Kentucky Derby Weekend

Sometime last year Jeff made a bucket list... I think he's somewhat close to having that mid-life crisis feeling! So, on this list was "Go to the Kentucky Derby" -- he wanted to go last year... yes, when I was pregnant, and of course I said, NO WAY! So, we made plans to go this year and had a blast! We went with our neighbors, John and Marie, who have become good friends of ours. Here are some pictures from the weekend!

Up in the balcony of Churchill Downs where the rich and famous have seats!! I read that Rebecca Romijn, Maria Menounos, and Nick Lachey & Vanessa Minnillo were there!! I was really hoping we would see someone famous!

Getting ready to enter and drink our first Mint Julep!



Did I forget to mention it was raining?? Like downpour raining the whole night before and most of the morning the day of the Derby... therefore most people's feet looked like the ones in the picture...

And you had to avoid puddles like the one in this picture!

Thankfully, our seats were in "The Infield Club" which was a huge tented area with tables, bars, betting windows, bathrooms (not port-a-pottys thank god!) -- we did leave our tent a few times to go out and see the craziness of the actual infield... and then went running back into "our home" after dodging drunk people rolling in the mud, and running across the length of 10 port-a-potty roofs while people tried to knock them off with beer cans... seriously.

The Infield Club was a lot of fun, but I know if it was a gorgeous sunny day I would've been wishing we had seats in the stands. This was absolutely perfect for the rainy weather we had this day!! I would've been absolutely miserable in the rain... I am definitely NOT a hat person, but having the hat on was like a built in umbrella when it was raining. NO UMBRELLAS ALLOWED at Churchhill Downs, so you were out of luck if you were outside that day...

Jeff and John were betting on the races all day -- we got there at 11am, and the actual Derby Race wasn't until 6:30pm, so we had a lot of time for betting!

Jeff was losing most of the races, so he took his jacket off, hoping it would bring him some luck, and it actually did!! Not much, but he won the next race... John & Marie were the big winners that day. Marie was randomly picking horses and they kept winning!! I was also randomly picking horses and losing every time!


After a long day and many drinks, the boys were in rare form... mostly Jeff, though! I was worried about the long day, but around 3 I drank a bottle of 5-Hour Energy -- that stuff is GREAT! I highly recommend it for a pick-me-up. And it doesn't keep you up at night, which most stuff does to me. They sell it at the counters of most gas stations and drug stores. (I wish I got paid or got free stuff for plugging products!!)

The racetrack was TRASHED. I'm sure they're used to it every year, but when you looked around after the end of the day, there were drinks, rain ponchos, trash, everywhere. We even saw a big purple bra on the ground on the way out!! I'm telling you, people got CRAY-ZAY!

On another note, a big thank you to my mom who watched both kids so we could have our first weekend away since November!! It was great to get to spend time with just Jeff and I, but I definitely looked forward to coming home to this...

AND this...

I really hope we get to go back again! Let me know if you want to come!