What's Different??

Can you tell what is different in this photo?

Atlanta and South Carolina

This past weekend Grant and I went on a mini road trip. Our first stop was Atlanta, GA.

We met up with my good friends from UF, Danielle and Maggie, to celebrate Danielle's upcoming wedding. On Friday we went shopping and we got to see Danielle try on her wedding dress for the very fist time! It was nothing like I would expect it to be given Dani's taste, but it was absolutely BEAUTIFUL!!

That night we threw Danielle a bridal shower at The Flying Biscuit, a restaurant that Dani and Jose would frequent when they lived in Atlanta. The shower was a lot of fun! I was very excited to meet all the bridesmaids and Dani's family. After the shower we went out for a bit. We were so exhausted that we didn't last long at the bar and got back to the hotel around 1:45AM, just 4 hours before we had to leave in the morning to drive Dani and Maggie to the airport! I must have turned off my alarm in my sleep because I was woken up at 5:55 by Danielle telling me we were leaving in 5 minutes!!!

After dropping Dani and Maggie off Grant and I drove to Liberty, South Carolina to visit Grant's brother and his family. Well...Grant slept and I drove. I passed a HUGE fireworks stand and Grant missed it because he was sleeping. He is still mad that I didn't wake him up despite the fact that the store was closed since it was 8AM!

South Carolina had really cheap gas!

We got to Eddie and Cari's at around 9:30AM. It was really nice seeing them. Grant and I learned how to play the Wii and went on a hike to a waterfall. We are not yet the Wii masters that Eddie and Car are, but hopefully we'll get there soon! After playing their Wii we might be in the market to get one ourselves! Randy and Meredith have grown so much since the last time we saw them! Meredith was able to read two books to me all by herself!

Grant and Randy on the way to the waterfall.

Randy, me and Meredith at the waterfall.

Me and Meredith at the waterfall.

Me, Meredith and Randy at the waterfall.

My husband! What a hottie!!

Cari, Me, Meredith, Randy and Grant.

Grant with a snake! Ewww!!!!

Hopefully we'll be able to see our friends and family again really soon!!

Pepsi 400

This past Saturday Grant and I got up and went to the gym and got ready and went to Daytona. We got to the Pepsi 400 at Daytona International Speedway at around 3P. We were given our tickets and pit passes from a friend. Our two friends, Courtney and Cole, were going to come along, but then couldn't because her parents came to visit. Parking was so expensive everywhere! Some places were charging $70 just to park! We found a lot near the Daytona

Airport charging $30 and parked there.

It was about 95 degrees -- with a heat index of over 100. At times it looked like it was going to pour! Luckily the rain held off!! We couldn't wear shorts, jeans, tank tops or open toed shoes. I wore capris, a white tee shirt and tennis shoes. Grant wore a polo shirt, dress pants and dress shoes - poor guy! We walked through a bunch of sponsor trucks/tents and got to guest services. We were trying to find the ticket office to get our pit and garage passes -- allowing us access to the pits and garages before the race. At guest services they told us we had to go to the NASCAR credential trailer that was almost a mile away! Luckily there was a taxi nearby - so we took the taxi over and got our passes and then taxied back.

We finally made our way to the pits and garages. They were really cool There were a lot of tires! We met Rudy Giuliani - I got to shake his hand and get a picture with him. We saw a bunch of the drivers - not that I know who any of them were!? We got to see the cars, all the tires and crews. It was really pretty interesting. We were in the pits for about 3 and a half hours. Just before the race all of the drivers have to go to a driver meeting. We saw a lot of people lined up and realized that we were right outside the driver meeting room. We saw a bunch of the driver walk right by us and go in and out of the meeting. The ones I would have recognized -- Jeff Gordon, Jimmie Johnson, Dale Jr. -- all managed to take a secret way out, so we didn't get to see them. =(

At about 7:30P we went to our seats. By this time we were pretty exhausted. We saw a couple crashes and about 40 laps and then left. It was quite hot and we didn't want to fight traffic. Plus, once you see the cars go around once you've seen most of the action all in my eyes. The beginning of the race was cool and I am sure the end is really fun to watch, but the 100+ laps in between take a while!

Overall, I was pleasantly surprised. NASCAR is really fun to watch. The race is a really big event with a lot of stuff to do surrounding it. Our seats were really good and the cars were really fast. It was a lot of fun, but would have been much better if it weren't 100 degrees!

Here is the way to watch! Sitting on top of your RV in the infield!

After the race we walked back to our car. We parked near the Daytona Airport in a car rental lot -- when we walked all the way there the lot was chained shut!!! At that point I just wanted to get in the car and get a cold shower and some water. We tried to break in. Grant was about to climb the fence (and barbed wire) when someone finally came out and opened the gate.

We drove to Grant's brother Steve's place. They live about 10 minutes from the track. Steve was still at work but Meagon and Tyler were there. It was really nice catching up with them and seeing their new place. We slept there and had breakfast with them in the morning and drove home stopping at the outlet mall on the way back. =)

We found a 28!

Here is a link to the rest of our photos on Flickr. http://www.flickr.com/photos/razaccardi/

Enjoy!