Vegas, Baby! Vegas!

Every year in late winter Chris and I have gone on a cruise. We've found it helps to have a trip to look forward to and the defrosting and relaxing boat trip allows us to endure a few more weeks of the cold. This year we deferred our annual winter cruise trip until our honeymoon cruise. In its place we went to Las Vegas! It's cheap and a relatively close warm location.

Chris and I took Friday off and after dropping Jackson off at Grandma and Grandpa's we were on our way to sunnier climates. We stopped in St. George, taking advantage of Kelli being in town. We met her and her two adorable boys at Cafe Rio for a leisurely lunch in 70 degree weather. We always love visiting with Kelli. We were then off for Vegas, checking into our hotel, Treasure Island, in the late afternoon. The hotel had undergone a remodel and I found that everything from the music playing in the lobby to the decor of the room was totally how I would have done it. The room had a gorgeous modern look and an amazing view of the strip. Treasure Island is also located about mid strip, allowing us to stroll through many of the casinos. And stroll we did! We took a short nap and then set about the evenings activities, walking and more walking. We strolled the local malls, the new and old casinos, and found ourselves having mexican for the second time that day. We ate at a gringo burrito joint where we met the best server in the whole world, Brandon. I wanted him to follow us around and serve us the whole weekend, but he suggested we just come back and see him there instead. Sorry, Brandon. You were great, the burrito was not. We entertained ourselves the remainder of the evening by people watching and finished up with some video blackjack.

Saturday we were up at a reasonable hour and set out to get our errands accomplished. We found ourselves a breakfast bagel and then attempted to find a local Costco to purchase mass quantities of beer. We found a business Costco instead, catering to small business owners. No food court, clothing, dvds or beer. It was quieter than a library and remarkably free of people for a Saturday. It was the oddest Costco trip of our lives. After getting lost for a bit we found our way to Trader Joes. Oh Trader Joes, how I love thee. We quickly loaded up two carts with wine and groceries. The checkout girl pegged where we were from based on the food and wine hoarding we had going on. We had lunch at In-n-Out, which was disappointingly greasy and not tasty. I then directed Chris to the discount liquor mart where we again loaded our cart with spirits and all varieties of beer. I begged Chris to just leave me and come back for me tomorrow, but he lured me out the door with promises of delicious drinks. We stopped by the outlet mall for a little, picking up each of us a hat. I've decided Chris looks awesome in a fedora. He's not entirely convinced, so the next time you see him ask to see the hat. It looks hot! Back to the hotel for some recuperating before heading back out on the town. We pretty much did a repeat of the evening before, lots of walking around and lots of people watching followed by the late night breakfast. It was brilliantly fun.

Sunday we stumbled out of our hotel at the latest possible time and headed home. We picked up our very happy and tired puppy and spent a quiet evening on the couch recovering from vacation. We may have gone on vacation to go grocery shopping, but we sure had a wonderful time doing it.