Las Vegas Trip for Emily and Christine

August 6, Wednesday

After months of planning for this trip, we got some horrible news. I happened to open Facebook for a second to check my notifications. And that's when I saw it. Kelly Clarkson had just posted that she's postponing the rest of her August shows, that's this week and next week. I immediately yelled out: "You've got to be kidding me!" Emily was so upset. This was her birthday present. I can't believe we're just now finding this out the night before we're supposed to catch a flight there. We had a lot of discussions about it but Emily really still wanted to do the trip and I do too, so we are.

 

August 7, Thursday

I'm so grateful we made it to Las Vegas today because we're having a great time! I got up with Jonny and prayed with him and said goodbye to him. I did pretty well getting ready and we left around 11:20 AM and got to the airport right around noon. We got some food at Pei Wei and ate it quickly and by then it was time to get on the plane. The flight was short but it was pretty bumpy. An Uber was $50 at least so we took a taxi for $29 and made it to Caesars Palace around 3:20 PM. Check-in was at 4 PM but by the time we got through the line they told us it was fine and there was a room ready. They asked if I wanted an upgrade. I said it would be nice if they gave me one for free because the Kelly Clarkson concert was canceled, but she was unsympathetic and said nothing could be done. Later, she actually asked somebody about it and reaffirmed that they couldn’t do anything. It's a really nice room and the view is fantastic!

We can see the Sphere and the High Roller and the Venetian and the Flamingo and all kinds of buildings. 

We relaxed for a bit and then got dressed and walked over to the Bellagio so we could go to our Noodles reservation. We got pork dumplings to share and I got barbecue pork. Emily got udon noodles and they were enormous.

Beautiful Fiori di Como glass sculpture on the ceiling of the Bellagio lobby

We walked around the conservatory and took tons of pictures because it was gorgeous. 

Then we went to the patisserie and got a raspberry macaron and then we headed over to the theater.

Display outside of the "O" by Cirque du Soleil Theater

Our seats were phenomenal and the show was incredible! We were in row H in the middle front section and it was fantastic. 

Even the ceiling was amazing! A performer came down from there during the performance.

They had some clowns entertaining everybody before it even started. 

The show was a little more than an hour and a half and there was so much going on you couldn't watch it all. They had so many amazing tricks. The acrobatics and the swimming and the diving and the contortionist, all of it was amazing. There were a couple plants in the audience who they made it seem like they just called them out at random, but they were really part of the show. Toward the end, they had a guy fully clothed and they took him all the way to the top and he dived from the highest diving platform I've ever seen. I loved all the balancing they did. At one point, they had three people on each other's shoulders so that was amazing. They had a lady on a trapeze who was balancing on her head even as it was swinging. There was a little platform on the trapeze for her head and it was amazing to watch her balance. There was a guy who was on fire for a long time and some other guys were spinning batons kind of like they do at the Polynesian Cultural Center with fire on them and they were tossing them back-and-forth to each other. There was a time when three divers dove from that super high height down into a triangular-shaped part of the pool that was relatively small. There were three female contortionists. One would be on her stomach with her feet over her head and then the lady above her was doing a back bend, then the third girl held onto her stomach and balanced on top of her. It was crazy! The whole show was absolutely unbelievable! I wish I could remember everything but it was entertaining and absolutely amazing. We weren't allowed to take pictures during the performance, but we could at the end when they all came out to take a bow.  

After the show, we walked back over to Caesar's Palace. I wanted to try to get a doughnut at Café Lola but it had just closed by the time we got there and they didn't have any donuts left anyway. Then we went over to Cheesecake Factory because Emily really wanted a piece of cheesecake. Then we came back to our room. We stopped at a couple places where I thought we could have lunch or dinner tomorrow and looked at some menus. I love how they have seating that looks like it's outside but it's all really inside. 

We stopped at the Dominique Anzel Bakery, which is right by our elevators. I wanted to try a cronut but they only had an orange kind so I got something called a DKA. 

Emily's chocolate cheesecake

DKA: Dominique's Kouign Amann, caramelized croissant

We came back to our room and enjoyed the amazing view with all the lights, got our pajamas on, and crawled into bed and ate our treats. We had a hard time finding something to watch and then we realized Top Hun Maverick was on and we wish we had realized that sooner, but we watched the end of it and then got ready for bed.

Amazing view from our room at night

August 8, Friday

It was so nice to sleep in this morning! We got up around 8:30 AM and got ready for the day. We wanted to leave at 10 AM and we did pretty well because we left at about 10:15 AM. Emily wanted some breakfast so we went down to the food court and we settled for Bobby Flay's. We shared a breakfast sandwich and some French fries. 

It's a little confusing to figure out where to meet an Uber. There are multiple rideshare locations and it seems like for every one we chose, the Uber driver complained about it. While we waited for our Uber, we were able to get a few pictures by the fountain outside of the Forum Shops. 

We took the Uber to the Pinball Hall of Fame. It was so fun!

Obligatory Zoltar picture

We played Dance Dance Revolution and Emily beat me both times but I did pretty well.

We had a good laugh about this guy because he looked so creepy.

Tron was out of order.

I had fun playing ski ball and walking around and looking at all the machines. I played a little pinball and we eventually played some air hockey together. 

I love the fine print about the "rules."

Photo booth!

