Hey Y'all

As I lay here doing absolutely nothing but listening to a storm while my kids sleep in I thought I'd stop and say hello to all of you that have so kindly read my posts since I started this blog. 

I finished my posts about our Las Vegas trip with lots of pics on the blogger app and was going to post them over 3 days. Somehow all the posts were deleted except for the titles. 2 hours of work..gone!

I could come up with a million other reasons for my absence as of lately. I love capturing moments with pictures and then sharing them but maybe I do that too much. I need to BE wherever I am and DO whatever I'm doing wholeheartedly instead of taking a pic or updating a status and then worrying how many likes I get etc. Brian and I talked about this while we were out of town. It was like discussing an addiction I have. Crazy! So most of the pics from our trip were taken on his phone and then he texted them to me later when we weren't out enjoying ourselves. He refuses to partake in social media.  

My childhood memories don't involve mom and dad with a phone in hand 50-75% of the time. I can look back thru old pics that had to be developed and tell you a story about almost all of them. 

This blog is important to me and so are the friends I've made and all of my readers. It's also been a small investment. It just seemed like I was constantly thinking of what my next post should be on the blog, IG, or FB. 

So, if you're still out there reading I appreciate it. I hope to get back to it this week but family first! I plan to redo the posts about our trip. It was too grand not to make a part of my diary which is basically what this blog is. I do have it printed into a book at the end of the year. I hope to get back to writing sooner than later.

Thanks for reading!

The Clampett's Go to The Bellagio-Day 2 Anniversary Trip

We were so excited to make our flight to Vegas. We could've cared less that we didn't get seats together because we were so close to having to take separate flights. So what if I sat with a Russian man and woman who were probably talking about me the entire flight! 

The flight was pretty good. We experienced some moderate turbulence over Nebraska but other than that it was smooth and pretty scenic. We had a great pilot that would tell us where we were every now and then and told us when we were flying over the Grand Canyon and The Hoover Dam. 

Nebraska. If I were a Midwestern girl I'd def be a Nebraska football fan!

Colorado

Not sure but it looked cool.

Near the Grand Canyon. You could see it from the left side of the plane. I was on the right praying for people to stay seated because I was afraid of a shift in weight. Haha! 

Grand Canyon vicinity 

Near Hoover Dam

I bet you'll never guess what our first discussion was after landing. Did you say food? If so you're correct! We had to starve for a little while though. We wanted to rent a car and you have to catch a bus at the airport and ride to the car rental place. After we got our Kia we headed to Las Vegas Boulevard. 

Approaching the strip!

We were way too hungry to check in to our room and way too hungry to wait a long time for our meal. In and Out Burger was on my Vegas bucket list so we figured it was a good time for that.

So after cursing our GPS and getting all turned around AND Brian smacking me in the head twice while stretching his arm in that tiny car we found In and Out Burger.

It was PACKED!

But they had a lot of people working there so it didn't take very long.

The best fast food burger I've had. Sorry Steak N' Shake! 

After stuffing our faces we headed to The Bellagio to check in. We weren't sure about parking but were told we would get free valet. We felt like some rich folks! Check in was very smooth. It took about 15 minutes which is not bad around 2:30 in the afternoon in Vegas. 

The room. Beautiful! It was modern and had lots of blue. My favorite color. The bathroom had Italian marble floors and had a separate  shower and bathtub.

 I can't believe I didn't take pics of the room. Here's Brian chillaxin' on the bed.

We had an amazing view. The Bellagio is known for the dancing fountains out front. They go off every 30 minutes and channel 22 in our room played the music they danced to. You can also see them from the strip and the music is played as well. 

Beautiful!

The fountains at night.

We were across the street from The Paris.

The Bellagio

After watching the fountains we started putting our clothes away. We noticed a refrigerator that had small bottles if just about every whiskey or liquor that you can imagine, red and white wine, coca cola, bottled water, OJ...of course we knew the stuff wasn't free. 

We also knew the stuff was probably super expensive. We decided to just set it out on the counter while our wine and liquor chilled for a couple hours. 

Just as I removed the last drink from the refrigerator I noticed a little red light flash under it. "S**T!!!!!" Ummm...yes, this high tech fridge charged you anytime a drink moved. We figured housekeeping did some kind of inventory erry'day and restocked it. Wrong!

I started putting the drinks back...QUICKLY while Brian called the front desk to let them know how sorry we were and it wouldn't happen again! She said she noticed our entire fridge had been emptied and was like $600 but she would clear it for us. Needless to say, we didn't touch it for the remainder of the weak out of fear of knocking something over!

Next were the snacks on the counter. I'm talking $10 m&m's and gummy bears. I told Brian not to touch them but the man would press a huge red button that says do not touch in bold print. I saw him checking it out and he said the tray holding the snacks wasn't plugged in and so he picked up a box of gummy bears and flash goes the red light. Geez! It's The Clampett's go to The Bellagio!

$10 gummy bears anyone?

