We’ve just returned from Las Vegas!
We had a last minute getaway to celebrate my employment offer – same job, new place with some familiar faces 🙂 As much as I’ve enjoyed my fun-employment summer, I am excited to have a fresh start. Parts have been stressful and I feel great about this new beginning and how it came to be. More to come on the fun-employment topic and what’s been happening at a later date.

Day 1

Las Vegas is fabulous. We love to go. We booked premium seats because they were cheaper than regular seats, by nearly a thousand dollars. So at 9am, I was drinking a glass of champagne while Christopher enjoyed his cup of coffee. I finished the book I was reading on the plane and for once didn’t fall asleep for the entire flight. Everything moved quickly at the airport, and when we landed we got our bags and hopped in the taxi to the Cosmopolitan. We got the one bedroom fountain view room in the Boulevard tower on the 59th floor thanks to the lovely check-in lady. I always give a $10 bill while handing over my ID and credit card and players card. After a quick change of clothes, we made our way over to Posh Burger at the Aria Hotel. They make the most delicious jalapeno tator tots. After filling our bellies, we always walk over to Walgreens and grab some items for our room; such as, water, snacks, beer, wine. It’s nice being able to pop into the room, grab a drink and head down to the casino and I enjoy having a little drink while I get ready for our dinner dates.

For our first dinner date, we ate at Scarpetta which is inside the Cosmo on the 3rd floor and absolutely delicious. I recommend the Hot Honey Margarita (as seen almost finished in the photo) and I have the simple and amazing spaghetti. Christopher ordered the filet. We shared the burrata salad (this photo is from our previous trip) and we enjoyed a lovely and intimate dinner together. The food and service is outstanding at Scarpetta.

Day 2

I like to book the spa on the day after we arrive. This way I can bring some water back to our room that lasts the entire trip plus they have a little snack mix that Christopher loves and oranges/bananas for me. The spa at the Cosmo is gorgeous. There is a large hot tub which is the size of a pool with 5 lounge chairs to relax on while you await your service or for after your service. There’s a cooling room, a sauna and steam room available too. I booked the aromatherapy massage for 80 minutes and it was glorious. I typically have a male masseuse because I don’t have a preference. I slip in and out of sleep during the massage and it’s so nice and relaxing. I usually book for the mornings but this trip I decided to book for 2:30 so that I could shower after and get ready for our dinner. So when I woke up, I left Christopher sleeping and went out shopping. I stopped to grad coffee from District – I order the secret honey lavender oat latte – and I headed over to Bellagio. I wanted to look at Prada and Gucci. I got there 5 minutes before they opened so I waited and walked around Prada first. There was a cute little pouch that would match the nylon bag I already own but it didn’t come in black. There was also this great gold necklace with a charm of a bag I own on it. I moved on the Gucci and had the best time with my sales lady. We chatted and laughed for over an hour, showing photos of our dogs, talking about the real housewives while she showed me some bags. I’m very interested in the Jackie red little sling/cross-body bag but instead went with a tiny black cross-body with a gold chain. The red one is still in my sights. Leaving Gucci, Christoper woke up and asked about lunch and I told him I’m heading over to the Wynn because they’ve put in a Loewe store. He said he would walk over to Casino Royale to play the Goonies and meet me at the room. I walked to the Wynn, such a beautiful hotel and found the Loewe store. I was first introduced to Loewe in New York in 2021 on our honeymoon and their products are stunning and unique. I’ve been looking to get a small puzzle bag – I have a mini tricolour puzzle – and the store had the colour combination I’ve been searching for. It’s nice to see it in person vs online sometimes. Plus then I can get a size estimate and feel of their clothes, etc too. So I purchased the bag and sunglasses. I walked over the overpass to Treasure Island to catch a cab back to Cosmo and found Christopher resting in bed. He was feeling some stress and neither of us had eaten yet, so I let him rest while I went down to Eggslut to get us lunch. We ate together on the couch and chatted about options to help reduce his stress. I went down to my massage and he went on a mission to find our candy bags and then rested again until I returned. We got ready and went to STK for happy hour. We just wanted a couple drinks – the hostess ladies sent us up to the second bar since we weren’t having food and we had two yummy happy hour drinks before moving on to Hattie B’s and grabbing a fried chicken sandwich and chicken tenders to eat in the room. We love having a casual room dinner date. Last time we did it we watched Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Finals. Later, we walked over to Vanderpump at Caesars Palace for a couple cocktails (featured below) before coming back to the Cosmo for a little investing. Our room has a deep jacuzzi bathtub at the window looking out at the fountains so I ended my night there in bubbles.

