Las Vegas Adventures! BONUS PHOTO TIME!

365 Day Photo Project - Days 135 through 139

 Thursday June 8 through Monday June 12

A few of my favorite shots and moments from our weekend expedition.

 

 The Las Vegas strip is awesome for a lot of reasons....

Where else can you see the sights of Rome, Paris, New York and Egypt in one afternoon?

On our first night in town we got the pleasure of seeing our lovely friend Mia who moved to L.A. last September...
We kept it OG Tacoma-style by picking up a round of Four Lokos, and going to the closest dive bar for $1.50 wells.

This was one of the first signs we saw upon leaving the Fabulous Flamingo Hotel where Sean and I  stayed. Dollar-fiddy well drinks 24-hours-a-day? How does that even happen? Oh, and don't even get me started on the $3 Irish Car Bombs at O'Sheas Irish Pub across the street (they run about $7-$9 bucks a pop in Tacoma). Seriously? I thought I was going to be stuck at the penny slots all day to get a cheap drink in Vegas!

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 But don't worry - with all those drinks we made sure to remember to eat as well.

 Deep-fried Twinkie from Mermaid's Casino in Fremont. The sheer deliciousness absolutely outweighed the excessiveness of this tasty treat.


On a classier note, my generous mother took us all out to an a-maz-ing meal at Bobby Flay's Mesa Grill Friday night.

Sean gets all the credit for this mouthwatering photo of of his pork tenderloin.

I had to include it even though I didn't take this photo or  even taste the dish. 

I had the lobster out of the shell and crispy hominy cakes, a white peach margarita and a few glasses of Pino Noir. 

This dinner was one of the highlights of the trip, not only because of the delicious food but because of the hilariously fun company of the group (Mom, Jim, Lars, Tanya, Troy, Autumn and Sean and I.)

We laughed our asses off (me to the point of tears on several occasions),  I gave my first of three best man speeches for the weekend, and in general, we caused a bit of a (welcomed) ruckus for the quiet four-star atmosphere of the joint.

But I cannot move onto other, less delicious, parts of the trip without mentioning that Mesa has THE BEST BREAD BASKET OF ALL TIME.

The Venetian

 This was probably  my favorite hotel on the strip because of its sheer beauty, palatial design and dare I say - straight-up EPICNESS.

For those of you who haven't had the chance to visit, the Venetian is literally Italy in a box. They have a legitimate gondola system (and on the second floor mind you) gorgeous  Italian cityscapes and skylines, classic street performers, and "Phantom of the Opera" playing on the loudspeaker at all times.

My brother and his bride-to-be stayed in a suite at the Venetian for their wedding weekend. All I have to say is you had to take two elevators to get to their room, the suite had two televisions, two steps and a phone at the toilet.

Lars' "relaxed" style was a nice complement to the Venetian's overwhelming elegance.

The Sistine-inspired ceilings made not running-into-people a challenge. 

Even more impressive Venetian ceilings. (Yes, this was all indoors.)

They even had a mother freakin' Humpty Dumpty!

and now onto other things...

Sean showing off his mad balancing skills on one of the dozens of flat "escalators" we rode when we got too lazy to walk (for the record, we did  a lot of walking.)

Us en route from Cesar's to the Flamingo. It was hot. But not too hot to ask a fellow tourist to snap a shot of us looking super cool!

Fremont

On Saturday, the gang piled into a couple of cabs to tour "Old Las Vegas" and eat another delicious dinner of tapas at Firefly in the Plaza. 

I had never been downtown before but it was super laid back and very different from the strip, which I liked. 

 I also enjoyed seeing so many of the old Vegas signage from various movies set in the city.

 

  Like the famous 4 Queens

 Here's Sean's sweet handlebar moustache with the Golden Nugget in the background.

It seemed fitting.

Lars' pre-wedding day attire.

A classic showgirl.  Mad props to walking straight in heels with a 45-pound headdress.

 Lars and Tanya

Here is the fountain show at the Bellagio - this particular showing was choreographed to "Proud to Be An American," which seemed weird  - not that I'm not proud to be an American, but it's the fountain show at the Bellagio... c'mon!
A big shout out goes to the fearless duck that floated by as the hundreds of fountains blasted into the air like cannons AND my two other favorite parts of this impressive hotel: the conservatory and the desserts at the chocolate shop (unfortunately didn't have my camera on me for that particular trip).


And finally (and pretty much the whole point of this trip in the first place) my brother got hitched to someone (that's an inside excerpt from best man speech number two at Firefly).

Congratulations, you two! I hope you can stay as happy as you were on this day for a lifetime.