On
Monday we started our day in the hottub. It was a very windy day with clear skies! On our walk to the pool area (I tell you everything is a good walk... they want you walking through the casino everywhere you go in hopes that you'll gamble on your journey) we were approached by Timeshare representatives to go to their gig in exchange for free things! Well... we agreed b/c this is what we got out of it: we paid $50usd and got lunch, 2 tickets to Tournament of the Kings (a Dinner Theatre show at our hotel) (tickets for that go for $60each or so) plus they gave us vouchers for $75 worth of food/gambling credit in our hotel. We chose $50 of food and $25 play money... not too shabby of a deal for going to the presentation. The Timeshare dude was a black guy named Demetrius Lynch (I think his last name was Lynch, but not certain) - does anyone recognize that name? (Bryan???) He played for the BC Lions for a bit - so that was a neat "connection"...
The rest of the day was spent going by bus to an Albertson's (grocery store) to get ourselves some fruit, breakfast foods and Smirnoff Ice and Mike's cases for WAY cheaper!! (for example: on Friday 5 guys in the hottub each bought a drink from the pool bar which cost them $9 each. Teeny drinks that looked to be OJ with whip cream on top, LOL... Jason made a point of saying to them that my flight down there was cheaper than that round of 'slushies' they just bought!)
Tuesday we started the day in the pool/hottub again on a much less windy (windless) day... and then we headed out for the day. We went to get a
PowerPass (like a City Pass) that would be good for 2 days for us to get into a # of different things in town. We've been to Vegas twice before... though we didn't really know about all the things we did this time around. It was nice to be able to do so many things with a million more things we could do next time.
We walked to
Caesar's Palace to get these passes... man, it took us forever to get there though! This is
The Forum Shops in Caesar's... quite the mall hey?!
We had to validate our passes at Planet Hollywood and were presented right away with a $20 credit to use... which is why I have that pink PH shirt!
We hung out, people watched, walked and went to the
World Famous Popovich Pet Comedy Theatre Show. It was pretty cute and funny!
And like I mentioned we went up the
Eiffel Tower:
it was my goal before we left for Jason and I to take 5 pictures together every day... I don't think we made that quota, but we did get lots together
Then after we had dinner, we took The Deuce (double decker bus that goes up and down the Strip) to the
Stratosphere. (click the name for info about it and a picture of it since I didn't get one)
There is an observation deck indoors with couches and windows circling the tower. The signs say "don't lean on glass" - can you imagine?! Yikes! Here is Jason looking kinda over and down, inside through the glass -
There are 3 rides outside on top of this tower... not for me! Here is one that accelerates down and jerks to a stop facing you down the Strip...
After we finished the going to the top, we bought Jason a iMassager thing that is the size of an iPod and with that sale we each had an Aqua Massage. It was neat and nice to relax on a massage table.
What a GREAT day! What a GREAT vacation! :)
(I uploaded this photo twice {KA} but both times it uploaded side ways... not sure why because it's not even a photo that was take vertically? Sorry!)
Every year we (I) can't wait for Easter Sunday since we get to start off our Church Service with fresh fruit and paska which is a Mennonite Tradition. I didn't grow up having paska and wasn't introduced to this tradition until we started going to our church over 10 years ago. It is sooooo good!
cool piano, hey?!
Sammy just soaked up the time he and I had together! We played for over an hour at the park and then headed for an ice cream cone at Walmart McD's and browsed around there for a bit... it was fun!
And since going to Chuck E Cheese we also made a stop into The Children's Place store since it's the closest one we are to! I didn't find matching Easter shirts for the boys but they did each pick out a pair of flipflops... and that got the talk about going to the Beach started - we probably will hear it everyday from Sammy for the next couple months until we start (are able to) going to the beach! Until that time, they can pretend and hope!
