Amanda & Dan: Las Vegas-- 12/19--12/21

Happy Birthday, Mom! For Mom's birthday, Dan and I flew to meet her in Las Vegas to celebrate! Needless to say we had a blast! We were able to stay for a long weekend and then fly with her to Seattle to be home with everyone else for Christmas. Mom had the room across the hall from us on the 5th floor. We each opted for the all day buffett pass at our hotel for $29 and had really great meals each time. We played both the slots and the tables. We found some favorites but were convinced they were not as loose as they are in a casino back home. We had Mom play those but she really liked the blackjack tables! Together, we played the roulette tables and Mom was so oblivious when she one close to $80! Hilarious! And she loved the Indiana Jones slot game, the Survivor one and the Monopoly ones. I'm so glad we got to celebrate with her this year! The joke is we are meeting her there again in March...we'll see ;)

We stayed at the Excalibur this time which worked out great! We were pretty central to everything and on a corner, which made crossing the strip easy with the skywalks.

The New York! New York!

I should have bought these!

Mom and I on our way to the Luxor

This is Mom's game! She looked for it in each casino!

Us in front of a pretty tree in the Luxor

The MGM across from the Excalibur

The New York! New York! See the roller coaster? Um, yeah, it does go upside down so I didn't want to ride it. Looked cool though.

The newest hotel/casino on the strip: ARIA--opened just a few weeks prior to our visit. It was sooo nice, everything smelled new and not of cigarette smoke. (I actually would describe it's smell as vanilla.) They had games we've not yet seen and then it had the most of our favorites. The decor was all silver, dark brown and a deep, dark red. And I rated their watress' little "outfits" to be the best of all casino's on the strip;) A little more of a sexy class! Now, we started taking pictures of things inside and some of the new games...then a kind tourist advised us against that. Apparently, it's a $1,000 fine if you are caught talking pictures of the slot machines--still not 100% sure why, but we took her advise! We later started seeing signs heeding that same warning.

Dan and Mom towards the entrance into Aria

I thought it was hilarious that this couple stopped to talk to "Elvis" and then asked him to take a picture of them, without him in it. Poor Elvis. I guess it's my thought that he dresses up to be in pictures; not take them.

We stopped for some dessert at this awesome pastry shop. After much deliberation, Mom and I decided to go for this raspberry rose-infused creamed wafer thing. Everything looked so delicious and I thought the shop looked really great.

yes, that is a real rose petal on the top, covered in sugar. Dan did not believe it was real, but it is. We all tried it and it tasted like a flower ;)

So did the creme inside. The best way to describe it would be that it tastes like a rose smells. Different but so very good! And, almost too pretty to eat!

The after shot....YUM!

I took pictures of all of her beautiful cakes and posted just a fraction of them here for everyone to see. She has an amazing talent and each one is unique...Just look at these!!!