After our last night out, the alarm buzzed an annoyingly-short four hours later, and it was time to say goodbye to Vegas…

And, as luck would have it, we woke up to the nicest weather we had seen in Las Vegas. On the day we were leaving. Figures, doesn’t it?

After a long day of traveling (and almost missing our connecting flight in Atlanta–we had to RUN!), exhaustion doesn’t really even begin to cover it. Now, we just need bed.

Back to work tomorrow…

For us, what happened in Vegas was a big ol’ birthday celebration.

The reason we booked the trip in the first place was because one of our friends, Jason, really wanted to go for his 30th birthday. And well, it just so happens that his birthday? It’s the same day as Michael’s. Today, February 9th.

So today was a day of birthday fun, starting with more sightseeing in the morning, followed by an absolutely amazing dinner and more drinking and gambling to close out our last night in Vegas.

We all slept later this morning, thankfully, since I think we all needed it. It was still not enough sleep, but what can you expect when you’re in Las Vegas? After we all showered and got ready, we went downstairs and found a deli in Treasure Island. We ate a fairly quick lunch there, then caught a couple of cabs to visit Old Vegas.

I had never even heard of Old Vegas until Jason mentioned that we should go there, but it was really cool. The cabs dropped us off at Golden Nugget, an old and slightly trashy casino. It was trashtastically awesome, however.

Inside, we wandered around for a little bit while Jason and Dave played a few slots.

I came across this slot machine and nearly died. $500. That’s $500 for ONE PLAY, folks. One push of the button = One pull of the lever = $500. As you might expect, there was no one playing it. I mean, damn!

Next, we came across a truly giant slot machine. We thought the one in New York, New York yesterday was big! This was huge. And of course, we had to take a few turns playing it. You know, mostly for photo ops. :) No one won any money, but we had fun pulling the giant lever.

After that, we swung over to a roulette table that had $5 minimums. Jason, Dave, and Michael put a little bit of money down and we had fun with that for about 1/2 hour. Michael actually won a decent chunk of money, which was cool since it’s his birthday and all.

After cashing out, we left Golden Nugget to check out the rest of Old Vegas and Fremont Street.

Michael and Dave had to stop and get their picture taken “with” Gordie Brown. (I have no idea who he is, and I’m not sure Michael and Dave did, either. Too funny.)

It was neat to see all of the old casinos and hotels. They had good souvenir shops there, too. Oh, and if you’re ever looking for a truly cheap place to eat or shop in Vegas, head on over to Old Vegas. We actually saw NORMAL prices for things there, unlike on the strip, where everything is ridiculously expensive.

Once we had fully explored Old Vegas, we decided to walk to the Stratosphere, which is at the very north end of the strip.

As with all places in Vegas, it looked close, but turned out to be a pretty long walk. Luckily, everybody was up for it and we made it there in about 40 minutes. Jason was determined to ride one of the rides on top of the Stratosphere, and he had spent some of the morning/afternoon trying to convince all of us just ONE of us to go with him.

As we approached the Stratosphere and saw a couple of these rides actually running, everyone quickly proclaimed that we did not think we would be accompanying him. (These thoughts were confirmed when everyone later saw the prices for these rides once inside. Even Jason decided not to ride.)

Once again, inside the Stratosphere, everyone gravitated toward the slots for a bit. After about an hour, most everyone left with some sort of cash, and we decided to cab it back to the hotel to rest for a while and get ready for our fabulous dinner.

We watched a sobering presidential press conference about the economy, drank a few beers, and got dressed up to go out. At about 6:45 p.m., we once again caught a couple of taxis and headed to the Four Seasons.

Let me back up here for a minute. Last week, before we left for Vegas, Michael’s boss called him into his office. He told him that he had been doing a great job, and went on to say that he wanted to do something nice for him. He had heard that Michael was taking a trip to Las Vegas, and offered to send us and our friends to a really nice restaurant–the bill taken care of. We obviously jumped at the opportunity, and decided to have his boss make the reservations for us for Michael and Jason’s birthday dinner.

