Viva Las Vegas!!

Travis is turning 40 this summer!!  So, I wanted to do something special to celebrate.  His birthday falls a few days after I get back from Nicaragua and a few days before we leave for the beach so I knew doing something on his actual birthday would be tricky.  So, I decided to surprise him!!!  Sharon, Ryan, and I planned a trip to Vegas and booked it without him knowing:)  I finally told him a few days before we were leaving.  He was SO excited!!  It worked out perfectly....thanks to Nonnie and Poppy for keeping Blake and Evan, and NaNa and PaPa for keeping Beau.

We left on a Friday night out of XNA in Fayetteville.  Here we are waiting to board the plane!

Me and my birthday boy!

Sharon and Ryan:)

Yep, I took a picture of the plane like the tourist that I was as we boarded:))

We got to Vegas about 11:30 Vegas time (but it was 1:30 to our bodies).  We decided to press on and go hang out for a while anyway.  We stayed at New York New York so we had some good pizza and did some GREAT people watching.  We finally went to bed a couple of hours later.

On our way to the elevator that night we stumbled across "Michael Jackson" performing in the casino.  He was AWESOME!!!  We actually ended up watching his show a couple of times during the trip.

We slept in (and it was wonderful).  We got out and did some sight-seeing.  We ended up at Caesar's Palace at lunch time and ate at the Cheesecake Factory.  Yummy!!!

Sharon and I posing in front of some beautiful flowers at the Bellagio!!

We had trouble deciding if we would see a show or not (the boys, especially Ryan were a little hard to convince:).  We ended up actually seeing 2 shows!!  

Sharon and I waiting to eat dinner at Diablo's.

We saw Dancing with the Stars on Saturday night.  It was SO fun!  This was the outside of the theatre.

A few more pics before the show started.

Ready for some Dancing!!

It was almost impossible to get a picture, but it was a really cool show.  There were some people from the actual show there.  Our favorites were Lacey Schwimmer (racy Lacey:) and Kyle Massey.  Carson (I can't remember his last name, but he was on the show, the gay guy:) and he was the host.  He was absolutely hilarious!!  Also, Joey Fatone was there and he was fun also.

A night pic with the strip behind us!

This is a picture of Michael Jackson.  He was swarmed with people wanting pictures, so I just took one of him with a random guy.

On Sunday we took a trip on the bus to see Pawn Stars.  Travis and I had been before, but Ryan and Sharon wanted to see it.  Thanks to our walking GPS (Travis) we made it there with no problems!

Yep. We are tourists!

The outside...not all that impressive really.  Makes for good TV, though!

Later that night we were out walking around and this guy, with a light up billboard attached to his back, got on the elevator behind Ryan and Sharon.  It totally cracked me up!!!

We went to another really cool show that night, then wandered down to the Venetian to eat.  We ate in a fancy Italian place.  It was pretty good, even if we couldn't read the menu:)

The Venetian is absolutely beautiful!

Every evening we found a little place in our hotel to sit and people watch.  It was right outside a piano bar, so we got to listen to great music, and right on the path from the Zumanity theatre and the door from outside.  So, we got to see everyone walk by!  It was probably the highlight of the trip.  It was 110+ degrees there and I can't tell you how many people walked by either carrying or wearing a sweater.  It was a "chilly" epedimic:))  And all the couples with matching outfits, and the young girls in stilettos trying to walk around Vegas.  We even saw quite a few "hot babes now".  Haha!! VERY entertaining!!!

The next day we got up and did a little souvenir shopping.  We had lunch at the Rainforest Cafe before we had to pack up and head to the airport.

A view of our hotel from the other side of the street.

Travis and I posing again:)

This was the funnest trip!!!  It was great to just to get hand out with great friends with no real agenda.  We talked and laughed and joked and played and just thoroughly enjoyed ourselves.  We decided we will take this trip when each of us turns 40!  Only 3 more years until our next trip!!

Happy 40th Birthday Travis!!!  I love you!!