Vegas!!

My three best friends from high school and I decided to get together for a girls trip to celebrate 20 years of friendship.  This coming August, we'll have been friends for 20 years (TWENTY YEARS)!  I can't quite wrap my brain around the fact that I'm old enough to have been friends with anyone for 20 years, but somehow it happened and is definitely worth celebrating:)

We had a hard time deciding where to go, and if you know us, you know how hilarious it is that Vegas is the place we settled on.  We were probably the most conservative group there...we didn't dress slutty or get drunk or even gamble.  We did hang out and talk and eat great food.  I guess not much has changed in 20 years;)

Marcy's flight got cancelled Thursday night, so the first night was just Amy, Laura and I.  This is at our hotel, the Paris, waiting to check in...

I just wore my work clothes to fly out there because it was kind of a crazy day, and I didn't realize how conservative I'd feel when I got there in my sweater, blue jean jacket, boots, and maxi skirt.  I felt a little out of place surrounded by all of the girls in leather....at least my friends didn't wear any leather!  I fit right in with them;)

We had a great view of the Bellagio from our room...

We could see about half of the fountain show perfectly, which was so cool!  But those fountains are SO LOUD when you're trying to sleep at night.  It sounded like a roller coaster was right outside of our window.

We also had a little bit of a view of the Eiffel tower...

Marcy was able to catch an early flight on Friday morning, and met us in our hotel room around 11:30.  We headed out for lunch, excited to explore Vegas!

We went to Caesar's and the Bellagio...

They had a whole Chinese year of the horse theme going.

That's our hotel in the background...

We also went over to Planet Hollywood to try to eat at Burgr (Gordon Ramsay's restaurant!), but the wait was too long for us.  We settled on a picture instead...

We ended up at some Mexican food restaurant.  I think it was in Planet Hollywood, but can't remember.  It was pretty good, but probably my least favorite meal of our trip.

 

That night we had reservations at Bobby Flay's Mesa Grill.  It was to die for.  Seriously, I've never used that phrase in my life, so you know it's true.  They had the best corn bread muffins ever.  And the sauce on my chicken was so spicy and delicious.  I should totally quit my job and become a food critic with these awesome descriptions I'm coming up with here...

 

Amy's birthday was a couple days before so it was a belated celebration for her and we were all so stuffed from the amazing food, that we told them not to bring the special birthday dessert.  That definitely speaks more to the scrumptiousness than my brilliant critique.

The next day, we got up to do more exploring.  We saw lots of hotels, but the Wynn was my favorite (just like the last time I went in 2006).  This carousel is made completely of flowers!  Those are all roses on the bottom...

This picture doesn't do it justice, but they had a bunch of these lining a walkway.  They were all different colors and made up of different flowers.  It was gorgeous...

They also had a hot air balloon made of flowers.  Why not?

 

That night we tried Burgr again, and the wait was only 30 minutes (at 4:40pm), so we took it!

I love Gordon even if he is cheesy.

Laura and I split the Brittania Burger (sharp cheddar cheese, arugula, mango chutney) and the Hell's Kitchen Burger (some cheese I can't remember, jalapeno, avocado).  They were the best burgers I've ever had.  So good actually, that I forgot to take a picture before eating them...

 

Oops.  And probably gross to look at, but I had to have a picture to show James.  (We love Master Chef.)  Laura preferred the Brittania and I preferred the Hell's Kitchen, but we both thought both burgers were unbelievable.  The fries were awesome, too.  I don't like sweet potato fries, but if I did, I'm sure I would love theirs.  They had powdered sugar on them.  The regular fries were so yummy dipped in that spicy ranch on my plate.  Or the chipotle ketchup.  So good.

Then we headed down to MGM to see Cirque du Soleil's Ka...

I really enjoyed the show.  They did some crazy things with the set...it transformed between a mountain and a boat and the beach and the sky and many other things.  I don't think it was Laura's favorite performance ever, but the rest of us really enjoyed it:)

See those red heels? 

Big mistake to walk down the Vegas strip in those.  The distance between Paris and MGM isn't that bad, but when your peek toe heels are cutting into the side of your toe, it's a torturous walk.  I actually took them off because I couldn't take it anymore.  I'm can be a total germaphobe at times, and all I could think while I was walking the streets of Vegas barefoot was that I was going to get some sort of bacteria in my bloodstream through an imaginary cut in my foot and die.  So every once in a while I'd put my shoes back on until the pain was too much to take.  I kept taking them on and off the entire way to Paris and by the time I got there, my feet were BLACK.  It was disgusting.

My feet have almost recovered from the blisters, but I won't make that mistake again.  After I scrubbed my feet, we just hung out and talked the rest of the night.

The next morning, we woke up and headed down for our usual breakfast of crepes before heading home...

Since we were staying at Paris, they had all sorts of savory and sweet crepes.  I tried fresh berry, four cheese, blueberry lemon, caramel apple, and ham and cheese.  We all sampled each others...I promise I didn't order multiple crepes a day:)

Amy's is blueberry lemon and mine is fresh berry this day....

 

I definitely missed my hubby and kiddos at home and was so excited to see them, but I was thankful for a long weekend with these sweet women who have been there for all of the ups and downs in my teenage and adult life.  It's crazy to think that if we take another trip in twenty years, all of our kids will be grown and moved out!  If the next 20 goes as quickly as the last 20 years, I will blink and it will be over.  Interestingly, my Bible study group is reading a book called The Friendships of Women right now.  I am so thankful to have had the friendships of these 3 women for over half my life!  Love you girls!!