I am more often the spontaneous one in our relationship. I tend to drag Chris along on my last-minute adventures. So when I brought it up Thursday morning, I was shocked and pleased to find Chris was downright enthusiastic about the idea. But we needed to find out if the dogs had a place to stay before we could drop everything and run away. So we e-mailed and called his Mom, our usual puppy-caregiver. And we waited. And waited. We texted. We called again. And around 5pm, we heard back that Chris' Mom was at the ocean for the weekend and couldn't take the dogs. Oh no! Plans thwarted? I had to start class soon, so a vacation wasn't going to happen if it didn't happen Right Now.

I remembered that the Puppy Resort we normally board them at required all kinds of shots and vet check-ups before they could be boarded. So I called our vet...and thanks to the snow, the office was closed for the day. CURSES SNOW! So I called our other vet, and due to the late time we were calling, the vets had gone home for the day. They could take them in the morning, but our flight, plus needing to take them to the boarders...it wouldn't work out. I was beginning to feel really pissed off that FINALLY something truly epically spontaneous was falling into place, and now it was falling apart. I was grumpy. So I called the boarders and began to inquire if their rules were really that strict...and found out that they only needed the shots and vet check-ups every 6 months after they have been boarded there once before. And they stayed there in September during Steph and Nathan's wedding, so they were all caught up! And they happily had room to take them. HOORAY!

I hopped over to Expedia, and booked a slightly overpriced (though not too bad) trip to Vegas, leaving the very next day. Unfortunately, Renee was busy with yoga class on Wednesday, or we would have stayed one extra day. But I had to come back on Wednesday to teach my class, so we booked 5 days total. By the time everything was confirmed, it was about 6:30pm. We had to quickly do a lot of laundry, pack, and cuddle the hell out of our doggies in preparation for our Crazy Last Minute Trip to Vegas Because Chris Got Laid (Layed?)-Off!

Friday morning, we took the dogs up to Bothell to drop them off. And this is the story where Sharon discovers she doesn't have anti-lock breaks. The area where the pups are boarded is somewhat remote--not terribly remote, but not well-traveled. There is a large hill--long and somewhat steep--that I was concerned about with the snow. And sure enough...it isn't sanded. Lots of surrounding streets are sanded or well-traveled, but we hit the top of this hill looking down...especially following the slip-sliding I was already doing on smaller hills with some sanding...ick. Luckily, I am a fairly confident and savvy driver, and I had my SUV which is heavier and tends to do well on ice and snow if you treat the road with respect, which I do.

I wait until the car ahead of me is almost down the hill, and much to my dismay, just as I commit to coming down the hill, someone starts coming up. So to the left of me there is no room to slide. And to the right...about a 4 foot ditch into trees. So if I slide out of control, there is no place to aim for to get out of trouble. My heart-rate goes up. 'I'm cool.' I begin to slide. I press on the brake...and it begins to vibrate and growl at me. Yep. I take a deep breath and pump on the brakes, trying not to freak out, and it continues to vibrate and growl and slip. I have to pray that gravity won't speed up my car too much. i am gaining on the car in front of me... I blissfully pass the car coming uphill next to me, but my car is still picking up speed, resisting any braking, and ploughing down an icy hill. *shaking a little, and trying not to show it*

Thank all that is good in the world, I make it to the bottom of the hill, my brakes relax, and I can turn onto the side road to the kennel. *whew* It was easily the scariest 5 minutes I have ever experienced in my car. The only downside is that we have to go back UP this hill to leave! To cut to the chase, we gladly made it up the hill without incident. But DAYUM.

Off to the airport, puppies happily ensconced among their puppy friends. But to add to the laughs, we found out the evening before we left that it was expected to SNOW in Vegas. Yes, record lows. Snow flurries, and 20 degree-and-below weather. Bleh. But hell, we planned to be in the casinos in any case.

We decide to stay at Aladdin, since this is likely the last time we can stay there before it is Planet Hollywood. After an uneventful flight, and a nice enough shuttle trip, we arrived at about 7pm and found the casino utterly transformed. Very slick. Dark brown polished woods, hanging crystals, beige details. Lots of video screens playing images of celebrities who had partied there recently. So not our "scene", but nice looking in any case. We get a free upgrade to a room with a stellar Strip view. On the 36th floor. We can see the Bellagio fountains perfectly, to our immediate right is our favorite scene to gamble--Paris casino--, and we have a view of the construction of the new City Center condos and casino. It is breathtaking--one of the top 3 views we have ever had (all three of them having views of the Bellagio fountains, incidentally).

