Part 2 - the fun details of Vegas.
Dave and I needed this trip, I knew we needed some us time. Time to date, time to talk uninterrupted, time to be us and time to just hold hands with no one else trying to hold our hands. Its been such a crazy year, and its been three years since we had a kidless night. We go away every anniversary for a night or two, nothing fancy but we made it a goal. Last year we celebrated by check out of the hospital with a chubby baby, and this year we celebrated by moving. We had breifly been talking about going on a trip, but I kept feeling like we shouldn't spend the money. There was so many other ways we could spend the money. But I couldn't stop checking Allegiant for deals - and then I found one! $49 seat sale for Vegas, at this point I didn't even really care where we were going. Done deal! Dave and I just wanted something relaxing and nothing too busy, we didn't want to get home and be exhausted. So here's our very low key, awesomely fun trip!
We left the kids with Daves parents (THANK YOU!!) and Dave's sister Mary Lou had them during the day when Dave's parents had to work (THANKS!). We feel so blessed to have been able to leave our kids behind knowing they were in good hands. And that family would take time out of their busy schedule to watch them. I made myself try not to bawl as we left them, and I did pretty good. Dave was proud of me!
We were flying out of Kalispell and so we took Logans pass on the way down. We happened to pick an extremely busy Sunday to go but it was still really fun! There was a vintage car rally going on, so Dave enjoyed seeing all the old cars.
Our flight got delayed - we we're so tired and hungry! There was a huge storm in Vegas.
We ended up getting to Vegas at 1:30am and didn't get into our hotel room until 3:30am.
We stayed at the Stratosphere - this is the tower. If I remember correctly it's 109 floors high. Because I made a chatbook with all our pictures I won't post all 300 I took, and we didn't take the big camera so all are iPhone quality.
My first stop we had to go to was Carlos bakery - CAKE BOSS! Now I was super excited for this, this just opened up this summer and it's in The Ventetian. I had high expectations of this, I've watched all the seasons of Cake Boss and Next Great Baker. I thought this place was gonna be huge, it was so small. I expected expensive, and it hit that well. The food was great but I was disappointed in how small the shop was. Still glad we went and saw it tho!
This is the actual bakery part, it's cool to see but again so small and it was really dark in there. Hard to take a decent picture through the glass.
It poured our whole first day but we still walked and explored lots. It felt strange for me not to be constantly looking for two little people around me. But sooo nice to get to hold hands all the time.
The Hershey store inside New York New York.
The M&M store, I think it was inside Harrahs or right next to it. All the stores start to blend together. It's 4 floors high. And right next to a massive Ross store!
We each got $10 for slots at Excalibur. I won $20! Big spenders! We headed back to the hotel after that, we we're soaked and ready for dry clothes!
With our hotel stay we got free admission to the Stratosphere tower, we picked an awesome time to miss the giant line ups! But also our view was pretty foggy! Still neat to look right down the strip.
Tuesday was hot and sunny so we decided to make it pool day and do that night on the strip. There was a Denny's and IHOP right next door to us. Also the Elvis wedding chapel!
Didn't take any pictures at the pool but it was so nice on a 32 degree day!
Dave really wanted Chiptoles for supper! And then we headed down to Mandalay bay to see the aquarium. It's at the complete opposite end of the strip from our hotel. So we shuttled and walked lots that night.
My pictures aren't awesome there since it was so dark. Dave was brave enough to pet the sting rays, I preferred not too.
There was tons of cool sharks!
Then we explored the strip at night. There was tons of free entertainment, some we thought we're awesome and others we would have loved to skip! There was a big group of guys break dancing and singing, they had so much charisma they got the whole crowd going. We also saw a guy doing sorry paint art, it was amazing.
Then we saw the Bellagio fountains, couples getting married right on the street, the Mirage volcano and lots of crazy people.
I got a really good video of the Volcano going off!
Wednesday we went first thing in the morning to pick up our tickets for the Tournamentof Kings at Excalibur. And explored the hotels and stores more. Then we headed to go check out the High Roller - at the Linq.
It's the tallest observatory wheel in the world right now, 560sq feet high. It's a 30 minute ride, it doesn't stop so you have to get on/off quickly. That part I didn't like, but loved the view!
Found the Bellagio again to watch the fountains during the day, and they are way better during the day then at night.
Hotel Paris is across from the Bellagio.
We then headed to our show at Exacalibur. It was way better then I expected, didn't love the barbarian style meal. It the food tasted good. They did an awesome show, the acting was great and the pyrotechnics was awesome!
When we headed back to our hotel, our shuttle took forever to get back. And we're so grateful it did, when we get back just a few minutes before we walked through the door a truck went through the front doors. Supposedly (hear say from everyone gawking in the hotel) a guy was chasing someone and drove through the hotel and crashed into the stair rails. Then chased down the guy with a gun, he supposedly didn't get far before security had him arrested. Had we been walking through those doors a few minutes earlier who knows what would have happened!
Thursday was time to head home.
We stayed over night in Kalispell, and I'm glad we did. I wanted to see my babies so badly but Dave was coming down with something and had a fever. So it was nice for us it just get some rest before more traveling. And Friday turned out to be a really long day too -
We went to go back through Logan's pass, only to find it was closed. Pretty detour! We kind of guessed on how to get back home, we eventually made it. But took a super long skinny winding road home, I was tense the entire time and poor Dave was sweating or freezing.
It was so cold and foggy. It blizzard the whole time we were gone, we missed it! Not to brag but it felt great to enjoy some heat while it blizzard back home.
We we're so happy to see the kiddos!
It was a fantastic trip and so hard to come back to reality. I feel like it's hard to describe how great it was, so nice to just be us again for a few days. It was great to miss the kids, and be missed. And sleep, let's mention uninterrupted sleep.
I forgot to get a whole picture of the frozen yogurt shop. 
This was a TON of work but so worth it. We did it on a really tight budget but it turned out so well. It was hard for me to envision how it was gonna go but everyone said it was fantastic! We had about 40 women, which is an amazing turn out for our ward. Huge thanks for all the help Tobie and I had, especially the ginger ale and cracker delivery afterwards! And thank you to all those who helped set up and clean afterwards!
