Sunday we walked around the North part of the strip.

The Wynn looked like the most amazing copper pot.

Everything about the inside of the Wynn was amazing. It was by far my favorite hotel.

We walked across the street to Fashion Show the giant Metrotown like mall. I wasn’t in the mood to do any shopping so Elise and Ryan did and Chad and I checked out some of the hotels in the area.

Budwiser can in the shape of a bottle. Weird, but it matched his outfit!

We wondered over to Treasure Island. We never saw the free show they had a night, but we saw all the props during the day.

That night we went to the Mirage to see LOVE, the Beatles Cirque de Soleil. As a kid I was beyond obsessed with the Beatles and hearing their music featured in a Cirque de Soleil show is the closest I will ever get to seeing them in concert, so it was absolutely amazing.

Look who we ran into while wondering about. It’s like the four of us are just meant to be.

Walking around the Venetian was like being in Venice, which I guess is the point!

Mom was mad that Rod Stewart wasn’t in town when she was there. She always makes comments about his bum.

Sunday evening we had dinner at the Venetian. We were craving Italian food so we went to the source. The dinner was excellent. So good in fact that I want to dry and recreate my main dish. Ravioli stuffed wit Cheese in a Brown Butter Sage sauce with Caramelized Pears and Walnuts.

After dinner we scurried over to the Mirage to see LOVE, which again, was amazing. After the Mirage we decided to go to New York NY, the only other hotel that we found where we really liked the night time vibe. Drinks were stupid expensive but we enjoyed ourselves.

We made our way back to the hotel after midnight, where Elise made a b-line to bed and the boys and I went and got a late night sammich from the sammich place. Late Night Sammich GOOOOD. Then they watched sports in our room while I passed out.

Monday we had a few hours to kill so we just wondered around Aria, Crystals, and the Cosmopolitan.

Believe it or not, that is a restaurant.

Millions and millions of crystals. Amazing.

I asked if we could make a quite trip to the Bellagio because we had only been there at night and I wanted to take some pictures inside with my fancy camera. Little did I know the battery was 30 seconds away from dying and my spare battery was not in my purse where it should be, but rather in my suit case. Smart.

The only ‘couply’ pictures from the trip, taken at the last minute. They turned out too dark and my battery was dead so I couldn’t use the flash so I had to get Shazzi to save them via Photoshop, which is why the colours look so weird. STUPID DANIELLE. Ugh. I also realized there are no pictuers of the 4 of us together, mostly because I am the photographer and not in any photos at all. I really need to get in more pictures but I find 9 out of 10 people are stupid when using a DSLR. It’s like old people forgot how old cameras worked. Dude, you use to use these all the time, so why do you suck at picture taking?

Thankfully Chad has a good cell phone. Hello glass on the ceiling of the Bellagio!

Leaving Las Vegas.

The trip was awesome. I want to go back again, like right now. There is talk about us going back in the Spring but I guess we will see whats going on then.

If you wish to view the rest of the Las Vegas Photo Extravaganza  click here.

Well, I have finally got my act together enough to do a post about Vegas! Woot!

We flew out of Bellingham because, well, America is cheaper. The In-Laws do it all the time and it worked out quite nicely. Even though we were leaving on a long weekend we gave ourselves enough time to get to the airport and everything after that was a breeze. I would highly recommend flying out of Bellingham. The airport is so cute and cozy!

Elise is beyond addicted.

We stayed at the Planet Hollywood Hotel & Resort. The rooms were huge, the vibe was great, and I would go back there in an instant.

We decided to check out PBR which was a Southern BBQ style place in our hotel. We read an article about it in the plane. Elise got the rack o ribs with a side of spaghetti o’s.

When I saw it on the menu I knew I had to do it. A bucket of Chicken and Waffles!

We wondered around the strip a bit after dinner, wondering in and out of hotels. We finally settled on Ballys, not really sure why, but they had cheap drinks and there were a bunch of Marines hanging out so we stopped to gamble for a bit. Unfortunately after our days adventures I was beat by 10pm and literally falling asleep in my chair. Sadly, Elise and I were in bed by 11 leaving the boys to fine their own adventure, which didn’t end up being too hard.

