Valentines in Vegas

Because nothing says romance like smoke-filled casinos and cheap buffets, Andy and I spent Valentine's in Vegas. Actually, Andy was presenting at a conference that week, so he asked me to come along. We left the kids with my mom at 8 pm MST on Sunday night and landed in Vegas at 11pm PST.

On the cab-ride to the hotel I knew it was going to be a great trip because the driver was a rocker looking chic who was driving fast and crazy while blaring Delilah's Valentine's Day special on her radio. There's nothing like soft rock love songs to get you excited. The strip, as always, was bright and lively with all kinds of characters.

When we got to our hotel, the Palazzo, it was the nicest of the Vegas hotels I've stayed in, so I was excited. Then we got to our room. And Oh. My. They had upgraded us to a suite, which I looked up on their website--it's a $650/night room. Everything was gold and marble and luxury. It had a bedroom, living/dining room, workout room, monster bathroom, powder room, and a guest bathroom. My phone camera sucks, but here are a few shots:


Andy finished up some work and I took a long bubble bath. Best trip ever already.

Day 2:

Today we both slept in after having slept through the entire night. It was magical. I worked out in our room while Andy did work, and then we went down to the Grand Lux Cafe. He had some kind of club and fries, and I had the best pasta carbonara ever. Seriously it was divine. He had to go to a few meetings so I worked on my thesis and dressed up for our night on the town.

We ate dinner at Wing Lei, an upscale Chinese place, and to be honest, it was a bizarre experience. We thought it was something else until we had already been seated, so we decided to stay. When we got there, there was a large round table of very drunk Asians and nobody else. The speakers switched off between Top 40 hits and what sounded like Chinese folk songs. It was eerily quiet and all of the staff stared at us while the other customers didn't speak, they just kept pouring wine and toasting each other with every swallow. I ordered pork moo shu because I've wanted to try it since Mulan, and Andy had some shrimp dish. They charged us $10 each for two sides of rice. It was good food, but not somewhere we'd want to go again. Mostly it felt awkward.

Then we went to our show for the evening: Le Reve (The Dream), a cirque du soleil type show that was an odd mix of acrobatics, synchronized swimming, dancing, warrior fighting, and strange things falling from the sky (like picnic tables, beds, people, cages, and such). Impossible to describe, but a lot of fun.

On our way back to the hotel we grabbed a hot chocolate and then watched a movie in our room. A very self-indulgent day, and a life I'm sure I could get used to.

Here are our two stellar photos of the day while we waited for Le Reve to start:

Day 3:

Andy left early for meetings and his presentation, so I worked out, did some homework, lounged around, and then met him for lunch. We went back to the Grand Lux and had soup and salad. Then he went back to work and I went back to the room for more thesis and some Castle and Project Runway. Andy came back and then we went out for our Valentine evening.

We ate at SushiSamba, and it was amazing. Seriously the best sushi ever. The only disappointment was that we ordered warm chocolate banana cake with rum flavored ice cream -- sounds good, right? It was a piece of cake the size of a golf ball, and you couldn't taste any chocolate or banana because the whole thing was doused in rum. It tasted like it should have been lit on fire ala flambe, but nope, just a bottle dumped on top. We'd go back in a heart-beat though, the dinner was fantastic.

Next we went to see Blue Man Group. It's a show that Andy has wanted to see forever. It's also a hard show to describe. It was funny and weird and tense. Tense because they did audience participation stuff, we were on the front row of the side section, and I so did not want to be picked. And then they did this thing where they dumped about a million yards of toilet paper from the ceiling and I had flashbacks to when I was younger and we would get toilet papered and my mom would put it all in a brown paper bag on the back of the toilet and we would be forced to use the whole bag before we could open a new roll. We were recyclers way before it was trendy. Anyway, the show had stressful moments for me. But it was also a lot of fun and I'm glad we went.

The view from our room:

Our self-pic before the Blue Man show:

After the show we walked about a mile down the strip through a maze of casinos, homeless people, prostitute solicitors, and vendors to see the fountains at the Bellagio. They run every 15 minutes, so while we waited we made friends with a cute couple from Switzerland.


Our Swiss friends took this shot:

We grabbed a cup of hot chocolate and walked down to the pirate show at Treasure Island where scantily dressed sirens and a ship full of sailors battled it out and then danced. Only in Vegas. By the time we got back to our room, it was late and I had blisters. I packed all my stuff and felt sad that I was leaving but excited to see the kiddos.

Day 4:

Up at 5am, kiss Andy goodbye, cab to the airport, fly home, drive to Grandma's, pick up the kids. I don't know what Andy did for the rest of his day, but mine involved a lot of this:

I bet mine was best.

It was a great trip. I'm grateful for my amazing husband.

Valentine's Day

For Valentine's Day we decided to actually celebrate since we didn't do anything last year. On Saturday night we ended up going to Thanksgiving Point's annual V-day dinner dance. It was in the Show Barn where everything was covered in flowers and balloons, complete with a fancy dinner, candy bar, a live band, and dancing.

