Vegas: Bringing Home What Happened + FAQs

-DISCLAIMER- I seriously worked on this post for 143214 hours (not that many hours, but too many) and I'm still not super satisfied with it. I guess sometimes the creativity is flowing and sometimes it isn't. In fact, probably the best part of the whole thing is this picture that I took and edited with picnik.com. That being said, read at your own risk. 

Ah, Las Vegas. City of Sin. What happens there often stays there - or so they say. Well, I guess I did it wrong because I brought home photographic evidence of almost everything we did, and in order to prove that there's more to having fun on the strip than... well... whatever it is people do that has to stay there, I thought I'd post about what we did that was allowed to come home with me.

But before I do, here's a list of FAQs that y'all have asked repeatedly (<--redundant) regarding my trip:

- this is less because these questions have been frequently asked and more because I often enjoy 

clicking on and reading the content of a FAQ link when visiting a website. Not only does it 

conveniently answer questions I may have, I think 'FAQ' is quite a remarkable acronym. Answers

to FAQs most often contain 'facts' which, translated into gangsta speak becomes 'faqs'. (Quick! 

Use 'faqs' in a sentence: Yo, G. The faq is mah gat be fly!) But I digress... -

Why Vegas?

           

Pft. Why NOT Vegas? Actually, it was because dad had to work at a psychiatric conference and I wanted a vacation. That, and the city was going to be full of psychiatrists, and I figured It'd be a chance to try my hand at 'Spot the Shrink on the Strip'. 

Who did you go with?

          These guys...

-the parentals outside the Bellagio-

You are 22 years old. Aren't you a little old to be vacationing in Vegas with your parents?

Maybe. But think about it this way: Would YOU turn down a free vacation? Plus... the faq is mah parents be pretty fly homies... yo.


If you didn't drink, gamble or -insertcommonVegasrelatedinappropriatebehaviorhere- than what the bleep did you DO?


           Why, I thought you'd never ask...

Here's what we bleeping did:

We got to our hotel on Wednesday night, had something to eat and went to bed. Thursday morning, dad had to work the conference, so mom and I walked down to the MGM Grand for breakfast, enjoying the empty smokeless strip. After breakfast, we visited M&M World, spending nearly 2 hours exploring all four floors of the store. They have an insane amount of M&M merchandise (most of which will neither melt in your hand OR in your mouth). They also have a short 3D movie that is... get this... FREE! 

                         -making friends with Blue-

-Waiting outside the theater, rockin' our 3D glasses-

After the movie, we spent some time in the CocaCola store, buying souvenirs, drinking Diet Coke... basically enjoying a little heaven. Dad picked us up after that on his way home from the conference, but not before we bought some show tickets for later that night (we teased dad that we were going to make him take us to Thunder from Down Under. He didn't know what that was, so he didn't really get why we thought it was so funny until we explained it to him) and stopped for a quick photo-op:

-Ironman and Me-

We stopped back at the hotel for dad to change his clothes and then visited the Wildlife Habitat in the lobby complete with these little beauties...

Flamingos! (I bet you can't guess where we stayed). While walking through the habitat, we found a couple other things to do... 

                        Like drink Flamingo spittle...                                                   and pose by a waterfall... 

Next, we drove over to Circus Circus and had lunch before walking the midway (or, the children's casino as I like to call it) and pausing to watch a few Circus acts, like these Amazing African Acrobats:

(they moved the bar even lower than that, but I failed to get video evidence. Hella. Awesome)

and also some trapeze artists (of which I don't have any photos or video because watching them swinging from the ceiling made me super nervous and I couldn't peel my eyes away long enough to get my camera out)

Leaving the children's casino, we stopped at the adult casino because this was my first trip to Vegas since becoming old enough to try my hand at a slot machine and figured I better take advantage of that. 

I'm not gonna lie... I was super upset to find that slot machines no longer take coins, and they no longer give coins, but felt a little better when I doubled my money and then some! (Granted... it was a penny slot and I only put in a dollar, but hey! Winning is winning!)

       <---   I started with this...        and left with this --->                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          

That night, we saw Donny and Marie. It was FANTASTIC. I had originally wanted to see The Lion King or Phantom of the Opera, but I've seen Phantom twice, and tickets to The Lion King were more expensive, but I'm really glad we ended up where we did. Not only was it clean, both Donny and Marie are excellent performers. Seriously... If you end up in Vegas any time soon, this show is a must-see. After the show, we ordered a movie and went to sleep.

Friday morning after breakfast, dad went to work ... and mom and I went to Venice. 

-Here we are standing on a bridge overlooking the beautiful Venetian canals where we watched 

an awkward couple enjoying a Gondola ride-

After also wandering through the shops at Caesar's Palace, we were exhausted and went back to the hotel for a nap. That night, we went to Margaritaville for dinner.

-First flamingo spittle and now THIS?! Maybe mom had some things that should have stayed in Vegas- 

Now, some would argue that going to Margaritaville for the exceptional food is like claiming to choose Hooters for their exceptional hot wings... but seriously. They do make an unforgettable Cheeseburger in Paradise. They also have a pretty great patio that overlooks the strip and is perfect for watching intoxicated individuals nearly stumbling into things.  

Full of cheeseburgery goodness, we decided to spend the rest of the evening walking up and down the strip and through all of the hotels along the way: New York New York, Excalibur, Luxor, Mandalay Bay, and finally over to the MGM Grand where we caught the monorail back to the Flamingo. 

-Jelly Bean Statue of Liberty-

The next morning we packed up and headed home. Unfortunately for me (but probably fortunately for the parentals) I completely lost my voice and wasn't able to sing all the way home like I did the entire way there, AND we hit a killer snow storm coming into Cedar City, but overall... it was a great trip. 

So there it is. Fun in Vegas that no one has to be ashamed of (aside from the flamingo spittle)  

Oh... and one more thing... 

-another thing that probably should have stayed in Vegas-

Sorry, dad. I couldn't help myself. :) Despite my less-than-stellar presentation, I'm pretty sure none of you are ever going to look at a FAQ link the same way again... so my work here is done. I'm out, homies. And that's a faq.