Las Vegas

Josh had a work conference in Las Vegas in which spouses were supposed to attend. I was excited at the idea, until I found out that I was on my own during the day...what in the world was I supposed to do by MYSELF during the day in Las Vegas? Now I know a few of you are thinking about all of the wonderful things you would do by yourself...but I am a wimp and I just kept picturing myself getting mugged, or worse...like being drugged and waking up to find out that I had lost a kidney to the black market. (I was very traumatized by that story, has anyone else heard that one?) So needless to say I stressed about this trip.

We headed out on Sunday and got to Las Vegas only to stand in line for a taxi that was bout 30 minutes long...seriously? We finally go to the Luxor where we were staying for the conference and Josh was a bit late for his meetings. He dropped me off in the hotel room and headed out. I sat there for about 2 seconds worried about being alone and then realized that I could do whatever I wanted! I had a great ole time for the rest of the afternoon just relaxing, reading and editing Palmer's baptism pictures. Maybe crazy, but I love to edit pictures. By the time Josh got back to pick me up for dinner I was very rested and relaxed (especially since I had stayed up way too late the night before working on the boys Halloween crayons and getting things ready for my sister to babysit the kids).

That night we ate at Craft Steakhouse inside the MGM Grand Hotel. It was all sorts of wonderful. They did a "family style" dinner in which we could try just about everything! I have never had so many tastes of wonderful food! I didn't get any pictures as I didn't want to embarrass Josh. Just know it was awesome! It was so fun to get dressed up and meet all of these great people, and they were great.

The next day I had the whole day to myself. I realized that I had the whole day to myself. I slept in (I haven't slept past 8 in years...I think I got to 8:20, big day for me). I went and worked out for an hour! An hour people, I could never do that now! Then I got ready, read some, edited more pictures and decided that I could handle going out of my hotel into "Sin City" by myself....So I did. I sort of had to talk myself into it. I decided to go shopping at Planet Hollywood since that was one of my favorite places the last time I went to Vegas (for Miss America). It wasn't very close to our hotel and I got a tour of the entire strip...very interesting :)

I needed to buy some black heels for the outfit I was wearing for the conference dinner that night as I had forgotten mine and so I headed to my very favorite shoe store, Aldo. I really needed black, but instead I bought...
red... If I was in Salt Lake I would probably have bought black (and added to my huge collection of black heels...) but in Vegas I was feeling a little reckless and the red heels were bought. I LOVE them (as does Josh :)

I have to admit I had the best time, I shopped, walked around at my own leisure, ate soft pretzels and Gelato for lunch and just took the whole thing in going very SLOWLY (although I have to admit that I was so worried about being by myself on the way there I probably set some sort of record for how fast I walked there). I started feeling a lot better about being on my own, and had a great day! I headed back to the hotel when I was done and I didn't even speed walk! I just took it all in slowly. It was a big step for me. It started to drizzle a bit, which only added to the enjoyment of my walk :)

That night we were taken to Sirio for dinner. It was Italian food, which is my favorite and was wonderful. I tried truffles for the first time (Eastern hemisphere mushrooms, And they were SO GOOD! That night we went to see and Las Vegas show and ended up seeing "Penn and Teller," which was...okay...not my favorite. Once again, no pictures...sad.
The last day I was by myself for just a few hours in the morning. I decided to go to the Titanic Artifact Exhibit that was at the Luxor. I have seen this before when it came to Salt Lake, but it was so interesting I decided to go again. Of course you can't take pictures so these two are all I got.
This exhibit is always so sobering and sad to me. It was so interesting. I can't watch the movie "Titanic" because it traumatizes me. It is just such a tragedy, but the artifacts were very cool to see. It is amazing to think how far below the surface of the ocean they are and that people were actually able to get some of them back. It is definitely worth seeing.
After his conference finished up I was able to spend the rest of the day with Josh. Our flight that night didn't leave until late (but not late enough to go to another show) so we had plenty of time to be together. This is some of the Egyptian stuff in our hotel lobby.
We decided to go and check out some of the casinos that I haven't been in. This was my third time to Vegas and I really hadn't seen that much, so it was fun to get a little more of a tour.


I always love the Bellagio. It has the neatest stuff in it's gardens. This time they were decorated (splendidly I might add) for autumn. This was really the only part of Vegas that I saw that I thought I would like to show my kids. The tree talked and was so cool!


We then headed for Caesar's Palace. I love all of the details of these hotels.

This was a HUGE H&M. It was a really fun store!
Then we met Kenna, one of my favorite mission companions for lunch. She lives a bit outside Las Vegas. She was my MTC companion and then later we served together at University of Idaho/Washington State University as campus missionaries (they are only 7 miles apart). I had so much fun with her on my mission and she was just the same awesome girl now. We met at the Cheesecake Factory and caught up on each other's lives. I haven't really seen her for about 10 years, so it was so fun!

Oh the Lemon Raspberry cheesecake was so good! I felt a little snap happy with my camera, probably due to all of those good pictures I missed out on the days before :)
This guy reminded me of the people we saw in England in Covenant Gardens. They are all painted and dressed up and if you give them money they usually do something. I gave Josh some money to go and put in his little jar and he insisted we get a picture with him. It actually was pretty embarrassing because there was a huge crowd around him waiting to see if he would move (they stand really still and a lot of them don't seem to even blink!)

We did a bit more shopping here...really fun I must say ;)
We headed to the Venice which had been one of my favorite Hotels when Josh and I were in Vegas for Mrs. United States. Josh surprised me after the pageant was over with a huge date night. He took me to dinner at an amazing Italian Restaurant called Zeffirino in the Venetian and then took me to "Phantom of the Opera." It was such a lovely night.
We saw this waterfall that I thought we could put side by side with the last picture we took here.

Whoops! I thought Josh has been in it...oh well, now we have one with him in it :)

Our last thing we did for the night was to go and check out Serendipity. One of my favorite movies is "One Fine day" and I have always wanted to go back to New York and try Serendipity for their frozen hot chocolate (which they are eat in the movie). Imagine my delight when I saw they had one in Las Vegas!
It was a definite must (even though we were running pretty short on time)
I thought the whole place was decorate so cute!

And this stuff was pretty awesome.
We had to most wonderful time together and I have been feeling so spoiled with all of the trips we have been able to go on lately. I was actually ready to go back to real life after this was over, but we have some great memories of this place.