We changed and head out to find some food. We hit Lombardi's in the Desert Passage--one of our favorite little Italian places, which has a great "patio seating" area where we could people-watch--one of our favorite activities in Vegas. We didn't stay out very long, as we were a little tired from the flight, and wanted to save some energy for the rest of the trip. So we watched some TV, surfed the web (slooowly--we didn't want to pay for the hotel access, and we didn't have Edge), and relaxed...for the first time in a looong time. It felt great. I mailed Renee at one point, and she wrote back quickly saying, "What are you doing surfing in your hotel room?! Go out and play!" to which I replied that we were chilling for our first night. And really, it was releasing. It was letting go of the stress and fears at home. We weren't ready to party. We were exhausted. We needed to release. This was the best way to start out. And having a connection with Renee that night was nice, too...just to have a supportive friend cheering on the escapism from afar. Thanks for that, Naynay. :)

And we slept...

Unfortunately, the side-effect of the cold weather outside was that the air-conditioning was off inside. Not just off...but heating. So the smoke circulation wasn't great, and the stuffiness factor overall was high. And having to carry a jacket everywhere was kind of a pain. The Desert Passage mall had even added large blow-fan heaters at all the entrances, because they were trying to combat the cold--they were ill-equipped for such cold. And went the other way, in my opinion. And frankly, I really missed walking in the heat. It's truly a dry heat, and being able to stroll in shorts down the Strip is nice. Putting my ID and cash in a back pocket, feeling unfettered in that way I missed this trip with a coat and gloves slung over my arm. It was strange. I have been there before in January, but the weather is typically in the 50's and 60's during the day, so this was just odd.

We went to the concierge and got some tickets to see some shows. We have seen almost all Cirque shows when we have been there in the past, with the Blue Man Group being the one outlier (and a gleeful one, I would recommend to anyone!). We wanted to try some new stuff. The plan was Jubilee, which has been on our "must see a Vegas-glam boobie-show" list for years. But the concierge recommended "La Femme"--the US version of the Paris, France Crazy Horse revue--and since were are certain that a show running for 30 years will be there next year when we will likely return, we took her advice. We also booked "V-The Ultimate Variety Show", which was staged at the V Theater right in the Desert Passage, tipped the nice concierge, and head out for the day.

The highlights which followed, now follow...

Lots and lots of walking offsets lots and lots of eating. I always eat and drink AAAALL I want, and lose weight in Vegas. It rocks. The negative is that I pretty much always get some serious foot pain, no matter how broken in my shoes are. I don't "do" serious tennis shoes, and in Vegas I tend to wear a little bit sassier clothes, so my usual comfy shoes are right out. Ack the pain! Good news is, Chris loves to give massages, including foot rubs. So every night ended with Chris curling up with me and giving me foot and leg rubs until the day's pain was all rubbed away. *sigh*

We slept in separate beds most nights, which isn't a highlight, per se. But the hotel, as I mentioned before, was stuffy, and without my usual fan to blow on us, it was just plain tooo hot. So it was fun to spread out on an entire bed of my own. We would cuddle and share the bed at "key times", but the rest of the time, it was me and Loomis, my amazing cuddly bear that Chris had gotten me for Christmas.

We got to get on our crazy Vegas schedule, which is really our wacky natural schedule of going to be around 4-5am and getting up around Noon. We would get in so late that even most restaurants were closed, so we....ordered room service! And YUM! The room service at the hotel was amaaazing. Yes, it was spendy, but not ridiculous. And the food was just delicious. I had this fantastic salmon steak with red potatoes and asparagus our first night. Chris had steak and eggs. It was just completely decadent to come back to the room at nearly sun-up, put on pyjamas, climb into bed, and wait for the server to arrive and roll our white cloth-laden table between the two queen beds, open the bottle of wine, and shuffle off while we watch bad latenight TV and eat a yummy dinner.


