Trip - where did we go?

With all of the Pioneer Woman excitement going on, the post below about my recent trip kinda got lost.

If you are visiting here from The Pioneer Woman, then welcome! I'm glad you found me! Feel free to hang around a while - and if you are so inclined, please leave me a comment.

Now back to my originally scheduled post.

In an earlier post, I gave you a hint as to where we went before Thanksgiving. Did you guess where we were? Here's the picture hint to see if you can guess.

If you guesses Las Vegas, then you are correct! Give yourself a big pat on the back!

We went there with some good friends of mine. It was a celebration of his birthday.

Since I'm not sure how they would feel about having their picture on my blog, I won't post pictures of them.

I will however show you just one of the desserts he got on his birthday:

He got this at a lunch we had a restaurant called Olives which is at the Bellagio Hotel. We ate outside, right on the fountains of Bellagio. It was such a lovely day to sit outside and watch the fountains and enjoy lunch.

We had a couple of days in Vegas this trip, so we got to do a lot of things.

One night Rominal and I went to see the Blue Man Group. We had seen their tour when it came through Dallas a couple of years ago and we loved it. This show was great as well.

We went to old downtown Las Vegas this trip - we missed that on our last trip.

As you will recall from our last trip to Las Vegas, Rominal left with some unfinished business.

He didn't ride anything at the Stratosphere. He wasn't about to leave Las Vegas this time without conquering his fears.

It's difficult to see, but that's Rominal sitting on the far left of the Big Shot ride - which is 1,081 feet in the air above the Las Vegas strip. You will notice that he is sitting alone - the rest of us did not have the guts to join him.


Here he goes!

He's made it up to the top!



He was so glad that he rode this. He even opened his eyes after a bit.

Luckily, the other two rides were closed due to high winds when we were up there, otherwise with all of his new found confidence, he probably would have ridden them too!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone! I hope that everyone is enjoying their day with your family and loved ones.



We have been out of town, so that's the reason I haven't posted in a while. To give you a hint as to where we were - here's one picture. See if you can guess where we went.



Any guesses?

I'll post more about that later.

As for now - we are busy cooking this among other things:


We are cooking it on the grill, because my oven is filled with other goodies!

Have a wonderful Thanksgiving!

To my family who is not here with me today - I miss you and wish you were here!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Home from Las Vegas

We are back from Las Vegas. Actually, we got back Sunday night, and we spent yesterday doing laundry and trying to recover.

We had a great time. Rominal absolutely loved it. He loved seeing all of the buildings and the people. During the day we walked from casino to casino to see all of the sights and then at night we stayed up late to see shows. Las Vegas is not the place to go for a relaxing vacation.

Friday during the day we walked up and down the strip and one of the hotels we went into was Paris. They have a half-scale Eiffel tower and we went up into that. Here's some pictures from that.



This picture was taken from the tower.



Here we are in front of the Bellagio hotel.



Oh - and inside, they had a chocolate shop that had flowing chocolate. It was a good thing it was protected from me behind glass.




We stayed at New York, New York - here's a picture of that. Rominal rode this roller coaster on Saturday. It does loops and corkscrews. I did not ride this.





On Friday night we saw Cirque du Soleil's show Zumanity, which was an adult version of Cirque du Soleil. They had a drag queen for an MC and the show was really funny. We have seen several Cirque shows in the past and we have always enjoyed them, so we had bought the tickets for this show in advance. They had all of the amazing acrobatic performances of a normal Cirque show, just in this version everyone was topless. I am afraid that Rominal will forever be spoiled and expect more from any future Cirque shows we might see.

At the Cirque show, they were taking pictures and since we had dressed up for the show we had our picture taken.



Saturday morning Rominal was looking through a magazine in our hotel room while waiting for me to get ready and he noticed that Lewis Black was playing that night at the Mirage. We really like him and we were quite excited to get tickets for that show. He was hilarious! It was neat to see him in such a small venue - we had excellent seats.


Saturday during the day we took the monorail over to the Sahara hotel and casino and then walked to the Stratosphere. When we got there, they said that the ride Rominal really wanted to ride was closed due to high winds. So, as a second choice, Rominal chose the ride that shoots you up into the sky and bounces you up and down. Here's some pictures as we are walking over to the hotel.




When we got to the top of the tower, we find that it is actually 109 stories tall. I'll give you a minute to take that in. 109 stories tall. That is up there. I don't like heights that much, and this really confirmed it. Once we were up there, we found that the ride Rominal did want to ride (this one)

was going - despite the high winds. To get to the ride he chose as a second choice, we would have to go up another flight, which just seemed a bit much at that point. Here's his second choice:

Those are people up there near the top - screaming. He decided not to ride the ride, and I was quite pleased, since I didn't have a chance to check on his life insurance before we left. Poor Rominal, he regretted his decision not to ride almost as soon as we got off the elevator back on the earth, but I was quite pleased that he didn't do it.

Look at how happy he looks in this picture. Silly man - he doesn't realize how high up we are.

This is a ride that has you dangling out above the world. Can you hear the people screaming?

And this is the only time I got this close to the edge - notice I am holding on to the railing.

Overall it was a great trip. We deposited money in several casinos as we walked around. Sunday morning, after we had officially checked out of the hotel and were waiting for our shuttle to take us to the airport, I played some slot machines for the last time. I put in $20.00 and doubled my money. I cashed out and gave Rominal the $20.00 in winnings to hold onto while I tried my luck with another machine - and this time I won around $40.00. Again, we cashed out and Rominal held onto our winnings while I still played with the original $20.00. I did this another time and we won a little over $80.00 in total - so that was fun. It didn't make up for all of the other deposits that I had already made though.

We had a great time and it was a fun way to celebrate our 20th wedding anniversary - which is actually tomorrow.

Happy anniversary honey!

Las Vegas

Rominal and I are leaving for Las Vegas (or Las Vegas Baby!) in a couple of days to celebrate our 20th wedding anniversary. Hard to believe it's been that long. Our anniversary isn't until next week, but this is a good weekend to go.

Anyway, I'm starting to get very excited about the trip. However, trips also cause me a bit of panic as well. Especially when we are not driving and I am required to carefully plan out my clothing choices instead of just tossing everything I own into my van. I don't like having to plan what I'm going to wear each day. What happens if I wake up and decide that what I have packed for myself is just all wrong? Then what am I going to do? Oh - I know - I'll go shopping! That's a good plan, because I'm sure all of the prices will be reasonable in Vegas, right! HA!

We aren't gamblers, and we don’t drink either - at least I hardly ever do, and Rominal never does - although he has mentioned that he might have a drink while we are there. Yup, that's right, Rominal might have a drink. There is no doubt that we will be living it up in Vegas! We even played some practice rounds of blackjack the other night. Normally when we play with friends the object of the game for me becomes steeling chips from the dealer and switching bets with other players. I'm pretty good at it. (It helps that the people we normally play with do like to drink.) From what I understand, I think this kind of play is frowned upon in Las Vegas. So, much to my surprise, when I actually played by the rules the other night - I lost very quickly. Vegas should love me.

Rominal loves all of the action and lights and therefore he wants to see all of the casinos, so we will be doing lots of walking. He really wants to ride the rides on top of the Stratosphere. He's on his own for that. I might go up to the top of the building with him, but there is no way I'm riding this. Here's one of the rides, to give you an idea of what I'm talking about.




And here's another one. Again, I will not be doing this.



Again, there is no way I'm doing this.