Vegas, Baby, Vegas!

Hey all, and welcome to our special Vegas edition of the blog.

Glenn and I got up at 3:45 am last Thursday and flew across the country to stay at the Aria Resort in Vegas with our friends, Matty and Julie.

Aria is one of the newer hotels/casinos on the strip and it is beautiful (and it smells like vanilla.)

I stole this pic but the rest are ours. :-)

Lobby

Courtyard between Aria and Crystals Shops

Inside Crystals. (Yes, Mom, that is an amazing Starbucks!)

And here is the whole gang...

This was the view out our window.

This building (below with the Zarkana poster on the front), called the Harmon Tower, has an interesting story. It was built to be a hotel / condo as part of City Center and was supposed to be 48 floors. They got to floor 26 when they had inspectors come in and they determined that the building was terribly unsafe - any earthquake would immediately flatten it, and it was too unsafe for anyone to live in. So, instead of fixing it, they are now in the process of tearing it down.There are over $400 million in damage suit claims associated with this mess.

So anyway, some highlights from the trip. Friday the 13th ended up being a very lucky day for Glenn and I. He spent the morning at Planet Hollywood (while Julie and I went shopping) and won a bunch of money at blackjack. Later, Julie and Matty went to watch one of the World Cup games, so Glenn and I were on our own.

We ate at Mon Ami Gabi for lunch at the Paris - one of our favorite restaurants in Vegas (and they have a great gluten free menu).

Here it is from across the street - see the little red umbrellas?

So then we went over to Bellagio.

(We actually went and saw the fountain show on another day, but I'll include those pics here as well.)

The view inside the Bellagio is not too shabby either.

 

Ok - so anyway, the most exciting part of the day was when Glenn and I went over to our old stomping grounds - the Excalibur - and played some roulette. Glenn and I both like betting on number 17 (for our anniversary), and 17 hit 5 times in 7 spins. So, in about 20 minutes, we made $1,400. EEEEEE!

That night we had dinner at Julian Serrano's - an amazing tapas place at Aria, and then went to New York, New York to see a Cirque de Soleil show. (We also won at Blackjack there!)

The lucky Budda is behind us.

Sadly, there are just too many things to share without being a total bore. So I will jump to our last night in Vegas. Matty and Julie had left, and Glenn and I went to dinner and then headed over to the Wynn.

Come Lose at the Wynn!

We had horrible luck at the Wynn. In fact, we had three dollars in chips that we cashed in at the Cashier's desk. The guy asked if I wanted a security escort. Haha! But we got some nice pics...

So anyway, there are still a ton of pics, but I've got to wrap this up. Sorry it is so long. Vegas is so fun and action-packed, but also a bit exhausting. We are glad to be home.

Speaking of which, Glenn got some surprisingly good pics out the window of the plane as we flew over Pinellas County on our return trip, so I will share those as well.

So that's it for the Vegas edition of the blog. Hope you are all having a great week!