We left last Thursday (the 11th) to spend an extended weekend out there celebrating D's 30th birthday. We had planned on hitting some of our favorite chefs' restaurants and visiting Hoover Dam and Madame Tussaud's as well as seeing one of his old college roommates and taking in all of the Vegas excitement.
Thursday night after checking into our hotel (The Cosmopolitan), we walked up the Strip to Planet Hollywood to have dinner at Gordon Ramsay's BURGR for D's birthday.
It was so amazing and absolutely delicious! After splitting 2 burgers, fries, onion rings and a banana shake for dessert, D and I decided we couldn't just go back to our hotel to gamble or go to bed but we needed to walk off our meal and we spent the next few hours, making our way through Miracle Mile shops and a few resorts.
Friday we woke up and decided that we would rent a car and drive to the Hoover Dam. There was a chance of rain but that didn't stop us from trying to enjoy our mini vacation in Sin City. After a morning workout and brunch we hit the road for Boulder City. We parked the car and started walking around the outside part of Dam before taking the tour. We snapped a few pics in Nevada then walked over to the Arizona side taking the same pics just in a different state. D stopped me as I was heading back towards the tour area in Nevada and told me that we should go farther down on the Arizona side away from the crowds to get a better look at the Dam. Me thinking, "ok, but I'm fairly certain it looks the same from each side," complied and we walked farther down away from all of the people to take a few more pictures. As I'm snapping pics on my phone, I was not truly paying attention to what D was up to. Come to find out, he had thought up a plan for this Dam visit and as I turned around after he was pulling a small ring box out of his pocket and was proposing. Absolutely surprised and shocked that he was formally proposing to ME! I stood there amazed that the man that started out as just my co-worker 3 years ago, the man that asked me out 10 months after that, and the man that asked me to move in a year and a half ago, wanted to marry ME! With so much emotion and joy, I said YES and proudly put on the beautiful ring. I stood there amazed, smiling foolishly and tried to take in the moment as much as I could. I honestly could not believe D had gone to such great lengths to make this proposal so special.
We snapped a few more pics of us and my ring and decided to take the inside tour. Really though, I'm not sure how I was able to get through that and really I probably only paid attention to 85% of the facts because I was still in awe that D carefully thought out this very moment and wanted to spend the rest of his life with me.
It was pouring as we left the Hoover Dam but we carefully made our way back to Las Vegas and planned to call our family once we returned the car. The next few hours passed in a blur as we made our calls but our entire family was extremely excited and can't wait for our wedding. (Side note: No date has been officially set as we're trying to plan but it has been scheduled for Fall 2015).
After our calls, we met up with D's old college roommate for beers and the Red Wings game (once a Michigander, always a Michigander) and then dinner at Guy Fieri's Vegas Kitchen and Bar.
We finished walking around The Linq and made our way back to The Cosmopolitan.
Saturday was our day to explore the rest of the Strip and Downtown. We went to the Hershey's and M&M's store, stopped by Buddy V.'s Carlo's Bakery and also decided to pay a visit to Madame Tussaud's Wax Museum, because who doesn't love taking pics with wax celebrities?!?
After we could walk no farther, we got a taxi and headed Downtown to experience Fremont Street to play a few machines at Mermaids and have dinner at Le Thai. Before we headed back to the Strip, we also stopped into Fremont and dropped a few bucks into the Blazin' 7s machine. It was one of my Grandpa's favorites and we were never able to take that trip out there with him as he had always hoped we would after I turned 21. I tripled my $10 on that machine in a few minutes and we cashed out and made our way back to The Cosmopolitan for the night.
Our flight out on Sunday morning was at 8 am, which isn't horrible but when the Rodeo is also leaving town that day, we had to get an extremely early start. But by the time we got back to St. Louis, we had Mom and Michael waiting for us with a celebratory dinner for D's birthday and we got spend the evening with our Kinny.
Who knew a trip to Vegas could lead to us trying to plan a wedding?!?
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