Monday, December 22, 2008

Viva Las Vegas

Here are some photos from our recent trip to Vegas. As usual, we were packing at the last minute and running out the door to the airport. We ended up having to stay and extra day so that Jamie could schedule in a second job, but that just gave us a chance to do a few more things. We decided to see as many shows as we could this visit as well as eat & drink, eat & drink and eat & drink! Surprisingly I only took around 200 pictures...I won't put them all on here ( but you can view some of them at My Picasa Pix.

DAY 1 - Wednesday
We made it to Vegas early enough to get tickets to Bally's Steakhouse for dinner (very good food!) and then to a Comedy Improv (funny).
Mt. Hood out the plane window
the (huge) City Center being built - from our room @ MGM

New York-New York Hotel

Jamie's favorite place in Vegas - Fat Tuesday

my favorite place in Vegas - Sin City (the ONLY microbrew)

DAY 2 - Thursday
Jamie had a meeting most of the morning and into the afternoon. I did some shopping, reading and had lunch at The Rainforest Cafe - loved it there! I was sitting so close to the waterfall that I was getting wet.

We went to a magic show in the afternoon - we were told the only really good "magic" was David Copperfield and he had just taken a break. They were right...Dirk Arthur had some great animals in his show but other than that it was a bit boring. I wanted to see Chris Angel, but then we found out that he didn't really do any magic - it was a Cirque du Soleil show. (I think we opted for the wrong magic show, but we saved money!)

When we went back to the room to change, I asked Jamie to get my jeans and sweaters out of his suitcase. (I had the smaller of the 2 suitcases, so he was taking some of my clothes.) Well...he says "What jeans and sweaters?" - "The ones I put on the bed by your suitcase and asked you to bring for me." - "Oh" he says "I didn't know you meant all of those, I just grabbed your dress clothes." Oh great!?! So...I'm glad that it wasn't all that cold (except for one night) but I only had my vest to wear and one pair of jeans. Guess I'll double check the suitcases next time!

That night we went to see Carrot Top - very funny! I had seen him about 10yrs ago and was thinking it would be the same jokes...it ended up being a great show!


DAY 3 - Friday
We decided to have lunch at the 'best buffet' in Vegas - the Bellagio Hotel. Go there if you visit Vegas (the buffet at the MGM was more money and NOT good). Then we did some walking around.
lions at the MGM - got his tongue sticking out

Jamie being funny at a Siegfried & Roy statue

outside The Palazzo Hotel

We had dinner at Emeril's - again, GREAT food! That was the one place that I wanted to go. We went to see a variety show - "V" - another good/funny show. There was a comedian who did a variety of other acts, acrobats, TV Guy and a dancer.
Day 4 - Saturday
We did some shopping and then hung out for a while at Sin City Brewery. We had dinner at The Rainforest Cafe (it was in the MGM) and then went to see Jersey Boys. Great show! It was a musical performance based on the life of Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons. The singing and music was very good.

Day 5 - Sunday
We picked up our Smart Car and drove around a bit. Then we went to watch football (and the Ravens lose by a lousy call.)


We had another wonderful dinner at The Range Steakhouse at Harrah's and then went to see a show called Dirty Hypnosis. Funny, but we still don't believe it all. Then we drove to Old Town to watch the light show in the Freemont Street Mall. Apparently, $17 million was spent into upgrading this light show in 2004. (WOW...that's a lot of money for lights! But, it is Vegas...) Here is a short video of the lights we saw at midnight, they show every hour from 6pm to midnight.

Jamie had to be at a job site at 2am - things weren't ready so he came back to the hotel to sleep for a while and then headed back out until around 9am. He then had to leave so that we could pack up and get ready to go home. I had to have Jason pick up Makena on Monday morning because there wasn't any school due to the weather - she got to spend the day playing with Kylah & Kallie (when she wasn't napping).

We were one of the few flights that was leaving approximately on time. The weather was getting worse everywhere (it was raining all morning in Vegas...and snowing everywhere else). The turbulence was a little rough coming in to Portland, but much better than when we had to fly to Maryland during a hurricane! This picture is of us just coming into Portland - look at all that pretty snow!

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