and now finally, vegas, part 3

Oh my, I have been dragging this out.  Sorry about that.  I feel like it's been eons since I actually went on this trip, and here I am still blathering on about it.  Well, if you're sick of it all, feel free to skip this post.  But I will try and keep it short and sweet.  On our last full day in Vegas, we did a lot of the same pool time and drinking that you have become accustomed to hearing about.  And we went to the strip again, this time to see a show!  Here's us gettin' ready to go. 

This picture above has 3 gorgeous girls, but it shows why I don't like my camera's flash.  They weren't this shiny in person.  Shiny happy people, I guess.

And now this picture demonstrates my awesome composition skills with the exit sign in the background.  Just awesome.

So the run-down of the evening went like this:  We went to the Bellagio to eat and watch the fountain show.  At the same time, which was great.  Here are the highlights of that fountainy goodness.

It was really fun.  And they played songs along with it, which I thought was even better.  After this we went to see the Cirque du Soleil show, The Beatles Love.  It was the BEST thing I've ever seen on stage.  And I've been to a LOT of live stage shows.  We all sang along, laughed, and maybe even cried.  I highly recommend it, especially if you're a Beatles fan.  It was truly amazing, and we were on the edge of our seats the whole time.  It didn't hurt that they gave us mammoth drinks at the bar that we took into the show. 

You can see our giant (empty) cups in Karen's hand here.

She was pretty excited.  Until her luck ran out.

This $.25 was what she had to show for the $100 bill she put into the slot.  But don't worry, she later won about $70 back, so it wasn't as bad as you might think.

Besides, there were much worse things that happened that night.  The night went somewhat downhill after the amazing show.  We had an unfortunate incident involving ants, and then Tara lost a beautiful (real) diamond bracelet.  We searched for at least an hour and a half, checked with all the lost and founds at the casinos, and retraced our steps.  No dice.  And then there was the cab ride back to the hotel.  We found the one driver in Vegas that didn't actually know where he was going.  He was still in his first week on the job.  And I was the lucky one sitting in front with him.  The ride to our hotel was a little harrowing, but we made it ok.  We got back into our hotel just in time to see this view:

Well, some of us weren't looking.

Jo and Tara had about one hour of sleep before they had to get up and get the shuttle for the airport.  Karen and I really got some extra zzzz with a whopping 3 hours.  But I was glad we stayed up late and had all that extra time with each other.  We've been friends since around kindergarten.  We've been through everything together, and now are all far apart.  Jo is in Colorado, Tara is in Oklahoma (for now), Karen is in Arizona, and now I'm going from Illinois to South Carolina.  It's hard to be that far apart from your best friends.  And the last time we had all been in the same state together was 3 years ago for Karen's wedding.  I hope one day we can all be a little closer.  But in the meantime, we'll just try to sneak in these girl's weekend when we can. 

p.s.  Tara, Jo, and Karen, I love you all.  Thank you for the awesome weekend, it was just what I needed.  You girls are the other loves of my life and I am so super blessed to have each of you as my friend.  Miss you already, xoxo.