My Parents’ Last Day in Vegas

Well my parents last day in Vegas was upon us and I was sad. I didn’t want them to leave! I was enjoying spending time with them and exploring parts of Vegas I hadn’t taken the time to visit before. They were also a nice distraction from my recent break up and them leaving meant I actually had to deal with that.

For my parents last day I actually got up a lil earlier than I had been, we were dropping off my car for an oil change while we took their rental car up to Mount Charleston. Mount Charleston is about 30 or so minutes outside of Vegas and offers hiking trails, skiing (in the winter), and just a huge change from being on the strip.

 

The drive in is spectacular. The views were unbelievable! I almost forgot to take pictures but then managed to snap a few. Its crazy how the vegetation changes as you go up in elevation and that there’s a desert 20 minutes back down the mountain.

Our first stop on the mountain was at the visitor center just to check things out. The view is so pretty! I got some information on hiking trails and I def plan on coming back and doing some of the easier hikes.

Just helping Smokey the bear protect against forest fires.

We were pretty much in the clouds, it was awesome! The weather was perfect up there, easily 20 degrees cooler than being on the strip, which was over 100 degrees that day.

After driving around and checking things out we decided to stop at the Mt. Charleston Lodge for lunch. They had a nice outdoor dining area with a deck.

This was my view from lunch, not too shabby. I just love how peaceful it is up here. The food was also good, but a lil expensive for me. I guess you can charge more being the only restaurant on this side of the mountain!

After lunch we decided to go down the back side of the mountain (which is the ski resort side) since there was a cool view point along the way.

We were still up in the clouds, and had to climb up the mountain a lil more to get back down.

The view point was awesome, you had the vegetation from the mountain, but could see down in the valley area outside of Vegas. It was such a contrast. I had my digital slr, but the coloring was giving me trouble with my settings, so they didn’t turn out as well as I would of liked.

The sky was so pretty that day and we made it back down to cactus territory. The trees were fun while they lasted!

After our trip up to Mount Charleston we went back to the hotel to freshen up before going to see the show…

Hitzville at the V Theater in Planet Hollywood. It was a Motown Review type show. The singers were really talented and my parents really seemed to like the show! We were in the VIP section up front which was interesting, I actually think I would of preferred the general admission seats.

Hitzville was an early show, so we had dinner afterwards. My parents wanted to go somewhere off the strip so we went to Sammy’s Woodfired Pizza. They do pizzas and some healthier options. For their pizzas they offer regular crust, thin crust, whole wheat crust and gluten free crust. I was pretty impressed by that.

My Mom had the oak roasted chicken breast. She’s quick and I only managed to get a picture of her last bite. She really really really liked this meal, and she knows chicken (she only has it a pretty much every meal). The chicken is cooked with fresh herbs, extra virgin olive oil, balsamic vinegar, pine nuts and asparagus. I think I’m gonna try it the next time I go there.

I can’t resist pizza (especially if it doesn’t have red sauce) so I had the five cheese pizza. It was delicious and I saved the last two slices for lunch the next day.

My dad got a pepperoni pizza with their special artisan thin crust. He saved me a piece to take home for lunch the next day 🙂

I was so sad to say good bye to my parents! Their visit was just what I needed. Luckily I will see them next month for my cousin’s wedding on the east coast.

Do you live near your parents? If not how often do you get to see them?

The Beatles LOVE

I’ve been out and about enjoying Las Vegas with my parents, I went to a great food truck event yesterday, so expect that as my food truck friday post for next week (I was too lazy to blog at midnight last night when I got back to my laptop).

For the past few months the Cirque du Soleil shows have been offering great deals for Las Vegas locals. And yes I am one of those 🙂 Since my parents told me they were coming to town I knew we needed to hit up a Cirque show, I’ve never seen one and I’ve been in Vegas for two years now.

We decided that the Beatles Love Cirque show was the best one for us. They were offering Buy 1 Get 1 for $125 and we jumped on that offer. I invited my friend Melissa to come with us.

The show was at 7 located in the Mirage. I had already picked up the tickets earlier in the day and we met up with Melissa around 5 at BB Kings ( a blues/jazz club in mirage) for an early dinner. The dinner and appetizers were hit and miss. I had the spinach dip and it was just meh (and i really like spinach dip).

