Honeymoon in Vegas!

Our first night, we stayed at the Tulalip Resort and Casino, in Marysville, WA, since our flight wasn't until Sunday afternoon. Tulalip was AWESOME. We went to dinner there at a seafood restaurant. Since the hotel knew that we were on our honeymoon, when we came back we had a plate of chocolate-covered strawberries, sitting on top of numerous chocolate shavings. 2 of my favorite things combined into one!

The next morning, we finished packing, picked stuff up at both our parents houses, and had breakfast with his parents. My dad dropped us off at the airport. This is the first time that Matt and I had gone flying together. Matt got to experience my, err, love for flying. Or lack of it. Lets just say, during take off, I have a death grip on my seat handles. I don't enjoy taking off. And I married a pilot. OH, well. Thank goodness I do not have to fly, as well.

Vegas was amazing. However, all of you who have made fun of me for living in the middle of nowhere for the last 4 years, Vegas is in the middle of nowhere more so than Moscow/Pullman is, I will have you know. Vegas is in the middle of the freakin' desert, and absolutely no majors towns around it for hundreds of miles. It is also surrounded by severe mountains, so I will never again think Moscow is all by it's lonesome.

Naturally, we visited Vegas on a record breaking day. We were there on the hottest day early in the season. Apparently, June 6th is the earliest in the year since record keeping began that it has reached 110 degrees. That's a lot to get used to, when you're used to 50 degrees and raining.

We stayed at the Mirage, which is perfectly located in the middle of the strip. We were in walking distance to the Venetian, Bellagio, and Caesar's, among others, and from those hotels we could take trams or monorails. We saw every hotel south of Treasure Island except the MGM. Our favorite hotel by far was the Mirage, but we also liked the Bellagio and the Venetian. Matt also liked the Monte Carlo, and I liked Paris.

We laid pretty low, not partaking in much activity. Our main activity was sight-seeing, walking through all the shops and hotels in the morning. The pool at the Mirage is awesome and we spend most afternoons there, where one day we enjoyed Pina Coladas, which are my new favorite alcoholic beverages. The Mirage's main attraction is the volcano out front, along with the dolphin habitat and Sigfreid and Roy's Tiger and Lion exhibit. If you know me AT ALL, you should know that my favorite by far was the dolphin and tiger exhibit. We tried to see all the hotels' free shows, like the Mirage's volcano (really awesome), the Bellagio fountain (also really awesome), and Treasure Island's Siren and Pirate show (really trashy and lame, thus disappointing).

Las Vegas was extremely fun and enjoyable, except one aspect. Food there, especially just normal food, is ridiculous, and you get no food prep stuff, like a coffee pot or a microwave, in your hotel room. A simple breakfast of belgian waffles runs over $10, and we won't even mention lunch or dinner. We choose to eat at the food courts most nights and ate only 2 meals a day, having breakfast late in the morning and dinner in the evening. Thank goodness every hotel had a Starbucks, which was only a few cents more from their normal prices, so we ate most of our breakfasts there. We also discovered a Denny's, which was also normally priced. Everything else, though, was ridiculous. Only in Vegas will you go to a burger diner, order a $12 burger, and not get fries with it. Seriously. A side of fries was an additional $8. LAME. We did enjoy on "fancy dinner," as we called at. Matt and I chose to go to Mesa Grill, which is Food Network's Bobby Flay's restaurant. BEST CALAMARI EVER here! (Well, he called it "Crispy Squid," but we all know that's calamari). I enjoyed my 16-spice rubbed chicken with mango-garlic sauce, and Matt enjoyed his mexican-spiced pork tenderloin. For dessert we had churros with dark-chocolate dipping sauce. I never had churros before, they were awesome!

Unfortunately, honeymoons have to end. On Friday, when we got to the airport, security was a complete joke. Firstly, the agents running the x-ray machine didn't realize that there was a bag stuck in the machine and that 1., no bags had gone through the machine for about 2 minutes, and 2., the line of people for their machine kept getting longer and longer. Once the lady in front of Matt said "Hey, I think there's a bag stuck...", the agents freaked out, and it took about 10 of them to wonder out loud what they should do, while the lady took about 5 seconds to stick her arms in there and free the bag. I feel safe. Then, I was "randomly" picked by the metal detector to be searched (to prevent against racial profiling, of course). The TSA agent made me walk through the metal detector 3 times, with it beeping everytime, and then made me stand in the plastic cage until I could get searched. Interestingly, the female agent only patted my back. Good thing she didn't check my legs, where I was hiding my very thin sword from my hip to my ankle ;) What a nightmare.

We had a layover in Portland for 2 hours, but fortunately while we were there, the F-15 squadron from the Portland Air National Guard were flying, so Matt and I got to watch them land and taxi over to the base. It kept Matt pretty happy.

Now we're back home, slowly but surely getting our apartment set up and organized. We are loving living by ourselves, but a little shocked at how much money it cost to stock up the kitchen with food and get everything you need that you took for granted, like toilet plungers and kleenex. We knew it would cost money, but underestimated all the stuff we needed. But we're slowly but surely getting there.

That being said, does anyone have a couch? We're in the market for one ;)