What Happens In Vegas, Stays in Vegas

Well, not really.  :)  Daniel proposed after the RnR Las Vegas Marathon (check out the race recap here).  Let's back track a little and start from the beginning of the trip. 

Sarah, Cesar, Daniel and I all had the same flight going to Vegas.  We landed in Vegas on Saturday afternoon and headed to our hotel, Vdara.  It's a super nice hotel.  There's no smoking anywhere in the hotel, each room has it's own little kitchenette, there's an indoor swimming pool (that I wish I would have known about sooner so I could have packed a swimsuit), and there's no casino.  It's a sister hotel to Aria, right next door, which does have a casino, nightclub, and restaurants.  It's also connected to Bellagio so you can get your clubbin' and gamblin' on there too. 

Saturday night for dinner we ate at California Pizza Kitchen.  Sunday we got up whenever our bodies decided to get up which was actually pretty early considering we were still operating on East Coast time.  We headed out to meet up with my brother, Marcus and his boyfriend, Myke for brunch and settled on Serendipity 3.  This restaurant had delicious food.  Although, not the best food to each before a marathon. 

My meal: fruit with granola and yogurt in a half coconut shell

Marcus' meal: lox bagel with tomato and cream cheese with a side of potatoes

Daniel's meal: hash with eggs, potatoes and toast

The rest of the day was spent relaxing in the hotel room before the race.  After the race, Daniel was at the end of the finisher's chute waiting for me.  We started walking over to where everyone else was.  The race finished just in front of Cesar's Palace and there's a gazebo with statues around it.  At night the gazebo is lit up and looks real pretty.  I wasn't expecting anything.  So, as soon as I saw Sarah I immediately went over to talk to her about the race.  I didn't notice at the time, but she was just kind of nodding her head and not really responding to me.  Then she tells me there's a sign for me.  I look around and see Marcus and Myke holding a huge sign with just my name on it.  I was thinking to myself "OK.  That's great, but the race is over.  What am I supposed to?"  Then they flipped over the sign and it said "Will You Marry Me?"  I was so confused, I just had a blank look.  I was thinking "Why are they asking me this?  I know we're in Vegas and I guess it's kind of a funny joke."  When they realized I wasn't comprehending they yelled "Turn around!".  So I turned around and Daniel was on one knee holding the ring box open.  I walked over to him and I said yes.  Then he told me "Wait, I didn't ask yet.  I have a speech.  'I gave up a long time ago trying to catch you in a race.  But, hopefully I've caught your heart.  Will you marry me?' ".  And of course I said yes again.

The ring

Gazebo during the day

This was obviously the highlight of my trip.  But, let's continue on.  After all this awesomeness, we went back to our hotel rooms to clean up and rest for a bit then we headed out to dinner.  I really wanted a burger and shake but it seems almost impossible to find a place that offers both.  So, we settled on a place in Monte Carlo that had a pretty wide menu selection.  I was able to satisfy my burger craving but had to forego the shake.  I don't remember the restaurant but it was decent.  The prices were the cheapest that we saw around and again the menu had a large selection of food options.  And, they serve breakfast all day for anyone who likes breakfast any time of day which was pretty much everyone in our party. 

Monday we had reservations for Hash-House-A-Go-Go.  They're food is made for giants.  But, it's all so good.  Not a lot of healthy options on there.  So, when you go bring an appetite and don't go before a big race!  :)

My brown sugar and banana pancake.  Even with sharing I couldn't get through half of it

My smokd salmon with cream cheese and eggs hash

Daniel's fried chicken and waffles.  The waffles have bacon in the middle

Daniel's BLT bloody mary.  There's actually a piece of toast, lettuce, tomato and bacon in the drink for you to put together and eat.

If you want to see more Hash House food selections, take a peek at Sarah's Vegas trip recap.  Amazingly enough I wasn't tired after eating all that food.  I kept on trekking with Daniel, Marcus and Myke into the casinos and gambled for a little bit.  We met up later to get tickets for shows that night.  Daniel, Sarah, Cesar, and I went to Penn and Teller and Marcus and Myke went to La Rev.  We all enjoyed our shows.  Penn and Teller was fun.  Even with them showing you the magic tricks you're still baffled at how they do it!  I really wanted to keep going and party it up, but I was dead after Penn and Teller.  Before the shows we met up for dinner at PBR (professional bull riders) at Planet Hollywood.  Marcus has a friend from high school, Yvonne, that is the executive chef at PBR.  So, of course she made sure that we had the highlights of the menu.  She even got her seux chef to whip up some off the menu items.  Everything we ordered was delicious.  But, again the food choices weren't the healthiest.  By the end of the trip we were all ready to give up fried foods and eat fruits and vegetables for the next week.  But, gotta live it up every once in a while, right?

PB&RJ (Peanut Butter & Raspberry Jelly) with banana, fried.  It's not on the menu fried, but there's a dessert that takes this concent and fries it but adds ice cream.  So, Yvonne and the seux chef both thought that Myke would like this much better fried.  He did.  And so did everyone else. 

Grilled cheese sandiwch with eggs and bacon and a side of fruit -- yeah this is mine.

But so is this.  Dorito covered mac and cheese.  It's sounds a lot better than it tasted.  It was good, just not as good as I was expecting it to. 

This was the grand finale.  A cinnamon donut and a chocolate donut topped with vanilla ice cream and bacon filled waffles with some berries thrown in there, covered with chocolate syrup.  Yup, we were all pretty full by this point.  But, how can you say no to this?

 

 I was determined to get dressed up one night so I wore a black dress and heels.  Sarah was informed that I was wearing a dress and she wore one too.  So, now we actually have pictures of us dressed up looking good and not sweaty and gross.  We clean up pretty nicely, huh?

 So, that was our Vegas adventure.  Not as wild and crazy as I was planning for.  But, it was fun and eventful and I got to share it with most of my favorite people.