Las Vegas Trip, Part 1

Hello and happy Labor Day weekend, everyone! I'm so excited for a 3-day weekend, but also excited to tell you about our fun trip last week to Las Vegas! I have so many pictures, that I'll break it down into two parts so it's not quite so big. I literally took hundreds of photos on this trip!

It was my first time experiencing the city and I already want to go back. I went with my sister Haley and my mom, and we had a fairly packed itinerary, but I can honestly say that everything we planned was fun.

We stayed at The Mirage, which was really nice. It was a great location on the Strip, the pool was nice, and it was just a great hotel overall.

We were also right across the street from The Venetian, which was probably my favorite hotel that we went in. We went back several times!

It was pretty surreal being in Las Vegas and being right on the Strip. There are so many cool things to see and do while you're there.

Since it was the end of August, it was very hot - highs of 106 and 107 degrees! But that didn't stop us from walking, A LOT. There are always air conditioned hotels to walk in all the time and cool off.

Our first night there, we went to The Venetian and ate at Buddy V's.

It was probably my favorite restaurant we ate at the whole trip. The food was delicious, the service was great, and the decor inside was really cool.

There was a live band playing while we were there too, and they were actually really good and not too loud at all. We enjoyed our dinner and even went back later in our trip for dessert.

I couldn't get enough of all of the palm trees and cool buildings on the Strip. We were there for about 3-4 days, which I think was the perfect amount of time to see what you want to see and really experience Las Vegas.

We went into most of the hotels around ours, including The Flamingo, where we watched some real flamingos hang out right outside.

Then we walked around the Linq promenade, where we rode the High Roller and had some pretty amazing sunset and night views of the city.

Basically, you are in these "pods," where you can walk around inside and take in 360 degree views of the city while you go around on a big, 30-minute ferris wheel type of ride.

It was definitely a cool experience for our first night in Vegas.

I mean, can you get a better view of the Strip than this?

We went around 8:00 at night, so we got the perfect dusk/ sunset views, and also got to see all of the lights coming on while the city got dark.

It really was awesome, and I recommend doing it once while you're in Las Vegas.

The next morning, we layed out by the pool, which was so nice and tropical-feeling. The Mirage pool opened at 8:00 am, and I recommend getting out there early to get a prime spot.

After the pool, our day was filled with exploring the different hotels on the Strip. We went back to the Venetian and saw the cool simulated sky ceilings and gondolas inside.

There were also so many high end shops to browse.

Those amazing ceilings, though...

Then we checked out Caesar's Palace, another elaborate hotel on the Strip.

With all of the cool sights around you, it's hard not to fall in love with this city! There are photo ops literally around every corner.

The changing sky ceilings in these hotels were spectacular sights to see.

And don't miss the Atlantis show while you're here. It's kind of a cheesy, animatronic show but it's pretty fun overall.

After the show, the animatronic characters go away, and just the statues remain once again. 

Then we headed over to the Bellagio, where the Chihuly glass on the lobby ceiling is incredible!

You also can't miss the conservatory and gardens, where the theme changes with each season.

The theme when we went appeared to be lemons. Just look at those fun lemon-shaped topiaries.

On the way back to our hotel, we walked by The Paris. We saw more of the Eiffel tower close up later in our trip, but it was pretty impressive to see in person (from someone who has never been to Paris in real life).

That night we had plans to see the Britney Spears: Piece of Me show, and were super excited. We went to The Cosmopolitan first, where we saw the amazing Chandelier bar.

Definitely a photo opportunity, for sure. It's so glittery and pretty!

We ate dinner at Holstein's in The Cosmopolitan and shared a "boozy" chocolate chip milkshake. It was delicious, but we couldn't eat all of the cookie after eating our meals, too. A little filling to say the least!

The Britney show was awesome! The sets were all really cool, and we had so much fun singing along to all of Britney's greatest hits.

She is also in amazing shape by the way. I was in awe of all of the choreography and dancing involved.

It was the coolest show, and we were not disappointed. If you're a Britney fan, you'll definitely enjoy it and have a great time.

We ended the night watching the Bellagio fountain show, which was really cool, and we saw the Paris and Eiffel tower all lit up at night. So many amazing sights, that's for sure!

And that concludes Part 1 of our Las Vegas trip! Stay tuned for Part 2, coming later this weekend, which will include several more photos of our time in Vegas.

Back From Vegas

Why hello! Just popping in tonight because I am back from LAS VEGAS, and thought I would share a short blog post before I delve into more details and photos from our trip. I hope to get to those this weekend.

For now, I'll just say that my mom, my sister and I had a fantastic time in Vegas. It was both mine and Haley's first time experiencing this city, and we did quite a bit while we were there. We had a rough couple of days flying back home, but other than that, it was a great time.

There was so much to do and see, and I think we definitely had our favorites along the way. Like the gorgeous Venetian hotel. I think we visited this hotel almost as much as our own!

And then there was the awesome pool at our hotel, The Mirage. We had plenty of fun in the hot Vegas sun, that's for sure.

I'm back to work this week but hope to share more photos and all of the fun deets this weekend when I have time! In the mean time, have a great second half of the week everyone!

More Garden Tomatoes

A short garden update today: Tomatoes are growing faster in our veggie garden than we can eat them right now. We picked some more tomatoes this past week, and are still working on eating them. Maybe we should make a salsa or a pasta sauce or something?

We've also picked some sweet corn, but that too has been growing faster than what we can eat. I think we may have planted too much this year. Haha.

Well, if you need me, I'll be working on this here bowl of tomatoes that I only like if they are incorporated into a salad or sandwich or something! :)

Rug Cleaning Adventures

Hi all! I know I haven't blogged in a couple of weeks, but today it's Saturday and I'm home watching Netflix, so thought I would share a recent adventure we had involving rug cleaning. I know, it sounds super exciting. But it actually was a pretty exciting day in our household.

First off, our living room rug has seen better days. I bought it back in 2013 (remember this post?), and Saleen likes to rub and lick on it because of her allergies. In short, it's gotten pretty disgusting for that reason. Yep, having a dog has made us learn "we can't have nice things." I'll spare you the "before cleaning" pictures.

We had gone a while without cleaning the rug, so we decided to rent a Rug Doctor at our local Dollar General. You can rent it for $30, along with buying the solution that goes in it for about $5.

We gave it a good vacuum first. Then Trent filled it with a mix of water and the solution, and I held the edges of the rug in place while he ran the Rug Doctor over it.

While you run it over the rug, it releases the mixture of solution and water, and also has brushes underneath that vibrate while it runs.

We had to continuously refill it with more solution, since it goes through it pretty quickly. And we ran it over the rug row by row, several times to make sure we got the dirt out the best we could.

Once we were done, instead of letting it dry in the living room, we took the rug and the rug pad underneath, outside and hung them on the fence for a little over a day to fully dry out.

We didn't want it to hold onto any water between the rug and the rug pad, since that might leave a little "mustiness" in the air, and no one wants that.. Eww!

I think leaving it out in the sun probably helped bleach the stains a little bit, too. At least we like to think so. So here's the "after":

It's not perfect, but it looks visibly cleaner, for sure! I'd say renting the Rug Doctor was worth it, not to do all the time, but I'd maybe do it once a year or so.

At first I was really hesitant to let Saleen into the living room again, and wiped off every stain she left. Haha. But now I've come to the conclusion that it's inevitable that the rug WILL get dirty again.

So, moral of the story, having a nice rug + a dog with allergies, do not mix! But a good rug cleaning every now and then makes things a little nicer, at least for the time being.