What Happens in Vegas . . . (Blogged by JME)

On July 8th, N8 and I were able to travel to Vegas for my great grandma's birthday party, who had recently turned 95. We rented a car that had an ipod jack and stayed up past midnight the night before we left downloading music and books and things to our ipods to keep us entertained on the long trip. I also made sure we were prepared with food and had cut some celery, boiled some eggs, packed lunch meat and bread, and made sure we had plenty of snacks so we weren't going out to eat for every meal.



About two hours into our trip, we decided to try out the ipod jack. We plugged in N8's ipod and . . . nothing. We unplugged it, messed with it, and even read the car manual to see if we were doing something wrong. Finally, I plugged in my ipod and the radio started playing the mp3 files from mine. Apparently, the stereo only played mp3 files from ipods and unfortunately I only had three songs that were formatted that way. Awesome! So much for preparing.

Luckily, on our way there, we were able to stop at N8's grandpa's house, who lives about two hours from Vegas. We were able to stretch our legs a little, have some lunch, and enjoy visiting with Grandpa. He was so nice and asked his neighbor if we could have some of the apricots off of their tree, which was a treat. Nothing like home-grown apricots.

Soon we were on the road again and finally made it into Vegas. The night we got there, we went to N8's favorite restaurant, the Hard Rock Cafe. We had dinner there and ate our favorite: Hard Rock Cafe's famous pulled-pork sandwich.



Every time N8 goes there, no matter where he is, he buys a pin. He has one from New York, Boston, Baltimore, Orlando, San Juan, Bahrain, Hollywood, Munich, Cologne, Paris, Prague, Amsterdam, San Diego, and Salt Lake City. He also gets me a t-shirt. I have a t-shirt from almost every place he has a pin. My whole t-shirt wardrobe is almost all Hard Rock Cafe shirts. We also went to the Hard Rock Hotel and looked around at the displays.

We stayed at a hotel called Sam's Town.





Our room did not automatically come with a fridge, so we had to rent one that they brought up for us. I made sure to put the eggs, celery, and lunch meat in there so they wouldn't spoil. The next morning, we took the eggs out of the fridge to eat for breakfast. To our dismay, they were frozen solid. I checked the rest of the food and it was frozen solid as well. McDonald's breakfast menu, here we come. Again, so much for preparing. We sure make lousy boy scouts.



Before we went to the birthday party, we stopped by to see and visit my grandma for a while. She is so sharp-minded and can remember so much. She told us a little bit about her childhood. She lived in Chicago when she was little and told us about the trouble she would get into. Then my great uncle, 'son,' and my great aunt came by to pick her up for the party and we were able to visit with them for a while.



The party was nice. We had it at a pizza joint. We were happy that we went over early to visit with grandma, as she had a lot of people there for her birthday and it was hard to visit with her there. My whole family came for the party: Mom and Dad, Lele and her hubby, Cub and Shan, Big D, and Z. Bug and Skunk were the only ones who stayed at home. I was able to see some cousins I haven't seen for a while. It was like I was meeting some of them for the first time, as I hadn't seen them since I was probably 4-5 years old or younger.









Grandma kept saying she only wanted to live for two more years, but 'son' talked her into maybe five more. At first, she would not agree to five more years, but when she made a wish and blew her candle out, she lifted two fingers and shook her head, then lifted five fingers and nodded. I think she wished to live for five more years so that we could all come to her 100-year-old birthday party.



After the party, N8 and I went to the strip. You can see all kinds of things on the strip. We went to MGM where we went to a lion exhibit. We walked around Excalibur, and New York New York where we saw a small replica of the Statue of Liberty on the outside and one inside that was made out of candy.









We also went to the Hard Rock store, and the M&M store where we got to see a 3D movie, and the M&M NASCAR.




We had fun watching the fountains at the Bellagio. N8 was really excited about seeing the fountains because they are on Ocean's Eleven, one of N8's favorite movies.







Across the street from the Bellagio is the Paris Las Vegas Hotel, which as a small replica of the Eiffel Tower and the Arch de Triumph. Both of which N8 was able to see while he was in Paris last year. Here are comparison pictures of the ones we saw in Vegas and the real ones N8 saw in France.

Vegas Eiffel Tower:

France Eiffel Tower:

Arch de Triumph in Vegas:



Arch de Triumph France:

Speaking of France . . . .


I guess anything goes in Vegas.

We had a pretty good time. It wasn't so incredible that we'd ever make a special trip just to hang out in Vegas. It was really nice, however, to see Grandma and the rest of my family.