Vegas Recap!

Here is a review of the rest of our trip!

Wednesday evening: After Rick and I went to the pool we came back and got ready to go see Penn and Teller. It was an incredible show. The magic was so cool and really unbelievable. After the show we took a shuttle to Paris and then took a quick taxi back to the hotel. Adam got there just a few minutes before us and it was great to see him. The rest of the evening we played some Wii and chatted before heading to bed.

Thursday: Thursday everyone got up early for our trip to Lake Mead. Rick and Eliot went to pick up our rental car. When they got back we all loaded up in the van. We had a 45 minute ride to Lake Mead. Rick went to reserve a boat and it turned out that the boat we reserved was given away to someone else. They wanted to charge us for the more expensive boat, but Rick said no since they had already promised us the one we paid for. After talking to a manager we got the more expensive boat for the cheaper price. It was their newest and fastest boat--very nice. It was 118 degrees on Thursday and thank goodness we were at the lake. It was beautiful. Adam was a great captain. We were able to see the Hoover Damn and then it was time for water skiing. The pictures really do a better job of explaining than I could. We all took a turn except Jenna. When we were all done we swam for a while. The water was beautiful and felt perfect with the hot, hot weather. When we were doing skiing and swimming we took the long way back to the dock at a high speed--wind in your face! It was great. Rick and Adam took care of returning the boat while Eliot, Jess, and I cooled off the van. We drove back, showered up, and made dinner plans. We decided to go to the Bellagio Buffet. It was $30 a person, but very worth it in our opinoin. There was so much food and we all tried a lot of new things. The desserts were amazing too!! After a long and relaxing dinner, Rick and I left with Adam. We watched a fountain show at the Bellagio and then walked Adam back to the hotel so he could change and head to the airport. We were so glad Adam could join us for the day! Eliot had some food that didn't sit well with him so he made it back to the hotel before us and then went to bed. Matt and Jenna played Clue with Rick and I. We all slept really well that night.

Friday: It was a pretty relaxing morning and afternoon. We played Wii, went to the pool, ate lunch in the room. After we all showered up we headed to the strip about 3:30pm. We went to Fashion Mall to buy tickets for dinner. We decided to go to La Salsa at MGM. We walked around the mall and I bought a pair of Crocs. Then we headed over to the Winn to check it out. It is very impressive. It was then time for dinner. We went back across the street to catch the bus. We had a wait awhile, but we got great seats in the upper deck at the front so we could see the strip perfectly. Traffic was bad so we moved really slowly. We finally made it to the MGM and searched for our restaurant. It turned out to be outside next to the Coke store. The meal wasn't as fancy as we expected but it was a nice way to end our week. We revisited a few stores nearby after dinner. We were planning to get a fancy dessert after dinner, but on the way to Paris we noticed a lot of people were lining up for the fireworks. There was a restaurant at Planet Hollywood with outdoor seating that we thought would be good to sit at and watch the fireworks. The desserts were fancy even though it was Hawaiiain Tropic Zone (the waitresses wear bakinis). They cost almost as much as our dinners. Rick and I shared a banana split which would have been better if it wasn't melting faster than we could eat it. Unfortunately, we didn't see any fireworks though. We could see a tad bit of them behind the Bellagio but they were really hidden. It was a disappointment. After we were done with our desserts and sure that there would be fireworks from anywhere else we headed back to the hotel. We did some cleaning and just relaxed before going to bed.

Saturday: We got up around 9am so we could finish packing and check-out. We said goodbye to Matt and Jenna the night before because they had to leave before we got up to catch their flight to Denver. We checked out about an hour later and caught a cab for the airport with Eliot and Jess. We were still kind of early for our flight so we had a bite to eat with them before we went through security (we were in different terminals). We parted ways about 40 minutes before our flight. When we got to the gate they were starting to line up so I went to the bathroom and got a diet coke. We loaded and left on time. The flight was uneventful. The best part was that Rick and I got to see our house as we flew over it. Rick always looks, but has never seen it even though we see the flight path over us everyday. We were able to see the Park Department and then find our house. We also saw Jack's House (Rick's dad). We got out of the plane and got our luggage quickly. Carlo picked us up and we went back to Cicero to get our car. Cindy ended up taking the night off because she was having some problems with her teeth so we had pizza with her and Carlo and shared our pictures. We got home around 10pm and relaxed. It was very nice to be back in our own house. We weren't really tired since our bodies had adjusted to Pacific time, but we watched some Netflix dvds we had here and called it an evening!

I will post some of my favorite pictures tomorrow, but if you are interested in looking at all of them, here are the links!

http://picasaweb.google.com/katiehurckes/LasVegas08?authkey=ZkAJn2ygGpc

http://picasaweb.google.com/katiehurckes/LasVegas082?authkey=0_Mpkr24kvg