Day 3

Today we decided to cab and see Resorts World. Our friends had gone there earlier in the year and seen the Katy Perry concert. They said they didn’t spend much time in the hotel, they just went to the show and left. It is very big, high ceilings, fun games, super clean. There’s just nothing surrounding it, so if you stayed there, you’re kind of stuck unless you taxi everywhere. They had a Hello Kitty kiosk, so after walking around the hotel for a while and checking it out, I went back and bought 2 water bottles and a little bag. We got coffee at Juniors – we recognized the diner as it’s in New York as well – and then we took a taxi to New York New York because we wanted to have Shake Shack for lunch. So yummy! There’s a Hello Kitty food/coffee truck out on that street too that I wanted to check out so we went over there after lunch and I bought the Hello Kitty Cupcake plus a strawberry lemonade. After that, we stopped briefly at Eataly but we were a little tired and they are renovating there so we walked back to our room and took a nap.
We had our dinner date at Giada – we taxi there and walk home – which we were both looking forward to because we’ve skipped Giada the past couple times. We knew we wanted to share a few dishes and had decided earlier in the day that we would order the bread board, the romaine salad, and the rigatoni veggie pasta. The hostess let us know it would be a few minutes for our table and to head into the lounge and grab a drink. We paid and got our drinks at the bar lounge when the hostess led us to our table. It was a nice table, we could see out the window towards the Bellagio fountains without having paid the additional $25 per person to have a window seat. It seemed our waiter was annoyed or upset that we already had drinks and he whisked away our wine glasses (even though I typically order a nice glass of wine there after my one cocktail) snipping that he guesses we won’t be needing those or the wine menu. We later asked for the wine menu again and he dropped it on the ledge for us, saying nothing. We ordered what we wanted and he quipped that the pasta is only 6 ounces and we should order more and we said that’s fine with us, we only want to share these items. We never saw him again until well after we finished eating and I managed to get his attention and asked for the bill. We never got asked if we wanted another drink, if we needed anything else, if the food was good… it was very odd. We wanted another drink, possibly a dessert but instead we just paid and left. I said we should head across to Spago and have a drink. Spago was more than welcoming, we sat at the bar, watched a bit of the US Open and enjoyed a cocktail together. An older gentleman came and sat in the barstool next to me even though there was nobody else at the bar at the time, and he swiftly started chatting up the bartenders who you could tell knew him. They kept calling him the politician, and he kept asking them what time their shift was over and to come hang out with him after. They kept their answers vague but did mention that another regular customer comes in and buys them matching Gucci bags (!!!) and Gucci was still open…. the man was very persistent and I was impressed on how these two lady bartenders handled it. One of them saw my little black Gucci bag and she said “see – go buy us that one and then we might hang out with you after our shift!” On our receipt I wrote to them “get that Gucci girl!!” They were really nice. We went back to the room, changed into more comfy clothes and gambled a little before heading up for sleep. I played the claw machine and unbelievably I won $100 ball!