And so we ended up at Charlie Palmer Steakhouse in the Four Seasons Hotel in Vegas. Niiiice.

I think it was pretty unanimous across the board that this was the best meal any of us had ever eaten, let alone one that we were treated to. We had a few laughs about how “out of our league” we felt in this restaurant, but we all appreciated and enjoyed it just the same.

The food was absolutely fabulous, starting with the bread, and continuing with the wine, salads, entrees, sides, and dessert. Sooo good.

This is a photo of Michael’s surf and turf. I’m not a fan of seafood, so I just had filet mignon (which is actually the “turf” part of Michael’s dish anyway).

After dinner was finished, I mentioned to the waiter how it was Michael and Jason’s birthday, and asked if they could bring out a dessert for them with a couple of candles in it. A few minutes later, our waiter (who was so awesome), and a bunch of other servers came out with SIX desserts to sample and share, and told us they were all compliments of the chef. Um, hi. These guys were so good to us! And of course, two of them had candles in them for Jason and Michael.

Happy Birthday to my husband! (And that strawberry shortcake that is pictured? So.freaking.amazing.)

And a Happy Birthday to Jason, too! (I can’t remember exactly what that dessert was, but I know the ice cream on top was Kahlua flavored. Also very good.)

And this is a photo of what turned out to be my absolute favorite dessert. It was something like a caramel cake with caramel and apple ice creams. To die for.

After many thanks and much praise to the Charlie Palmer chef and waitstaff, we walked through the Four Seasons and into Mandalay Bay for a little while. Before long, we hailed cabs to leave. We stopped halfway up the strip to check out the Bellagio fountains at night.

After watching one of the “fountain shows,” we once again got cabs (it was too cold and our feet were too sore to walk) and went back to our hotel to hang out in the Treasure Island casino. We figured that since we had to get up early for the airport the next morning, it’d be easier to already be back “home” so that anytime anyone wanted to go to bed, they could.

Annnnd… You guessed it! Everyone got drinks and spent time playing more slots. :)

After probably a few too many drinks (on my part) and a lot of slots (so addicting), we all went up to the hotel rooms to catch some sleep.

After Jason and Emily came in, we all sat in one of the room’s for a while and rehashed all of the things that had happened the night before. We listened to Jason and Emily’s tales of somehow getting lost on the strip (seems impossible!), and making their way back “home.”

We all really wanted to sleep later, but were having difficulty because of the timezone change. Everyone was hungry again, so we decided to all shower and get ready and go out in search of breakfast.

We left Treasure Island and started walking down the strip.

That’s our group walking out in front of me. Have I mentioned yet how COLD it was in Vegas? Unfortunately for us, temperatures were below normal and only hovered around 50 degrees. Most of the time, it was still comfortable to walk around in, but it was quite shocking for us. When you think Vegas, you think warm. Well, not for us. Hmph.

We decided to go inside Caesar’s Palace and see what they had to offer in terms of food. We ended up finding a little cafe.

There was a pretty long line, but it did move fairly quickly. We figured that since it was a Sunday morning, we were going to find a line no matter where we went, so we stuck it out.

The food was decent, but the service was awful. The waitress completely mistook Lynsay’s order, so she had to wait a lot of extra time for her food, and it took FOR-EV-ER to get the bill and then forever to get it paid for. Pretty ridiculous.

After breakfast, Emily and Jason went back to the hotel for some much needed sleep (those crazy kids!), while the rest of us went off to explore Vegas.

Our first stop was the Bellagio.

In celebration of the Chinese New Year, Vegas was completely decked out in Chinese decor. The photo above is of the conservatory, also in the Bellagio.

Pandas carved out of bushes. Awesome.

Outside of the Bellagio, there is a little overlook where you can stand and look at the famous Bellagio fountains. From there, you can also see much of the other sights on the strip, including the Paris Hotel’s Eiffel Tower.

