Vegas

when we were stationed in little rock, i became good friends with joy, who is married to eric. joy and eric knew brian before i did! they are now stationed in alaska and last year eric was deployed for 11 months. he wanted to send joy away for a little getaway upon his return home and encouraged her to invite some friends... 

joy chose las vegas and invited me! another great friend of mine from our little rock and monterey days, tori (who is now in montana) also came, along with claudia- a non-military friend of joy's from alaska, who is originally from south africa!

what a foursome we would make...

i flew out early thursday morning and was so giddy about seeing joy (it had been 5 years) and tori (it has been 4 years) that my stomach was feeling funny!

i opted for starbucks in the airport- but don't think the bar next door, which was open at 7am in sacramento- with several customers drinking bloody mary's, went unnoticed! i loved the quiet time on the plane with my book (which was SO good) and a pumpkin spice latte-

however, the 1 hour flight to las vegas was just too quick! i didn't even get time for a nap...

time to rock the white sunglasses! vegas, i have arrived-

i grabbed my luggage, a shuttle and headed to the venetian where joy and claudia had already arrived the night before. joy and i made a little scene being reunited in the lobby, of course, then we went up to our suite! the room was amazing (with a sunken livingroom even!) and the views from our room were fantastic-

i was there in time for breakfast, so we went downstairs to the restaurnat Bouchon-

above are joy, claudia and me (tori would arrive in an hour...)

this is adam- he was our breakfast waiter all 3 days! he liked to take a picture of himself before taking one of us!

tori called and we went down to meet her (again, another scene!) and quickly headed out to the pool for the afternoon-

and a few frosty drinks too! (we had SO much catching up to do...)
thursday night we headed to the NY NY hotel/casino- first up was dinner with tori's mother (who i adore and hadn't seen in 4 years also) and her sister (whom i had never met). they were in town because her sister had just moved to las vegas the week before! such crazy timing, right?

post dinner fun in the casino-

next up- the dueling piano bar at NY NY. tori's mom and sister stayed for a bit, then left us before the drinking and dancing began-

TROUBLE! (not sure if i will ever have another "lemon drop" or not...)

the piano bar was tons of fun-

BUT, FOR ONE REASON OR ANOTHER, WE DECIDED THAT RIDING IN A PARTY BUS TO THE "VOODOO LOUGE," THE ROOFTOP BAR AT THE TOP OF THE RIO, WOULD BE BETTER...

As you can see from the view- it was!

the view literally took my breath away-

this picture of tori with the cheesy red rose will always make me laugh-

this is actually a fabulous picture of us all- but, it's only a picture of a picture here-

is it really already 4am? i guess it is time to go gamble! tori did not know what she was doing when she sat down to play blackjack! and the dealers were not happy with me taking pictures! oh well.

5am? must be time for breakfast! wake up tori-

after breakfast, we laughed our way back to our room! the venetian is a difficult maze to navigate during the day when you haven't been out all night... so you can only imagine how many (wrong) elevators it took for us to get up to our room that night!

friday- i think we strolled to breakfast at about 1pm. (remember adam, our waiter? he was laughing at us.)

joy went to the spa and the other 3 of us went to the pool for naps!

6pm- time to head out! this time- to see the show "le reve" at the wynn hotel.

no joy- you can NOT attach your flip flops to the side of your purse with a giant carabiniere! yes, that IS "too ghetto!"


waiting for the show to start-

the show was dancing, acrobatics and diving/swimming with water! that is steam coming off the water behind our heads-

the show was fabulous! it was 90 minutes and i did not want it to end! i have never seen a cirque du soleil show and this one blew my mind!!! i would love to see it again.


after the show we went to a fancy Japanese restaurant in the Wynn for dinner together-

our table faced a giant waterfall! (above)

the food was amazing- but TINY! check out the size of these tacos in comparison to the fork-

after dinner we went back to the room for a quick costume change and then headed out to a bar which tori had read about- Minus 5.

we opted for a cab and were shocked when a minivan pulled up for us! how cruel to put the 4 moms in a minvan in vegas, right?

minus 5 is an ice bar. the temp is 23 degrees inside, or -5 celcius. the walls, benches, bar- even the drinking cups were made out of ice! before going in they give you parkas, gloves and Ugg boots to stay warm! 

we were SO cold! quick drinks and we were gone! you couldn't bring in any cell phones or cameras, so that is the only picture we have.

now, let me just say that at this point we should have just gone back to our room with a bottle of wine and the tv! but, we didn't-

we went to two places that night and i just couldn't keep up! tori took this picture of us (doesn't she look proud!) in the cab on the way home, probably to get me back for the picture i took of her asleep at the table the night before! i think it was 4am here...

saturday- our last day!

another breakfast on the sunny patio, at 11am this time! (we were proud that we made it in time for brunch!)

then, we all headed to the spa-

and it was the best decision we had made in a couple days! we needed to relax together and that we did for several hours. the spa was incredible and reminded me of the ones i had been to in Germany.

then it was time to say good-bye. claudia left first. my flight was at 7:30pm. the las vegas airport is
DEAD on saturday night! no one, besides me, actually wants to go home and leave las vegas on a weekend night!

well, what a weekend! i think we 4 moms actually achieved the travelers fantasy- leaving our selves and all our troubles at home to head out and just enjoy being gone!

thanks ladies! these two girls are good for my soul and i just wish they lived around the corner instead of a couple thousand miles away...

LET'S DO IT AGAIN!