Emily playing Guitar Hero

That was the most fun we had for the least amount of money. We thought about walking to the Las Vegas sign but then decided against it because we didn't want to stand in a long line in the heat. So, we got a ride back to Caesar's Palace. We wanted to go get some lunch and we had decided to try out Café Lola because I wanted to go there to get my donut anyway. 

Cafe Lola

The decor was beautiful, but my waffles were terrible.

We had to wait in a line to order our food and it took quite a while. Emily saved us our seat and I got her the side salad and lemonade that she wanted and then I got myself a doughnut and some waffles. The donut was delicious, but the waffles were terrible. The chocolate was bitter and they were probably the worst waffles I've ever had. I debated about what to do and I told them I couldn't eat it. They offered to make me something new or give me a refund and I accepted the refund so that was very nice of them. The guy was very nice about it. 

After that, we walked around the rest of the Forum Shops. We went to the cool part that has the three different levels. Even that's confusing. Getting around this place everywhere we go is confusing but we're figuring it out. Then, we headed back to the room and got our swimsuits on and went to the pools. I sat on a lounge chair and watched Emily's stuff and she went into the pool. Most of the pools were freezing cold so she tried to find the one that was heated. 

We sat out there for a little while and chatted and then decided to go back to our room. We went back to the room and got ready to go. Emily wanted to go get something to eat before we went to our show. I had to give up on my hope of getting Backstreet Boys tickets and we went ahead and got Shin Lim tickets. It worked out great! 

Venetian, ceiling leading to the lobby

I really wanted to go to a particular restaurant but unfortunately, I didn't know the name. Thankfully, we happened upon it. I saw a table right by the edge that was perfect and that's exactly where they seated us and I was so happy! I had really wanted to eat at one of those restaurants that feels like you're eating outside but you're really inside. We knew what we wanted and ordered right away and they got us our food quickly, which was wonderful because we wanted to have plenty of time to get to the theater. 

We enjoyed our meal. Emily got a Margherita pizza and I got a pasta Bolognese with these huge tube noodles. It was really good. Emily gave me half a slice of her pizza and that was really good, too. 

Then we headed over to the theater. We stopped for some photo ops, first, of course!

We got there in plenty of time. Our seats were pretty high up but we could still see everything just fine. He had screens and everything and it was a great view. The tickets were only $130 for the two of them so that was great. 

We loved the show! He had a guest magician who was pretty funny who started it off. The first thing Shin Lim had us do was our own trick. When we arrived there were a packets of four playing cards tucked in our seat with the instructions to not open them until Shin Lim said. He had us get them out and tear them in half and told us how to shuffle them around. He had us pull them out of the middle and throw them over our shoulders. In the end, we had one that we had put in our pocket and one other one left and the trick was that we would have two pieces that go together and we did! The whole audience erupted with surprised noises. 

He showed us so much slight of hand and it was so cool! He did all of his close-up magic. He did a fun trick with a lady where she chose the nine of hearts and he had a ton of nine of hearts cards appear in his hand and he tossed them on the stage and then more showed up and by the end he had a shower of cards that were nine of hearts. It was so cool! He had another trick where he had these poker chips and he would turn it into a bigger one and then back into a smaller one. Emily especially loved all the sleight-of-hand tricks. Toward the end, he had somebody recording him up close. He did some cool tricks and Emily and I both noticed that his hand movements didn't seem to match what was on the video so we thought it was pre-recorded. Then he came to the front of the stage to do a bow and then he went back to the table and I'm pretty sure that's when he made a switch because a little bit later, it was revealed that it wasn't him standing there but the other magician and Shin Lim was sitting in the audience. And the lady who was recording on the video camera was actually his wife who had come out and done a few tricks before. It was pretty cool. I also loved the part where the other magician came out on stage and he asked people in the audience to think of a word and a number. The girl thought of the number 72 and he had written 16 numbers on a piece of paper and it turned out that all of the rows and columns and diagonals and corners and middle numbers all added up to 72. That was pretty cool. 

We had a wonderful time and we left the theater and headed back to the Canal Shops to get some ice cream. First, I stopped at a donut shop that looked amazing and waited in the long line and the donut was just so basic. It wasn't even as good as Bosa. 

I went with Emily to the Sloan ice cream shop and we both got ice cream. I got birthday cake and cookie dough and it was really good. Emily got chocolate and peanut butter. 

After we ate our ice cream, we walked back to the hotel. It wasn't too hard to walk back over there. We got some more pictures along the way. 

One last view from our room at night

We walked straight back to our room and then got some ice and then got settled in for the night. 

 

August 9, Saturday

Emily and I slept in this morning but we were up and ready to go and out of the room at 10:45 AM. Check out was at 11 AM and 11 AM was also when the Chicken Guy restaurant opened, so we were first in line when it opened. We got our chicken and got a Uber and got right to the airport. We ate our food and went through security and by the time we got to the gate, it was almost time to board. It was another bumpy flight but it was fine because it was only a 47 minute flight. Michael and Daniel pulled up just as we got downstairs to baggage claim so that worked out great. Michael took me to Twisted Sugar on the way home. I got Daniel a chocolate chip cookie and got Emily a soda and then we went home.

It was such a wonderful trip! Even though we didn't get to see Kelly Clarkson, we made the best out of the situation and had a fabulous time anyway! Like Papa always says, we're basically travel-planning professionals, haha!