We spent the rest of the afternoon at the pool. There are 5 to choose from along with a bar and a pool cafe. I drank Miami Vice's all week long during pool time. 

We had dinner at an Italian restaurant called Battista's Hole in the Wall that my friend, Meredith, recommended. It's just behind the Flamingo and is a Vegas must! My dinner was $24.95 and Brian's $28.95 and included red or white wine, soup or salad, delicious bread, a little short old Italian man that comes to your table and serenades you while playing the accordion, and a cup of cappuccino following dinner. It was wonderful! 

We sat in a romantic corner booth. 

After dinner we were pretty exhausted. We played on the slot machines for a little while then headed off to bed. Our first day in Vegas was great!

Ever had a refrigerator incident like ours? Love Miami Vice's? Ever had In-N-Out Burger?

Minnesooooota-Day 1 of Anniversary Trip

At the last minute we decided to go spend the day and night in Minneapolis/St. Paul (MSP) on the first day of our trip. Why in the world? Well, Brian lived there for 5 years and there were a couple places we really wanted to go eat visit. Also, it was about $250 cheaper not to stay in Las Vegas on a Saturday night. We wanted to go ahead and get out of town but needed to stay somewhere near a large airport so flights wouldn't be an issue. So, why not go somewhere familiar which also happens to be where the beginning of your love story took place?

We kissed the babes good-bye after I got home from work Friday night, packed, and headed to the airport early Saturday morning. The flight was full so we almost didn't make it. We had decided if we didn't get seats it would be fine. We could wait for the 11:00 flight to see if it looked better and if not we'd head to Atlanta for the night but luckily it worked out as planned. 

I ALWAYS snack on gummy worms when I fly. I had some good reading material too. Lindy's SEC football...yes, please!

As soon as we landed we rented a car. When I go to MSP I use the train to get where I need to go. It runs from the airport to the Mall of America and downtown. We wanted to go to other areas so a rental was a must. 

This was our hot rod. #chevycruze  Haha! It was really nice. If it had more room in the backseat I'd so buy one. Note how my sweet husband parked right next to the pole so I had to turn all sideways to get in and out of the car. We are used to our spacious SUV's. I can't tell you how many times Brian reached toward my seat to stretch his arm and smacked me in the head. Ugh.

Our first stop was...wait for it...lunch of course! It seemed like the majority of time on the trip we were planning our next meal. We ate lunch at the 5-8 Club on the outskirts of Minneapolis. It's not far from the airport. They make the Juicy Lucy there. Most people in the twin cities love the Juicy Lucy from 5-8 or Matt's. Man vs. Food has been to both locations. 

I was as excited as a kid on Christmas morning!

We had never tried either but I can't really imagine anything tasting much better than the burger I had. 

It's a half pound burger stuffed with cheese! Oh the deliciousness! The Juicy Lucy was on my bucket list so I can now mark that one off.

Next, we headed to Mall of America to hang out because it was way too early to check into our hotel room. I had to visit my favorite store, Lola. They have super cute clothes with great prices. We did a little walking around and when we got to the amusement park I immediately spotted the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. First, Carter loves the mall because of Legoland. He'd have flipped if he knew the TMNT were there. I felt guilty so we left. 

MOA

This was my first time to go to Minnesota in the summer. It was in the 70s. I was wearing short shorts and so were like 2 other people in the entire state that day. I felt half naked!

Is this unacceptable for the upper Midwest? I need to know!

Because almost errry'body was dressed like this...

Or this!

We may it may not have hit up a liquor store. Hmmm...anyways, we had a couple drinks back at the hotel room and both feel asleep. Party people! Of course the first thing we were thinking about when we woke up was our next meal.

Leave it to the two of us to locate the nearest Mexican joint with white cheese dip and marg's!

After dinner we drove over to Wisconsin near the town Brian's house was in. We decided we didn't want to go all the way back to his old crib just to look at it and whine about how we miss it there so we stopped and rode thru a small town called River Falls. It's such a neat little place. There's are lots of stores, a beer company in a cave, and even a Dairy Queen. 

This lady was giving me a strange look...just wanted a pic of DQ!

We drove across the river there over a lift bridge. This was my first time to see a lift bridge. This was also the first time for me to see the river when it wasn't a solid sheet of ice with people ice fishing in their  shanties. 

Pretty cool!

The river in liquid form! Haha!

We headed back to our room and had some dessert. 

Red wine with a red velvet and cream cheese frosting cupcake.

I slept 9 wonderful hours which happened to be the most I slept during this trip. 

Rainy morning! 

We headed to the airport not expecting to make the first flight. There weren't many empty seats. So, we took our sweet time which almost involved me inhaling another cupcake for breakfast but I walked away.

It wasn't easy though!

Luckily we were able to get on the first flight to Las Vegas. There were 2 empty seats left. Talk about luck! 

Bye, MSP! I always feel sad leaving the place. We have lots of memories there. 

Tomorrow's post will be about our first day in Vegas. We've been before but this trip was the best. 

Thanks for reading!