We took a sort of last minute trip to Las Vegas for our 12th anniversary. A friend of mine from work was planning to go up there for a triathlon, and had a timeshare condo with two bedrooms. His mom was supposed to go, and then had to back out, so they had an extra room. Remember our anniversary 2 years ago--you know, the one to a little place that I hardly ever talk about called Turks & Caicos? Well, Delta has been awesome about letting us use that voucher we got on our way home from that trip. We were originally give $2000, used some of it to go back to Turks the following year, and originally booked a trip to NYC to use up some of the rest of it. We ended up canceling that trip and figured we were forfeiting what was left on that voucher. When we started talking about going to Vegas, we joked that we should check with Delta to see if they'd give us some tickets--not really expecting that they would. A little while later I get a message from Dave that we had tickets to Vegas for only $50 each! Unfortunately, Delta doesn't fly directly to Vegas and we had to switch planes at LAX on the way there and Salt Lake on the way home. It made for a pretty long trip. We could have driven there in the time we spent in airports and planes, but it was easier than driving.
The first night, Dave and I took the shuttle over to the strip and walked around a little bit. We went in and out of a few casinos, had dinner, walked around some more, got some souvenirs for the kids, watched the Bellagio water show, and then we headed back to the hotel. Vegas has changed quite a bit since I've been there, but really, it's still Vegas.
I found this mug in one of the gift shops. It's not really beer, just looks like it. I thought it would be a funny cup to drink my water out of at work. I used better judgement though and put it back on the shelf.
They dropped us off near Treasure Island so we could catch our Cirque show. We had great seats for the show, being just high enough that we could see all the cool stuff happening in the air. This is the most "circus" heavy show that Cirque does, as far as I know. It is full of some of the most talented performers doing all the coolest circus arts--silks, straps, static trapeze, trampoline, hand balancing, and so much more--oh, and some awesome flying trapeze, of course. It was an amazing show!
There was quite a bit of excitement getting home. It started when we got in to the cab that was going to take us to the airport. The driver said "this could be an interesting ride, President Obama just landed and the roads around the airport are closed." We figured we would be ok because we still had over 2 hours until our flight. We got to where the roads were closed and that's where we sat for about 30 minutes. We started to see people getting out of their cabs with their luggage and walking towards the airport. With the clock ticking, we were getting a little nervous and decided to join the masses who were walking. I don't know what we were thinking--once we got to where the road was blocked, we were just as stuck as we were in the cab. Obviously they weren't letting pedestrian traffic cross either. We got to the blocked road just in time to watch the President's motorcade pass by. It's kind of funny that I was within a few dozen yards of both the FLOTUS and the POTUS within 4 days time. Once the motorcade passed and they opened up the road again, we took off walking (while hoping a cab would pull over and pick us up). I had no idea how far away the airport was, although the cab driver said we were just over a mile away, and was worried we weren't going to make it in time. It wasn't exactly easy to walk to the airport either. Once we could finally see the terminal in our sight, I started feeling hopeful that we'd be ok. We got checked in to our flight, through security and to our gate, and that is where we sat and waited for a very long time. While we were deciding to walk to the airport, and then rushing to get there, we didn't think about the fact that ALL the flights were going to be effected by the President's arrival. They were making it clear that they were trying really hard to get us out as close to our departure time as possible, but once we finally got on the plane, we were about 40 minutes late, and we only had about a 35 min layover in Salt Lake. I guess there were a lot of people who had to make connections because we were all rushing off the plane. We didn't think there was any chance we'd make it, but headed to our gate as fast as could. Once we saw that the door was still open, we took off running as fast as we could. The flight attendant said "hurry, the door is closing in less than a minute!" When we got on that plane, we breathed a huge sigh of relief and couldn't believe we made it! It was a crazy trip home, and I'm so glad we made it.
It was no Turks and Caicos anniversary celebration, but it was still nice to get away for the weekend with my amazing husband. I am so very lucky to have had the last 12 years with such a great man, and look forward to many dozen more years together. I see other couples together and while everyone has their own things going on, it makes me realize how fortunate we are to have such a strong, loving, peaceful relationship where we enjoy each others company, have common interests, and share the responsibilities of our life together. I am even more as in love and happy as I was 12 years ago. Thanks to Claire, Tina, and Kathy for helping out with our kids over the weekend so we could go celebrate our dozen years of marriage. Vegas was cool, but I really want to go back to the beach!
Here's a short one second video from the weekend.
