Things that Happened: Sin City

They say Las Vegas is Disneyland for adults.  Is that what they say?  Maybe I just made that up.  Regardless of what they say, people all over the world love Las Vegas. Everyone wants to go to Las Vegas at least once in their lifetime.  And southern Californians want to go every weekend.  For real, try driving from here to Vegas on a Friday afternoon or from Vegas to SoCal on a Sunday night. Awful. Awful. Awful.  But me?  I hate it.  Aside from the fact that I have no interest in gambling or clubbing or any of that business, it's just a plain old dirty, stinky city.  With dirty, stinky people.  Normal people go to Vegas to be lunatics and that freaks me out. 

However.

Las Vegas happens to be a great meeting place between me and my friends in Utah.  So, that is where we held our newly founded Annual Girls Weekend.  (Right, girls?!)  I can put aside my loathing for Las Vegas to spend some much needed girl time with two of my best girls!  

We started by doing all the Mormon-y things to do in Las Vegas.  You know, the M&M Factory...

The Bellagio Fountain...

and the Bellagio Botanical Garden.

Really, we could have sat down on a dirty bench on the Strip just talking and I would have been happy as a lark.  We had a lot of things to catch up on, so we meandered around the Strip and talked about it all.

The next day we went shopping...

and saw The Phantom of the Opera at the Venetian.  My amazingly talented cousin and his wife are in the show and hooked us up big time, with phenomenal tickets and we absolutely LOVED it. 

Actually, one of my favorite memories of this trip was when we went to dinner before the show.  We did not want to be late to Phantom, and maneuvering around Las Vegas kept taking us longer than we ever planned for, so we decided not to have dinner on the Strip.  We decided on P.F. Changs that was  somewhat near our hotel and close enough to the strip to manage.  Well, when we got there we were pressed for time, so before we parked they let me out to get our name down and ask what the quickest way to get our food would be, so we wouldn't be late for our show.  The hostess directed me to the bar and said, "Just tell the bartender that you won't be drinking, but that you're in a big hurry and he'll take care of you."  So, that's what I did.  But, Danielle and Haylee were still parking the car so I headed back to the bar, talked to the bartender and told him what the hostess told me and waited for the girls to join me.  By the time they met up with me, the bartender had plates and menus set out for us, and was taking our drink orders.  Danielle just wanted water and the bartender goes, "Wait. You're 21, right?"  Confused, Danielle asked, "Do you have to be 21 to order water?"  I almost died of laughter.  He explained that you have to be 21 to sit at the bar at all, and she assured him she was over 21 years old.  Absolutely hilarious!  Apparently he wasn't concerned about me being over 21, nobody ever is.  Plus, poor Danielle got lectured by some teenager working at Jamba Juice while we were shopping about how she was too young to have a baby, after the Jamba Juice girl thought her purse could possibly be a diaper bag.  (Which it definitely did NOT look like, and Danielle does not have any babies.)  Who does that?!  We all had a good laugh. 

Anyway, after the show we walked around the Venetian and did some window shopping and people watching.  When we headed back to the hotel we thought it would be entertaining to take random pictures of ourselves doing things that I don't think regular 24 year olds do in Vegas.  It turns out we turned in to lunatics in Vegas too.

We pushed each other on the luggage cart.

We jumped on the bed.  (Danielle, I need copies of your pics!)

Danielle and I ate cookies in bed...

While Haylee acted like a normal adult and called her husband.  I just love her.

I know, we are wiillllldd and crraaazzzzyyy. 

We literally stayed up talking all night, every night about everything under the sun.  Everything.  It was good for my soul.   Every morning when we got dressed it would be 5 minutes of "Cute outfit!" or "How did you get your hair to do that?"  You don't realize that you've gotten used to living with a boy until you live with girls again, if only for a weekend.  I'm not saying my husband isn't complimentary, but it's not the same. (And thank heavens it isn't!) 

Unfortunately, the three of us all live in different states now.  But you know what they say, "True friendship is not being inseparable, it's being separated and nothing changes". 

I'm lucky to have these girls and other amazing friends in my life.  Heaven knows I have needed them.