Mini Vacation

I guess I haven't updated in awhile. A few weeks ago, we went to Las Vegas for a short little vacation. It was partly to celebrate all our birthdays, partly planned a few months ago when K was working so hard that I almost never saw him! A little family together time, minus our teenager.

We decided to take Monday off instead of Friday, so on Sat we went to the Girl's soccer game, then off to Vegas. I was collecting money for the team, and joked with the Coach that I was taking the cash to Vegas to try to double it!

It was somewhat overcast, but we had a nice drive out there. There were some pretty pink trees flowering (apple or cherry blossoms?). It's strange how a desert can still be so pretty.

We stopped in Victorville, as we always like to stop at Long John Silver's. It's like a family tradition. Last time we tried to stop there, it looked like it had burned down! We tried again this time, thinking that maybe they'd rebuilt it. Nope. Now it's a very nice Starbucks. Next door, Taco Bell was having major construction. Did they let this stop them from selling at the drive-thru window? No, they did not! The building looked very bad, but the food tasted much the same as always.

We decided to stay at Excalibur. This was The Girl's choice, but also it had a heated pool (we checked.) They didn't have any view rooms available (extra charge? No way!), but they said it was a nice room. We found it completely remodeled - granite countertops in the room and bathroom, and a big-screen TV! Yay vacation!

We headed Downtown that first night, for a cheap buffet (Lucky 777) and the ABC Store (the Girl loves it!) We enjoyed the light show and I even liked the food this time. A nearby store advertised 10 postcards for $1. What a deal! So I went over and picked out around 5, but they insisted I pick out 10. I offered to pay the same price for the 5 cards, but they said no. If I wanted to buy fewer cards, they were $.25 each. Huh? Ok. Same with the 2 for $1 bottled water. So we stocked up on water and souvenirs, and headed back to the room. K wanted to drive the Strip, but I quickly became impatient with our lack of progress back to the room.

Sunday the Girl indulged her addiction to "America's Top Dance Crew" to the point where K and I actually became interested. We hit the Paris buffet again, barely making the cheaper "breakfast" price changeover at 11am, barely escaping the "brunch" astronomical pricing! But being the right time, we got mimosas and crab claws and many other wonderful treats. K was getting the Girl to taste crab, and I dipped a piece in a container of what I thought was butter, but turned out to be orange juice. Later, draining the remains of my mimosa, I was rewarded with a small piece of crab at the bottom.

Next we went shopping at Caeser's Forum, which the Girl also loves because of the huge FAO Schwartz store there. We don't usually buy that much, but we love looking at the huge stuffed animals and other cool toys (rug skateboard?) The main thing was that we did a LOT of walking and tried to walk off our huge breakfast. Then we went back to the hotel and found the pool. They had a cool coach near the pool, so I stretched out to read. It was a little cold for swimming, but I love reading by the pool.

Later, when we got hungry again, we went in search of more food. K wanted to eat at Planet Hollywood, and wanted to try the new Planet Hollywood hotel we'd seen. Surely they had a restaurant there. Well, they had restaurants, but no Planet Hollywood restaurant. They had a PF Chang's, but the wait was 45 min. We were hungry, but took the pager just in case, and went walking around. Around the corner we found a mall we'd never seen before - The Miracle Mile I think it was called.

The stores there were much more reasonable than those at the Forum, and we found a few shirts and gifts to buy. Soon we were paged, and were off to eat at PF Chang's. Another wonderful meal, the place was great, and we had a great booth seat upstairs.

Afterwards, we waddled off to the car, and went back to our room. More reading and TV and drinks in the room.

The next day we kept the room even tho we weren't spending the night. K has done this before, and likes having the room all day. We hung out at the pool and read. When it was around 5, we packed up and headed out to our last buffet before leaving Las Vegas.

It was nice to get home.