We got done with dinner pretty early so we headed out to here:

Siegfried and Roy’s exhibit, but it was too late to go in (and too expensive). It was nice to walk around the mirage and scope things out. I’ve only ever been there to go Jet nightclub (which is a lot of fun!). 

This is the entry area of the Beatles Love Theater. This is on the way out (good thing my mom likes to take photos with her iphone). There were so many people, it felt like cattle being herded out.

Beatles Love was AMAZING! There is so much going on at first it was a lil overwhelming, but it was just awesome. The acrobatic elements are unbelievable and pretty much indescribable. Especially the one where the stunt made me so nervous that my hands were sooo clammy. The music is fun and I’m pretty sure my dad sang along the entire show (sorry people around us).

My dad loved this guitar and it was signed by all the Beatles which is pretty awesome.

If you come to Vegas you def need to see this show, andddd if you need someone to hook up with a locals deal, let this girl know! I would of paid full price for this show. 

Things I Love Thursday

So I’ve been surviving this week and hanging in there. Good news is my paper is done, well for the most part and my parents are here!

This post will be dedicated to the people I love the most, my parents. We have already been doing stuff around Vegas, or as much as their energy level can handle from the long plane flights across the country and a 3 hour time change.

My parents in San Francisco last year

At my cousin’s wedding in 2006

My parents and I in 2007 at a graduation reception.

I’m so excited my parents are here. Since I’m an only child we’re very close and they haven’t been in Vegas since I moved here two years ago. I look forward to all the fun posts I’ll have after all the touristy stuff we will be doing. They’re the best and probably deserve a much longer more dedicated post, but my wifi access is scarce since my router is down.

Also check out one of my new blend’s (blog friend), Lindsay, giveaway here. She’s so cute and has great work out ideas if you’re looking to mix things up!

I’m hoping to get a 7 links post up soon, we’ll see.

Taking a break

There’s no easy way to say a relationship is over, so i’ll just get this over with, FF5 and I ended our relationship this morning. Not much more to say about it, other than I still have a lot of respect for him and wish nothing but the best for him.

So as I wallow in self pity the next few days, I will also be finishing my professional paper and cleaning my apartment to prepare for my parents visit on Thursday. So that means I’ll be taking a break from blogging to focus on being productive and getting my mind in a better place.

My parents couldn’t have picked a better time to visit and I’m so glad I’ll have them here to distract me. Hope you all have a great week!

And maybe my dad will be capable of taking a pic without talking or forgetting to smile. 

Fancy Smancy Dinner

So two nights after Phil made the November 9, his backer , Erick took Phil and his friends (me included) to Jean Georges Steakhouse in Aria (a new beautiful hotel on the strip located in CityCenter). I was so honored that Phil invited me to this dinner, and i was EXCITED, cause this girl LOVES steak!

My friends have gotten used to the idea that I blog, but they had yet to experience my “wait don’t eat that yet I need a picture for my blog”. So pretty much every course that came out I was snapping pics as soon as I could.

Let me just say, this meal was AMAZING! We tried every appetizer (twice) and there were lots of cocktails, wine and beer flowing (this girl had a job interview the next day, so only one cocktail was had).

Now on to the good part, the FOOD:

The bread basket (after I grabbed one of the pretzel pieces and Katie grabbed one of the regular pieces). It was so yummmyyyy. I love bread soo soo much and the pretzel was a nice start to the dinner.

This is what was left of the crispy shrimp by the time I got a picture of it. Katie and I split one since we had a large group and large entrees coming. So delicious and that sauce was great.

The last bacon wrapped shrimp, I may have had 1.5, since I shared one with Katie. 

These were the only apps I was able to get pictures of. The sweetbreads were soo soo good, I’d never tried them before and still don’t know what was in it, but I enjoyed them. We also had fried calamari (delicious), crab cakes (which never made it to me, so they must of been good) and huge cold seafood platters (which had crab legs, lobster, oysters and shrimp). 

Ashley is ducking out of this picture of her sea bass. It looked delicious, but I forgot to ask her how it was.

Brent (and most of the guys) had the tomahawk chop, bone in rib eye, with a poached lobster tail (that piece of meat was HUGE). Brent also wanted to make sure his blue moon was in this picture (I obliged since he waited to eat for me to take this pic, although I did chop his head off).

