Viva Las Vegas

Eating ice cream at Hagan Daaz in the mall

September 21st, 22nd, and 23rd
Kade and I headed down to Vegas for 2008 Mine Expo at the Las Vegas Convention Center. IT--WAS--A--BLAST from start to finish!! Starting out with seeing Patrick Demsey (I know I just can't not talk about) at the Salt Lake airport to coming home and going to the So You Think You Can Dance show. Fun Fun 3 days! When we arrived to Vegas we went to our hotel which was the Hilton of Las Vegas, which is a way nice hotel with lots of restaurants and stores right in the hotel if you ever need a place to stay. We changed our clothes and took off to explore, shop, and eat. We went and ate at the buffet in the hotel (it was just so so food and $20 a plate no less, welcome to Vegas) and then walked around the stores and around the huge hotel for a while. Then we got dropped off at Treasure Island on the strip and walked down to the mall to find a shoe store. Kade wore his new boots from his birthday and he could tell he might be miserable if we didn't do something about that right away. So after visiting the Sketchers store he was the proud owner of new shoes. Then we stopped and got ice cream, and walked from Treasure Island all the way down to the Stratosphere stopping at shops and casinos along the way, and enjoyed a relaxing Sunday with no where to be. That evening we took a little nap and rented a movie in our hotel room, I was craving chips and salsa and since room service was $20 for a little bag of chips and tiny bowl of salsa I talked Kade into going down and trying out the Mexican restaurant in the hotel. It was fabulous!! And for $20 I got a whole meal and all I could eat chips and salsa. :)

Monday we ventured down to the Convention Center to check out Kade's company booth. What an event that mining expo is. There were some un-believable machines. Dump trucks we could fit 3 of my houses in.. and my house isn't tiny. Kade was on cloud nine the whole time. We had the opportunity to meet the VP of Kade's corporation and he had the chance to meet many many people and customers he visits with on the phone weekly. He only had to hang out there for about 4 hours and they had a lot of people there in the morning so we were dismissed for the morning and didn't have to be back until 1 after lunch.
Kade is in the maroon shirt in the middle.



For lunch we headed out to find In and Out burger... one of the delicacies of Nevada. Afterwards we caught a cab to the Venetian and went to the wax museum. By the time we were done there it was time to get back to the convention for Kade's turn at the booth. Our second room was finally ready (our wireless internet wasn't working in the first) so I headed back and moved ALL the luggage by myself to a totally different tower they gave us a Suite for all the trouble and then I sat on my butt and relaxed for an hour. That was a weeks worth of workouts just moving everything. Kade kept calling me "Guess what they have here..." "You have to see this" he was having such a great time. He never ended up standing in the booth; he and another manager ended up walking around and meeting clients and advertising. (So they say) I ended up joining him to see all the amazing equipment and was so glad to take pictures of Kade in his element. That night we went out for a steak, we took the materdee's suggestion and headed down town to a very ritzy steak house. It was quite the experience. Kade said his $70 steak (yes it was really that much for the steak only!) was the best steak he had ever had. I really enjoyed my salad, amazing mashed potatoes, and outstanding creamed corn. They brought us a 6-layer Lemon cake for free because our meal took almost an hour to come. We were so hungry we ate 4 of the little loaves of bread they bring before. lol We were there 3 hours. It was a really neat place though... and we were grateful that we didn't have to pay for it.

Sorry I keep talking about the money but I am always shocked how expensive it is to go there. Meals are expensive, getting into anything is expensive, and don't even get me started on taxi's and the fact it costs $5 to even get in and sit down in one and then when you are stopped at a stop light the meter just keeps on going up. It also drives me insane how no one does anything there just to be nice. Everyone expects money for even flagging a taxi for you.. you walk out the hotel someone opens the door and it costs you $. You can't do it yourself because they are already there to open it for you. Then you walk to a line a guy asks where you are going he waves on a taxi and opens the car door, you give him $. If your taking a shuttle the guy loads your bags you give him a couple bucks. A taxi driver wants a tip and gets ignorant with you if its like $3 or $4 for a 5 minute ride. I realize its their jobs but I absolutely hate that fact the most about Vegas.

Tuesday we just got up and got ready to go; our plane left at one so we didn't have a whole lot of time to spend doing anything. Kade got his first ever massage in the morning, his back was killing him after walking around for 2 full days. He was ready to go to bed by the time he got back to the room. The plane ride was great and the whole trip was smooth. It was a much needed break for this mommy, and we are grateful Kade has such a great job that would give him the opportunity to do that and that they would pay for me to go as well.