There were a ton of people getting married on Friday, seeing as how it was 11/11/11. Apparently some of the hotels were having special deals on weddings. I think we saw 12 brides in the matter of 2 hours. So naturally, when you see two good looking men walking around together, both wearing wedding bands, both with out significant others, you assume they are a gay couple who just go married, right? Well that is what 4 separate groups of people asked Chad and Ryan. Friggin priceless.

This was the view from our room. Paris was right next door, with the Bellagio and Caesars in the background. We could actually watch the water show at the Bellagio from our room at night. Pretty damn cool!

We had lunch at the most amazing sandwich shop – The Earl of Sandwich – which was also in our hotel. I got the Caprese sandwich. Nom nom nom!

After lunch we started to walk. The first hotel we visited was the MGM Grand. We kind of got lost and spent way to long wondering around inside of it.

These lazy guys didn’t move at all.

This is what you  get when I take your picture.

This is what you get when Ryan does.

Vegas was packed that weekend all because of this.

One of the things I mentioned I wanted to do was to check out the shark reef at the Mandalay Bay. It was definitely a great experience!

New York New York

Elise was going to come with me on the roller coaster because the boys were panseys, then as we were at the counter to buy our tickets she backed out. LAME. I went by myself because, well, I had my heart set on it and I wasn’t about to back down from it just because I was going by myself. The G forces from the dips and upside down bit made me head feel like it was going to explode.

Saturday night was insane. We all had a hankering for steak but every place we went to was full. I don’t know why we never thought about making reservations. Finally after walking forever we ended up at Ballys (again). They had room for us at their Steak House except because we didn’t have a rewards card we couldn’t sit in the classy part of the restaurant. Umm..what the hell? The food was really good  though. I ate so much I thought I was going to explode but it was so so good. The steak and all the fixing were excellent.

I didn’t want to spend another night at Ballys so we walked around a bit and had drinks at Caesars. All the classy bars were packed so we sat in what felt like a food court and people watched. We saw Jose Canseco for the 2nd time. This time he had a blond on his arm. After the food court experience we walked back to our hotel and had drinks at the Heart Bar. Again, I only lasted till about 12am before falling asleep in my chair. Even with all the visual stimulation that Vegas has to offer, there wasn’t enough to keep me away.

Chad and Ryan stayed up and had more adventures which we all heard about the next morning. This time it wasn’t as crazy as the first.

Part 2 to come tomorrow!

There was no one to sit in Chads chair in the back of the moving van this year. But it worked out well because there was way more stuff to move out of the apartment then there was into the apartment so Pat wouldn’t have fit anyways.

It’s all over. The move was a success thanks to team awesome. Dario and Ryan are such good planners; they packed the moving van and storage locker like professionals. I don’t even know how they got everything to fit. Gina and Elise were also excellent help holding elevator doors and moving boxes.

It took longer than I had anticipated, but then moving always does. We had two loads to drop off, one to my Moms and one to the storage locker. We were finished by about 4, which wasn’t too bad. You can tell we had out grown the space based on how much stuff we had crammed into every knock and cranny. And to think, a lot of stuff was already in my Uncles basement, plus Chad had already moved 3 or 4 small loads of boxes over the past 2 weeks. We wouldn’t have fit everything had we not started moving things early.

Sunday morning Chad and I went back to move all the stuff from the deck, empty the fridge, and clean everything up. That again took longer expected.

My parent’s basement looks like it’s exploded with all our stuff. I was able to go through a few boxes last night and put away half of our clothes, but there is still so much to do. I forgot how much of my stuff was left in my bedroom and the basement when I moved out, and I know that Mom is going to expect me to take it all when we find a house, so I think my plan of action is to start going through it this weekend, when I’m home alone, and just start chucking it all. Most of it is inside joke stuff from high school which I no longer remember and therefore is useless to me. I’m sure I will keep some stuff, but my goal is to fit it all in one box.

All the payments go through today and the keys get handed over on Wednesday. Chad is going to make one more trip tonight to the BBQ and Drums, which we totally forgot about, other then that, we are officially out of there.

I don’t know how I feel about the whole situation. I don’t know if I miss the apartment itself or just the idea of Chadand I having a space that was ours. I guess on one hand, that apartment always felt like a project to me, a transitional home that we renovated to appeal to the masses. But at the same time, it was the only place I had ever lived outside of my parent’s home, and it was also the first place I ever lived with Chad. I guess the goal is to look forward where Chad and I get to find our first home together.

