We headed out after Z finished work on a Thursday afternoon, drove straight down to Vegas and got there around 10ish, and promptly crashed in our very nice room at the MGM Grand. The next morning we kind of wandered around the hotel for a while, got our bearings on where we were, then met up with our very good friend Craig (not Wardle, a different one) for lunch. Craig is one of the most amazing, generous, devoted people I've ever met. Seriously this guy is true to his friends, ALWAYS, and no matter what. He works at MGM, that's why we were staying there, and him being down in Vegas is a fairly big reason for us taking this trip in the first place. Anyway, we met up with him for lunch at the Wolfgang Puck restaurant that's there in the MGM, had some good food, made some plans for the next few days, then headed our separate ways. PS. Check out the bathtub in our room!!! It was so nice to relax in, especially with being pregnant.
Zander had never seen Phantom of the Opera before, and we figured that Vegas was the place to see it. We had tickets pre-purchased but wanted to go down to the Venetian earlier than the show to make sure that everything was fine with them. For some reason we decided to walk.....it was a long walk, and we took a cab back. That's a really really pretty hotel/casino though! We got some gelato, wandered around, and felt almost like we were in Europe for a bit. Later in the evening we headed back up to the Venetian to see the amazing show, and holy crap, it was worth every penny. Definitely the place to see Phantom, even if it is the abridged version. You can't take photos (legally) in the theater, so you'll have to be happy with pictures of the hotel instead.
Saturday morning Craig called us bright and early and invited us out to his home for breakfast with his family. He came and picked us up, we went out and met his family, had some breakfast (Tera, his wife, makes GREAT pancakes, and I don't usually like pancakes at all), and decided that we should all pack up in the truck and go see the Hoover Dam. If you haven't seen the dam, next time you're down in the Vegas area, take a little side trip and go out and see it. It's not that far from The Strip, and it was honestly refreshing to be away from the casino scene for a bit. We did the tour inside of the dam and saw all of the huge generators, then spent some time outside looking at the dam, and the cool new bridge that they're building so that people aren't driving on top of the dam anymore.
The original plan was for me and Z to go back to the hotel that evening and go to the Bon Jovi concert, but we decided it was going to be more fun to hang out with Craig and his family. Now don't freak out. They were free tickets, and we're not huge Bon Jovi fans anyway. So instead of Bon Jovi and a headache, we stayed with the family and did a crab boil. LOADS of fun. You buy a bunch of crab, and some shrimp, throw it all in a big pot with Crab Boil seasonings from McCormick, and then dive in. It's my new favorite way to do seafood.
Sunday morning we slept in a bit, took our time getting ready, then met Craig and family over at Mandaly Bay to go to the Shark Reef exhibit. I was honestly really impressed with the variety of fish, jelly fish, turtles etc. they had in there, and how big some of them were. It's not every day you get to see sharks swimming literally all around you, plus the occasional sea turtle. After the sharks we headed out to get some pizza and buffalo wings, then headed back to Craig's house and just kind of hung out for the evening. Next morning we headed home.
I know, you're thinking that we went to Vegas and didn't even do "Vegas" stuff. Well, your right, and honestly it was a GREAT trip. It was the perfect amount of touristy stuff, being lazy in a hotel, and hanging out with good friends. THAT'S the way to do Vegas, and hopefully we'll be going back again soon.
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