Tuesday, August 25, 2009

Las Vegas

We got back from our trip to Las Vegas on Saturday night. Well, back to my parents house anyway. (They kept the boys for us while we were gone.) Sunday we stopped at our friends house on the way home for a birthday poker game (I know - more gambling, right?). So it's taken me until today to get things together and get pictures downloaded for a post. Our trip consisted of seven people - my husband and I, both of my sisters, one brother in law, and two of our friends. For most of the trip we were separated into guys & girls. Us three girls walked up and down the strip, shopped for souvenirs, played penny slots, and ate a ton. The guys on the other hand rarely left the casino except to walk to the casino next door. They stuck mostly with tables games and sometimes did pretty well and sometimes not. Lets just say that none of us came home rich from this trip.

Our trip started with a limo ride from the airport to our hotel. It was way faster than the shuttles would be since it took us directly there. We didn't really think about a taxi which was cheaper - we took at taxi on the way back though. We got to the hotel so early that only one of our three rooms was ready to check in. So we stored all of our luggage in that one room and headed out. The guys had already discovered a poker tournament at the hotel next door (Chris had printed out a schedule of all the poker tournaments before the trip) so they went there. It was lunch time, at least in Texas time, so us girls headed to Margaritaville for burgers and what else, cold margaritas!Then we were off to the penny slots! We liked the penny slots because our money could go farther and the risk was small. We sometimes hit "big" pots and made $5 - $10 at a time. Boy did it sound like we were rich as the music played for those 500 pennies! I can't leave out the food! Our first night there we had reservations at Mesa Grill run by Bobby Flay (from the Food Network). One of my sisters had eaten at his restaurant in New York and was dying to go back. The food was really good but spicy. It also didn't come with sides so it didn't seem like alot of food for the money we spent. I was still glad to have gone. We took pictures of all of our food but I was spare you that.Since so much of the trip revolved around food (everywhere we went we saw another place we wanted to try) we had to stop at Serendipity 3 for an afternoon snack. We ordered their famous frozen hot chocolate and a sundae with a big piece of chocolate cake in it. The two desserts were so huge that the three of us couldn't even finish them. That frozen hot chocolate was wonderful and worth every calorie!!We saw two shows while we were there. The first was called Tony & Tina's Wedding. It was hilarious! This show was picked by us girls and all of the guys didn't go. It was as though we were invited to this Italian wedding as guests. It included a buffet dinner, wedding cake, and champagne. There was even a dance floor and people would get pulled out to dance with the actors during the wedding reception. Great! On our last night we all went to see Le Reve. It was like a Cirque du Soleil show but in water. There was a big pool in the middle of the room (the seats were around it in a circle) that had platforms that would go up or down when they needed them. Very cool! When that show was over it was decided that we would walk from the Wynn hotel where the show was, down to the Stratosphere. The walk was long and not much to see on the way except for construction and the not go great part of the strip. Unfortunately the rides on the top of the Stratosphere were closed because of high winds but we did get to go up and check out the view - not too shabby.

Of course we also hit all the free shows too. The Bellagio has a water show with their fountains out front. We made sure to stop by there at night when it would be the prettiest. We also saw a volcano errupt at the Mirage and the pirate ship show (they call it the siren show now) at Treasure Island. It sure made to lots of extra walking but it was so worth it.

This is the first big trip we've ever taken with other people and would love to do it again. We're old pros at Vegas (this was our 4th trip) but I know that we'll go back again.

3 comments:

Sara said...

That sounds like it was just an awesome trip! I'm glad you all got to go together!

kelly said...

Sounds like fun...frozen hot chocolate? Like...hot chocolate ice cream? Love the last picture!

Karen said...

I know it had chocolate ice cream in it. Other than that I don't know.....but wonderful!