Day 4

We planned on having breakfast today at Monami Gabi at the Paris Hotel. We got there near 11am, and were sat at a table inside. The place was empty on the inside but people were out on the patio. Beside us was an older couple, and the lady would/could not stop coughing. We noticed the lunch menus had no breakfast items and Christopher really wanted breakfast food so we were going to ask the waiter about it but instead asked the water man. He said he didn’t know and to ask the waiter. We sat for 8min or so before the water man appeared and I felt uneasy about staying, like it wouldn’t be a good/fun lunch together, we could only hear the lady coughing and hadn’t seen the waiter yet after almost 15min so we made the decision to leave. We walked back to the Cosmo and went to the Henry and it was fantastic! Our waiter there was so nice and funny. We enjoyed coffee and Christopher got his breakfast items, I ate a grilled cheese and it was perfect. That afternoon we walked over to Eataly to check it out while we weren’t so tired. We bought some coffee to bring home plus some saffron spaghetti. I asked if Chris wanted to go to Old Vegas before dinner but he said he would prefer after dinner so that’s what we did. Our dinner date was at Tom Colicchio’s Craftsteak at the MGM and we also had to check-in to our room there before dinner. We headed over around 5pm and planned to check-in and gamble a little before our dinner. When we got there, they said our room wasn’t ready yet, but they were rushing a housekeeping team up there for us and gave us $100 dining credit for the inconvenience. That gave us $200 worth of dining credits because we already had $100 offered through our booking with $60 of freeplay. The room was ready 30min later. We went up there, dropped off our bag that had a change of clothes in it for after dinner and then headed to eat. The food was so good. We ordered the fries, and they came with some cajun spice maybe on them and they gave us individual mini heinz glass ketchup bottles. The drinks were superb. We ordered the honey roasted carrots which were heirloom and divine. I had the halibut and Chris ordered the prime rib. We were so full. We couldn’t do dessert. We charged to our MGM room and then changed, went downstairs to take a taxi to Old Vegas. We found a Whitney Houston slot machine and other fun machines and walked around for a few hours. We finished on a Goonies slot machine. We didn’t win any money but had so much fun. Christopher’s favourite part of Old Vegas is buying a big beer from the ABC store and having the cashier wrap it in a paper bag, staple it shut, and give the disclaimer that you can’t drink it outside while walking. Look how happy he is!

Day 5

Our final day! We woke up and finished packing and checked out of our beautiful Cosmo hotel room. We took a cab over to MGM and rolled our suitcases to our new room for the day. We always book an additional hotel room to overlap our last night so this way, we are never without a hotel room. Sometimes we like to mix hotels too to check them out. It works for us because I have a players card that sends me offers and Christopher has the same. This trip it worked out well because our light home wasn’t until 9pm (it was so much cheaper! plus we had premium seats again!) and I can’t imagine not having a room for a full day in Vegas. We changed into our pool attire and Christopher was excited to take me to the Lazy River Pool. This is where he and his friends would entertain themselves when they used to come to Vegas in their 20’s. We got towels, found nice loungers along the water and hopped it. It was fun! We just floated around and then after a lap, we would get out and lay in the chairs. Once dry (maybe 20min in that heat) we would head back in the water. We spent a few hours at the pool and then we got hungry. We went back upstairs to change and planned to have lunch at Wolfgang Puck. There was a huge Cisco conference happening and the restaurant was packed with them. We were told a 20min wait and they would text us so we went back upstairs. After 35min, we headed back down as we hadn’t yet received a text and it was clear we were never going to and they were going to keep seating the conference people as they came in. We told the hostess we had been on the wait list for 40min and they sat us immediately. I ordered an ice coffee and we already knew what we wanted to order. We waited a long time for the waiter to come take our order, and it took a while for the food because the kitchen was so busy. The food was great and we enjoyed lunch. I never saw that waiter again either other than when he frequented the table of 4 ladies next to us (he gave them great service!) but he never went to any other table. I had to go to the front of the restaurant to ask for our bill since it had been 20min since we finished eating and our empty plates were still on the table. I left to go back and shower while Chris got the bill and paid. I took a nice nap in the room. We had the US Open on in the background. At 7pm we went downstairs to go to the airport and catch our flight home. The airport was a breeze, there was hardly anybody there. We went through security and then waited for our flight. We bought little chocolates for Christopher’s parents as a thank you gift for babysitting Hanky while we were away. Although, they love having Hank so it’s no burden to them and Hank has so much fun with them. We arrived home after midnight and went to Christopher’s parents house (Hanky and our car were there), slept for 5 hours before Hank woke up and then made our way home.

Chris found a cute coffee/donut shop named Goldie’s in Horseshoe Bay (the village beside the ferry terminal) so we drove out there with Hanky and tried their donuts – they were delicious and Hanky approves!