Vegas!

Adam had a fracture course that he had to take in Las Vegas, all expenses (except food) paid, so I decided to buy a plane ticket and go with him!  I'm so grateful it was even an option, thanks to my wonderful mom and dad who watched over my crazy household.  Adam was going to be in the conference for 3 1/2 days, so I was pretty much left to myself to explore the city...

Since Adam was given money for his hotel, we wanted to stay in the nicest one that we could for the money he had!  The Venetian was a phenomenal choice. 

This is the lobby:

And our room:

The Grand Canal Shoppes inside The Venetian (the sky is painted on the ceiling):

There was a rare bookstore in the Grand Canal Shoppes that had this 17th century Bible to sale for $16,000.  I found it quite intriguing:

Our view from our room.  The road (The Strip) is down near the clock tower that you see:

The front of our hotel:

I walked to the mall my first morning there,  A view from a walkway above the Strip:

Now, let me just say right here that Adam has a pretty awesome family.  They all live out west, but not really very close to Vegas, but many of them traveled there to see us, if even for an hour or two.  I'm so glad they did.  

Our second night my brother and sister in law, Justin and Julie, and Adam's sisters, Marta and Melissa, drove all the way up from LA and down from Idaho and Utah to see us.  Justin and Julie treated us all to a wonderful dinner on the patio of the restaurant Mon Ami Gabi in the Paris Hotel.  It was absolutely perfect.  We had a great view throughout dinner of the Bellagio fountains across the street and a hilarious mime that kept scaring people when he decided to break his statue-like pose and jump out in front of someone. After dinner I just had to give the mime $5 to get a picture with him.  He was pretty cool.

The pics of this fab night:

On our drive back to The Venetian we drove by Bally's, the hotel we stayed at for our wedding night! 

One of the best desserts I have ever had: Chocolate beignets with some custard sauce and ice cream, created by Wolfgang Puck himself.  My mouth was in heaven.

Another mime:

St. Mark's square in the Venetian:

On our last day I went for a walk to the Bellagio to pick up our tickets for the Cirque du Soleil show we were going to see that night.  This is in the Bellagio shops (can you see the actual hotel through the ceiling?):

The Bellagio gardens were on my must-see list.  They were a little disappointing to be honest.  I was expeting something a little grander than a small courtyard, BUT their fall display was pretty neat:

As I was leaving the Bellagio I took a few pics of it's surroundings.  Maybe it's because I know it's the nicest and most expensive hotel in Vegas, but I loved it the most (yes, a tiny bit more than the Venetian.)  It was very elegant and beautiful.  Here are some pics I took as I was walking back to our hotel:

(That red awning that you see is where we had dinner with Justin, Julie, Melissa and Marta.)

This is inside the Forum Shops in Caesar's Palace.  Look at that architecture!  I kept thinking that if this looks so magnificent to me here in the 21st century, imagine how amazing this style of architecture was back in the 8th century! 

The Venetian:

Our last full day we got to see Adam's brother, Nathan, and his family AND Adam's parents!  We hadn't seen any of his family for almost 2 years, so it was so wonderful.

  

That lobby was so magnificent!

With Nathan and Misty and their 3 kids we walked down to the Bellagio (my second time on one day... my feet hurt!) to see the fountains at night.  They were one of my favorite things about Vegas.

Our home for 3 1/2 days:

We had a little down time between when we had to check out and when our plane left, so we got to sit in this beautiful lobby and just enjoy the grandeur one last time of our beautiful hotel:

AND... my mom kept us updated, of course, on what was happening 2,000 miles away back in MI!  The girlies were having a blast with her!