What happens in Vegas...gets written about on the blog.

Brett and I were so lucky to be able to get away for a weekend and go to Vegas.  We are blessed to be at a point in our lives where we have the flexibility and the means to take trips like this.  We are trying to take full advantage of it because we know it won't last. The occasion for this trip was our anniversary.  What a great excuse to take some time off work and go have some fun!  As is my nature, I took lots of photos to document the trip.  Brett and I joke that if i don't take a picture of it, I won't remember it.  Settle in for a lost post, full of picture and fun memories.  I had lots of time while Brett was at work all day to get this all done in one shot.

The Drive Down

The weather was perfect for a Road trip. 

 Brett and I were both in a great mood on the way down (not so much on the way back, for reasons that will be explained later).  Not even the 6 hour car ride could dampen our excitement to get to Vegas.  We often take road trips up north but had yet to travel south together, so we enjoyed the change of scenery.  Neither of us like to stop while we drive.  One quick stop for food and that is all.  That means we get places nice and fast, but it also means most of the pictures were taken out the window of a moving car.  Please ignore the reflections from the window in a few of the pics. 

Ready to hit the road again after some yummy Cafe Rio in Cedar City

We loved as the rocks started to turn more and more red

The beautiful red mountain

The Temple in St George, hard to get a good shot from the car, but it looked amazing all white and magnificent against the red rock

Made it to Arizona! 

Seeing the rock up close as we drove through the canyons

Check out that MUDDY river

Quoting Brett "its like God came down and cut the mountain with a machete"

Sorry its blurry, but we made it into Nevada!

Vegas Day 1

We spent Friday and Saturday night with a great friend of mine, Brittany, and her husband Rob.  They moved to Vegas about a year ago and we haven't seen them, or their adorable baby girl, since they left.  It was so much fun to be able to catch up with them and play with Kylie.  It was also super nice to have tour guides to show us around.  We were able to go out on the town Friday night with Brit and Rob while Kylie slept the night at grandma's house. We ate dinner, walked the strip, played at ESPN zone and saw the Bellagio Fountain show. 

Brit took us to the Rainforest Cafe for dinner.  It was an neat restaurant with a fun atmosphere and good food.  It was decorated like a rainforest, complete with regular thunderstorms!

Just chillin' with the Gorilla

At the MGM hotel we saw the large lion statue....

.... and a few actual lions! 

We ventured over to the M&M world where Brett was a great sport and posed with Mr Red for me

 We spent quite a bit of time at the ESPN zone where we played over sized arcade games.

Brett and Rob shooting some hoops

Kirsten getting ready to bowl with a mini bowling ball

Brett dominating the football game

Kirsten threw a couple, but it was harder than it looked!

Rob boxing

Some target practice

Brit and Rob taking a shot (get it, a shot)

 After playing around we walked down the strip for a while, a long while.  It was worth it though!

We got to see lots of pretty lights

We ended up at the Bellagio hotel to see a few of their fountain water/music/light shows

Our amazing tour guides showing us where to go

We watched two shows/songs.  Viva Las Vegas, and God Bless the USA.  Both were great!

With the flash on the camera, the water almost looks like it is on fire! 

After the show we walked all the way back to our cars.  We stopped and ate some frozen yogurt (always delicious) and then went home and crashed.  It was a great first day!  

Vegas Day 2

All buckled in and ready to go

Saturday was a little bit more relaxed.  We slept in, ate a great breakfast that Rob made for us, and then packed everyone in the car and headed back down to the Strip.  This time Kylie got to come play with us!  Our first stop was the Gold and Silver Pawn Shop.  You may think this is an interesting "tourist" choice, but Brett and I love watching the History Channel show Pawn Stars, and had to take the chance to visit the store the show is based on.  Unfortunately, since it was a Saturday none of the main people were working. 

waiting in line to get into the pawn store

With a name like Chumlee, how can you not like the guy?

Brett checking out all the old guns, including a sweet antique pistol for $5,500

A Babe Ruth Autographed baseball priced at $13,000

A stack of sports championship rings

 After the Pawn Shop, we headed to Cesar's Palace to get some shopping in.  Brit took us (read: me) to the largest H&M store, it was 3 floors!  I did some damage there before heading home. 

At the fountain/mural in Cesar's Palace

We took a break at the giant fish tank.  We waited for the "feeding time" but it didn't happen

Kylie was such a trooper! 

 We headed back to the house so Kylie (read: all of us) could take a nap and rest up for a while.  Later in the afternoon we headed to Rob's parent's house to relax in their Spa/giant hot tub.  The weather turned kinda windy, but it was still fun to sit around and chat for a while.  After we were fully turned into prunes we grabbed some dinner and then spent the night in playing on Brit and Rob's Kinect. Neither Brett nor I had played the Kinect before and we had fun trying to run fast, bowl, box, and play table tennis.

