5 year anniversary

Those of you who know us, know that it is really not our 5 year wedding anniversary (it's actually been 3.5 years!), however....Chadd read about how to get your room upgraded in Vegas. When you check in to the hotel, slip a folded up $20 dollar bill in between your ID and credit card. Then Chadd told him we were celebrating our 5 year anniversary, is there anyway we could get upgraded to a nicer room. It worked like a charm! The guy thanked Chadd for the money and pocketed it, went in the back (which is just a thing they do) came back and said he could up grade us to the top floor - the 25th - and gave us a whirlpool tub. There were special elevators to the 24th and 25th floors. The hotel also sent us a bottle of champagne to celebrate! Even though we haven't hit number 5, we were celebrating a nice vacation together and some much needed alone time. You could say the last couple years have been hectic with not a lot of time for me to spend alone with my wonderful husband. What a great little get away this was!

Here's the view of the strip from our hotel room.

Our room with a luscious king size bed.

Our first night out was so fun and exciting. It was perfect to get into Vegas on a Thursday evening. We walked around and sought out our favorite casinos.

Friday morning we got up and had lunch at Hash House A Go Go Restaurant. It seemed everyone else had the same idea as there was a 45 minute wait. This is some spicy sausage (Chorizo) concoction that Chadd ordered.

Here's my burger and fries. Huge! We were not the only ones taking pictures of our food!

Chadd in front of New York, New York.

We sat across from this meat cooler that belongs to a fancy steakhouse and we were watching in fascination as most men were excited to see this meat. And many of them took pictures so after sitting there laughing at others, I told Chadd we needed to get a picture of him in front of the meat. I don't get it, it's a guy thing.

Chadd at the blackjack video game.

Let's see....I think this is how our gambling went...Lost $20, Won $10, Won $10, Lost $10, Lost $10 = total lose $20. I think we did ok!!!

Here I am drinking a strawberry Margarita at Margaritaville! Yum Yum! Friday we spent most of the day walking on the strip, going in and out of casinos and stores. Friday night we went to Sin City Comedy Club. The opening act was from Wisconsin and that was his whole thing to talk about. It was pretty funny since we could relate to it!

Inside one of the shopping plazas. Everything is so beautiful in Vegas!

After having lunch on Saturday at Margaritaville, we took a taxi to downtown and saw the Gold and Silver Pawn Shop from the show Pawn Stars on the History channel. Chadd and I watch that show all the time so we had to go since we were going to be so close. It has become somewhat of a tourist attraction and there is a line to get into the store. It's not in a very nice area, and it's smaller and dirtier than you would guess. But it was definately worth seeing.

The inside of the Pawn Shop.

Another shot of the inside. We looked around, but didn't buy or sell anything!

They say that downtown Vegas is the best kept secret in town and "they" are correct! Downtown is awesome and I'm glad we decided to go. Chadd and I were in Vegas six years ago when we were dating and we did not go downtown. Here's Chadd drinking our 64 oz beer. You might think that's not normal, but there it was! The guy the next table over had one and we had a race going who could drink it the fastest (not really!)

Here's Chadd playing blackjack at a table with a video dealer. One step closer to the tables...but not quite there. Downtown had a casino with $2 minimum bet blackjack, but as you could imagine, the tables were all full. Otherwise, the minimum bet was $5 and we just aren't that big of gamblers...maybe next time!

We went to LA Comedy Club downtown and afterwards there was this awesome light show over our heads. There was also a band playing outside, but the theme of the songs that evening was the 70s, not really our type of music.

Here's the stage and the band downtown.

Chadd liked this one!

Enjoying the night!

I wanted to show you our sandwich we ordered for lunch on Sunday. The picture is blurry, but I think you get the point! Wow, big! This was in a cafe inside our hotel. By the way, we stayed at the Mirage.

Sunday was an adventure! We went to Red Rock Canyon. We did not tour the canyon by bus, car, bicycle, hiking, motorcycle, horse, donkey....give up????!!!!

Chadd at the visitor center at Red Rock Canyon.

Somebody had to take the place of the kids!

Chadd petting the turtle.

It's BEAUTIFUL out here!

This kinda looks like a cartoon! We drove around Red Rock Canyon in Scooters, of course!!! It was a blast! I'm sure you already guessed it ;)

Here we are in our little green scooter. We booked this tour called Scoot City Tours on line. This guy is just starting the business. He picked us up at our hotel, then we all met up at a storage facility where he keeps the scooters. We drove these little things on the street with regular traffic. I chickened out and didn't drive. It's really a three wheel moped, drives like a motorcycle.

Here we are gassing up after the tour. These were so fun to ride in! I highly recommend doing the tour in a scooter!

Here is the Red Rock Casino where most of the movie "21" was filmed.

This is on our way to see Carrot Top's comedy show on Sunday night. It was the best by far! He was hilarious and his act was fast pace and nonstop jokes. Besides that, he looks silly too! From our hotel, The Mirage, it took us about an hour to walk to Luxor, where the show was. And it took us three hours to get back! That's with a few stops, of course! What a blast!

Beautiful strip at night.

One of our stops on the way back, at about midnight, was Pink's Hotdogs. This is Chadd's dog that has jalapenos. Would you expect anything less with Chadd? All food requires spiciness if he's really going to enjoy it!!!

I was the good wife and wiped cheese off his face as he struggled to eat this montrousity!

AND...our last sightseeing event before we went off to bed Sunday night...we watched a couple dudes get arrested by bicycle cops. We weren't the only ones standing and watching! They were handcuffed and put on the curb. Then we lost interest and moved on. We flew out on Monday at noon.

A HUGE THANK YOU TO CHADD'S PARENTS FOR WATCHING THE KIDS!!!!! THANK YOU SO MUCH :)