Utah/Vegas Vacation!

So I know we took this trip almost a MONTH ago... however, I just got the 5 pictures I took developed lol, and decided to post a little about our trip to Vegas... I'll start with the trip to Utah, though...

We flew in to Utah on Saturday after going to my brother's graduation from boot camp in San Antonio. I had stayed up the whole night before talking to Valerie and catching up (which I will cherish forever because I love my sister more than anything!). When we got to Utah, we went straight to our lodgings at the Sky Lodge ... which were AWESOME!!! I won't brag too much about them, but I have to say they were above and beyond any accommadations I have ever experienced. Then, we went to Jeff's paternal grandmother's house. It was ok, I just sat around and talked to his aunt for a while and then we left, short and sweet. After that we went to Jeff's Mom's family reunion where I made a fool of myself by falling asleep at the table because I'd only gotten 2 hours of sleep the night before. Other than that it was fun, we played bingo and exchanged gifts with Jeff's mom's family, she has 11 siblings I believe. So it was a HUGE party. I won a Monopoly game, and then our family gift was Cranium and this CSI game. After the party, we went back to our awesome Sky Lounge and brought one of Jeff's best highschool friends, Mathew, and his wife with us. We stayed up even later and played games until we could no longer put sentences together. I think we played a card game, but honestly I was so tired I can't remember.

Finally we went to sleep, and I did not awaken from my sleep-deprived coma until the next day around noonish. We all decided to go look at the shops around Park City, and enjoyed ourselves very much. One of the most hilarious discoveries we found was in a fur shop. It was, brace yourselves, a FUR JOCK STRAP!!!!! As you can barely see, it also has a butt flap tail! And it was relatively cheap ($19.99)! AHAHA... almost bought it but couldn't bring myself to spend the money on a gag gift. The rest of the trip is kind of a blur we just went and visited people in Jeff's family and looked at shops and watched tv and got in our hot tub on the balcony... just random stuff. Although we did discover this one late night show called "bounty hunters" and it was awesome! Then Jeff's parents left us to fend for ourselves on our last day in Utah. So we took their rented Escalade after we dropped them at the airport, and we rolled out like high ballas! Jeff and I were staying at his friend Matt's house that night, but had nowhere to go that day, so we decided to go to the mall. We shopped around there for what felt like eternity, until I finally had the master plan to call up some of MY homies, whom I hadn't been able to see at all the whole trip, and get together. So I called up Melissa and thank goodness she answered her phone, and was free!

So we rolled over to Melissa's house, big pimpin in our escalade lol, and it was SO GREAT to see my girl! I love her! We laughed and recounted numerous stories of our devious ways as younger versions of ourselves, caught up on life, and just had a good time chatting. Then we took the Escalade on another trip to pick up her husband, Theron, and he joined in our fun and conversation. I have to say, this evening was probably the highlight of my trip for me. It was so great to see Melissa and Theron, to see that they were doing well and happy, and realize how much fun we could have together just sitting and talking. I wish we lived closer, because I could definately see Jeff and I hanging out with Melissa and Theron on a regular basis. Soon, Ali called and let us know she was in SLC, so we all jumped in the escalade and bling blinged our way (sorry I can't help myself when I talk about the escalade) over to The Pie. The Pie has many memories for us, especially Ali and me... so that was the obvious choice for dinner. I ran in and found Ali, and her new hubby Jed, and sat down and caught up. Ali looks great, so does Jed, they still have that newlywed glow about them! It was a really fun night having Melissa and Ali with me, like old times, only our lives RADICALLY different. We laughed and talked about future plans and old times and it just made me feel really happy to see everyone I have missed so much!

It makes me contemplate how radically different my life is now, and it's not a bad thing, but I do miss my time with the girls just being free and carefree, but I was also careless and somewhat selfish. So I am glad we have all matured and moved on the way we are meant to move on with our lives. It makes me proud of my friends and their accomplishments! And also mine!

******************************

So the next day we set off for Las Vegas!!!! It was so crazy, we got stranded in the air because it was SNOWING, which is unheard of! When we finally landed, we realized that cheap room we got was not actually on the strip but in a casino south of the strip. It was ok, though because our room was actually really nice, considering we paid less than what it normally costs to stay at Motel 6, and got a room worth at LEAST $100/night. Probably more, I'm not good at knowing what a hotel room is worth. So we got to our hotel and realized Taxi's are still ridiculous. We put our stuff away and decided to play one dollar each at a slot machine in our hotel. On our first try, I lost a dollar and Jeff won $25. So we decided we'd use that $25 and play one dollar at every casino we went to on the strip. Mainly we played penny slots, though. So we played a few more dollars and I ended up winning $20 more dollars on top of Jeff's now $20. So we had $40 to kill the next day. After that we went and got dinner and went to bed cause it was late and we were tired.

The next day we were dropped off at one of the first Casinos on the strip and started trekking. Unfortunately it was awefully cold outside so we weren't as keen on walking the strip as I usually am. We took the inside tunnels as often as possible. We went to the M&M factory, looked inside some of my favorite Casinos at the shops (like the Venetian, Paris, etc) and Jeff repeatedly turned down my pleas to buy things lol. Near the M&M factory we found a half-price ticket place that sells last minute seats to shows. We got tickets to Cirque du Soleil's KA, and wen't that evening. It was AMAZING!!! I LOVED every minute of that show! Jeff was going nuts about the architecture, and the moving stage, which was incredibly impressive, I loved the special effects and the acrobatics of the whole thing! AWESOME show... I recommend it to everyone who goes to Vegas! I'd say it was the highlight of our trip.

A few days into it, we were ready to go, and it was a great trip, but Vegas was kind of dead due to the economy. So... all in all, we had the most fun of the trip with friends in Utah, and at the Cirque du Soleil. I also very much enjoyed my time with Jeff, I love him so much, he's my boy and I had fun on our second alone vacation ever!

Here we are playing the big slot machine...

Most of the photos we got were at the M&M factory...

This was one of our favorite GAUDY stores... holy crap... look at my throne!

******************FIN*******************