st. las mesquite

A couple of months ago, I realized I would probably be moving away from Utah this year. Not like that was a shock, I just hadn't really stopped to think what that would mean. Like, for instance, maybe I'll be far away from California and I've never been! So I decided to make it happen. As I previously mentioned, my friends Angela, Aubrey, Jaime, and Dee were coming with me to the LA area. Except then some things fell through. So we went to St. George and Mesquite and Vegas instead. I'm going to just say we went to Mesquite since that's where we stayed most of the time.

It wasn't California (I'll have to take another vacation sometime. Shoot.) and it wasn't even very warm, but it was fabulous! It was really nice to get away from life and I couldn't have chosen a better group to go with (unless, of course, Dee had gone as planned. But that wasn't my choice).

The first night we stopped in St. George and stayed with Angela's sister who just had a baby. Like literally. She wasn't even home from the hospital yet. Poor woman came home to a house full of strangers. We played with Angela's very bootiful niece Claire, went for a run among the red rock, went shopping, and visited the St. George temple.








The next night we headed down to Mesquite, Nevada where Aubrey's grandfather so graciously allowed us to stay in his very stylish second home. On Saturday, after taking our sweet time getting ready, we headed down to Las Vegas for the evening.








I know. Exciting and sexy. Angela could be her except that she's not Canadian.


Aubrey and Jaime both have this weird love for Elvis, even though he's like the most unattainable celebrity ever since he's dead. But whatever. Jaime didn't like this Elvis very much because he was actually Latin, though I thought that'd be a selling point. Regardless, they were pretty excited.


This is in the Bellagio. Admittedly, I haven't been in very many hotels on the strip. But out of the ones I've seen, the Bellagio is by far my favorite. It's classy and just gorgeous.






For dinner, we went to The Cheesecake Factory at Caesar's Palace. It was Angela and Aubrey's first time experiencing the Fac (I'll just call it that for short) and they loved it of course. Because you'd be a fool not to love it.


The highlight of the whole trip for all of us was going to see Viva Elvis--one of the several Cirque de Soleil shows on the strip. It was amazing. The music was great, since it was Elvis, and the acrobats and dancing were just really impressive. Probably my favorite number was...I don't know what it's called. Something about Hunk of Burning Love. That's not why it was my favorite, though those are impressive lyrics. It was fabulous because they brought out a set that was full of trampolines and these guys, dressed as superheroes, just threw themselves around from alarming heights. It was awesome. The whole show was just good. I don't know what else to say. It was just so good. We had a great time and had great seats. If you get the chance to go to a Cirque show, go. It's worth the money. Seriously.










The Bellagio fountains show is always one of my favorite parts of Vegas. It's free and fun and beautiful and I love it.


We were only there half a day, but we were all pretty tired by the end of it. We relaxed in the very posh bathroom at Caesar's and Aubrey thought we should take a picture. Except she's pretty much the only one that looks good since she looks like she's modeling.


Sunday we couldn't really do much so we hung out at the house the whole day. This house is fabulous because the decorating is fantastic. It's a Southwest theme except it's not quite pulled together. And let's be serious, it's not great. But it was fun.




We played Blind Man's Bluff which we thought was pretty dumb when Angela told us about it but it ended up being really fun.


That's when I was celebrating for finding Angela right away.




Aubrey managed to escape being it for a long time so we finally got her then teased her a little bit while she was searching.








One of my favorite features of the house was the glass-top polar bear table. Aubrey told us about it before we even went down there so we were all looking forward to enjoying our polar bear friend's presence. He looked tired, though, so Jaime gave him a rest.


He's quite a strong polar bear and loves to play Superman.




It was sad to have to come back; I really wish I could be on vacation every day of my life. But at least the scenery on the drive back was nice!


One of the best parts of the trip was how perfect our timing was. We showed up to buy our tickets for the Viva Elvis show right before the line was long. Then we got to the ticket office to redeem the vouchers right before the line got long. When we got our seat assignment, we showed up at the exact time to get sweet front-row balcony seats. We hurried over to dinner and got in within five minutes and had our food and were done in less than an hour. We must've been living right, because the Lord was definitely helping us out. Viva Las Vegas!