My filet mignon and lobster tail. OMG SOOO SOOO GOOD! The filet was perfectly cooked. I love when it has the beautiful center with a lil crunch on the outside. The lobster was cooked perfectly and the butter provided on the side was the only thing I added to the lobster. I ate as much as I could and ate the whole steak and half of the lobster (I’m more of a turf girl, than surf).

These are the sauces that came with the steak. The bright yellow sauce was a hot habanero sauce ( I didn’t try it), the caramel color sauce was a soy miso butter (OMG yummy!), the cream colored sauce is a béarnaise sauce (Katie said she could of eaten all the bearnaise sauce in the whole restaurant, and I agreed, it was very very good!), and the brown sauce is their house steak sauce (I didn’t try it). 

They gave Phil and Erick congrats dessert played (it bother Katie and I that there wasn’t a S on the end). I tried the chocolate cake, it was pretty good.

Me out front after dinner. Trying to cover my food baby with my purse. 

It was a great meal, if you’re ever in Vegas you should check out Jean Georges Steakhouse at Aria.

Food Truck Friday Featuring: Fuku Burger

Fuku Burger is one of more popular trucks in Las Vegas. Somehow I hadn’t tried them until last weekend. For some reason their menu never seemed to have anything I wanted, but then I wised up and went for it.

I had been working night shift and some of the media at the World Series of Poker (yes Eric, you got a shout out on my blog) said they were going to Fuku Burger. I obviously instantly invited myself to go along! Fuku parks in China Town on Friday and Saturday nights from 8 to late night.

 Fuku Burger does asian style burgers and they do them very well!

The Fuku Truck (sorry it’s dark, the iphone is not good at night photos)

I got the Tamago burger. It has their burger patty, a fried egg, crispy onions, teriyaki sauce and another sauce that was awesome and I don’t know the name of.

I got their fries, which come with a sauce similar to a sushi roll sauce and it was YUMMY!

One of my friends got the ButaBurger which also looked awesome (yes I made him let me take a pic of his food).

When you leave a tip, they give you tip jelly. I didn’t try it, maybe one day I’ll muster up the courage.

I loved my first experience at Fuku Burger, I went back the next night. Yes I have a food truck obsession, but really the food was JUST THAT GOOD!

This time I changed it up a lil bit, but only just a lil bit.

I got the Tamago Burger again, buttttt I added cheese and bacon to it! OMG AMAZING! This burger is a must eat.  It was unbelievable good. I also had the fries again and their homemade (i think) strawberry lemonade, which is sooo sooo good!

Fuku Burger is a must try! If you see them around Vegas, definitely stop. And you can check out their website here to get their weekly schedule.

Things I Love Thursday

Sorry for being MIA this week, I have been busy watching my friend Phil make the November 9 in the World Series of Poker (there will be a full post on this soon!), and working on my paper. To top things off my wireless router has decided to stop working, which really limits my internet to my iphone, unless I connect the hard wire straight to my laptop, which is SO annoying.

On to the things I love, we’ll start out with one of my biggest obsessions:

Angry Birds the Original

Angry Birds Rio

Angry Birds Seasons

I love this game and have beaten all the levels with 3 stars. I get so excited when new levels come out, but those birds can make you angry! It is a fun, yet sometimes frustrating game. I hope to get an ipad sometime this year, so then I will start angry birds all over again!

I also love Moscato wine my favorite being:

Barefoot Moscato. It’s cheap and yummy. It also makes the best white wine sangria.

Hope you all are having a great week! I hope to get back to more regular blog posting once I get my wifi situation figured out!

Fro Yo Etiquette

A quick update for you, after the first night of ny quil on Saturday night, I woke up feeling much better yesterday morning! I’m still a lil sick (and my nose is still red and dry) but I’m def feeling a lot better.

Yesterday I was going to blog, but hit a lil bit of writer’s block, as well as I had a lot of nervous, excited energy. My good friend is very deep (otherwise known as doing very well) in the biggest poker event of the year, which I happen to be interning at (once it’s over I plan a whole blog post on what I’ve been doing), so I decided to go to work early to watch him play, which led to no blog post yesterday.

During a break yesterday I headed to a fro yo (frozen yogurt) place. It’s at a pretty crowded outdoor mall area, and there was a decent size line. As I’m in line I begin to start watching people and I see that the reason the line is so long is that people get weird about people going in front of them instead of waiting for that person to move along. Like person in front of me stopped for a fro yo flavor at the beginning of the line, while I wanted the flavor that was further down. But as I moved forward the other person jumped back in front of me, blocking the way. So what is proper fro yo etiquette? It’s self serve, I feel I should be able to go to whatever one I want, as long as I’m not knocking anyone out of the way, or jumping in front of a person who is waiting for that flavor.

