Oh, some SOLO time!!!

On June 23rd Mitch and I celebrated 10 years of marriage! We had all kinds of ideas on where to go. We visited Vegas a few years back for a couple days with Joel and Kendra and had so much fun exploring that we thought we would go back. We loved the hot! weather and sunshine and had such a blast doing what we wanted, when we wanted - staying up late, sleeping in, going to the pool, and checking things out! Agghhh!!! It was definitely a healthy break for the two of us! 

Sudoku is what makes the flight manageable for me. After a terrible flight from Florida to Colorado one time, I have not enjoyed flying at all and can't wait to land! Sudoku keeps my mind focused and makes the flight go quicker. Mitch kept wanting me to get excited and I told him I would once we hit the ground :)

It was after 2:00 pm when we had our car and we headed out, so we were hungry! Mitch's boss told him to go to an In-N-Out Burger and get fries and a burger "animal style" (we had heard our pastor talk about this, too), so we had to try it. I got a plain burger, but had some of Mitch's fries. I don't love thousand island and I think that was part of the combo. The place was HOPPING!!! Some how we managed a table, but it was crazy busy the entire time! It was yummy and a good way to kick off the trip!

 Here we are - just landing in our motel room. Aggghhh, I can feel the freedom even now. It was amazing!

 One of the things Mitch really wanted to do was visit the Pawn shop where Pawn Stars is taped (this is a show on Discovery). Kind of like PBS's Antique Road Show that he enjoys - Carson sees this show and automatically says "Sell it! Right dad? Sell it!" ;) We found it interesting that this specific shop was picked to do the show, as it seemed small and wasn't real new. It was busy, though.

 We then checked out Old Town.

 We had to take a picture for our little man!

This was the Mexican place that we tried and really enjoyed last time. Kind of like Chipotle. We went our first night, but they were closed :( We did go back later for lunch. After this place we stopped at a casino for a buffet dinner and they were closed. We were getting so hungry, but things were closing up, as it was getting late. Finally, we decided to try Monte Carlo's buffet - we had 2-1 all the time at this buffet as part of our "deal". It was 10pm, and they were open until 10:30 - YES!! It tasted sooo yummy! We were full, though, and didn't eat until about 2pm the next day. This was our life for a week! Most days we did 2 buffets a day and we always only needed 2 meals a day. It was great!

 Probably a picture before we hit the buffet!

 Wednesday, June 29th - Mitch's birthday! We thought we would go back and check out the Hoover Dam. They were in the process of building the new bridge when we visited a couple years ago. This shot is from the new bridge. We chose the most windy day to check the bridge out. They had warnings for the oversized vehicles to use the left lane of the bridge and some vehicles couldn't go over. We rented a little Chevy Aveo and when we got on the bridge, the wind was blowing us like crazy. I hated the feeling! I felt like it was going to pick us up and throw us over.

 Here is the new bridge - I can't imagine building this!

 My handsome hubs! It was hot, dry, and windy and we were thirsty and ready to be back in the car ;)

 We checked out some residential areas and were looking for the area where Celine Dion lives. It seemed really hit and miss on the houses.

We had seen lots of signs for big horn sheep and kept looking in the hills for them. Mitch saw them resting in the shade of a local park!

 Vegas was crazy, as there were so many places empty! This was a very cool area on Lake Las Vegas. It was dead! The casino and motel were still open, but I am not sure for how much longer. It really is sad. We were standing on this bridge that goes over the water - it had awesome spots for restaurants and shops on it. Nothing - dead! Rather new, too.

We went out on the strip for Mitch's birthday. We did manage lots of walking! We ran the strip the first morning, but that was enough for me. The heat made it almost where you couldn't breath - hurt your throat and ears. Mitch thought I was being a bit of a weeny (I probably was - I will take my treadmill in an air conditioned gym :)), but he ran solo the 2nd day and then he understood. The 1st day was easy for him bc he ran with me :)

Mitch came up with this ice cream sandwich idea - we will call this his bday cake!

Our favorite part of the buffet might have been the ice cream cones at the end!

Such a handsome 32 year old :)-

He is sweet and always carries my camera bag! We emptied it and used it for my shoes, his wallet, etc. It is so much fun taking pictures with Mitch! We tried some kind of abstract stuff this trip, so we will see if we came up with anything - when I have time to play with them!

We made it back to our motel. I was wanting a latte - only on vacation can you drink a latte at midnight! - so here is Mitch patiently waiting for me.

I had wanted to try this big slot machine since we got there. We saw a lady win a lot when we arrived. I thought for sure that I would win, too! What was I thinking?

 The NYNY - our home for the week!