Several months ago my sister and I started cooking up the idea to surprise our mom with a birthday "girls trip." (I'm afraid if I say what birthday my mother might kill me, but let's just say it was a milestone bday!) After some planning and discussing, our Las Vegas trip was set. We went the weekend before Thanksgiving, and we had the BEST time!! I really wish we could do it every year. We shopped, ate, went to shows, talked, stayed up too late, and laughed more than I have in a long time. I'm so lucky to have such a fun family!!
Here we (my sister Stephanie, me, my sister-in-law Erin, my aunt Susan, my Grandma, my mom, and my aunt Bethanne) are on our first night after a yummy dinner at P.F. Chang's.
On a side note, this picture has been the source of much laughter. After the waiter took it, we noticed that Stephanie being on the end, leaned over, in a horizontally striped shirt, at a bad angle, quite pregnant, and let's face it....up about 25 pounds, was NOT a good idea. She seriously looked 300 pounds! This is a cropped version, but still! Of course she wanted this cut out altogether, but this picture in and of itself is a funny memory!! Sorry Steve!
The "young" part of our group. I would say "young and hip," however, after a weekend in Vegas I've realized just how old and lame we really are!
The more "mature" part of our group. But can I just say, look how awesome these women look!! My amazing grandma is about to turn 80 years old and she just zipped around Las Vegas with us like it was no big deal. She was up till 3 AM with the rest of us! I can only hope I have some of their good genes!
I wish I had taken more pictures of our SWEET room! We stayed at Planet Hollywood and upgraded to a suite with 2 bedrooms, 2 sweet bathrooms, a living and dining room, and a full kitchen. It was really fun to all be able to stay in the same room.
After our dinner at P.F. Chang's, we headed back to the room to get ready for our first night on the town! We decided we wanted to see some shows while we were there, so we researched online and found two shows that we thought looked really fun and different. The first night we selected a comedian/magician called Amazing Johnathon. We read his bio and some info about his show, and decided it would be a great choice. It wasn't. And I will take the full blame!! In my attempt to not "ruin" it for myself, I didn't read the entire run down of his show. From what I did read it sounded like he would be a wacky, off the wall comedian who has performed for all sorts of famous people (Queen of England, US Presidents, you know...those types of folk!). I guess "wacky" in Las Vegas means disgusting. :(
After being seated on our "VIP" couch that was held together with duct tape, we should have known. Then started Amazing Johnathon's favorite movie clips.......all absolutely obscene. Lots of uncomfortable throat clearing in our section about this point! The camera then started panning the audience and showing people on the big screen with pretty offensive captions - our little section included! Amazing Johnathon finally came out and we sat through about 15 minutes of his "comedy." Besides being totally vulgar, it wasn't even funny and we still had seen no magic, so we decided to cut our losses and leave. It was pretty amazing, indeed. Moral of the story is research your shows a little more carefully! It did give us something to laugh about for the rest of the weekend, I must say!
Caesar's Palace....
Our second and last night there we went and saw Menopause the Musical. Much more our speed. It was very amusing!
We kind of forgot to plan for how we were going to get all of us - with all our luggage and shopping bags - to the airport in one car! Even poor pregnant Stephanie was covered in luggage from head to toe for that ride to the airport!
My grandma was trying to take this picture from the front seat and had the camera turned around backwards......Stephanie and I couldn't stop laughing!
Maybe we shouldn't have shopped that much?!?
What a great trip!! Happy Birthday Mom!
So we came home and started the family gift opening. As usual it did not disappoint! The kids just love those little presents! And they LOVE watching the others open the ones that they picked out and bought. Lots and love and generosity and excitement...it's the best I tell you!
Bryan and I also give the kids each a gift from the two of us, and they give us the little presents that they make at school and scouts. This year I made aprons for all of the kids, and they were all pretty excited and surprised by them ("you've been in sewing these for US??"). We also got them each a fun book. Nothing big - just things that we knew they'd love.
