DISCLAIMER: this is going to be a long post.
shelly, cory's mom, flew into vegas and spent two weeks in cedar city at cory's granny's house. on her last weekend in cedar city, all of us kids went down to visit shelly, granny and dorothy! on friday, chad (brother) hitched a ride down from idaho and drove with cory and i in our car and adam and jodie (sister and future brother-in-law) drove in the prius. we arrived in cedar city about three hours later, around 11 pm. we were exhausted! cory's granny lives with her gal pal dorothy...they literally are like thelma and louise. on saturday morning, we went to ihop and DI where i scored some AWESOME samsonite suitcases for $3 apiece! i'm planning on making end tables of them. they're shades of grey/black, so i want some that are bright yellow, orange or blue. anyway, after that, adam and jodie took engagement pictures and we prepared for a mini thanksgiving with the fam. the star of the show? why, that would be the turducken that granny cooked! it was pretty good-i only ate the turkey with cranberry sauce, my fave. we ate up because granny and dorothy are notorious for their game marathons. usually it's five crowns, wizards and mexican train. we had brought our own games down this time and taught everyone how to play bang. it took forever because we had so many people and some people couldn't really cheat at the game...afterwards we played five crowns, which shelly won, wresting the title of "granny's favorite" from chad to herself.
sunday morning, we woke up and said goodbye to chad, who drove our car back to provo where he met his ride back to ideaho. we then went to church and came home to leave for VEGAS! oh man, i had never been to las vegas and just pictured girls in skimpy clothes walking around and lots of fluorescent lights. we arrived around 2ish and walked through the aria hotel and the bellagio hotel. mostly vegas is hotels, with casinos and malls inside them. those are the two nicest hotels, according to adam-our vegas guide :) he's been there a bunch of times and has this membership which allows him to stay at those hotels for free or for very little. unfortunately, we were not staying at those AMAZING works of art. seriously, they had tons of pools and floors and restaurants and lights. all the parking is free because they want you to gamble. which people do like crazy! we stayed at the new york new york hotel because adam had originally booked it for shelly and her sister, who couldn't come out and so they had it reserved for two nights and only needed it for one after aunt steph couldn't go...so that's why we went. the new york new york hotel's pool was closed for the season which was really sad. we are already planning a trip back to stay at the aria in the next few months.
so we walked around and looked at all the crazy sights and went in all the couture shops like jimmy choo and fendi...where cory talked to the sales girl in japanese and totally made her day. at fendi, she showed us a purple alligator skin coat that was...$245,000! INSANE. jodie and i lusted after the diamonds at tiffany's (not really) and we made our way to the hotel to check. after relaxing for a bit, and a little bit of football, we walked about 20 minutes to the bellagio. we walked everywhere in vegas, but it doesn't really feel like a long walk because there's so much action and so much to see! we were all famished by the time we made it to the infamous bellagio buffet! this meal was the only thing we paid for on the whole trip, and it was the most expensive meal we've ever eaten (about $30 per person) but i daresay it was worth it. the buffet was this huge dining room and at the end was the kitchen/buffet area with all these stations with every food you can imagine! they had the grill with all the meats and the vegetables and the fruits and desserts and asian, mexican, italian, pizzas, ice cream, breads...everything! i was determined to eat at least $30 of food, so cory and i started off with the BEST kobe beef we had ever eaten. it was delish. after that, we both stuck to our favorites. i had steak, ribs, crab, SUSHI, SUSHI, SUSHI, pesto mashed potatoes and dessert-oh man. all the desserts were somewhat bite-sized, so i grabbed carrot cake, chocolate mousse, chocolate mousse in a waffle cone, pecan tart, and the most amazing cheesecake. cory, adam and jodie all had their favorite foods too. it was GOOD. and we stayed for over two hours, so as to make sure we ate as much as humanly possible. i'm really craving sushi right now.
after our meal/experience, we decided to check out the bellagio fountain show. it was really beautiful. it plays every fifteen minutes and the water shoots up almost as high as the hotel! it reminded me of disneyworld. adam then wanted us to see the volcano at casesar's palace. so we walked another 20-30 minutes down to that hotel/casino and looked at the aquarium and waited for the mechanical volcano to erupt...which never happened. nobody bothered to put up a "out of order" sign either. lame. it took us about 45 minutes to walk back to our hotel (which i timed) and didn't even realize it took us that long. all the lights were glowing and there's always music playing (songs that i know!). oh, a major downside to vegas and this is SO prevalent, is the SMOKE. people smoke cigarettes like no other! it is everywhere you go, especially as you walk through the casinos, which you have to do to get most places. gross. it's funny cause everything smells like smoke, even the restaurant lobbies, and then the stores/malls are all WAY overperfumed. like it's sickening how much perfume they pump in. when we got back to the hotel, jodie and i went to bed right away. adam and cory decided to go check out the hotel casino. cory had a budget of $20...i don't know adam's :) in the morning, i woke up and cory was out $20 and adam had made $369! he was very happy. i think they had a good time people watching and being grateful for their standards. one other thing the casinos do is not have drinking fountains because they want you to buy drinks. and they pump oxygen in to make you stay awake. it's also very dry. and there are no windows so you don't know what time it is. the casinos have the gambling thing down to a science, and boy, it works! (or so it appears)
on monday, the boys slept in till 11 am. i was up around 8, so i just napped and played on my phone, read restaurant reviews...etc. adam wanted us to try hash house a-go-go...which if you're ever in vegas, GO THERE! it was fantastic. it's in the quad hotel/casino. we checked out and drove there. it was gorgeous outside! like in the sixties. and when we walked through the hotel, there was a tina turner impersonator singing on stage. it was awesome. the restaurant usually has a wait. we waited maybe 20 minutes and there are not a lot of servers. food ranges from $7-$16, but they give you a TON. everything on the menu looked so good. i settled on the brown sugar and banana pancakes, and i got a side of the grilled mashed potatoes. the pancakes were HUGE, as evidenced in the picture and they were DIVINE. the best pancakes i have EVER eaten. ever. the potatoes were alright-good, but nothing special, however they were like a family size portion. cory got the vanilla waffle and bacon and eggs. jodie got the same. adam got the snickers pancakes combo. he loves them and i had a bite-they were good. but not as good as mine ;) oh while, we were waiting for our table, adam stuck a $5 bill in a machine and won $215. no big deal. so he bought us breakfast! thanks adam!
shelly, granny and dorothy drove down to vegas that day so they could spend the night in the new york new york hotel and then shelly flew home the next day. anyway, so after breakfast, we met them at the hotel and went to M&M world! which was crazy huge and i had no idea that people loved those candies so much. we got a bag of the 22 color mix for trey (who watched sienna again, THANKS!) and some coconut ones for us. they had so many colors! and a few flavors. it was cool to see though. while in the check-out line, we hugged gran, dorth and shelly and headed to the prius to drive back to provo. the drive was pretty fast, about 6 hours and we watched my big, fat, greek wedding...cory's favorite movie. overall, it was a super fun weekend :) i'm so grateful for my family! i feel very blessed to have my awesome immediate family, but also be a part of cory's family, who i love so much. it amazes me how comfortable i feel with them now and it also weirds me out that chad and i say the same things so often. yay for blessngs :)
