Tuesday, March 15, 2016

Las Vegas, Day 1

Did I mention we had one more surprise in Vegas? My parents met us out there! Originally we were supposed to get in Tuesday afternoon but since our flight was delayed, we got in later & didn't get to do much that night so we woke up ready to go on Wednesday. Our goal was to conquer the strip & we definitely did!
 
We headed for New York first because Sadie saw the statue of liberty when we drove in the night before. They have a Hershey store with a few candy statues:
 

Next we crossed the street & headed to the M&M store:
 
 
This might have been one of Sadie's favorites from the trip! It is 4 stories tall with surprises on every level. Her favorite was the wall of M&M's:
 
 
I'm the cool mom that let her get about $10 worth of candy :) She had so much fun picking the different colors & flavors for her bag. While they were doing that, someone else stopped by to surprise them:
 
 
This picture makes me laugh because Sophie is all smiles but in reality she was screaming her head off & saying no because she was afraid of it! We also got to see a 4D movie upstairs in the m&m theater:
 
 
After we left the candy store, we ran into a few friends:
 
 
There are strange & random characters all over the strip. That's one of the things I remembered about going over new year's with Bryan. We saw minions, transformers, princesses, Elvis, Michael Jackson - you name it, we probably saw it. The problem is all of these characters want to be paid to have their pictures taken :( So I let Sadie take it with Frozen since that's her favorite & then I quickly taught her to give everyone else a high five & move on!
 
Next we went back to NY for lunch at The Shake Shack. I really wanted to eat there last time so it was a must on my list this trip, but honestly, I was a little disappointed. I didn't realize it was more like a fast food restaurant instead of a gourmet burger place.
 
We headed towards Bellagio & played out front for a while. We thought the fountains would come on & we finally learned they don't until later in the day. But we had a good view of the Eiffel Tower:
 
 
Next door was Caesar's Palace. I knew the girls would like the statues in the forum shops. They come to life every hour & have a little show with rain & fire. No pictures but they were entertained. They have a kids store that I like so I shopped in there & while we were there, Sadie found an Elsa hat. Oh my was she obsessed with this hat! My mom bought it for her & I don't think she took her hat off for the rest of the trip:
 
 
We walked next to Mirage because I thought they had animals we could see and they do, for a price. An expensive price that wasn't worth it so we headed across the street to the Venetian. Sadie was intrigued by the living statue over here:
 
 
And we splurged & took a gondola ride:
 

 
It is also over priced but I have never ridden it before so it was fun to try something new with the girls. Unfortunately they only let 4 of us on the boat, so my dad had to sit this one out.
 
Since it was finally dark outside, we went to ride the High Roller:
 
 
We hadn't been to Vegas since the girls were born & I saw this on our last trip & knew the girls would love it! It is also expensive, but my dad found coupons online & everyone said it was worth it to go at night. We lucked out & it wasn't crowded at all. Sometimes a pod can have 30-40 people but we had it to ourselves:
 
 
That picture is kind of dark, but that's when we first got on. The pod was so big we could run around & dance. They played awesome music the whole time & since no one was with us, we might have had a dance party:
 


 
The views did not disappoint! We were at 520 feet when we hit the top & I believe they said this is bigger than the London Eye. It takes 30 minutes to go around so it moves really slow but check out our view of the strip from the top:
 
 
If you look in the middle, you can see the dancing waters at the Bellagio. The fountains went off while we were up there & they still looked pretty from that high up. My only regret is that Bryan didn't get to join us because he had a work function that night.
 
When we got off, we were hungry so we went to Serendipity for dinner followed by Sprinkles cupcakes. Delicious! Can't believe I didn't take a picture of any of our food or restaurants all day - usually that's my favorite part of traveling!
 
It was a long day of walking but we conquered most of the strip & tried to find everything for children that we could. We rode the tram/train a few times & of course they thought that was fun too. Amazing, a free tram ride is entertainment enough for them!
 
When we got back to our room, Sadie stayed down the hall with Mimi & Doc while Sophie stayed with us. Bryan paid for a regular room but sweet talked the concierge into upgrading us to a suite so we had a separate living room & bedroom with 2 bathrooms. Poor Sophie got stuck in the extra bathroom! Our bedroom was amazing & had 180 degrees of windows with the best view. Bryan stayed out late with his colleagues & clients, so I enjoyed the view with my fancy cupcake:
 
 
and that tablet? That belongs to the room. It was our command center so we could operate the entire room from that device. Thank you Bryan for letting us tag along on your work trip! Since we had the extra bathroom for Sophie & since Sadie was gone, I got to relax every night & sleep in every morning! Ok, so maybe I didn't sleep in, but I got to go to the gym early every morning without waking anyone else up :)



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