We decided that if we do it again it would be more fun with some friends instead of having dinner with 3 other couples we didn't know. We were with an age 50+ crowd at our table. Two of the men talked the entire time, completely ignoring their wives. I tried to chit chat with one of the wives, but ultimately ditched her since I was there to spend time with Andy. After dinner we went to the dance floor to bust a move. The first half hour or so was pretty fun - the highlight being a Michael Jackson impersonator doing a fun and funky version of Billie Jean. He was hilarious as he danced his way through about every woman in the crowd.
After that the band continued to play a bunch of Earth , Wind, and Fire type songs that were too fast to dance slow and too slow to dance fast. We used up all of our good moves, and then decided we were done. Overall it was pretty fun but I think we'll try something different next year. As you can see in the photo above, Andy gave me roses and a beautiful pearl necklace. I'm not really a pearl kind of gal, but it's very pretty and classy without being the least bit Barbara Bush-ish. I gave him a couples massage appointment for next week and Brian Regan tickets. We had a wonderful day and I felt so lucky to spend it with my best friend and the love of my life.

For the PA grandparents we tried to make a fun card with hand prints. Calvin loved it and ended up painting about 10 pieces of paper. Autumn didn't want to cooperate, so her hearts ended up being prints of the sides of her fists balled up, but I still think it's cute. Hopefully our crafts will get better as the kids get older.

For the local family and my BFF Robyn we made cupcakes. Calvin loved the ladybugs and ate the tops off of 3 of them before discovering that the pink ones actually tasted better and ate several of those. At least he enjoyed the process.

Happy Birthday Andrew!

It's kind of a sad birthday. Andy is in Japan, and we are celebrating without him at his parent's house in PA. When I talked to him tonight, he said it was the worst birthday ever.

Andy, we miss you so much! We can't wait for you to be home so that we can celebrate another year of YOU. You are the best husband and father imaginable and we are sending you happy thoughts and kisses to the other side of the world. We hope you catch them. Happy Birthday, Sweetheart!

September 11th

Little patriotic boy.

Pioneer Day

July 24th is the day we Utahns celebrate the day that settlers arrived to set up shop out here in the wild west. It's always a big hurrah with fireworks, parades, rodeos, etc.. Today it was fun to celebrate in our new city, with all of its small town charm. Here are the highlights:

MR talked me into going to the parade. I know it makes me a bad person, but I hate parades. I hate all of the pushy people trying to get to the front of hoards of people, I hate the rude people that put up huge umbrellas so no one behind them can see, I hate the endless bands that play the same song over and over, I hate that it's inevitably hot and uncomfortable and boring.

This one was really fun though. There were no huge crowds camping out for three days as if a celebrity was going to walk by in the 4th of July Provo Parade, so we got a great spot on some nice ladies lawn; the whole thing was done, start to finish in 30 minutes; everyone walking in the parade was throwing candy and OtterPops, and they all threw it right at Calvin and Little Buddy; and I actually knew quite a few people in this parade. It was quaint and cute and fun. I've decided I love this small town stuff.

Me and the boy posing.

I just loved that some random 3 year old was riding his horse down main street and waving at people. Adorable.

Without any prompting our coaching, Calvin clapped for every float, fire truck, band, horse, and even dog.

Later that night the city put on a firework display that was really quite impressive. We learned last week that the rich man who lives up the hill, at whose ostentatious house we always stare, actually donated his time and thousands of dollars worth of fireworks towards this show. Apparently it's a hobby of his, so he puts it on with very little cost to the city, and it was really a fantastic show. The best part?

It was in the park right across from our house. We had front row seats - right on our back deck. All of our neighbors came by that day to tell us they were jealous. I couldn't tell of they were angling for an invitation, but instead we invited over the family members who weren't still sweltering and vomiting in the desert of Arizona. We made smores on the little deck fire, ate watermelon and ice cream, and had a fun time visiting in the privacy of our own space while watching hundreds of people gather across the street.

Everyone on our deck.

Jared and Alicia's family. I love the cute girls in their tiny lawn chairs.

Riah and Curtis. I think they're sleeping. (Umm, sorry about the angle guys, but it was the only one I took of you. You look great, I promise!)

MR and Little Buddy. He seemed to like these fireworks, unlike the 4th of July ones at home in Texas that freaked him out.

Us.

A very bad sampling of the magic. That's the line of our roof in the photo.

Andy and the boy. Calvin really seemed to enjoy them.

No one cares about this picture, but I found it amazing. The park was so packed, and cars were literally bumper to bumper on every street within blocks. This is in front of our house after the show. Our quiet little street was flooded with traffic that took a half hour to clear out. It's apparently a really big event around here.

After the fireworks, we went out on the driveway and did sparklers for the kids.

Aysha twirling.

Alicia and the magic baby that never cries.

Maria taking it very seriously.

A few weeks ago was my brother's birthday. Once he blew out the candles on the cake, C was going crazy so we relighted the candles and let him have a go of it. Ever since then he's been trying to blow everything out. Here's Calvin doing his best to blow out the sparklers.

MR and cute, tired Little Buddy.

Memorial Day

For Memorial Day we decided to try out our party pad and fire up the grill that we haven't touched since we moved in. We invited my family over, and had a great time. I always post too many pictures, I know. But here they are anyway...