So after waiting 5 minutes just to get to the strawberry flavor because this woman was adamant I not get in front of her, I then get to the toppings area. Now I can’t reach any of the toppings because the woman in front of me, refuses to stand closer than a foot from the people in front of her. The topping area is maybe 6 feet long, so my fro yo is melting and I can’t get to the toppings.

 

I finally was able to add my toppings, pay and eat my fro yo, it looked similar to this one:

But with cheesecake bites and a lil bit of red velvet cake batter mixed in. 

On a side note, I also got the great news that my parents will be visiting me in 10 days! They were going to surprise me (and had been plotting with ff5) but when they realized I might not finish my school work in time, they decided to tell me so I would get my paper done. Can’t wait to share all the touristy stuff we do while they’re here, they have only been here once, when I first moved here two years ago.

What do you think is proper fro yo etiquette? 

The Dreaded Summer Cold

As I write this I am currently in the middle of 10 sneezes in a row, or a sneeze attack as I like to call them. I have the dreaded summer cold. In the winter months I expect to get at least one cold, it happens every year, but when summer rolls around I never think of the possibility of getting sick.

Well that all changed two mornings ago when I woke up with intense sinus pressure, a sore throat and a pounding headache (from the sinus pressure). I’ve upgraded to a cough and runny nose. My late night work schedule and inability to sleep more than 6 or 7 hours afterwards has finally taken its toll (plus working in an area where there are thousands of people every day). I’ve been waking up in the middle of the night for more medicine and because I have to lay a different way to actually breathe (breathing is important right?).

Don’t worry I’m keeping this post brief, because I’m hopped up on this:

Alka – Seltzer Cold, orange zest flavor is where its at, it reminds me of my daily orange soda. It helps but only lasts 4 hours.

Tonight I can’t wait to have this:

The CVS version of NyQuil, it does the trick for me every time, I just hadn’t picked any up yet and I hope this will help me get the sleep my body needs to get better.

I am off to finish the 2nd part of my pro paper that is due tonight, ever the procrastinator I am with school work. But don’t worry (I’m talking to you Mom) I just have a couple revisions and its ready to go! I’m looking forward to only working a half day tomorrow, and it’s later in the day, so I can sleep in and relax a little bit. 

Have you ever gotten a summer cold?? What cold medicines work the best for you??

Food Truck Friday:Vegas StrEats Edition

Last Saturday I attended Vegas StrEats Festival. It has Food Trucks, Art and Music. The festival has 9 food trucks serving food and a variety of local artists and vendors set up selling merchandise. There is a stage where different musical acts perform for an hour a piece.

The weather in Vegas was really strange last week, and it actually rained every day for at least 5 days in a row. So of course it rained during StrEats. It kept the temperature a little bit cooler which was nice and this girl brought an umbrella to try to stay dry. I had food from 3 different trucks while I was there, but my pictures are lacking because of the weather, trying to eat, drinking a beer or two, and just not enough hands to do it all.

Vegas StrEats is held in downtown Las Vegas, in a lot across the street from the El Cortez Casino. Downtown has a hipster vibe to it, as long as you stay away from the casinos (lots of older folks hang out in those) and there are some fun bars on Fremont Street, just around the corner from the El Cortez.

Going for a hipster look (and to protect my hair from the rain) I rocked a fedora

Engine 1 Pizza was our first stop. FF5 and I shared pizza and garlic fries. Both pretty good and gone quickly, we were hungry!

I forgot to snap a pic of my Sno Ono shave ice before I started eating, but this is towards the bottom. I tried adding mochi bits for the first time, they were DELICIOUS! I waited an hour and 30 min from line time to pick up time and it was worth EVERY minute! I love these ladies!

While I waited in line for Shave Ice, Katie and Melissa waiting in line for BBQ Boy LV. He does Filipino BBQ. I’ve tried him once before and his food is amazing. His pork and shrimp shanghai rolls are sooo yummy!! I also had one of his pork skewers, also awesome!

After StrEats we ventured over to a new bar on Fremont Street called Insert Coin(s). It has old school arcade games and its bottle service offers tables with a playstation console and big tvs to play video games.