Shannon, Lynsay, and me in front of the “Eiffel Tower.”

Dave and Lynsay in front of a fountain at the Bellagio.

Michael and me at the same fountain.

Our next stop was New York, New York. We were originally looking into staying there, so we were interested to see inside. It turned out to be really, really cool. I can’t speak for the rooms, but the atmosphere downstairs is fun.

The area of the hotel with all the shops and restaurants is designed to look like the streets of New York. The attention to detail is pretty amazing. Fire escapes, items in all of the “apartment” windows, street signs, etc.

We walked through all of the little “streets” and through to the casino.

There, we found a giant slot machine that was just begging to be played. So Dave obliged.

And consequently won $30.

So then I played, and won… well, nothing.

We decided to continue our travels and went out onto the skywalk to cross the street into the MGM Grand.

View of the strip from the skywalk.

The New York, New York skyline.

Once inside the MGM Grand, we walked around it and its casino for a while, too. We ultimately made our way to the lobby, which looked like this:

Really cool.

Once back outside, we happened upon an M&M World. Apparently Shannon has a love for all things M&M, so we had to make another stop.

And once we saw that there was an M&M mascot floating around the outside of M&M World, well, us girls just had to get our photo taken with him.

We also took a lap inside of the store, which was–interestingly enough–probably the most crowded place we went to the entire time we were in Vegas. The entire place smelled of chocolate (I think they pump it through the ventilation system!), which was fantastic. For fun, Lynsay tried on some of the M&M wear, including little M&M antennae.

Before long, we continued to make our way back up the strip.

Our next stop was Paris.

The inside of Paris was as impressive as New York, New York. Again, the details!

These were the beautiful (and expensive-looking) chandeliers hanging in the lobby at Paris. I think they were supposed to emulate the ones at Versailles? I’m not sure, it’s been a long time since I was in France (1999!). Either way, they were pretty.

Our boots were made for walkin’, so we continued on yet again. It was a LOT of walking. By the end of the day, we estimated that we had walked at least six miles.

We stopped outside of the Venetian to see if we could catch anybody on a gondola ride, but had no luck.

By this time, it was almost 5:00 p.m., and we wanted to get back to the hotel to relax a little bit before going out for dinner. Before we went up to the room, we stopped at a little convenience shop in our hotel and bought a few essentials, like water and 24-oz. beers.

Modeling with my 24-oz. Miller Lite. In Vegas, it’s all about class.

Emily and Jason had managed to get a few hours of sleep, and we all took our time getting ready, leisurely showering, ironing, getting dressed, and drinking beer. :)

Around 7:00 p.m., we left the hotel and walked over to Wynn, where we decided to eat at The Buffet. Jason had declared that we MUST eat at a Vegas buffet, and since we had wanted to go to Wynn anyway, we figured we’d indulge there.

Walking through Wynn, we came across a frog singing Louis Armstrong.

Not to be outdone, the Wynn was also dressed up for the Chinese New Year. It was really pretty, especially this walkway with all the lights.

Our cab driver from the airport had informed us that the Wynn had the best buffet in town. We put it to the test. Well, after we waited in line. I didn’t keep track, but I’d guess it was about a half hour wait?

This is what it looked like once we got inside:

Our cab driver was not lying. I have nothing to compare it to in terms of Vegas buffets, but this one was impressive. A lot of variety, and everything was really tasty.

Once done with dinner, we continued to walk through Wynn a bit more to head over to the Venetian’s casino (Wynn and the Venetian are connected).

The boys in front of a cool fountain.

We played slots for a bit at the Venetian’s casino, and then Lynsay and Shannon came over and asked if I wanted to go upstairs to see more of the inside of the Venetian. Once again, I was impressed with the design. Like New York, New York and Paris, the Venetian’s marketplace area is designed to look like Venice.

