Las Vegas Day Two Contined

Here is a picture of me next to a giant coke bottle. This was outside the Coca-Cola store. As I said in my last post, I was so grateful to find a real coke in Las Vegas. I could have kissed the machine!
We walked farther down the strip sightseeing and having a good time people watching. It was St. Patrick's Day so there were plenty of crazy things to see. (Now that I think about it, there's probably always crazy things and people to see in Las Vegas - St. Patrick's Day or not.)

We ate lunch at P.F. Changs on the strip. These were crab won tons that were really good. The fried rice was also really good. It had lots of veggies in it that I really liked. My entree wasn't great but Tina's chicken was really good.

After eating lunch we walked around some more. (I know I keep typing that sentence out but if you go sightseeing in Las Vegas, plan on doing a lot of walking!)

We went into a Field of Dreams store (sports memorabilia) and went past the Sony store. There was a giant playstation portable on the front of the building.

We then walked back toward the hotel. We stopped at the MGM Grand to see the lion. He wasn't impressed with all of the people who were gathered around to watch him. He basically just layed there. I did buy a cute magnet for my fridge at home. It has a lion on it and the words Here human, human. I thought that it was really funny.

We played the slot machines for a little while and then headed back to the hotel.

We rested for a while and then got ready to go to our next show.

What show did we go to you ask?

(insert picture here)

We went to see Criss Angel.

It says insert picture here because you are not allowed to talk pictures during the show and I am too lazy to find a picture of Criss Angel on-line.

The show was called Believe and it was really cool. I had never seen any of his shows so I really enjoyed it. I know that some parts of the show have to be illusions but the execution of the show is flawless. You cannot tell how he is doing them. The show also had Cirque de Soliel elements in it.

After the show we went to eat at Dick's Last Resort. All I'm going to say about that is that you have to be in the right frame of mind to eat at Dick's or it is going to be a really frustrating experience for you. My burger was good though.

Las Vegas Day Two (Part I)

Update: For some of you who are wondering, Tina is one of Jimmy's four sisters. She went on the trip with us. She isn't pictured in this post but she was in the last post - the picture with the drinks.

Now for the next Vegas Vacation installment:

Jimmy and I were up early on Tuesday of our vacation due to our early bedtime the night before. (We are probably the only people who went to Vegas and were in bed before midnight.

Anyway, we got up early and went to the food court to eat breakfast. (Starbucks has really good oatmeal, by the way.)

After that Jimmy and I went down to the casino to gamble while Tina got ready for the day.

Jimmy sat down and played video poker and I wandered around until I found a slot machine that only took 50 cents to "fill up." (I don't know what the correct term for this is. My mom always told me to fill up the machine. In other words, play the maximum bet. She's been to Vegas lots so I followed her advice.)

Since it was so early there were hardly any people around. I picked a machine based on the fact that is was only 50 cents to play and that there were no smokers playing nearby. (I know that these are funny criteria for most people - but they worked for me ok?)

I put in a $20.00 bill. (Do you know how hard it was for me to do that? It takes me an hour to make $20.00!) Before I knew it, all of my credits were gone.

I reluctantly put in another $20.00 bill. Once again, I was down to almost no credits very quickly.

I had $1.50 in the machine and had already decided that when that was gone so was I.

I pushed max bet and to my surprise this came up:

This was the top prize for the machine I was playing. I looked up and saw that I won but it really wasn't registering how much I had won.

Just then a drink girl came around. "I won!" I told her. At this point I thought I had won $400.00. Come to find out, 4000 quarters is a lot more than $400.00! (Yes, I'm a teacher. I obviously need to work on my mental math skills.)

The look on Jimmy's face when I told him how much I'd won was priceless. I wish I'd taken a picture of it.

I carefully filed away my voucher for my winnings and we went out to sight see.

Here we are in front of the MGM.
We spent over an hour in this store. It was four stories high. It had some museum type parts which told about the history of M&M's and how M&M's are made. It had tons of really cute merchandise to buy too.

(It was also next door to the Coke-a-Cola store so it contained a vending machine that sold Coke! The Luxor only sells Pepsi so I had been drinking Sierra Mist. I had a terrible headache from a lack of caffeine. About an hour after drinking my coke however, I was just fine!)

This was up in the museum area. As a teacher I couldn't resist taking a picture of this little diorama. In case you can't read it, it says "I will not melt in the hand." Adorable!Here's my picture with the big blue and red guys.

Las Vegas Day One

Here is a picture of me, Jimmy, and Tina. We flew out of the Houston International Airport. We had to get up at 3:00 in the morning so that we could get to the airport on time. Never again will I book a flight out at 7:00 a.m.

Since we left SO early, we arrived in Vegas at 8:20 a.m. We took a shuttle bus to the hotel but had to check our bags since it was too early to check in. We were starving but no one was serving lunch yet. We wound up eating a second breakfast at a restaurant inside the hotel.

We walked around a little, gambled a little, and were then able to check in. We went to our room and took a nap to recover from our early arrival time.

We stayed at the Luxor on the strip. Here's a shot from inside the hotel. We stayed in the pyramid portion of the hotel. It was very cool inside.

After a nap we were ready to go. Jimmy and I took a cab to Treasure Island (stop laughing - the two hotels are pretty far apart and we were still really tired!)

At Treasure Island we stood in line for almost an hour to pick up our tickets to Mystere, which is one of the shows that Cirque du Soleil performs.

We ate dinner at Kahunaville where Tina bought me a drink that was larger than my head!
This was a huge seafood appetizer that Tina and I shared for dinner. The grilled shrimp were fantastic
The waitress was sweet and took this picture for us. Tina wanted to have photographic proof that I actually had a drink.

We still had a little time before the show so we went to the casino and gambled a little. I won some quarters but the drink had obviously gone to my head because I was unable to convert the number of quarters I won into dollars. A text message to Veronica later and I knew that I won $18.00. However, by the time she got back to me I had already lost it! Oh well, easy come, easy go as they say.

Mystere was AWESOME! I had no idea what to expect out of it and it was breath taking. I am really glad that we went to see it.

After the show Tina persuaded us to walk back to the hotel. "It's not that far," she insisted. We walked by the Venetian and saw the gondolas and by the Mirage. The volcano was erupting but we were too late to get a spot up close enough to really see it.

We then started walking back to the hotel.

We walked . . .

and walked . . .

and walked . . .

An hour later we stopped for a bottle of water and I drank half of it in one drink.

We proceeded to walk some more.

A total of an hour and a half later we were back at the hotel.

So many people told me that the hotels were not as close to each other as they seemed, and you know what???

THEY WERE RIGHT!

Oh, well. It was really neat to see everything all lit up at night. However, due to some construction, you could only walk on one side of the street at some points so it was pretty crowded.

When we got back to the hotel we gambled a little and then turned in early. (Is it considered jet lag when you fly somewhere with a two hour time difference??)