Las Vegas

I love birthday's and I think they should always be a big deal, so for KG's 30th birthday, we planned a trip to VEGAS to celebrate. We left on Sunday, March 8th (his actual birthday) and stayed until LATE Wednesday night. We had a great time!

This was KG's b-day lunch in the Houston Airport at Pappadeaux's. It was so good and helped pass our time waiting for the plane.

This was my first (and last) Bloody Mary. Didn't like it... couldn't even finish it.

We got to VEGAS and took a taxi to our hotel... the PALMS. It was really a cool place to stay, and Katy Perry was there filming a video while we where there... never saw her though.

This was a view of the Fantasy Tower, which we stayed in (taken from the top of the PALMS tower, where ghostbar is).
Another view of the Fantasy Tower from the pool. We think our room was about 2 floors under the bunny, on the closest corner.

Since our room was on the corner (they UPGRADED us), we had two walls that were full windows. This is the view from the bed... and the sun came up through these windows. Luckily, they had great blackout curtains that allowed for sleeping in late!
And this is standing by the TV from the picture above with a shot of our other window/wall.

Once we got checked in, we went touring our hotel. We got dinner from the food court and took it up to our room.

KG with his Panda Express...

And I had nathan's Famous Hot Dogs. I love hot dogs, but wasn't really impressed... however, the chili cheese fries were amazing!

Sunday night we went to ghostbar. They had a open patio at one end and we went out there for a little bit, but it was so COLD. The wind was blowing really hard, which made it even colder. But it was an aWeSoMe view!

On Monday we spent the day walking around the strip. It was COLD and windy again. We started at Caesar's Palace and walked through the Forum Shops (where we had lunch at a great Italian place, Trevi), went by the Mirage and Treasure Island, then to the Wynn. Then we walked through the new Palazzo hotel, and then the Venetian. Then somehow I found out there was a H&M in the Miracle Mile Shops, which was totally pointless because I was absolutely disappointed by the H&M. We were exhausted at this point, so we headed back to our hotel and stopped at the mexican food place, Gardunos for a snack and margaritas.

After a long nap, we got up and headed to the Playboy Club for the night. It was super fun and KG and I played video black jack for a while, and then we watched some guys going crazy playing roulette.

On Tuesday we slept in LATE and then had breakfast at the 24/7 Cafe in our hotel. After breakfast, we finally found out what time it was because our clocks had been off the whole time we were there because of the time change and daylight savings. It was actually pretty nice having no idea what time it was!! Late in the afternoon, we decided to head back to the strip. We were thinking about a show, but we got there and ended up deciding not to go to any shows. This time we started at the Bellagio. We ended up back at the Bellagio later in the night to see the water show, which was pretty cool. Inside they had a great garden area with the most beautiful flowers and it smelled so good...

A night time view of the strip from outside NEW YORK NEW YORK.

And a day time view...

The Paris was one of my favorite hotels. And we spent more time there on Tuesday...

They also had these great "slushy" drinks at the Paris and KG and I each got one. Then we hung out and played the slots in their casino. We had alot of fun... the biggest drink ever! KG's was a blue margarita flavor and mine was a strawberry mixed with pina colada... YUM!

The Venetian was also pretty cool. KG had stayed there before, but I thought it was neat seeing the replica of St. Mark's Square since we have visited the real one! And we got gelato... not as good as Italy, but tasty (even though I couldn't get the chocolate... I had vanilla bean and KG had butter pecan)!

KG looking real excited... (I took about 3 pics of him and this is the best he would give me.)
We had dinner that night in an Italian place in NEW YORK NEW YORK (Il Fornaio), and we got a slushy boot from Coyote Ugly (as suggested by my friend, Angela, thanks friend!)... pina colada, of course. We stayed at NEW YORK NEW YORK for a while and played video black jack again... it seemed to be a fave of ours, as well as the Wheel of Fortune slot machine (KG won about $340 the very first day when we first got to VEGAS... pretty sure we lost all of it by the time we left though).
This is a pic for Drew... I thought he would love the Old Sarge necklace. :) I know how he's your fave!

By Wednesday, we were pretty beat. We checked out of our room and spent most of the afternoon laying by the pool. It actually finally warmed up, but this little bed was in half sun (for me) and half shade (for KG). It finally became full sun, so we went in and watched some college basketball games and checked out the sports betting (but didn't make any bets). It was a relaxing afternoon to end our trip.

And we finally made it back to Houston around midnight... which made for a early morning arrival in CS, but was totally worth it. We had a great trip together and made some fun memories for KG to always remember his 30th b-day!