Spontaneous Trip to Vegas

My parents were in the neighborhood - Las Vegas...only 4.5 hours away instead of 12 - and since they were so close they wanted us to go out and spend the weekend with them. Initially we weren't going to go because we both had to work and couldn't get out of it. But I really wanted to see my parents because I haven't seen them since October...so I was pretty homesick for them. We contemplated going because it would be a short trip - but we figured we should be the spontaneous people we are, so we decided to make the quick trip out there. When I called my mom 5 minutes before we hit the road, she was so happy she almost started crying - we're very close. We got on the road at about 11:30pm Saturday night after we both got home from work (and after my car got broken into). We arrived early in the morning and crashed at their hotel, The Stratosphere. It's pretty ghetto and I wouldn't reccommend it to anybody - unless it's free like it was for my parents.

We all slept in a woke up to go to the breakfast buffet at the Bellagio - the best buffet in Vegas. It ended up being breakfast lunch and dinner - we ate so much we could barely walk. But being the munch mouths we are, we had a midnight snack too.

(midnight snack restaurant)

The rest of the day we just hung out, went swimming and lounged (we go to vegas so often we don't really care about the sights, this trip is our 3rd trip since January).

My parents had to head for the road to make it to work the next morning so they left at 7pm - so we only got to see them for a few hours but it was worth it - it gave me my "fix" until we make our trip to California in August.

After they left we went up to the stratosphere. My parents got free tickets and I've always wanted to go up there - but the elevator ride alone is like 12 bucks so we can never justify it, so I was excited.

I wanted to go on the rides but Eric was too scared - he said he didn't want to pay 15 bucks for a ride, but I know that was just a cover up because he was too chicken. When we have kids I think he's gonna be the one taking them on the kiddie rides while I go on the real rides with my family (we always get season tickets to Great America).

We headed out the next day - since we've never been to the Las Vegas Temple I wanted to stop by and check it out (it was closed), it's beautiful! Once we got In-n-Out Burger we headed home. It was a fun, short, random vacation.

Scion United 5.17.08

In May, Eric and I had an awesome opportunity to be a part of Scion's new advertising campaign. Our car was selected to be one of the 500 to attend a so-called "top secret" event in Boulder City, NV. Their new campaign is all about showing the different customizations that people do to their cars. We caravan'ed down to Vegas with a couple of our other Scion friends, Drew and Tevita.

Scion paid for EVERYTHING once we got there... we were hooked up nicely with a sweet room at the Green Valley Ranch Resort in Henderson. They also gave us $160 in pre-loaded Visa cards and turned us loose for the weekend to party while they used our car in video and photo shoots. We even got hooked up with some sweet SWAG in our hotel room after we checked in. The custom-made bags made out of recycled Scion billboards were fulla goodies like waterbottles, sunglasses, stuffed toy cars, sunscreen, visors, magazines... you get the idea...

My favorite part of the trip was definately loungin by the pool, workin on my tan and reading a good book.

Saturday was the main event, and we were bused out to what looked like a government test facility set up in the middle of the desert. There were all sorts of vendors there with TONS of free stuff for us (like t-shirts, stickers, shift knobs, and other cool stuff for the car and whatnot). Color Me Mine even had a tent set up where we could paint our own xB's and take em home! It was so much fun... and HOT!

One of the booths was gettin real crazy with buzz-cuts.... Eric was a bit hesitant to step up, but Tevita went all out with his head, and ended up getting a lot of attention because of it. If we only knew that Eric was gonna shave his head a few weeks later maybe we'd have done it too. Looks like he'll hafta settle with his new tatoo instead...

Some of the companies even had raffles and drawings for BIG prizes.... and we actually won a set of BRAND NEW WHEELS! It was crazy at the TRD booth when they called our ticket number, we couldn't believe it, we never win anything!

They fed us and had a few words from the VP of Scion, then we headed into another tent for the main event... which was a private concert by Redman and Flo Rida...

It was such a blast. The next day we decided to venture a little bit further into the desert to see the Hoover Dam (neither of us had been there before and we were already pretty much there). It was a blast to spend the weekend out and away from our monotonous routine and get to meet new people. We have had so much fun with our car and met a lot of cool friends because of it.

CES

in january we took a road trip to vegas with our best buds greg and jalaine. the reason for our adventure was the International Consumer Electronic Show (CES). the show is all about the latest and greatest electronic gadgets for '08. This is our 3rd time going and we always have a blast... ever since eric's been with best buy we haven't missed a show. i mean with eric working for the company, it's almost a given that we go. it's important that he's caught up on the new technology he'll be installing in cars. 


it's fun to see how the technology can change from one year to the next. new this year is the microsoft surface. we saw a demonstration and it was pretty amazing! we usually go to the show for a day and spend the rest of the time bumming around. 

a must in vegas is a visit to the cheesecake factory! we absolutely love it! we've been talking about opening a franchise in utah...but someone beat us to it...and we're glad because now we can enjoy it anytime (not just when we're in vegas, cali or hawaii). eventhough we have one here now we still went to the one in vegas. we also went to the the m&m factory, the belagio buffet and...of course we went shopping!

we stayed at the southpoint hotel & casino, it's on the strip but about 5 miles south (which is nice because we avoid the craziness of the main strip). southpoint is rad...it's got 24 hour bowling! in one of the pictures you can see greg and eric racing up to the top of the stairs -where the bowling alley was - it looked like a tie, but i think greg won (i mean he does have a couple inches on eric so his long legs beat him by a hair). in bowling, greg came in first, jalaine second, me third and eric LAST! sad for him...but wonderful for me because that was the first time i'd ever beaten him! haha...i think i bet him a massage but never got it of course!
in our shopping adventure we went to my favorite store h&m...i was sorely disappointed and didn't buy a thing! the one in san francisco was gynormous and amazing...i wanted to buy the whole store, but this one was a lot smaller than my express. oh well...i just spent all my money at urban outfitters, another favorite.

our trip to vegas was a short, fun 3 day trip. we can only handle so much of vegas at once so 3 days was long enough.


i have no idea why these pictures are blurry, it's driving me crazy that i can't fix them.