Saturday night we hit the late show of La Femme. It was good. And interesting. I know most people think that "interesting" means bad, but in this case it means still entertaining, but like nothing else and therefore hard to describe or even quite process. The show was developed in France by an artist who experimented with playing light on the female nude. There was dancing and theatrics, and there was also some downright unusual stuff. Some of the acts were just fabulous, and very memorable. Others were so-so. Overall we had a good time.

That night, since we were on the south end of the strip, we opted to hit the Tropicana, since it was one of the hotels I had never been to, and long wanted to. As we entered, we heard an amazing sound...the tinkling of REAL COINS dropping out of the machines. YES! There are some hotels who have not gone over to the ticket system--something that was much to Chris' and my dismay, as the fake sound really doesn't do the trick. Our eyes lit up like 5 year olds on Christmas morning, and we immediately ran to the nearest machines we like to play, and plopped down for a couple hours. It was bliss!

I suggested we then head over to Excalibur, since Chris had never spent much time there, and I hadn't gambled there in almost 10 years. I had hoped that there would be some low-limit Blackjack tables...that is to say, lower than $5. But there were none. The hotel just felt a little sad. We picked up some cigarettes, schmoozed with some of the casino staff, drank some really pitiful drinks, threw some money in their slot machines, and caught a cab back to our hotel to call it a night.

The V show on Sunday night was definitely the better of the two shows, and a highlight of our trip. It was based on the idea that all the acts are usually filler acts in other shows, but here they are all put together into the "Ultimate Variety Show" for our entertainment. There was a magician, a novelty balancing act, a comedian, a juggling act, an acro-balancing act, and an "aerial drumming" act (the weakest, most disappointing act of the show, actually). The comedic act was just amazing. It was audience participation, and we were laughing so hard we CRIED! It was fantastic.

We had a list of hotels we had never been to, or hadn't been to together or in a long time, and wanted to check out on our trip. For me, the ever-divey Circus Circus, and the even divery-er Slots-A-Fun were on that list. We made it over there, and it was a huge highlight for me. I hit a $5 blackjack table, and played for hours. Sure, I probably (definitely) ended up pissing Chris off when I didn't read his passive-aggressive signals that he was D-U-N-done with the whole experience, but it was so fun! There were fun people to chat with at the table, and about every other dealer was talkative and friendly. I didn't make any money, but I didn't blow a ton either. :)

We got to head across the street to the Riviera, which was completely forgettable. Then we walked down to the Wynn to check it out. It was snooty, as you would expect. We walked the floor and left without plopping any money down. It was late, but we were still up for fun, so we spent some time at Treasure Island, and then The Mirage, which I am reminded I still really enjoy gambling at. It's just pretty. We caught a late dinner at the CPK that was put in there not so long back. And the Revolution section added for the Cirque du Soleil Beatles tribute show is interesting and kind of pretty.

We got to do some shopping, which was nice. We hit the Fashion Show Mall, which was fairly forgettable, and our usual trip to Caesar's was fruitless, but still entertaining. We never did hit the mall or gamble at The Venetian, but we did make a point to head over and have dinner at Grand Luxe, as is tradition (it is where we fell in love, after all). The food was delicious, as always, and we brought a warm box of cookies home with us as usual.

We had our usual "fancy dinner" at Mon Ami Gabi. We dressed up and went on a "date", and had just the great experience we always expect there. Of course we had New York steaks with gorgonzola-sauce. We had a cheese plate, a fantastic bottle of wine, and port and dessert to cap it all off. I was soooo full, I couldn't even drink the rest of the night. Yes, it was that bad. Paris is our favorite casino to gamble in, due in part to the great music they usually have at the casino lounge. Sadly, there was a sub-par 80's cover band playing there these days, instead of the kick-ass R&B group we used to enjoy. But we gambled there all the same. It was also, sadly, our last night, and we had an early flight, and I had to teach the same day we got back, as Renee was unable to sub for me. So we planned to be in bed earlier...but ended up gambling some back at our own hotel until later than we had planned.

We drug ourselves to the airport, flew home, and I took a long nap before teaching class.

We were so NOT ready to be back. We are still lamenting having to be back to real life. But now, I am planning many things to look forward to, not the least of which being our Disney World trip in September! WAHOO!!!