Vegas - day 3

Welcome back for Day 3 & 4!

On day three I made reservations to see the Neon Boneyard. I had been dreaming of going here for many years. The graphic designer and photographer in me was just dying to go with all the beautiful graphics and photo ops.

 I am a huge travel channel fan, and I had seen bone yard on there a long time ago. I believe it was on a Samantha Brown show and if she has been there, then I want to go! I love her! This was pretty much the reason I wanted to go to Vegas for the past few years. Not because of the Casino's and shows, or get remarried by Elvis, but to see the old neon signs. I dreamed of doing photo shoots out there of Matt and I, but if you wanted to take professional pictures you had to pay a phenomenal fee, so I just settled for the snap shots. I really recommend going if you love design and history.

We were a few blocks away from Freemont Street, so we decided to hoof it down and view the street during the day. Once we got to Freemont Streetwe realized we were only a few more blocks away from Gold & Silver Pawn. Now if you have ever seen Pawn Stars, then you know exactly what that is. Matt is a huge fan of the show, and I honestly like to watch it sometimes too. How can we come this far and not visit the shop. The line wrapped around the front of the building, but moved, so we really didn't have to wait too long outside, maybe 30 minutes. When we got in, we looked around a little bit, but weren't really interested in buying anything. The back section had tons of souvenirs, which you don't see on the show. 

So we left and headed back down to Freemont Street past all the old casinos and under the canopy. We ended up eating at the Golden Nugget, in the Grotto, for lunch. We saw the largest golden nugget while we were there, and Matt pulled the giant slot machine. Unfortunately, he didn't win. So we left after that and headed back to our hotel on the strip to take a nap since we wanted to go back later that night when it was dark.

The framework for the zipline at the beginning of Fremont St.

Has everyone heard of this place? Heart attack grill.

 I think this is the last one still standing.

 lunch at the Grotto



The largest gold nugget

Before we headed back to Freemont Street that night we finally got to go to the top of the Eiffel tower. We got to the top of the tower just in time for the water show at the Bellagio to end. Since the show was supposed to go off every fifteen minutes we waited up there and staked out a spot to get the best view. However, 20 mins after, the show hadn't started, and then 35 mins after, there was no show, finally at around 40mins after, the water show started. That was three shows we could have seen while we were up there, not to mention it was pretty chilly and wet that night. I am pretty sure someone fell asleep on their shift when they were supposed to press the button to make the fountains go off. But I digress. 

While we were waiting in line to go down, I took a self portrait of Matt and I, and when I looked back at it, I realized the girl behind us photo bombed us. I turned around and looked at her with a smile on my face and she knew she was caught. We all started laughing, and she apologized. It was a pretty funny experience to catch your photo bomber. We talked to her for a while and told her we would tag her in it (Hi Brittany). 

So when we headed back to Freemont St, the first thing we did was get in line for the Zipline, since mom had wanted to do it, I knew that we couldn’t miss it. 

view from the top of the zipline

While we were in line we ran into our waitress from earlier that day at the Golden Nugget. She was so sweet and remembered us. She and her friend decided to adopt us and wanted to give us an experience from a local’s perspective. They showed us a few things to do and then took us to a concert where they got us in for free. We had such a great time and were so thankful that they took us in under their wing. It made for a great experience.

We got to take a picture with $1million dollars!

On our last day, we didn't do very much. We walked around a little more on the strip and through our hotel. The Cosmopolitan was really neat inside. So were the gardens inside the Bellagio and the glass scupltures hanging from the ceiling. 

Inside the Cosmopolitan 

A giant high heel, awesome! 

Inside the Bellagio

The Bellagio fountains

 I picked up a red velvet cupcake at the Sugar Factory inside the Paris hotel and saved it for our wait at the airport. I would recommend going there and checking out all the candy.

YUM!

Has anyone else gone to vegas recently? Share you story with me, I would love to see what you did on your trip. I am soo glad we finally got to go to Vegas. We got a lot done, saw a lot of sights and spent a lot of money. We had a great time, but we don't plan on going back anytime soon.

Viva Las Vegas!!!! 

Viva Las Vegas...We got hitched!

I am finally posting on our Vegas trip! It has taken me a while to write it, then get Matt go over it and make sure I didnt forget anything. So after much anticipation, here's the trip! Enjoy!

For our 5 year anniversary this past year, we decided to take a big trip to renew our vows. Ever since day one of our marriage, I couldn't wait to get married to Matt again. I wanted to get married everywhere, on the beach, in the Mountains, anywhere really on God's beautiful green earth, even in Las Vegas. Earlier in the summer our company held an auction to raise money for one of our coworkers whose daughter was going through cancer treatments.(Check out more about Faye’s fight here. She is a wonderful and brave little girl). One of the auction items was a trip to Las Vegas, which included airfare and hotel. Matt and I had been making plans to go to Vegas the previous year, but plans had fallen through, so this time we jumped at the chance and beat out others to win this trip and all for a good cause. After we won the trip, I couldn't decide when we should go. There was a Photoshop conference in Sept that I had free tickets to attend, but I just couldn't make up my mind and ended up not going. Then a few people from work were going to a trade show and I thought about meeting them there so we could all go out after the trade shows had ended and hang out. After I talked to Matt about it, he decided he wanted a trip that just the two of us could go on since we hadn't done that in a while. So after that decision, I thought it would be a great idea to just go for our anniversary. This would mark our 5 year anniversary. Big milestone right? We're practically not Newlyweds anymore.

 Us at the Dallas airport waiting on or flight out to Vegas.

I talked to everyone I knew that had gone to Vegas to get ideas on what all to do and not to do. Scarlett let me know about free stuff to do that included the Lions at MGM Grand. Co-workers let me know about last minute ticket places and buffets. My mom told me about the zipline on Freemont St. and how she wished she could have done it. And others gave me their opinions on where to stay.

The view from our room.

In the end we stayed at the Paris Hotel. We had a little problem with our check in, but upgraded to a room with a view of the Eiffel Tower, and all was made better. The upgrade was totally worth it because our view was amazing. We had a view of the strip, the Eiffel tower and the Bellagio as well as most of the famous fountains.

Looking a lil rough but excited to be in a room! Especially this room.

Our outdated but spectaucular room. Our other window to the right of the room (not in the picture) was facing Bally's and the strip.

We got to see a lot of the fountain shows but didn't get to hear the music that went along with it for most of them. Along with our upgrade we received free breakfast in the morning and free cocktails and hor d’ourves in the evening. This really rocked our socks off since we wouldn't have to worry about getting breakfast every morning. We had planned on getting our free drinks and snacks in the evening and then head out to sight see then grab a dinner at a great place. However the snacks would always fill us up, so I think we only ate dinner out once which happened to be the night of our anniversary.

From Paris with Love!

View from the club where we had free breakfast and hor d’ourves.

The first day/afternoon there we just walked around the strip going in and out of the casino/hotels to check them all out and see what all there was to do at each of them. We saw the awful show at TI, where the best part is the whole ship sinking thing. We rode the gondola at the Venetian where we were serenaded by our boat captain. It was a pretty slow night, so we got the whole boat to ourselves for the cheap rate, which was pretty awesome.

The Venetian where we had our gondola ride.

At the TI sirens show

 The Volcano at the Mirage

The strip

 Eiffel tower at Paris, I am a lil obsessed with the Eiffel for some of you that don't know me.

The balloon at Paris

 I have three more days to write about, but it will be condinsed down to two posts. I hope you come back to see what we did. You won't want to miss Monday's post, it's when Matt and I renewed our vows! It will be so worth it because we even have a video.