Viva Las Vegas!

I've been traveling a lot in the last couple of months, so I thought I would update you all on my trips!

First trip, Las Vegas to visit my best friend and her family, April 20-23. Teri, Doug, and Douglas (aka D4) were recently re-stationed at Nellis Air Force Base and after a stressful month of submitting a manuscript and giving my first departmental talk, I needed a long weekend to relax and forget about work.

Now, D4 is probably the coolest baby that has ever existed. He was born at 27 weeks (which is 3 months earlier than normal gestation), so he is absolutely tiny and loveable! He was almost 8 months old when I saw him, it was love at first sight. I mean, seriously, how can you not love this face? 

Within minutes, he had me wrapped around his little tiny baby fingers :). And proceeded to fall asleep on me.

For our fabulous lunch, I introduced Teri to In-n-Out burger, which I had been craving pretty much since I booked my tickets for the trip.
Oh man, now I am craving a double double ANIMAL style right now! 

 For the first day, we pretty much just hung out, relaxed and caught up with each other. I mixed up my awesome mojitos, brought the sleeping baby to the pool, and hot tubbed it up.

On Saturday, we headed out to the Hoover Dam (because Teri and Doug hadn't been there enough already, lol!). We walked across the Memorial Bridge and got another picture of me death gripping the side of the bridge due to my fear of heights and then walked around the dam, which was pretty impressive! 

Saturday night, my mother treated Teri and I to tickets to see the Cirque du Soleil show "O" at the Bellagio! We arrived on the Strip a few hours early and hit up the Bellagio and Caesar's with the help of Pina Colada yardsticks (best part about Vegas besides my company!!). We had a fun scavenger hunt looking for all sorts of fun things! If you are ever in Vegas, I highly recommend going to see "O", it was the best Cirque show that I have seen and the acrobatics were mind-blowing (ok, the pina coladas might have contributed to how awesome it was, but still awesome!). After the show, we played some penny slots at Caesar's while we waited for our ride to come back. I lost a whole $4 in the penny slots, big spender I know!


On Sunday and Monday, we just hung out because it was damn hot out! I thought I was safe visiting in April and escaping the 100 degree temps, but mother nature proved me wrong again! We met up with another one of our high school friends, Anne, who happened to be vacationing in Vegas at the same time and had some delicious lunch! It was really nice to catch up with everyone! Later that day, Teri and I went shopping for Douglas. My mother donated some money to buy him some stuff, so we bought him a baby prison, a dresser, some drawers, and some books. Here he is enjoying his awesome baby prison!! :)

On Monday, we went to Nellis Air Force Base to drop D3 off at work and do some tax-free shopping (I wish everywhere was a military base, seriously hott buff guys everywhere, I was in heaven!!). Before I left that night, we drove up the strip, visited the famous Las Vegas sign, and drove past the "Pawn Stars" pawn shop. There was a line to come in, so we didn't go inside. It's also in a pretty shady area of the strip downtown. At the end of the day, I flew back to Denver and this was the cute face that D4 gave me as I left.


Grade the City Las Vegas:
Weather: B- too hot
Entertainment: A+, loved the strip, wish I had more time to explore
Company: A+++++++++++++++++++++++++ I don't think that I could have enough pluses in this assessment because I love Teri, Doug, and D4! I can't wait to come and visit again!