Monday, November 04, 2013

Viva Las Vegas!

I apologize in advance this is going to be a lengthy post full of photos so brace yourself!

What an awesome trip we had this weekend in Vegas! I really did not know what to expect. I got some really great recommendations from a friend of mine so I knew there were a few things that I was pretty set on doing, but I didn't even know if we would be able to get those things done because of the short amount of time that we would be there. The wedding was beautiful & the travel went as smooth as you could hope for, so two thumbs up on our first trip to Vegas!

Our flight got in Friday night about 9:30, we hopped on an awesome party bus with a fully stocked bar & a stripper pole. We went to the hotel to check in & got ready to hit the strip for a couple of hours. One of things I really wanted to do was the Eiffel Tower ride at Paris. Luckily, it was only a couple minute walk from the Flamingo so we went in, got a drink & Joe and I took the ride. I’m so glad we did it. It was only $20 a person & you got to see a 360 view of the city at night. It was beautiful! Bonus, we got to see the very last fountain show of the night at the Bellagio. Amazing!! I was already able to check one thing off of my list and we had only been there for a couple of hours at this point. We ended up doing a little bit more walking, we wanted to go the Harley Davidson café, but it was about 2AM when we got there and they were closing. We ended up meeting the rest of the group at Cabo Wabo for a few drinks. I’m not sure if I was just overstimulated by all of the sights or if I was just spent, I had several drinks throughout the night, but felt completely sober so I decided not to pay $14 for a drink. I kind of lost my energy & was starving by this point so Joe and I went back to the Flamingo, ordered a pizza & went to the room. We were up until about 3, which in Illinois time was 5, so technically, had been up for 24 hours! Can’t remember the last time I did that, college days I would imagine. I was pretty proud of myself.















Of course the next morning we were up by about 7AM, we decided to just get ready and do some exploring since the wedding was at 2:30.  The Flamingo had a habitat with, what else, FLAMINGO'S, and other birds and fish so we wandered around that for a bit, really neat to see.  Then we went for an early lunch at the Harley Davidson café around 11:00. It was so much fun in there. Really awesome bike display where the bikes are on a track & they travel around the building. Their food was really good, & we liked all of the memorabilia they had throughout, lots of autographed gas tanks, the Captain America bike from Easy Rider, & an entire flag made out of chains the length of the building.

view from our room

beautiful hotel









It was only about 11:45 when we left & we didn’t need to back to the hotel until 1 so we decided to try to get to the Ice Bar at Mandalay Bay. The Mandalay Bay is way down at one of the strip so I pulled up the email I was sent from my friend & found that there was one at the Monte Carlo & we just happened to be right across the street so we made our way there with just enough time. It cost us a little over $100 for a fur coat for me, a parka for Joe, boots, gloves, & a souvenir photo. No cameras or phones allowed in the bar area (BOO!). It was such a cool place, literally and figuratively! Freezing in there, the glasses, the bar, everything is made out of ice. They change the set up every year so it’s always different. We were both so glad we spent the money on it, it was a lot of fun, bartender was awesome, we met a couple from a suburb of Chicago who gave us their extra drink ticket so Joe was able to do an extra shot. They took professional photos of us & we ended up buying one. The guy dressed up as a penguin told us to check their facebook page in a few days for the rest of the photos! Thanks for the tip Mr. Penguin!



By the time we had our two cocktails & got our photos taken it was time to make the trek back to the hotel to get ready for the wedding. We took a cab down to Las Vegas Weddings & the ceremony was just perfect. Kassi looked AMAZING. Her dress was gorgeous & it fit her like a glove. There was a video camera in the room so that people at home could watch it online which I thought as really awesome. I snuck a few pics on my phone, but there was a professional photographer there as well. The speech that the officiant gave about had me in tears. It was perfect.

the bride & groom!

After the wedding we went back to the hotel, grabbed some drinks, changed clothes, & headed to Maggiano’s for dinner. It was quite the walk but it was a ton of fun. Dinner was amazing, but so incredibly filling, lots of bread & pasta, carbs galore! I think most of us were exhausted by the time dinner was over. Mike was pretty dead set on doing the jump at the Stratosphere so he made reservations for him and Joe around 8:30. I felt bad that we were leaving the wedding group to do this, but I figured we only had a little more time to do the things we really wanted to do so I went along with it. They really should’ve waited until Sunday morning, but oh well, boys aren’t as smart as girls, we all know that ;-)…

So after we just stuffed our faces full, Joe, Mike, & I headed at a lightning speed to the stratosphere & I just couldn’t take it. My stomach hurt, my knee was killing me, & I had a splitting headache, the walk took us about a half an hour, I hated every second of it. I was so annoyed, tired, & sick, but I put my big girl pants on and waited for them to do their jump. Unfortunately, since boys aren’t that smart, Mike wasn’t able to jump because he was 2 pounds overweight. They told him to come back in the morning on an empty stomach. I felt so bad for him because he was really the one that wanted to do it, Joe was kind of just tagging along, but he was all suited up & had his harness on so he decided to just go ahead and do it anyway, even though Mike couldn’t. It was about $100 to jump off the side of the building in what’s called a “controlled” jump. Joe said that the adrenaline from taking that first step off the building was worth the money, but the fall was not, it was slow, & boring. I told him better you than me, & made them get a cab and get me back to the hotel.

Joe jumped off of this building!

We got back to the hotel and I was just done for. My leg hurt so bad, my knee was killing me, all the way up to my hip. That walk totally did me in. I was sooo mad! The rest of the group was going down to Freemont St, old Vegas, & that was one other thing I really wanted to do. I just couldn’t bring myself to do it. More alcohol, more walking, & more time in a bus or car just made me more sick even thinking about it. I told Joe to go on without me & I hit the sack. It was realllly early, like maybe 10PM with the time change (day light savings, thanks for that extra hour of sleep!). One of our other friends also did not feel good, I think he had a really bad cold & they ended up staying back as well. I guess we are just too old for two nights of partying! Joe got in about 1:30. We were up early again the next morning, about 7:30 or 8:00. We went to breakfast then just hung out in the room until noon when we went back to the airport. We got back home last night about 9PM which was not bad at all. Got a decent night of sleep, & had to come back to work bright and early this morning.

All in all Joe and I were both really pleased with the trip. We had time to do the few things we were really set on doing, we got to be there to see our friends get married, & we did it all in one weekend without taking any time off of work or anything. We definitely want to go back one day. Thank you Matt & Kassi for letting us share your special day with you! It was truly one of the most fun weekends we’ve had in a long time & your wedding was absolutely beautiful!

The rest of the week should be pretty quiet. We have our next doctor’s appointment tomorrow at 3:30 in Peoria. Really cannot wait to see what’s in store for us next! Then I have to be back in Peoria for work on Wednesday and Thursday so lots of traveling this week. No real big plans on the calendar for the rest of the month. My aunt and I are making pumpkin stuffed tortellini’s this weekend so be on the lookout for the tutorial on that next week! Nice quiet weekends until Thanksgiving then it will be time to cut down a tree & watch Christmas vacation!

Happy November everyone! The Holiday season has arrived!

1 comment:

  1. Cannot believe your husband jumped off that building. AMAZE! Love the photo tour of your trip.

    ReplyDelete

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