The Elliott's Blog: Happy New Year & Viva Las Vegas!

We started off the year in Las Vegas! Andrew stayed at Mimi and Poppa's house during our trip. Overall, the trip was GREAT! We a minor baggage issue upon our arrival. Two of our three checked bags did not come out on the baggage carousel. We had momentary panic, but turns out they arrived on an earlier flight. Then upon our return home The Parking Spot lost the car keys(we had requested a car wash while we were gone). After 30 minutes, four employees, a supervisor and a many checks and re-checks.... they found them! Whew!!!! The car was not washed... so they obviously refunded our car wash. We also received 50 % off our stay because of the inconvenience. Turned out to be approximately $3 a day.

I was accompanied by a Las Vegas virgin (Josh). I had been a few times before, so I was excited to show him around. We stayed at the Monte Carlo; It was nice and a perfect location on the strip to visit some of the other well-known hotel/casinos.

The purpose of our trip was to celebrate our friends', Toby & Mindy Henson, 10 year wedding Anniversary. There were a total of five couples there for the weekend. We went a couple days early to see the sites and a couple shows before everyone arrived. Josh and I saw a show Wednesday night, Vegas The Show, and Thursday night, The Blue Man Group. We liked them both. We met three of the four other couples late Thursday night and checked out the Minus 5 bar. You guessed it... it is cold in there - but it was a lot of FUN! -5 degrees Celsius (they said it was 17 degrees Fahrenheit when we were in there).

Friday was the big day! We all had lunch at Diablo's Cantina in the Monte Carlo. Then the girls went off to get all beautified (hair and make-up for us all), while the guys went off to the bar! We got dressed up and met early evening in the lobby. We took some pictures and jumped in our Hummer limo. We headed to the Bellagio fountains for Toby & Mindy's vow renewal. After that, the limo took us to the Las Vegas Sign were we took couple and group photos. We concluded with dinner and dueling pianos at The Pub.

Saturday was kind of a lazy day... I don't think we got out of bed until 11. We walked around and met everyone for dinner at Toby Keith's bar and grill in Harrah's. Dinner was yummy and we all ventured downtown for the rest of the evening. I got to play Roulette for the first time! Sunday we were up early and headed to the airport and back to reality.

We had such an amazing time. I have never had so much fun in my life! Here are some random pics from the trip.