Vegas Baby!

asked me to describe our trip in one word. I answered with awesome.

 
But first, let me back up a bit to the Friday before. We went to my parent’s after work, like we usually do on Fridays. After a typically delicious dinner,

surprised me with a cake. Not just any cake, an octopus cake. But not just any octopus cake, one that looks kinda like a scary clown. Oh, and it was chocolate. lol! You just kinda have to see it to believe it, so there it is. It was great!

So then on Tuesday, Juan and I left for Vegas. Because it was an uneventful Tuesday, the drive was without incident and totally smooth. We decided that we would take it easy after getting there pretty late (around 5:30 p.m.) and opted for settling in, unpacking, and finding dinner. We moved into our suite at the Grandview on the 8th floor. This year, we got a pool view (which we got after calling them and saying "Excuse me, we’re owners and we’ve stayed here before and never gotten a pool view and it would be great if you switched our view of the construction and freeway to that of the water." They had another room for us within five minutes.

So anyway, we unpacked and everything and went to Chili’s, of all places, for dinner. Just Juan and me having a nice time (and a couple of margaritas!).

Wednesday we woke up early-ish because we needed to go to an "owners update" which is just commission talk for "we are going to try to sell you more timeshares". The marketing company will say anything to get you to go which we expected (it is part of the check-in process. they are the ones who give you your parking pass). We got two tickets for Cirque Du Soleil’s Mystere for $40 which was a steal for the trouble of talking to a friendly guy who knew we weren’t buying from the get-go (those tickets were normally about $80 a piece).

So we got back to our place and distractedly got ready to go to ti to watch Mystere. We both moved like sloths and getting anything done was difficult because we were in full vacation/relax mode. lol We finally made it and grabbed some dinner before the show at The Coffee Shop. It was not very good food, just your typical diner stuff and overpriced. But it was ok and we were good to go.

The show was nice and was on my list of shows to see in Vegas, but I was never in any rush to see it because it is the first Cirque show in Vegas and we started out at the top. Well, I guess because it is so old, the show doesn’t hold a candle to the other Cirque shows. I found it had a lot of places where it seemed like they added a lot of filler (dancers waving their arms around in animalistic poses and set changes that were not really necessary) in between the acts. There were two performances that had me seriously clapping though: hand to hand and the aerial cube. Very very good pieces.

So Thursday was our last day to ourselves before our friends made it over and we kept tossing around ideas as to what to do. We eventually settled on going to Fremont Street. We started out with the buffet at the Fremont (we had a 2 for 1 coupon that brought our dinner to less than $11 for the two of us). Then we walked around Fremont and watched three different light shows. You know, for something that is so lauded, you’d think they would come up with good content. The best one by miles was the Queen show which featured “We will rock you” and “We are the Champions”.

Friday is when everyone showed up. purple_equator was first, but after a quick stop to freshen up and drop off her stuff, she went hiking in Redrock. You should all poke her to post those photos and her story of boulder climbing in the ravine :D. Slowly, everyone else made it and we all got dressed up and went to the MGM. We made it just in time to see Ka and I am so happy to say that everyone loved it. I loved seeing it again and now I can’t wait to see O again. The photo above was taken by the people there and we all pitched in to buy it (I got to keep it because it was my birthday but I have to get everyone a copy). We were starving after the show and since it was pretty late, all the places to eat at the MGM seemed to be closed (aside from the McDonald’s and stuff). We went to the South Point casino which is next to our timeshare and discovered the graveyard specials! I had steak and eggs (with hashbrown and potatoes) for $5.95. It was awesome. What was not so awesome was getting peer pressured into trying out the disgusting hot mustard. That is when I took one of my favorites: ozo_head triptych.

Next day consisted of getting up late, having brunch at IHOP (where we were referred to as a “big six” for seating purposes. It was meant to be subtle and not heard by us but SO was. I thought it was hilarious, Heyzen was insulted. lmao), hitting up the pool, dinner at Chili’s, and then getting ready to go out and party on the strip. Except we were so late on getting on that that it wasn’t even officially my bday by the time we left for the strip. We did, however, have a good time at the pool and an even better time at Chili’s. I swear, everyone thought we were drunk already and we hadn’t even started drinking, that is how much laughing there was going on.

The highlight of the night happened around 4 am at Bill’s Gambling Saloon. purple_equator‘s bday was on the 28th, so the day after mine. When she saw a machine where she wanted to gamble, I took out $20 and told her to gamble away since it was for her bday. She insisted that we both play at the same time on the machine (it had to have an arm to pull, that is what pulled her to that machine). We alternated duties and had a good run for the $20 and eventually we got to the last 40 cents. We bet 2 credits (pennies) on 20 lines for the last bet AND WON $490!!! We were ECSTATIC and promptly cashed out. We split it evenly (although she made me keep the 40 cents since they are now lucky and should not be split (lol). We were on cloud nine even as we waited for Juan to go get the car from the opposite end of the strip. It was about 5:30 in the morning when we went back. We were so tired but even more hungry. Thank goodness we had awesome Chili’s leftovers! We heated those up, ate up and sat in the afterglow of a fun night. Then we got into a panic because OMG THE SUN WAS COMING UP! We all ran to our beds and went to sleep.

Last day was pretty straightforward. We ate brunch at the casino next door and Heyzen, Lynette and ozo_head packed and got ready to go home that day. purple_equator and I headed down to the pool for a while and slowly, everyone started to make their way to go home. purple_equator had a flight to catch at around 9pm so we had our last dinner at IHOP and took her to the airport.

Juan and I finished off the last day that we were there by relaxing, doing easy laundry in our room (there is a washer and dryer and free soap and no quarters needed, hell yeah I was gonna do laundry while I was there!). I wanted to take something with me from Vegas with my winnings and I decided I would replace my camera. It is on its way out already and with the winnings, I bought the new version of my Canon Elph. I LOVE IT. We bought it at Best Buy. After that, we headed to the casino next door once again to gamble for a bit and have our last dinner there. We did the graveyard special again and I had steak and eggs for six bucks.

It was totally awesome.

Whole set here.