Our stay at the Luxor
On Sunday we went to church with Brittany and Rob and then packed up and said our goodbyes.  We spent Sunday and Monday night at a hotel on the Strip. We took a detour on our way to see the Vegas Temple.  The ground were very pretty and it is always fun to see how each temple take on the style of the location.  We spent quite some time watching some Hummingbirds in the trees but couldn't quite get a picture of them. 

We decided Palm trees can be very pretty is properly groomed, if not they can be very ugly.

Contemplating life

I love to see the Temple! 

 After the temple we ventured back to the strip....talk about a drastic change!

We stayed at the Luxor hotel on the Strip, aka Las Vegas Blvd. 

The Luxor is the classic Pyramid shaped hotel with a Egyptian type theme

In the Egyptian themed lobby

Our room complete with slanted "pyramid" walls

 When we left Brittany's house I was starting to feel sick.  By the time we got checked into the hotel all I could do was lay weakly on the bed.  I'll spare you the details but within a few hours I had lost my lunch and could barely move.  Brett was a sweetheart and went and got me extremely overpriced medicine for dinner.  We spent the night in the hotel; me sleeping and Brett watching TV.  Now don't start thinking I'm pregnant ... unless pregnancy sickness is contagious.  By the morning Brett was plagued with similar symptoms.  We had the flu.  :(  Brett was on a 12 hour delay from my symptoms which meant for a long 2 days. Luckily we had splurged to get the Spa room, the warm jets felt great on our sore achy muscles.  Our room was an odd shape, but quite spacious.  It had a slanted wall on one side due to being part of a pyramid.  It was fun though to have a unique room!

We studied the hieroglyphics while we were stuck in the room

 The only plan we had for our stay was to see a Variety Show at Planet Hollywood on Monday night.  I was feeling better enough by that time to be getting cabin fever and Brett is a trooper and a good sport and agreed to go out with me to the show (although he was still in the throws of it).  The show was actually pretty good and surprising clean but funny.  It was a variety show with a juggler/comedian as a host and different acts such as an impersonator, acrobats that flew around the room, and different comedy acts.  I'm glad we put the effort in to go see the show! Although the quick trip out sucked all our energy so we went straight back to the room and crashed. 

Tuesday morning we decided to try our stomachs at the breakfast buffet.  We hadn't eaten anything substantial (a few ritz and saltines) since Sunday.  At least we saved lots of money on vegas priced food.  Although we weren't feeling great, we enjoyed the buffet and eating food.  On our way back to our room we had to walk through the casino and decided to put a dollar into a slot machine.  We pushed the button and WON!  We doubled our money!  I didn't have our camera and wanted pictures so I made Brett cash out and walk with me back to our hotel room. 

Doubling our money with one easy button

 After we got the camera we headed back down to the casino to play with our 2 dollars. 

Brett at the machine

Rubbing it for good luck

 We played a few different penny and quarter machines.  We lost some and won some but never made it past our $2 mark.  At the end of the day (about 10 minutes) we had lost all our money. 

We had to cash out from the quarter machine when we only had 6 cents left

 Luckily we limited ourselves and we only lost a dollar, not our life savings!  On our way out I had to grab a picture of the pool.  I was really looking forward to spending hours soaking up the sun in Vegas but alas, that was not in our cards. 

Sunny pool at the Luxor

Leaving our Luxor Vacation, feeling a little cheated but glad to still have each other

 Our Trip Back

The trip back was mostly uneventful.  We didn't even stop to get food, we weren't hungry and just wanted to get home.  6 long hours in the car made our bodies tired and our muscles ache.  We did get to watch our odometer change to 7000 miles. We sure do add miles up fast on our little Corolla.  After taking the picture I realized we were going (almost) 70 MPH and it was 70* outside.  Maybe we should have headed back to Vegas with out lucky number 7! 

Lucky number 7

Provo welcomed us back with an abundance of rain and clouds. 

Not quite the sunny Vegas weather we left, but it felt good to be home.  Our 2nd Anniversary trip sure was one to remember.  Overall we had lots of fun with Brittany and Rob and were able to see lots of cool things in Vegas.  I'd be lying if I didn't admit that when I was tired and sick I felt very cheated and mad that we got sick and felt like it ruined our anniversary weekend.  Luckily for me, I have an awesome husband who helped me remember all the good things we did get to do and the fun memories we made.  After-all, it was only a few days out of 2 full years (and counting!) of a wonderful marriage!