What Happened in Vegas...

Will be posted on my blog!

So, Erik and I went to Las Vegas with his sister and her husband for the weekend. It was awesome. We had such a great time and I'm a little blue today that it's over. But anyways, here's a recap for my own memory and reading enjoyment for you.

We left Friday at 8:30 am. Our first stop (after Starbucks, of course!) was the Hacienda Casino on the other side of the Hoover Dam. (On a side note, that dam is AMAZING! I'm always so amazed at what those people did, how dangerous it must have been. It's an architectural and engineering marvel if you ask me. No, I've never taken the tour. But I have seen Vegas Vacation so I feel like I've been inside...) So, anyways, we stopped at the Hacienda Casino where Erik and Craig (my Brother-in-law) love to play $1 craps. You see, it's like the only place in all of NV that has $1 craps, and they like to play craps. So, we stopped. And they played.

We got back on the road and checked into our hotel. We stayed at the Planet Hollywood Towers. It used to be the Aladdin. I have stayed at the Aladdin, but it was sold to P.H. back in 2006. The hotel is super chic. We had a suite with a huge 100 inch projection screen, a jacuzzi tub, sleeping for 4, full kitchen. Just super swanky and cool.

After checking in we got ready and hit the casino. For the first time I decided I would play black jack. I've always shyed away from it because I don't like to lose money. But this time I thought I would relax about the money and look at it as purely entertainment. And you know what, it was a ton of fun. Of course I'm terrible at adding numbers up, so I was constantly asking the dealer "what is that?". Which is awesome. I felt so smart... And you know, that first night I came out ahead. In fact for the whole weekend my playing came out ahead.

Well, we had a ton of fun that first night. Ate a fantastic sandwich at The Earl of Sandwich. Discovered a new drink, a Tokyo Tea, which is a Long Island Iced Tea, only instead of a shot of Coke it has Midori. (I mean why not add more alcohol to that drink?) I probably had a couple too many of those, but they're free while your gambling so it's really really hard to turn down...

The next morning we hit the buffet for breakfast. But after the Tokyo Teas I was really only interested in coffee...

The biggest thing we did was on Saturday night. We ate at Craftsteak at the MGM Grand. It was by far the best meal I've ever had. I am going to go into great detail because I want to remember it. I wish, oh I wish, I could eat there all the time. The price was hefty, but seriously worth it in my opinion. How often do you get to go to Vegas? And eat at a serious restaurant?

We decided to go with the Chef's Dinner, which was a three course sampling of most things on the menu. (The menu changes daily, FYI, according to what they have and what's in season.) We had a frisee salad with a warm blue-cheese and bacon dressing. It was divine. Little melty bits of blue cheese with thick-chunks of bacon over frisee. And we had a watercress salad with little cucumbers and a lemon vinagrette and we had a Cesar salad with fresh anchovies. It was probably the first time I've had a fresh anchovy, and it was awesome. I loved it.

For the second course, we had four (FOUR) different steaks. A huge T-bone, a huge rib-eye, a dry aged steak, and the tenderest flank steak I've ever dreamed of. We had so much left over it was just a shame. I hated to see it leave our table. I kind of wanted to take it all with me to eat between black jack hands...

For the third course we were served five or six (I can't even remember!) desserts. My favorite was a monkey bread pastry with pecans and caramel drizzled served with a banana ice cream. YUMMMMM! And then there was the four different sorbets; Apple Cider, Orange Basil, Blueberry, and Grapefruit. My mouth is watering just remembering it. We also had a bittersweet chocolate lava cake, a lemon verbena cheesecake, and an apple thing, with shaved apple slices over a flaky pastry. Who even knows what it was called? It was flippin awesome.

I had a glass of a Parallel Cabernet Sauvignon which paired with the steak beautifully. I did not get to meet Tom Colicchio, but we did have three waiters and we felt incredibly blessed to be there and enjoy such an experience. Even the bathroom was amazing! :)

From there we went over to New York New York and happened to get in at a black jack table right when it opened. We had the BEST dealer ever. His name was Robert and he helped us have an amazing time. I'm telling you, with a great dealer you hardly even notice how much you win or lose. You feel good the whole time. He was a treat and I'm so glad we had the good fortune to play with him. I'm not kidding, we sat there for 6 and a half hours laughing and playing and I didn't even notice that we ended up with five more dollars than we went in with. Craig and Ash made out significantly better. But most importantly we had a grand time.

So, we came home yesterday and I went to bed at 7:30 and slept until 5:30. It was great!

Now it's off to my Bible study homework. God's timing is so great; we're reading 1 John. The first chapters about sinning and being in the light... Sheesh, Lord Jesus. We're good, right?