West Coast Adventures Part 1

Remember that free airline ticket Joel won at the World Famous Hansen Mud Run? Well, we used it on a crazy cool adventure to San Jose, Las Vegas, then back to San Jose for a whirlwind week-long trip back in September.

Peace out Okinawa! See you again soon!

Yup. This was on my brother's car. :-p

It was SO refreshing to hang out with our nephews in San Jose! Parker REALLY enjoyed the whale shark we brought him... turns out it squeaked though. Would have second guessed that decision had I known!

Our very first night in San Jose, Joel and I had the boys all to ourselves as my brother and Nikki went to San Fran for a Billy Joel concert. Parker had this book memorized and was able to read us the entire thing!

Ah, Koda. The hyper active, adorably playful German Shepherd.

Parker at the park!

The boys love their Daddy (though, they also get quite a few snuggles from Nikki!)

Joel and I took a walk up a neighborhood hill near my brother's place and MAN, what beautiful country! It was SO dry though. We are not used to seeing anything remotely drought-ish in Okinawa.

After a couple of days in San Jose, we met up with our amazing friends Alex and Kelly in Las Vegas!!! Thanks for coming from Ohio, guys!

I'm a huge CSI fan. That show and the Ocean's 11 movies has been my only reference to Vegas (makes you wonder why I wanted to go, LOL!). 

We stayed in the MGM and did a lot of walking to other hotels nearby. It was REALLY, REALLY hot! I think it averaged 110F each day! Granted, it was dry heat, but STILL! We were chugging water constantly!

I'm going to try to remember all of the Celebrity Chef restaurants we ate at while in Vegas... I know we had lunch first thing when we arrived at  the MGM at Wolfgang Puck's restaurant.

It was so fun to take in the sites together. Vegas has something for everyone and was a people watcher's dream!

View from our hotel room - it was so crazy seeing scenes from CSI with my own eyes!

KA was the Cirque du Solei show at the MGM and we were able to see it our third night. MAN. It was beyond words. That show was one of the most incredible things Joel or I have ever witnessed. All of the actors and actresses have to be professional athletes as well to do the stunts required. Bravo Cirque, Bravo.

Night One in Vegas: Ohio State versus Virginia Tech showdown! I was the lone wolf sporting my Tech jersey in our group of friends, but thankfully, there were two Hokies sitting next to me at Emeril Lagasse's Stadium restaurant! It was the perfect venue for a not so perfect game... for me, anyway. The rest of the folks seemed pleased with the outcome, LOL.

Walking back to our hotel after the game, we stopped by a couple of other hotels. I HAD to see the famous glass art at the Bellagio! And, I don't have a picture, but we had appetizers at Gordan Ramsey's Pub restaurant at Caesar's Palace that night too!

We had lunch the next day at Bobby Flay's MESA restaurant at Caesar's Palace. I have to post some food pics - his food was STELLAR. This was the goat cheese "Queso Fundido" appetizer to kick things off.

And we'd heard about this Tiger Shrimp and Roasted Garlic Corn Tamale from watching Anthony Bourdain. Delightful!

Fun knock off's at Caesar's 

Interesting art displays... I think these were in Aria...

We HAD to do it. HAD to. You pay money to get cold in a solid ice bar. Everything is ice. The chairs, the table, your glasses... thankfully they give you coats, but dang, it was frigid! I think we made it 20 minutes before we had to leave, LOL.

That's it for the first post. Our trip was SO slam packed with fun, I'm going to break it into bite size pieces. :)