Missing Las Vegas already…

Vegas, what can I say other than “What happens in Vegas, Stays in Vegas.” No actually nothing that exciting happened so I will share all our juicy trip details with you.

First off let me say we only went to Las Vegas now because my husband was lucky enough to get sent here for a conference, which means his part of the trip was paid for. Then somehow I won 2 free airline tickets via American Airlines so that took care of me and I was nice enough to take my brother with my extra ticket. Sidetrack about the airline ticket contest: I do not even remember entering the contest. This lady called me three times on my cell phone and finally I called her back and she explained I won.

I of course didn’t believe her and thought she was going to sell me a time-share or something, but she didn’t and 2 days later via FedEx, I received the airline vouchers. I called American Airlines and these vouchers were legit, I just had to pay the taxes and fees on each ticket and of course I had a limited selection of travel times. It worked out though because we were able to get a close time to my husband departing Chicago and on the way home we have the same plane. So moral of the story: Sometimes winning a contest can really mean you won a legit contest!

Okay, so anyways back to our trip. Well if any of you know O’Hare airport then you know it is crazy. Our plane was delayed leaving which means we missed our connecting flight from Texas to Las Vegas, so we had to had 2.5 hours for the next plane which of course was delayed. So finally at 10 PM we made it to our hotel and we basically walked around all night.

Tuesday, since my husband was in a conference most of Tuesday, my brother and I caught a bus and went to the outlet mall. It was a quick trip and nice to do something other than walk the Strip. Then we wandered back and at night we went over to Freemont Street, which is only a few miles down from the Strip. Now Freemont Street is like a poorer version of the Las Vegas Strip, but it is still nice and way more casual and fun. Everyone there was just partying and enjoying themselves. They also have a huge metal canopy across all the casinos and they have an awesome light show, we caught the Kiss light show, which made my husband happy since he is a Kiss fan.

So onto Wednesday, again my husband had a conference during part of the day so we were able to go to Paris for their buffet (my favorite!) and then we wandered around again. Wednesday night we walked all the way down to Treasure Island (we were staying at MGM which is at the very end of the Strip!) to see their outside free show, Sirens of TI. Now this is the third year we have tried to see the show and something always goes wrong, this time they had sound technical difficulties so the show was postponed. It was actually a sexy pirate show and the girls were wearing basically underwear and dancing around so I didn’t mind not watching the end of the show. Then for dinner we hit the Tropicana for their lobster dinner and I have to say I was impressed. Tropicana has a very nice restaurant and cheap! Definitely a must for our next visit here. Then to end the night, we saw Ka, from Cirque de Soleil. It was a great show with awesome effects, but the music was like a lullaby and kept putting me and my brother to sleep! Next time I think I want to see a more upbeat Cirque de Soleil show, which I assume there is a more upbeat one.

Thursday is our last day and I am actually sitting in our hotel room waiting for my husband to wake up and get moving. I am so Internet deprived as my only connection to the Internet was checking my email on my husband’s iPhone. I can’t go web surfing as the screen is too small and drives me crazy. But anyways, so we leave Las Vegas at 3:30 PM and arrive in Chicago at 10:50 PM. Hopefully everything goes smooth and I get to see my babies soon! They were actually staying at my moms house, since there are so many people there to help – my 11 yr. old sister, 14 yr. old brother, and 21 yr. old brother and then my mom and dad.

So basically we did lots of walking and then more walking. I am not a big gambler, I think I played a few hundred and that was it. I wish I would have had time to go swimming but I forget my bathing suit and my brother is not a swimmer so I would have had to go by myself during the day so I opted not to swim. I needed the walking exercise anyways. So we are going home as losers, but it was a great trip and we needed a break. It was also nice that two of our friends met us out here so there were five of us total and we had an awesome trip!