26 April 2009

Throw Gracie from the plane!

In more recent news, we just got back from a trip to visit my parents in fabulous Las Vegas.  Hate to tell you, Grandmama and Boompa, but we won't be coming back for a while- at least not until I've forgotten about the plane ride home, that is.
We left last Saturday, and our 5 hour flight out there wasn't TOO bad- Gracie only slept for 20 minutes the whole flight, but we were on our game and coped pretty well with her the rest of the time.  We had a great time out there- it was so good to see my parents.  They have a great apartment out there, and are only 10 minutes or so from the strip.  Gracie got to meet Cody, their Sheltie, and learned his name almost immediately (this coming from the child who STILL doesn't seem to know who *I* am!).  She followed Co-Co around mercilessly.  Poor dog.
We went to Hoover Dam on Sunday and saw the scariest construction site EVER- they're building the new bypass bridge over the river and boy is it something else.  It is a cable-stay bridge, and they are pouring the concrete supports- it is hard to believe that people have to WORK that high up every day.






Mom and I went shopping that afternoon while David and Randy went to watch the Hurricanes game at the Caesar's Palace sports book.  We also went to our favorite spot: Bellagio.  Gracie got to see a couple fountain shows and I got some great pics of the spring flower display in the hotel.

On Monday we drove through the desert to the Buffalo Bill resort near the California border to ride the Desperado roller coaster.  We were unimpressed.  It was similar in style to Magnum at Cedar Point, and just a rough if not worse.  Meh.  We also went to the outlet mall out there and had lunch.  It was neat seeing all that desert.
We also had a night out by ourselves and went to dinner at Woo (awesome Asian cuisine) and went to see Phantom at the Venetian.  It was incredible.  We splurged on really good seats, and the sets were simply unbelievable.  The chandelier falling scene was awesome, and the damn thing came about 3 feet from our heads!  That was the only night we gambled at all- I won what Randy lost playing roulette.  It was fun, though.
We spent one day on the strip by ourselves, leaving mom home to rest up, and took Gracie to the Secret Garden habitat at the Mirage.  They have dolphins and white tigers among other critters, and that was neat.


We also toured Treasure Island and had lunch at the Fashion Show Mall.  We let G have a little freedom at the food court:


Let's see- what else?  We went that night to Fremont Street and had dinner at the buffet at Golden Nugget.  We watched the Fremont St. Experience, but it was a crappy song.  Gracie seemed to enjoy the lights, though.
On Wednesday we got a tour of Zappos.com where my mom works.  What a neat place!  We ate lunch at PF Changs- more about that in a sec.  That night we met one of Randy's former co-workers for dinner at Maggiano's.  I love that place, but was unimpressed with the service- it was really crowded in there, so dinner took forever.  Poor Randy evidently had some bad food at Changs for lunch, and he wasn't feeling so hot, so he didn't get to enjoy his dinner- or the rest of our trip for that matter.
On Thursday we headed home and experienced nearly the worst 5 hours of our life.  Our plane was late getting to Vegas, and Randy was still really sick.  Gracie was already tired of traveling and she was hungry, but wouldn't really eat before we got on the plane.  We struggled onto the plane, we struggled to keep her entertained, she whined, she fussed, she squirmed and Randy was miserable.  I was miserable for having to deal with BOTH of them.  I was ready to throw someone off that plane.  Gracie FINALLY fell asleep for the last hour and a half of the trip, and we didn't get home until close to 2:30 in the morning.  Luckily G slept in the next morning, as she has since we got back- she's still on pacific time.  Here are a few more random pics:

We've been crazy busy since we got back, too.  Randy was in a wedding today,  and we had rehearsal/dinner for that last night.  Friday I had to go out to NCCU to drop a video off and meet with my supervisor, too.  And yesterday we ran over something and blew a tire on the Prius.  Lovely.  I'm ready for some normalcy- but I'm NOT looking forward to going back to work tomorrow!

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