Viva Las Vegas!

Travis and I celebrated our 4th Anniversary on July 22nd.  To celebrate we went on a little vacation July 27-30 to Las Vegas, Nevada.  This was my first time away from Brynlee, which was hard...but I knew she was left in great hands with Gramma and Grampa to practice her walking skills and learn how to moo like a cow! 

We stayed at the Planet Hollywood Resort, Hotel and Casino.  Our room was a few windows down from the PH Emblem.  The hotel in itself was huge.  Of course it had it's own casino, theaters, restaurants, including the Spice Market Buffet we visited which had tons of food, and the Miracle Mile Shops which had all of the stores you could possibly ever want to shop at.

We had a great view from our hotel room.  The Bellagio Hotel with the fountains is diagonal from Planet Hollywood and the Paris Hotel and Eiffel Tower was just across the street as well. 

Luckily, our hotel was in the center of the Las Vegas Strip.  On the first day we set out and visited the MGM Grand Hotel, M&M World, Hard Rock Cafe, New York New York, and the Paris Hotel.  That night we got the best view of Las Vegas as we went to the top of the Eiffel Tower.  We rode an elevator 436 feet high to the observation desk at the top of the Eiffel Tower.  This Eiffel Tower is actually 1/2 the size of the real one in Paris, France.  They wanted to build a full scale replica but could not do so because of the flight path for the airport so close by.  I cannot even imagine going that high up!  We got just to the top in time to see the Bellagio Fountain Show.  Here are some pictures of the spectacular views.

On the 2nd day, we walked the other direction and mainly went sight-seeing.  We went to the Bellagio, Caesar's Palace, The Venetian, Palazzo, The Wynn, and The Fashion Show Mall. 

View of the Bellagio from the moving walkway. 

This is the view from inside the Venetian Hotel.  You can ride a gondola ride through the hotel.  It was amazing to me how the ceilings of all of the hotels looked so much like the sky. 

Inside the Bellagio Hotel.

Outside of Serendipity 3 where we ate a huge ice-cream sundae to help cool down from the 110 degree heat....and a place to stop and rest our feet.

That night we ate at the Prime Steakhouse at the Bellagio.  The food was great (but quite expensive).  It has been a long time since Travis and I spent almost 2 hours at dinner and was actually able to enjoy the food without swallowing our food whole.

  

We spent most of the 3rd day at our own hotel.  I went and laid out at our pool and Travis hit the casino.  Unfortunately, he didn't strike it rich and I really didn't get a tan.  But all in all, it was nice and relaxing.  That night we went to the Mirage Hotel and saw "The Beatles Love" Cirque Du Soleil Show.  The show was really amazing, there were acrobats, dancers, singers, gymnasts, roller skaters and all performed to classic Beatles' songs.  If you are ever in Vegas, I would definitely recommend seeing this! 

  

We left Las Vegas on Friday morning.  Here are picture from the airplane of all of the hotels and casinos, the Hoover Dam and the outer ridge of the Grand Canyon.  Pretty cool views to see from the sky.

Overall, Travis and I had a great time and I took hundreds of pictures while we were there.  However here are some tips if you ever visit Las Vegas.

1.  The "Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas" Sign is no where near all of the hotels and casinos.  I really wanted a picture of that but we found out it was on the outside of town. (I was quite disappointed)
2. The Las Vegas Strip is much bigger than it looks on TV and Las Vegas Boulevard is not a straight rode, it actually curves so your can't see all of the hotels at once.
3. Bring comfortable shoes!  I can't stress that enough.  My feet were so tired and I had blisters.
4. Finally, you don't see any of the Wedding Chapels that you see on TV, not that we were getting married again but I did read while I was there that on average over 350 weddings are performed a day.
5. Remember to cross your seat belts when you get off of the plane.  The Southwest Flight Attendants told us to do that to bring you good luck, but we didn't....and well we didn't come home millionaires, furthermore we didn't even win at the slots!  I guess better luck next time!