Viva Las Vegas...

Ironic that we did our 'Welcome to Las Vegas' photo on our way to the airport going home

Well it's been a whirl wind of a couple of weeks lots of lovely and exciting things have happened, not only have I just got back from Las Vegas but I came back to the fantastic news that I have been promoted at work! 

I'll start with the super exciting stuff, the trip to Vegas...

I was so excited about going that I didn't quite believe it was happening until I got to Manchester airport at 7am last Friday morning. It was a girls holiday (plus one husband) so it meant a week away from my little loves but I think we all coped quite well and Lylah only went to nursery in one questionable outfit! 

After the 14 hour flight I thought all I would want to do when we arrived was go to sleep but I think I felt more awake after being up for 24 hours than I do now after a weeks worth of sleep! We had hired cars so we could road trip it to the Grand Canyon and it was amazing driving down the strip to our hotel as all the lights were coming on and spotting all of things I'd only seen in films. 

After a hectic and a little bit scary drive to our hotel we finally arrived (after driving the wrong way down a street) and it was beautiful! We stayed in the Vdara Hotel and Spa, which is great if you're like us and didn't want to have temptation constantly thrust in your face. It is one of the only hotels on the strip not to have a casino or night club, which meant it was a lovely retreat after a crazy night. The suite we were in was lovely and had an amazing view of the strip, for a girl who has never been to America before or stayed in many luxury hotels it was quite a treat! 

We did all the things a person should do in Vegas, gambelled and won, saw a show, eat giant slices of pizza, drank margaritas in giant plastic glasses as we walked down the street in broad daylight, ate some more, went to Sephora, went to the top of the Stratosphere (but chickened out of the rides), drank free drinks in the da cluurb, went to Sephora again, went on the New York New York rollercoaster, had a pancake breakfast, had my picture taken with a half naked cowboy, went to Sephora again, saw a bride and groom on a Harley, and laughed a LOT! Phew!

The Grand Canyon was amazing but absolutely freezing! I didn't realise how vast it was until we flew over it on our flight into Vegas, it looked the size of a whole country on it owns. I have to say these sorts of things don't exactly float my boat, it was the same with the Hoover Dam, yes it was impressive but without knowing the history of it and it's significance I don't think you can really appreciate it. 

It might not have been your typical 'Hangover' style Vegas trip but it was amazing! Vegas isn't somewhere I had really wanted to go, I'm much too desperate to go to New York to have even considered anywhere else but I'm glad that I got the chance. One thing that I was super disappointed about was Britney, the one month I'm there is the one month she wasn't doing any shows I was gutted! However we did go to see Rock of Ages, which was amazing. I've seen it in London and I think I preferred it because the theater was a lot smaller and you really got the sense of being part of the show, saying that you did get an LED lighter at the Vegas show to sway in the air so it was worth it just for that! 

Whilst we were on our road trip to the Grand Canyon we came across a Walmart so we stopped off to get some supplies. The first thing we saw as we walked through the doors was this giant tub of cheesy puffs, this picture does not do it's giantness any justice, this thing was so big it needed it's own seat belt and it kept us entertained for not just hours but days! I think this may be more of an inside joke :-) 

Drunken cheesy puff challenge (I managed 13)

In Vegas unless you're young and skinny with no body hang ups at all and want to hang around the pool parties there isn't a lot to do during the day other than gamble and shop, so I shopped! Whilst the girls I was with took advantage of the sunshine around the pool I took full advantage of the four Sephora's Vegas had to offer and I have a rather big haul post coming your way. 

If you've not been to Las Vegas before I would definitely recommend it, however not if you are planning on taking children or any age. There is nothing child friendly about Vegas, there isn't even a child's toy shop and not many clothes shops so finding presents for the girls was tricky. It is somewhere I would go back to but because of the long flight I would make it part of a bigger trip. I'd love to do LA, Vegas and San Francisco.