Vegas Baby

The second week of our marathon vacation Glenn and I left Tate with Nanna and Grampa and took off by ourselves to Las Vegas. We'd been trying to figure out how to financially swing a vacation by ourselves before he started his job. I watched my parents take couples trips while we were growing up and always looked at them feeling like getting away together was a great way to keep a relationship healthy, especially once kiddos are in the picture. Everything we looked at was either too expensive or just didn't sound like much fun and then we found an amazing package to Vegas that included tickets to a show and it sounded perfect. We've been to Vegas before. The shows are amazing. The filth is also pretty amazing, but we choose to focus on the good stuff.

We stayed at the MGM Grand and it was great. They had 5 swimming pools, a lazy river, a nice gym, and a great location within walking distance of tons of fun stuff. The first day I looked through magazines and found some crazy activities that I thought I should get Glenn to do to sort of celebrate his graduation. Helicopter rides, crazy roller coasters, indoor skydiving and the like. Glenn said he'd rather spend the money to see Phantom of the Opera again. We saw it in Vegas a couple of years ago and he really loved it. Did I pick the perfect man for me or what?

We bought half price tickets to Phantom the first night. It was spectacular. It's always pretty spectacular but there were even a few more spectacles in the Vegas version. And of course the music is simply gorgeous and romantic and leaves you singing it all the way home. I've seen Phantom so many times and I still love it every time. Really good voices. Christine, not my favorite, but the Phantom and Raoul were great in this cast.

The next night we saw Cirque Du Soleil's "O". It's a water show and the stage was this enormous swimming pool that could change shape and depth. There was diving, synchronized swimming, some of the most dazzling special effects I could ever imagine...in fact I don't think I could have dreamed up some of the things they did. I just sat there thinking, "Whose brain dreamed this up? And then whose brain figured out how to make it work?" It was amazing and breathtakingly beautiful.

The last night we saw "The Lion King" which was also spectacular. I guess we just saw three very different kinds of spectacle. I'd seen it in New York years ago but Glenn had never seen it. He loved it. The way they made the puppets look and move like the animals they portrayed was just so cool. And of course the music was neat.

I loved walking through the casinos. There is an obscene amount of money spent on making them look like fancy exotic locations and it feels a little disneyland esque in it's over the top re-creations. Except for all the dirty pictures of course... Disneyland doesn't have those.

Here I am at the Grand Canal in the Venetian.

Glenn and I in front of the fountain at Ceasar's Palace.

And here we are on a darling street in the Paris. Loved this one.

We walked by several of these projections in Vegas, most were on the floor, that reacted somehow when you walked on or past them. Glenn liked this one at the wall in Mandalay Bay so he ran/pranced in front of it a few times. The best part is that before this video, he waited by the side of the projection for a couple of little boys to stop running around in front of it so he could have a turn. Gotta love my man boy.

It was a wonderful trip. It was wonderful to know that Tate was taken care of by people who love him like I do so he wasn't a burden to them and I didn't have to feel guilty for leaving him. It was wonderful to have no obligations other than to relax and be in love with my man. I had so much fun just swimming every day, eating great food, sleeping in (gotta love those black out curtains), seeing amazing theatre, and spending SO much time with my sweetheart. It was perfect!