I love to travel, I mean love to travel! I guess moving every two or so years as a kid will do that to you. So for Christmas Mike surprised me with a long weekend getaway to Vegas, without the kids! We don’t go away without the kids, like almost never, so this was a real treat. He had arranged everything including show tickets, who was watching the kids and even a dog sitter! 
Our flight was bright and early Friday morning, so Judy had spent the night so she could get up with the kids. Mike knows I hate taxi’s and I was both surprised and excited to see a town car pull up to take us to the airport. Once through security we mad a dash for our morning coffee and then boarded the plane.
We are both addicted to our own brand, can you guess who’s is who’s?
The flight seemed quick despite it’s actual length and was really cool when we flew over the Grand Canyon.
Having never been to Vegas, I was shocked to see slot machines at the airport.
In typical us fashion our day was packed with fun things we wanted to see and do. I was so excited it was not even funny. I had never been to Vegas before and all I can say is WOW! They do everything BIG! We stayed at Caesar’s Palace, which was amazing, and was pleasantly surprised that our room was ready even though it was only 9am. So we unpacked and headed out. We took a never ending walk to the other end of the strip to the Luxor to walk though the Titanic Exhibit.
It was well worth the walk, as the exhibit was awesome and the Titanic has special meaning to us ( I will spare you the story), but we were smart and took a taxi back. We tried to lay down for a bit, but I was too zoomed up to really rest so we got up, dressed and headed out for the night.
We headed next door to the Bellagio and enjoyed walking around.
It was again, amazing, which I was quickly learning is what most of Vegas is like, completely over the top in almost every way. I loved the sparkly horse in their lobby.
They had beautiful gardens decorated for the Chinese New Year.
The walk back to the hotel had an amazing view of the Paris hotel
I wanted to see the Bellagio fountain show at night so we stopped on our way back. It’s very cool. We caught more bits and pieces of it throughout the weekend and it was always different, and always amazing.
After dropping our coats off in the room, we headed to dinner. In the lobby we discovered Caesar was there and I mean come on, how could I pass up the picture?
Then I saw the “Lucky” statue and again Mike humored me and took another picture.
We finally made it to dinner at Bobby Flay’s Mesa Grill, and let me tell you, it was so yummy! It was the first of many great meals, but by far the lobster taco appetizer was the best thing we ate that night. They are tied for best thing we ate in Vegas, they were AWESOME!
And as if we had not been up nearly long enough (we were going on 20 hours) We hit the night club! What a fun experience! Sadly we had never been to this type of nightclub, and it was so fun!
After being awake for 23 hours straight, we called it a night!
The next few days were much more laid back with a more go with the flow feeling. Mike played in a few poker tournaments, I worked out, enjoyed the spa, we did lots and lots of walking around and shopping. OMG the shopping in Vegas is out of this world! We also ate lots of great food. We enjoyed a great antipasto with wine flights at La Cave over in the Wynn Hotel.
Talk about another beautiful hotel. They too were decorated for the Chinese New Year.
I was in love with the giant flower balls! They were in all different colors around the dragon, and just beautiful!
As luck would have it our Sister-in-Law to be, Kelly was also in Vegas that weekend, and we met her for a quick drink before heading to see Celine Dion. I felt a little silly as we were pretty decked out sitting at this hotel bar, but what ever, it’s Vegas and you quickly learn, anything goes.
The show was absolutely amazing! I mean Amazing! Even if you are not a huge Celine Dion fan, it is worth seeing as it was that great!
The show ended up running late, and we had dinner reservations at Gordon Ramsey’s Steakhouse so we literally ran and I do mean ran to the Paris hotel to make our reservation. Here I am in heels and a long dress running up and down escalators, stairs, running across bridges and though the hotel lobby, and thank goodness despite being 10 min late we were able to sit down and enjoy the most incredible meal.
We had seats facing the kitchen and enjoyed watching them make and prep everything. Our meal started with appetizers and cocktails.
Followed by Dinner
And yes, even dessert! This and the Tacos are tied for the best things we ate in Vegas.
It was Sticky Toffee Pudding. A sweet pudding cake with brown sugar toffee that you drizzle on accompanied by
brown butter ice cream.
OMG we were only going to taste it, but ended up devouring it!
And well, we are at Gordon Ramsey’s Steakhouse, so I had to order some tea. We ended up being the last ones in the dining room:)
We waddled our way back to hotel and crashed!
The next day was more shopping and sight seeing. The different hotels are all decked out and just beautiful to walk though.
Paris in the day light.
This is one of the fountains in the Gallery, or amazing Mall, that is part of Cesar’s Palace.
This is the hallway, definitely not your typical mall.
Mike picked himself up a new pair of snazzy sunglasses.
And he begrudgingly stood in front of this super cool race car in one of the malls.
I thought the kids would love these whirlpool/tornado displays they had.
Being the Gordon Ramsey Fans that we are, we also hit his new Burger Place for lunch.
Minus a rocky start with our service, everything was great, especially the jalapeno poppers! Sadly I wasn’t able to get a picture of them.
I am a Sweet Potato Fry fanatic, and let me tell you, theirs were great!
Mike said his Burger was awesome!
It was an incredible trip which ended on a high note of us winning a good amount of money on the Raven’s game, and enjoying a classic Vegas Showgirl’s show. It took a week for me to recover sleep wise as our days were long and exciting, but what a great weekend!
Thanks everyone who helped out with the kids, dogs, house, etc.. And to Mike, I love ya! Thanks for 15 years of fun, laughter, and too many adventures to count. My what a long way we have come from the Roadway Inn!
