Weekend in Vegas

We went to bed extra early the night before our trip, after fully realizing how early we would have to get up in order to make our flight. Indeed, the alarm went off pretty early in the morning but, following some coffee, we remained in high spirits as we drove over to MKE.

Travel was efficient and painless (even I managed to doze a bit), and we arrived in Vegas around 10:30am -- enough time for a full day of stuff. We had early check in at our hotel (the Aria -- our go-to), so we dropped our stuff off in the room and went out in search of lunch which ended up being something simple at the food court inside the Aria.

We had a late dinner and show on the docket for the day and so we decided to get a nap in so that we stood a chance of making it that late. Afterwards, we decided to walk around some of the adjoining hotels and spend a little bit of time at the pool. While this time of year Vegas isn't hot, it was still warm enough in the sun to be able to enjoy the pool and hot tub even more so.

Our first dinner was inside the hotel at a restaurant called cathedral which had a really cool aesthetic in the entryway and in general. I enjoyed some brick oven chicken and Laura had some sort of fancy breaded chicken entree, along with a very fancy cocktail and subsequent glass of wine. Following dinner we went to see Absinthe outside of Caesar's Palace so we pushed through the drunken Vegas crowds but got to see the Bellagio fountain show on the way which never gets old. We had seen absinthe on our last trip to Vegas and it was highly regarded by both of us. The second show did not disappoint.

Day two was fairly packed. After enjoying some coffee , we went to see the botanical garden inside of Bellagio, which had been transformed into a spectacular Christmas arrangement. We caught a glimpse of it the day before when we were just walking around, but as we got closer to it, we realized that pretty much everything was crafted from flower arrangements. What we had originally thought were large statues were in fact intricate collections of arranged flowers to make statues of various scenes from The Nutcracker. It was truly impressive.

After a quick breakfast, we walked all the way over to Mandalay Bay (partially outside, partially inside) to visit the shark reef aquarium, which we both thoroughly enjoyed. It was appropriately named because the last tank had the largest collection of sharks that I've ever seen. The sharks were certainly impressive (Including a very menacing set of great whites), but we enjoyed seeing all of the fish, turtles, rays, jellyfish and other sea creatures.

After lunch and another nap, we spent a little bit of time at the gym before we got ready for our dinner at the showcase restaurant of the trip -- Wakuda. We asked them to customize their six course tasting menu to add on an additional appetizer and salad which they of course we're happy to oblige. Each dish was fantastic but the highlight was definitely their signature dish: the Seabass Miso.

Having enjoyed dinner immensely, we hustled across the street into treasure Island to catch our second show of the trip, Cirque du soleil's mysteré. Laura's seen the show previously but it was new to me. We both had a good time even though it was very apparent that we were at the early "kids show", given the audience population.

That concluded our trip since we were leaving in the morning the next day in order to get out of Vegas before it shut down for New Year's Eve, and, as always, we were excited to get back to our pups.Read more