Las Vegas

Tyson had a 3 day conference in Las Vegas for work.  It was about finance in utilities, or something like that...exciting stuff! ;)  He had the great idea of me tagging along.  It would be a cheap getaway with only the cost of my flight and my meals.

Flying above the clouds.  I love to fly.

 My parents came and stayed with the boys.  We left on Tuesday evening and came back Saturday evening.  It was just the right amount of time. 


At first I was wondering what I'd do all day while Tyson was at his conference.  We stayed  at the Golden Nugget downtown so we weren't on the strip.  I didn't know if I wanted to venture out by myself.  It ended up being perfectly relaxing and time flew by.  I took my time getting ready in the mornings before heading off to eat, by myself, at the hotels buffet.  I would find a nice corner table overlooking the pool and watch the people below as I ate.  I would then head back to my room, watch Netflix, read, nap or browse facebook, etc.  It was heaven...not having a thing I had to do.  It was like recharging my battery that can sometimes get pretty depleted.  I didn't worry about my kids once because I knew they were in good hands. :)



All by my lonesome in our hotel room.
 

Tyson was done with his conference by 4:30 every day so we'd head out to eat and have a good time.  Maybe not by Vegas standards but by our standards for sure! ;)  The first night we ate at the Grotto, and Italian restaurant in our hotel, and then we drove down to the strip to see the sights.  Some of the insides of the hotels were awesome.  We especially liked the Bellagio with it's water fountain show.  We saw a lot of interesting people to say the least.  People watching is one of my favorite things to do. 

Glass flower ceiling at the Bellagio.

Tyson looking awesome with the Eiffel Tower in the distance.



Fountain show at the Bellagio.  The pictures do not do it justice.  It's pretty cool.

We also got some ice cream at Serendipities at Ceasar's Palace.  It was really good and super spendy.  We decided to share an ice cream Sunday.  It was huge so there was more than enough.  It had a giant piece of dense, chocolate cake in it...my favorite part.

There is this new Ferris Wheel in Vegas called the High Roller.  Supposedly it's taller than the one in London.  It reaches 550 ft and it overlooks the strip.  Each little pod, fully enclosed thankfully, fits like 20 people but we only had 6 on ours.  I was happy about that.  Being afraid of heights I sat mostly only venturing over to look down for a few pictures.  The views were awesome and Tyson can scratch that off his bucket list. :)

Each one of those round balls fit 20 people.

One of my few times getting close to the edge.



I would not let go of that rail when I was standing there by the edge.


 

We headed back to our hotel and crashed.  Walking around with loud music, flashing lights and smoke is tiring.

The next day went the same for me while Tyson was gone...relaxing.  That night we went to see Blue Man Group.  I didn't know what to expect.  I knew they did lots of drumming on different things.  It was awesome.  It was really funny too...and clean.  I would recommend them to anyone going to Vegas. 

On our way into the show.

After the show we went back downtown to our hotel.  Right by our hotel is a street called Fremont St.  It's a blocked off from cars for a few blocks...kind of like 8th street on Saturday mornings for the street far.  However, you'll see a lot more interesting things on Fremont than 8th street. ;)  If you like to people watch, loud music, partial nudity, and lots and lots of smoke head there.  It is an experience.  We saw it and once was enough.  There are some crazy people out there...really sad actually. Talk to me in person for details since my kids can read my blog!

On Friday we decided to skip the strip and go a little further down Las Vegas Blvd to a outdoor mall to see a movie.  We saw the newest X-Men movie.  We like it.  We ate dinner at a place there called the Yard House.  It was my favorite dinner by far...so good.  I think one of our favorite things was going out to eat every night!

A reflection of our hotel in the wall of another part of the Golden Nugget.

Saturday we started the morning by going for a swim in the hotel pool.  It has a Shark tank in the middle of it that has a water slide that goes through the shark tank.  Tyson swam while I dipped my feet and took pictures. 

Tyson going down the slide.

They were wiping the slide down to get it ready to open for use.

After the pool we checked out of the hotel and headed off to Hoover Dam.  Tyson was really excited about that ever since we saw a PBS special about it.  It really is amazing that they built something that massive in the early 1930's.  The drive was only 30 minutes so that gave us time to stop by In-N-Out before heading to the airport.

This is a new bridge that was built recently.  Most of the pictures of the dam were taken from it.

Picture from the bridge.  The dam is massive

Lake Mead in the background beyond the dam.

It was super windy up there.

This last picture we took by our hotel window before we checked out...kind of a final goodbye.  We were on the 19th floor and had a great view of the strip.  It looked pretty awesome at night but we failed to take a picture of that.  This was so fun and relaxing.  Can't wait to do something like this again. :)