{"id":620,"date":"2008-09-18T22:19:14","date_gmt":"2008-09-19T03:19:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.momstoolbox.com\/blog\/?p=620"},"modified":"2008-10-17T22:05:55","modified_gmt":"2008-10-18T03:05:55","slug":"take-a-break-from-ike-its-vegas-baby","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.momstoolbox.com\/blog\/take-a-break-from-ike-its-vegas-baby\/","title":{"rendered":"Take a break from Ike&#8230; It&#8217;s Vegas, baby!"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>While Ike was pummeling Houston, I was off gallivanting about in Las Vegas, celebrating a friend&#8217;s wedding.<\/p>\n<p>So when I wasn&#8217;t checking my email (members of my MOPS group in Houston were sending status updates to each other), checking Houston\u00a0 weather blogs, and calling my husband with information updates that I was able to collect since I had power and internet in Vegas and he didn&#8217;t in Houston, I did take in a bit of the Strip.<\/p>\n<p>My big question for the weekend was this: How in the world do party girls take care of their tootsies? (I know, big problems in Vegas.) I wore cute party dresses each night, which required higher heels than I wear at home. And OUCH! My feet even hurt when I took the shoes OFF.<\/p>\n<p>But, on to the fun:<\/p>\n<p>I stayed at Paris, a hotel with the lobby areas (read: casino) designed to look like the famous city. There were cobblestones, cute shop fronts and even a creperie. Outside, a replica of the Eiffel Tower marked the hotel&#8217;s location. And cars driving to the hotel drove under a replica of the Arc de Triomph.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/s539.photobucket.com\/albums\/ff360\/Momstoolbox\/?action=view&amp;current=photo-9.jpg\" target=\"_blank\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.momstoolbox.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/09\/photo-9.jpg\" border=\"0\" alt=\"Photobucket\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>On my first morning I headed straight for gifts for the family. A MOPS friend told me about this spot:<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/s539.photobucket.com\/albums\/ff360\/Momstoolbox\/?action=view&amp;current=photo-7.jpg\" target=\"_blank\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.momstoolbox.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/09\/photo-7.jpg\" border=\"0\" alt=\"Photobucket\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Some people can&#8217;t wait to gamble in Vegas, I couldn&#8217;t wait to check out the M&amp;M store.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/s539.photobucket.com\/albums\/ff360\/Momstoolbox\/?action=view&amp;current=photo-8.jpg\" target=\"_blank\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.momstoolbox.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/09\/photo-8.jpg\" border=\"0\" alt=\"Photobucket\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Gifts in hand, I wandered back down the Strip, dropped them off at the hotel and kept on exploring.<\/p>\n<p>In Caesar&#8217;s Palace they were celebrating Mexican Independence with mariachis.\u00a0 I can never resist listening to a mariachi band.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/s539.photobucket.com\/albums\/ff360\/Momstoolbox\/?action=view&amp;current=photo-10.jpg\" target=\"_blank\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.momstoolbox.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/09\/photo-10.jpg\" border=\"0\" alt=\"Photobucket\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Soon it was time for my spa appointment. (I know, rough life.) I pampered myself with a coconut milk and some kind of flower oil wrap. My technician was kind enough to snap a shot of me all cocoon-like.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/s539.photobucket.com\/albums\/ff360\/Momstoolbox\/?action=view&amp;current=photo-11.jpg\" target=\"_blank\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.momstoolbox.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/09\/photo-11.jpg\" border=\"0\" alt=\"Photobucket\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>That night I went to see Ray Romano and Brad Garrett. Ray&#8217;s humor was very much like &#8220;Everybody Loves Raymond.&#8221; Brad&#8217;s was not.<\/p>\n<p>I can&#8217;t say I had ever been to a show completely by myself, but what else was I going to do? I couldn&#8217;t expect the bride to babysit me. Just before the show I took myself out for sushi and after the show I dropped by a nightclub for a little 90210 promotion.<\/p>\n<p>Here&#8217;s a shot of the paparazzi as the stars entered the club. I never saw them (or the paparazzi) again. But I had fun, anyhow.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/s539.photobucket.com\/albums\/ff360\/Momstoolbox\/?action=view&amp;current=photo-13.jpg\" target=\"_blank\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.momstoolbox.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/09\/photo-13.jpg\" border=\"0\" alt=\"Photobucket\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>The next day I woke early to find out how my family fared and relayed as much info as I could from the internet and TV.