So it’s done. The little apartment that could is no longer ours. The photos and memories we will always have. I will miss it, but bigger and better things are on the horizon.

We leave for Vegas tomorrow. Don’t bother trying to break into our apartment to steal stuff, everything is already in the storage locker, suckas.

We head over to the In-Laws after for  dinners and sleepytime. Since they live close to the border and we are flying out of Bellingham it makes sense to stay there over night and then get up early to drive down. Originally we were trying to get a flight out in the morning but while looking at the flights and discussing our plan of action the clock struck 9pm and the bastards at Allegiant Air upped the prices of the flights WHILE WE WERE LOOKING AT THEM TO BOOK. Not impress. So we decided to save a little money and booked the 1pm flight. That way we don’t have to get up SO early tomorrow morning and have more time to get drunk in the airport before we leave.

I have had no time to really look into anything or plan anything. Thankfully Elise sent me a link about things to do in Vegas. This is about the extent of my plans.

1. Check out the fountains at the Bellagio
2. See LOVE at the Mirage
3. Breakfast Buffet at the Wynn
4. Shark Reed Aquarium at Mandalay Bay
5. Ride the Coaster at New York New York
6. Check out the Eiffel Tower at Paris
7. Walk along the streets of Down Town

I do want to check out as many hotels as humanly possible and there is talk of maybe stopping by the Pawn Stars Pawn Shop. I’ll leave those plans up to Ryan.

I’m going into this trip with no plans and no expectations. OK, that’s kind of a lie, I do have a list of things I would like to see (as I just mentioned) but if we don’t get around to it, there is always next time. My only expectations are that we are going to have a lot of fun and we are going to come home exhausted. It is going to be awesome.

We are staying at Planet Hollywood in a Resort Room. Oh La La. I don’t even know what that means but apparently it is better then their cheapest room.

Shockingly the only thing I haven’t looked into is restaurants. I know, what is wrong with me? I think we will definitely play this by ear. Like I said, I haven’t had any time to do research so we will just see what is around and what is suggested to us.

You have 24 hours to give me some suggestions.

I really hope I come back with some amazing photos.

Going to the PNE every Summer is a tradition that I will never let die. Even though it feels like we go for a shorter and shorter amount of time each year, I just can’t not see all those adorable farm animals and eat loads of deep fried goodness.

This year our Whitecaps tickets got us into the PNE for free which was awesome. The only thing that sucked was that we missed the last show of the Super Dogs, which bummed everyone out. We are obsessed with the Super Dogs.

I can’t remember where I read it or heard it but I was informed of the PNE having Deep Fried Onion Blooms this year. SO EXCITED! Deep Fried Onion Blooms are on my Food Bucket List, so you know I had to indulge. The dipping sauce was spicy and the onion batter was delicious. It was a little softer then I was expecting and definitely needed a knife and fork but it was super tasty. Chad, Elise, Ryan, and myself shared one. Dario basically ate a whole one himself.

Chad was not feeling very good the next morning and blamed the Onion Bloom for his bathroom woes, but given that I have a super sensitive stomach and did not get sick despite eating the Onion Bloom as well makes me think Chad was wrong about the Deep Fried Oniony goodness.

Hello Farm Animals!

Sheep! My favorite!

Clearly my favorite part of the PNE. I tried to get a job there one Summer but it never came to fruition. Sad Face.

Anything to do with Farming, Farm Animals, and THE Farm are untouchable in my book. Ryan and Chad finally realized that Elise and I will always love The Farm (My grandparents farm) more than anything. By the time they came around The Farm was gone so they will never understand.

I never feel shorter than Elise until someone takes a picture to prove it.

Ryan got his chance to race on the track. He was faster than the speed of light.

Chad failed to inform me that my impromptu photo shoot took place right in front of a red van. Awkward.

We seem to spend a lot of time on the PNE grounds in the Summer. It kind of feels like my second home since it’s literally 10 minutes from my parents home and my brother works here and so much of what we do involves the PNE. Sport, Horses, Fairs. SO MUCH GOODNESS! These are my stomping grounds.

I love you Fair at the PNE.