Honeymoon in Vegas

Steve and I never went on a honeymoon when we were first married.  With no money, then a baby on the way, and the decision to have Steve finish school we never made it happen.  Well 13 years and six kids later we finally decided to go.  We chose Las Vegas primarily because it is close enough to home that we could come home quickly if we needed to, and because it was one of the less expensive options.

Let me start off by saying I fully enjoyed every second spent with Steve.  We had a great time together and were able to enjoy being together.  I missed the kids greatly, but it was so nice to relax and just spend time with Steve.  We hope to be able to go on a trip together once a year from here on out, since we are done having babies and nursing them :))

We stayed at the Trump International.  I liked it because it did not have a casino, and it was a non-smoking establishment.  We had delicious food.  We ate at the Wynn Buffet (yum), the Planet Hollywood buffet (decent food, horrible atmosphere), and the buffet at Paris (my favorite, we ate there twice).  We walked up and down the strip a lot, and went into just about every hotel along the way.  We went to the Fine Art Gallery in the Bellagio and saw the Andy Whorhal exhibit.  It was interesting, and I can't say I'm a fan of his work.  We went to another art gallery and were lucky enough to see a few Rembrandt etchings, Salvador Dali water colors, a couple of Picasso's, and some more Andy Whorhal.  It was really neat.  We saw the famous Bellagio fountains, and the terrible Treasure Island show.  On Thursday afternoon we took a break and saw the  movie Snitch in a theater.  We went to the MnM store, and the Coca Cola store.  We saw at least four Tiffany & Co  jewelry stores, and a plethora of other unaffordable stores.  Every hotel had the same stores, which I thought was pretty funny since none of them had any customers.  We went to the Mandalay Bay Shark Reef Aquarium.  We walked through tons of smokey casinos.  We saw the Sphinx, and the Statue of Liberty.  We laid by the pool, and went for a swim.  We worked out in the hotel gym.  We went to Ben and Jerry's and had ice cream.  We did a little bit of shopping at the Fashion Show Mall.  We saw the Bauman Rare Books store that is often featured on the show Pawn Stars.  It was closed so we didn't go in, but I did take a picture.  We walked a lot.  We really just enjoyed being there together.

Now, I have to say that I never had any desire to go to Las Vegas before.  It has never appealed to me before, and I have to say that it was worse than I expected. Not only is there temptation everywhere you look, it is literally shoved in your face.  It is pretty disgusting.  It is a sad place to be.  I was happy to return to our quiet hotel each night and relax.

Now we are home and I was so excited to pick the kids up from our friends the Findlay's.  They were so great to take all the kids for us so we could go on this trip.  We will be paying them back this summer