<\/p>\n<p>I was glued to the Weather Channel and my telephone.<\/p>\n<p>Soon it was time for the main event:<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/s539.photobucket.com\/albums\/ff360\/Momstoolbox\/?action=view&amp;current=photo-6.jpg\" target=\"_blank\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.momstoolbox.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/09\/photo-6.jpg\" border=\"0\" alt=\"Photobucket\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>I felt so fortunate to have such a wonderful husband to send me off in this crazy time so that I could attend my friend&#8217;s wedding.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0It was fantastic to see her so happy, so beautiful and her fianc\u00e9e\/ husband so in love with her and she with him. And I enjoyed getting to know her other friends. They were all a lot of fun. The wedding was beautiful and I was in tears.<\/p>\n<p>And on the shuttle bus back to the hotel I received an email that my flight home the next morning had been cancelled.<\/p>\n<p>Sharing this information with the group caused them to convince me to go out for another night in Vegas. Evidently we went to some very hip club where the \u2018stars&#8217; go and Tommy Lee was the deejay. Listening to the tunes, I had to share with one of the husbands that I mostly listen to Christian music, so I was a little out of my element. This gave the group a bit of a chuckle.<\/p>\n<p>I returned to the hotel a few hours later, asked for a late checkout and called Continental more times than I can count.<\/p>\n<p>It wasn&#8217;t until late morning that I finally secured a flight home and extended my hotel stay another night.<\/p>\n<p>I think you know the rest of it: I was scheduled to fly to Dallas by way of Newark but was able to fly standby to Houston. Once I got home I <a href=\"http:\/\/www.momstoolbox.com\/blog\/cleaning-out-the-fridge\/\">trashed the \u2018fridge,<\/a> packed the car and headed to my family in Dallas.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/s539.photobucket.com\/albums\/ff360\/Momstoolbox\/?action=view&amp;current=photo-5.jpg\" target=\"_blank\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.momstoolbox.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/09\/photo-5.jpg\" border=\"0\" alt=\"Photobucket\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>And now I sit and wait for the power to be restored at home.<\/p>\n<p>And I&#8217;m thankful I had that mini-vacation to share in my friend&#8217;s big day. It was certainly a weekend I&#8217;ll never forget&#8230; for several reasons.<\/p>\n<p><em>PS Sorry about the lower-quality pics. They were all from my phone. I left my real camera at home for my husband to document the hurricane.<\/em><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.momstoolbox.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/07\/momflower.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-207\" title=\"momflower\" src=\"http:\/\/www.momstoolbox.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/07\/momflower.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"80\" height=\"40\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>While Ike was pummeling Houston, I was off gallivanting about in Las Vegas, celebrating a friend&#8217;s wedding. So when I wasn&#8217;t checking my email (members of my MOPS group in Houston were sending status updates to each other), checking Houston\u00a0 weather blogs, and calling my husband with information updates that I was able to collect [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[118,20,1],"tags":[133,120,130,132,131,134],"class_list":["post-620","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-moms-journal","category-travel","category-uncategorized","tag-brad-garrett","tag-hurricane-ike","tag-las-vegas","tag-paris","tag-ray-romano","tag-wedding-travel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.momstoolbox.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/620","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.momstoolbox.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.momstoolbox.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.momstoolbox.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.momstoolbox.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=620"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"http:\/\/www.momstoolbox.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/620\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":855,"href":"http:\/\/www.momstoolbox.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/620\/revisions\/855"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.momstoolbox.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=620"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.momstoolbox.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=620"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.momstoolbox.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=620"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}