We went back downstairs and continued to play slots until we met up with our Washington, D.C. group. We hung out with them there a little more, then everybody wanted to leave and head to a bar. We ended up at a place called Rockhouse, which was um… interesting. Very amusing crowd of people there; it was great for people-watching.

At around 2:00 a.m., Dave, Lynsay and I decided to make our way back to the hotel. We left Michael, Jason, and some of our other friends there to continue the fun and went to sleep. Michael and Jason weren’t too far behind us, and we closed the book on another day in Las Vegas.

After a long day of travel, we are finally in Las Vegas.

We got up around 8:30 this morning to get ready and leave for the airport by 10:00. At about 9:45, Michael was going to shut down the computer, and I told him that before he did, we should check our flight status. Well, it was a good thing we did, because it was delayed. A little while later, delayed again. A few minutes after that, delayed again.

Our flight, which was scheduled to take off at 12:10 p.m., eventually got pushed back to 2:05 p.m. It was a very good thing that we were originally supposed to have a three hour layover in Atlanta, because even with the big delay, we still had plenty of time to make our connecting flight.

Soooo… we ultimately left for the airport around noon, and we did end up leaving right around 2:00 p.m. As it turned out, our plane had been delayed due to mechanical issues, which was worrying (something wrong with the plane??) and comforting (at least they fixed it??) at the same time.

We got to Atlanta safely and met up with our Charlotte, N.C. group of friends to hop our next plane to Vegas. We were greeted with a huge treat on the plane–TV! I have experienced the luxury of personal TV on planes before, but only on Jet Blue. This was Delta, so it was unexpected. It was a HUGE plane, however, one that is probably sometimes used for international flights, and so we got to reap the benefits. It definitely helped to pass the time.

To our surprise, we ended up arriving in Vegas about 1/2 hour earlier than expected. At this point, it was around 7:00 p.m. Vegas time, so 10:00 p.m. at home. We were all tired, but hoped to get a second wind to enjoy our first night in Sin City.

This is Michael, Jason, and Lynsay waiting at baggage claim. We had a couple of bags that took FOREVER to come around on the carousel, but we did end up collecting everything, which was a relief. We hopped a couple of cabs and headed to Treasure Island.

Once there, we checked in, and we were able to get two adjoining rooms for the seven of us to share. It was really nice–we kept the adjoining door open the entire trip, so it felt like we had more room, and it was fun to be able to just walk through and see what everyone else was doing.

This was the view from our room!

After admiring the strip and all the pretty lights, we all changed and left in search of food. We were all so hungry that we weren’t willing to go far. We ended up in Kahunaville, which was located in our hotel.

First things first: We had to order drinks. Jason, Emily, and Shannon splurged and got “monstrosities” (that was the name of the drink!), which came complete with dry ice that made the whole thing look like it was smoking. Pretty funny.

Tired, hungry, but happy. Michael and I at Kahunaville.

After eating, we walked out and onto the casino floor at Treasure Island. Oh, and well, we got drinks. Duh.

Lynsay and I in the casino.

We met up with one of Jason’s friends who happened to be in Vegas with her brother, and we did what you’re supposed to do in Vegas–gamble! We didn’t do too much gambling the first night, but instead got a feel for all of the different games and I learned how to play slots. I didn’t realize it was at all complicated–I thought you enter your money and push the button. I had to learn all about the number of lines played versus the amount of the bet per push, etc. Interesting.

Lynsay, Shannon, and I went to bed pretty early–I think it was around 1:00 a.m. It seemed a lot later, and to us, it was (4:00 a.m. back home!). Jason, Dave, Michael and Emily were troopers, though. They ended up meeting some of our other friends (the Washington, D.C. group) out for more Vegas action.

Michael and Dave stumbled home sometime in the middle of the night, but Jason and Emily were the champions. They didn’t come back to our room until 8:15 a.m.!! (That’s 11:15 a.m. at home, if you’re keeping score.) I was pretty impressed with their all-night partying/gambling abilities. Unfortunately for them, we were all awake and ready to start off our first full day in Vegas…