Vegas??? Meh.

I'm back!!!!

Missed me??? I know I missed blogging, yo.

We got home from my conference on Friday, and it's taken me until now to catch up on life. Emails! Projects! Laundry! Snuggle time with Emerson! They all had to take precedence over writing on the internets.

I'm going to give the briefest of synopses on our trip, and you'll see why...

THE GOOD
1. Food

We definitely diversified our food expeditions. We did sushi one night, a steakhouse the next, and a buffet on the last night. 

Sushi Roku in Caesar's Palace was thebomb.com and everything I wanted it to be and more. Seriously, it was so good I almost cried.

The Steakhouse at Circus Circus came highly recommended and the steak was awesome (though the Bearnaise sauce was weird), but the hotel was an absolute shithole! Great things come in ugly packages I guess???

The Buffet at The Bellagio was one of the greatest experiences my mouth has ever experienced. For $32 I literally ate my weight in sashimi, crablegs, pasta, Chinese chicken and noodles, and DESSERT Oh my God, the dessert.

2. Weather
It was 105 degrees and sunny for all 3 days we were there. 105 degrees sounded so awful, but it wasn't at all. You see, Ohio in the summer has 99% humidity and feels like a sauna. But the dry heat of Nevada with its lack of humidity feels like a warm toasty blanket. I loved it. I hate being cold, so it was perfect for me. It made laying by the pool a great experience because it was warm but you weren't sweating your tailfeathers off.

  

3. Hotel
Our hotel, the Paris Las Vegas, was gorgeous. I loved the decor, our room was very inexpensive but still very nice. And the pool was amazeballs!!!!!!!!! It was so relaxing and wonderful to lay on one of the 1,000 pool chairs and look up and see the Eiffel Tower. Well, obviously not the Eiffel Tower, but a 50% scaled version. The hotel was also centrally located in the middle of The Strip, so it was a close(ish) walk to everything.

4. Bellagio Fountains
And The Bellagio in general is pretty stinking cool. I was only slightly disappointed that George Clooney didn't show up and ask me to be one of Ocean's Eleven, but oh well...

THE BAD
1. I'm 28 years old and over that whole "scene"
2. You can smoke in the hotels and the casinos. WTF!?! It was disgusting. I guess I've been spoiled since you can't smoke indoors in Ohio anymore, but I just loathed the fact that my clothes smelled like smoke by the end of the night when I am not a smoker. It's gross and rude, in my humble opinion.
3. Everything is expensive. $25 to work out at the gym of OUR OWN HOTEL. Seriously?!?! $10 for a slice of pizza?? Robbery.
4. To get anywhere on The Strip, you have to walk through other casinos or up stairs, which was kinda annoying given the whole smoking thing. It's hard to get in and out of any place very easily.
5. Tourists and rude people. People didn't hesitate to step directly in the way, push me out of line, blow smoke in my face, etc. Maybe it's because I'm from the Midwest, but I still find it shocking that people can be so blatantly rude to strangers.

THE UGLY
1. Emerson. Leaving my 6 month old daughter for 3 days SUCKED. I couldn't relax completely because I missed her so much.

2. I left my beautiful, beautiful blue topaz ring, my first gift from Emerson, on the nightstand of our hotel room. I can envision exactly where I left it. It was SO STUPID of me to set it there, but it was really loose so I took it off so it wouldn't fall off. Though I know with absolute certainty I left it in our hotel room, housekeeping, security, and the manager of the hotel all told me that it wasn't found. F____ that, and F____ Vegas. I hope whoever failed to turn it in to Lost & Found is enjoying it as much as I did. Bastards.

But with all that said....

The moment I saw my sweet little girl for the first time, and her reaction when she realized Momma was home??? One of the best moments of my life. The recognition in her eyes, her smile, laughter, kicking her legs furiously with excitement.... that right there is what life is all about.