So Jason's plane arrived in Vegas at 8:30pm and was only theoretically supposed to wait an hour or so for my flight to arrive... when in reality my flight was over 3 hours delayed, so I wasn't even in the air until 10:50pm. Jason grabbed a cab and checked into our hotel room... and then he went to a Walgreen's on the Strip to grab us some snacks and water... and then he walked back to the airport at 12:30am to "pick me up"... that was so sweet. I thought I was going to grab a cab on my own to the hotel... it was a 50 minute walk to the airport from our hotel which is pretty close to the airport. Everything seems close in Vegas but in reality takes a long time to walk from here to there!
The Strip in Vegas is jampacked with hotels - gorgeous, expensive 5* hotels, theme hotels, old hotels, even a Travelodge was on the strip... we stayed at the Excalibur... which was kinda a medieval theme/castle. It was great. At $41/night you can't beat that! (rooms in other hotels were as low as $20-25 a night!) We were quite happy with our accommodations and pool area. There were 4 pools and 3 hottubs that we noticed.
As you can see, our hotel offered some different shows - which Vegas is all about going to shows, gambling, eating and drinking. We didn't go to the Thunder Show that our hotel boasts of, as you can see... LOL. Nor did we partake in any of the other sensual shows that you might know that Vegas has. But I am happy to say we did go to a world class show!
We had to validate our passes at Planet Hollywood and were presented right away with a $20 credit to use... which is why I have that pink PH shirt!
it was my goal before we left for Jason and I to take 5 pictures together every day... I don't think we made that quota, but we did get lots together
Then after we had dinner, we took The Deuce (double decker bus that goes up and down the Strip) to the Stratosphere. (click the name for info about it and a picture of it since I didn't get one)
There are 3 rides outside on top of this tower... not for me! Here is one that accelerates down and jerks to a stop facing you down the Strip...
After we finished the going to the top, we bought Jason a iMassager thing that is the size of an iPod and with that sale we each had an Aqua Massage. It was neat and nice to relax on a massage table.
We were headed to The Mirage to enter the Siegfried & Roy Secret Gardens which I talked about in an earlier post. (click the link and then click the photo tour and video to see more)
This was a neat place to go to- with the dolphins that are there. I'm not sure why they have dolphins there but they do. They didn't do any shows but if a trainer was working with them by chance you'd get to see them do some things. Which we were there at the right time. We literally sat feet away with no glass in front of us watching these dolphins - the most beautful, happy creatures - don't you just love how a dolphin always looks like it's smiling due to the way the mouth crease works?! I love it! I know I posted this exact picture before, but I'll post it again... know that I wasn't really zoomed in much either!
After the dolphins, we saw a small area that was kinda like a very upscale zoo - with Llamas (they weren't Llamas actually but I can't remember what they were called), 2 white Asian Lions that were gorgeous --> this picture isn't great at all but I'll post it to give you an idea -
...some leopards, black panther and this baby Leopard (I think) named Java. He was behind glass with a "trainer" playing with him. Java is only 3 months old. So adorable.
this wedding dress isn't very flattering, but thankfully I'm just pretending to marry George! I thought it was a fun prop... which all the props and statues we were encouraged to touch!
(I had to sneak these pictures at the Tournament of Kings...)
Then we had a couple hours to walk to the MGM Grand Hotel, people watch and hang out before our Cirque du Soleil show began at 9:30pm. What a great performance! It was sooo fun to be able to go to something of this calibur. :) (click the link to see a video-ad of the performance)
and go figure, our plane was late to leave. We didn't leave til closer to 9:30pm rather than 7:40 as scheduled. This time someone got ill about 30 minutes into the flight taking off from Bellingham, so they turned back... oh well, I didn't mind. And now I've had a flight-fix, so I am good for another 5 years or so.
We plan to go away for our 15th Anniversary... but also plan to do a few more weekend trips than we've done in the 5.5 years we've had children. It's very important to invest in marriage - we just felt blessed by the time we had to focus on each other - and not have to push strollers, or have children on our back, or deal with tantrums...etc. It was nice to be "free" for that time! I encourage any of you who haven't done such a trip or weekend away, to invest that time/energy!
a then we went up the Stratospher last night (which is 108 floors up, 866 feet... and has 3 rides up there off of the top of the building!)
and then Madame Tussaud's Wax Museum which was really neat! See who I saw??
