What happens in Vegas, can STAY in Vegas

Is it just me, or is Vegas getting creepier? I should specify... the "Strip" in particular. I think that people have mistaken the nickname of Las Vegas Boulevard for an action word. ICK! and DOUBLE ICK!

We went last week for Jim's annual conference. We stayed in a condo just behind the Flamingo. We love the condo because it is a non gaming hotel - translation- no smoking casino to pass through to get anywhere:). We tried to find family friendly things to do. I took the kids to the dolphin resort and white tiger preserve...by passing through a smoky casino. I took them to M'n'M World/ Coca Cola store... by walking along the strip where people pass out pornographic cards, and other people drop them on the street where little boys can get a good look:( GRrrrr. To make matters worse the pool was closed this week for maintenance, so our only real choices were to sit in the condo and watch TV or go out on the strip and feel pervasive evil around us. I think if I never go to Vegas again, I'll be just fine!

Now that I have that out of my system, The dolphin place is really cool. You can sit right on the edge of the tanks and the dolphins will come right up to you. Some people even got a chance to go in and feed the dolphins and/ or have them do some "training" (tricks) I like it better than Sea World for this and the crowds are MUCH smaller. The white tigers, white lions and leopards are also very interesting. There are only a few animals, but it is well kept and cool, and they are animals you may not see anywhere else. They have five siblings in one cage. One is pure white, one looks like a regular tiger, and three are white with black striping. It is like an exercise in seeing how the gene pool works!

We did get several pictures with famous celebrities, or at least their wax lookalikes at madame Tussuad's wax museum. It is almost creepy how real some of them look.

One night we went to Cirque du Solei'ls "Beatles 'Love'". I was looking forward to it, but as one audience member said, "This is an ADD person's DREAM!" There was SO MUCH going on that you could hardly enjoy it because you were so distracted. That and they pull a huge parachute out during the show and bring it over the first few rows of the audience and start shaking it up and down. Unfortunately they stopped at our row to shake it and I was fully attacked by the parachute. I was squished as far down in my chair as I could get and was still getting smacked in the face and head. So much for my good hair day. The highlight of the night was before the show. The took us to "Dinner", which was at a sushi bar- great- IF you like raw fish which I do not. I had just about given up on eating when they brought around some cooked food! YEAH. I guess some other people in the group had the same problem I did. My absolute FAVORITE though was the Sweet potato fries MMMMmmmmm. I LOVE Sweet potato fries, and these were amazing. Tragically there was only one bowl per table:(

I was really looking forward to the next night. It was the closing banquet and the band "Chicago" was the guest artist. This night was moderately nice, except for my dress- which I'll get to in a minute. Chicago was good, but they should have stuck to their oldies but goodies, their newer stuff was just OK. I just hope I age better than a few of them. EEEk they looked old!

Now for the dress... I have this cute dress, black with cream polka dots, and a ruffled handkerchief hem. It is cut on the bias and hangs really nicely. It is sleeveless so I always wear it with a shrug. Unfortunately when I washed my shrug the day before we left, it came out with a huge tear, and I did not have time to fix it (not sure if it can be fixed). No big deal, I figured I'd just get a new one or a shawl or something when we got there. So one day I went shopping. Finally I found a cream shrug that worked well with the dress. A little bit different style than the original, but it worked- or so I thought! I got ready and put the dress on, the shrug was great, and we leave from our condo to walk to the hotel where the conference is being held- just one hotel over from ours. As we get there I feel like the V neckline of the dress is looking a bit low in front. I ask Jim, he thinks it is fine. But during dinner I am becoming increasingly aware that it in NOT fine. When we left the condo, the neckline was a good two inches above the shrug, by the main course it is even with the shrug, and SINKING still! It is now getting fully inappropriate (for me anyway- some of the other women there looked like they took the Vegas slogan seriously) and I am beginning to expose way too much! Fortunately the shrug has a ruffled collar, so finally I flipped the collar up and in, and "pinned" it shut with my conference name badge. And thus it remained the rest of the night! All I can guess is that the dress has always done this, but the shrug I usually wear covered it up. I've got to figure out how to fix it before I wear it again:)

On a high note, they do have a Chevy's restaurant, which we love, in Henderson where we went as a family for dinner one night. I love their chips and salsa, and tomalito, and flautas and... MMmmm!!!!!

So that, in a nutshell, was our strange trip to Vegas!