las vegas: part deux

I left you with the late night [poor] karaoke and Ruby's complimentary peep show to all of the customers at Tahiti Joe's. Probably should have planned the break in between Vegas entries a little better.

Ahem.

Friday, we slept in. Have I mentioned the king-size bed. If we could get one up our teeny tiny staircase, I'd be actively lobbying for one here at home. We made our way back to the lazy river, where I stupidly didn't put sun screen on my legs (primarily, the shin region) because I knew they would be under water. Later, I would find out that I knew wrong. I ended up sitting in the tube, with my legs hanging off because it was more comfortable for Ruby. Ruby even ended up sleeping while we floated. I draped a towel over her and nursed her for about five seconds before she was out cold.

After our dip in the pool river (I hesitate to call the water that is 3 foot deep a pool), we went to change and head over to the outlets that were just across the street. I made quite a few friends at the Outlets-friends like Carters, Coach (where I restrained from splurging...this time), Great American Cookie Company and some amazing shoe stores. We didn't get much, actually. I did get clothes for Ruby (please tell me this doesn't surprise you), a pair of sunglasses, and some cookies, but we pretty much just walked the mall and looked at various things.

Jimmy decided he needed to check up on some work things, so we headed to Starbucks, laptop in tow. And because we were there, we couldn't pass up some coffee. That could probably be considered a felony. Or something. I also needed to blog about Ruby given that it was her eight month birthday. We did that and had barely made it home before the in laws and Mike showed up.

It was a bit of a juggling act, both of us getting ready for dinner with Ruby (we didn't allow a whole lot of extra time). We made it, however, and got to our place of never-ending food dinner with time to spare.

We ate at Texas de Brazil which is a favorite treat of mine and Jimmy's. In case you don't have the pleasure of knowing this magnificent restaurant, I suggest you seek assistance in finding the nearest one immediately. They feed you any kind of meat you could ever want-their salad bar is the size of a small home, and we have had fabulous experiences with their entire staff. Jimmy always eats so much there, that I debate on locating a fork lift, and I always feel like I'm lugging around a few hundred pounds of lead for several hours afterwards. However, the food is worth it, and I highly recommend going here if you ever get the chance. It's a little pricey, but if you're anything like Jimmy (I am not, in case you were curious), you will get much more for your money than you could anywhere else.

I wanted to walk around Borders when we were finished watching the one-man circus stuff as many things in his mouth as possible. We cruised the books for awhile and left empty handed, because it seemed to me they were having a 100%-of-the-price-added-on-to-the-already-highly-priced SALE and I didn't want to pay $35 for a paperback book. We mulled over various things offering nightly entertainment and ultimately decided on going home while the rest went to explore the strip.

We also found out after dinner that the brother in law's girlfriend of approximately five minutes would be making her grand appearance in Vegas the following day. To put it mildly, we were all a little shocked, stirring in disbelief, and slighly less than excited.

On Saturday, we headed back to the strip to catch those touristy attractions that we didn't catch the first time around. We went to the Excalibur, Luxor, and Mandalay Bay, where we walked shops and took in the various atmospheres. I did find a Lush store which, sadly, I don't have the luxury of visiting one more often. I got some fun bath things and we were on our way. We met up with the in-laws around noon for lunch plans. Keep in mind the word noon for reference later. We decided on a mexican place clear over in Circus Circus. As we walked out of Mandalay Bay, we were caught in a frenzy of autograph requests and photograph opportunities. What can I say, we're famous. No, actually, these fans were star struck by UFC's own Brock Lesnar, donning a ridiculous wig but maintaining his UFC celebratory status by wearing a jacket advertising as much. And no, we didn't know who he was-we don't follow any of that, but we looked it up later. We were within about ten feet of him, too-he was not nice, and apparently he is known for being quite rude. Bummer we didn't find a nicer celebrity, huh?

After fighting traffic for over an hour, we discover that this place no longer exists and are forced to come up with alternate plans. And by this time, we were back to the disgustingly hot and sweaty, malnourished, and over-worked state I told you about on day one of our Las Vegas adventures. Apparently, Las Vegas has a serious knack for roping you in to buy drinks, food, and sit in their cold casinos. Who would have thought?!

We finally ended up at Jimmy Buffet's own, Margaritaville. We didn't eat until 3:00. Remember, we were hungry back at noon? Ruby was too, so we were all fairly miserable at this point. They could have told me that there was an hour wait, and I would have waited just to get out of the heat. We were escorted to the third floor of the restaurant after waiting for thirty minutes. Where we sat right next to a wedding reception. Interesting venue, I must say, but to each their own, I suppose. Food was good, drinks were good, and I could finally stop telling Jimmy that if I had to go one more second without food, I was probably going to float away.

We left lunch and went to the Mirage in search of dolphins, lions, and tigers (oh my!) We found them, and paid the tourist fees to get in to what many would call a tiny and lacking-in-diverse species zoo, but it was fun, nonetheless.

We parted ways after the Secret Garden (I never did find out what the secret was), and the rest of the crew went to pick up The Girl at the airport, while we went to seek out the Cheesecake Factory. With entire cookie dough cheesecake in hand, we made it back to the car and ultimately back to our resort.

We met The Girl and headed back to the-you guessed it-lazy river. I wasn't enitrely keen on having people I know in real life (and have to see again) seeing me in all of my 90 year old glory (thank you pregnancy, and you are welcome, Ruby), so we didn't stay for too long. Instead, we headed back up to our place to get ready for a night out.

We went to Paris again to see the Dueling Piano bar. Those guys are talented. We weren't allowed to have Ruby in there since it was technically a bar, but it was all fairly open, so we grabbed some Crepes at the nearby Creperie (I loved how everything in each hotel was set to a particular theme...because I like cutesy things like that). We had a "dinner" crepe with ratatouille and other assorted things and a dessert crepe-Crepes Suzette. People watched and absorbed the piano music for a bit then headed off to catch the fountains at Bellagio at dark. Despite the fact that Las Vegas doesn't understand the phrase: cool down at night, it was a little more tolerable to stand there and wait at night.

We made our way back to Bally's where Jimmy gambled for a short time and left when he was twenty dollars richer. After a paranoid walk through the parking garage (am I the only one that thinks those places are extremely creepy?!) we made it (safely) to our car, toured a creepy alley by mistake and then made it home where we both had a heavenly piece of cheesecake and went to sleep.