedding, and Scott and the girls came up the room to use our shower so they could get their hair washed to get it done, and it was at this time that maid service came and wanted to check our room, and the maid just knocked once and opened our door before I could get to the door and Lauren was changing around the corner. I was really upset about that, and I told the maid to come back later.
2:00-I was in the hotel waiting for mom and Kathleen to get back with lunch (Jimboys tacos AMAZING, if you had not had Jimboys Tacos you MUST try them when you are in California or Nevada) and I FINALLY received a call saying that we could switch rooms. (I know somewhere in between this time that I had called as well regarding the room switch). Mom and Kathleen came back and we ate lunch. Kathleen went to see about checking into her room (which was in a different part of the hotel) and they started giving her the same excuses...she met her husband down there and said that there room wouldn't be ready until 3:00 but they could go down there and see the room. It was in a separate part of the hotel and when they got to their room it was a smoking 2 bed room when they had requested a non-smoking room. The room was torn apart and the maid were just in there standing around and talking and chitchatting. They turned around and went back up to the front desk saying I don't think so...and said that my aunt has MS and that she she needed a room closer because she can't walk that far and that they checked in a while ago and that needed to get ready for a wedding. Only when they said "We should have Kerri cut up her VIP member card for the hotel were they willing to help her.
3:30-6:00-I had gone up to the hotel to check out and it was FINALLY a room that we had actually reserved, which is the room that you saw in the 360 view room. Kathleen checked into her hotel and then me and mom decided to go exploring the hotel. At around 4:45 is when we started getting ready, and when we just about ready around 5:35 we received a call from Kathleen saying some people were meeting down there right now and invited us to come down.
6:00-11:30-The wedding------So the wedding was beautiful and Brittney looked amazing. The only thing during the ceremony the photographers were taking several pictures during the ceremony, and at one point they were standing in between Brittney's mom and dad (Ken and Kenny) and Kerri finally was like "Can you move so my husband can watch his daughter get married) After the ceremony we waited in the next room over where the reception was. It obviously took the bride and groom and family to get into the room since the photographers were taking pictures. The food wasn't OVERLY spectacular (the hotel catered, and one thing that was weird is that they didn't even leave the food out most of the reception, and it was just finger foods). Anyways the reception was fun. they had a dance, and of course had daddy/daughter, and mom/son dances. Another thing that was weird is they passed out champagne for toasting but didn't have a non-alcoholic beverage for the people that don't drink, or the kids, and the D.J. was extremely annoying. But other than that it was a very nice reception. I ended up catching the bouquet, but I didn't take it home since it was real flowers and they wouldn't make it through the flight home. One thing I thought was really cool was that they had a last dance together and everybody that was still there formed a circle around them, and after they were done they were asked to go around the circle and hug and say goodbye to everyone. Brittney was so excited that I came.
12:15-Me and mom are finally back up in our hotel room I couldn't sleep neither could my mom so we watched t.v. for a little while until we could fall asleep.

Sunday April 26th
8:00-I woke up and everything got ready for the day.
9:30- We received a call from Kathleen saying people were gathering at the buffet for breakfast at 10:00. so we met at the Island Buffet one of the MANY restraints in the hotel. The buffet was AMAZING...it had everything from breakfast food such as eggs benedict, to asian and mexican cuisines, all the way to fresh crab legs!!!! DELICIOUS I loved the restaurant and it felt like you were on an island with moving trees, and lighting and thunder effects. It was cool!!! After breakfast I decided I wanted to go explore the hotel more and go hit the gift shop. After about a 1/2 hour I met my mom and Kathleen back at the restaurant and then we decided to go back up to Kathleen's room and just hang out since we had to check out and Kathleen and Jack had the room for another night. So we checked out and printed our boarding passes. Then took our stuff up to Kathleen's room.
1:00-We headed for the airport on our way home back to Washington.

2:00-Airport Ride home
Was interesting.....the plane went from Reno-Boise, from Boise-Spokane-and Spokane-Seatac-and was continuing from Seatac-Sacramento-and from Sacramento-San Diego I told my mom that I have tooken off and landed more on this trip alone then I had in my entire life. We landed in Seatac at around 8:00 and dad had brought us Subway and we made our trip back home!!

So it was an interesting trip but it was SO fun being able to go to Reno with my mom and seeing family that I hadn't seen in awhile. There were definitely some cons on this trip obvious with the hotel fiasco, but I enjoyed it 100000%!!!


Congratulations to the new Mr. and Mrs. Cory Schnader!