The Braun Family: June 2011

Oh yeah!!! Marcel and I were able to escape this last weekend to Vegas for a little getaway! It was a much needed vacation! Before this we hadn't traveled anywhere since our honeymoon (almost 3 years ago). Ridiculous I know, especially since we don't have kids as an excuse! Anyway, we also went to visit Nadine whom we also haven't seen in almost 3 years! It was fun to hang out with her since I still didn't really know her yet! She's pretty awesome!

On our way down, after stopping at the Paparazzi warehouse in Hurricane,

(This has nothing to do with Paparazzi but this is the motorcycle we saw in Hurricane....I'll let you figure out what's wrong with it....!)

we rode with the top down like we were some pretty cool cats!

Pretty cool cats that were melting in the 108 degree weather!

Yeah we were nuts, but we were having fun!

We eventually had to stop and put the top back up so we wouldn't die from heatstroke but we had our fun!

After one food stop, Paparazzi stop, and 2 bathroom stops we finally made it to Sin City!

We found Nadine's house where we stayed, unloaded the car, hung out for a while and made our plans, picked up Joel (Nadine's boyfriend) from the airport, then headed out to dinner! We got some passes that allowed you to eat at as many buffets as many times as you wanted to for 24hrs for like $45 per person, which with buffet pricing right now is a great deal! That night we ate at the Cesar's buffet! When we were signing up for the dinner cards they gave Marcel a beeper and told him that if it went off within the following 2hrs to come back and he'd get a prize. Well right towards the end of our gorging it starting beeping and flashing so we hurried to finish our excessive meal and went to claim our prize. We were thinking that he'd just get something cheesy but we were surprised when the lady pulled out some "Hangover" bobble-heads for him to choose from to go along with their big promotions they were doing for the 2nd Hangover movie! He ended up choosing Stu!

Stu bobs his head and says 3 catch phrases which are: *singing* "What do tigers dream of, when they take a little tiger snooze?", "Am I missing a tooth?!" and "Ew! Alan, did you just eat sofa pizza?!"! Haha! He's great! We were walking around for a bit after that and found a kiosk selling the same bobble heads for $16.95! Score!! We were listening to some of the catch phrases the other bobbles said and started to walk away and the lady watching the kiosk was eyeing Marcel pretty bad thinking he was stealing Stu but she never said anything! We were thinking that we'd get tackled from behind by security but luckily that never happened! :)

Then we met up with Nadine again (she had to take Joel to work) and we went for a night out on the town! We went and saw a bunch of cool random things and then went to do some light gambling! Since I had never gambled before, Marcel and Nadine had me sit at a Black Jack table and instructed me as we went. We started out with $50 and walked away with $150! It was a great first time gambling!

We finished up at around 2am (3am our regular time) so Marcel and I were ready to crash when we finally got back to Nadine's!

The next day Marcel and I got up and got ready to go do some outlet shopping! We went to the Nike outlet to get some new shoes for his "Boot Camp" and me some new exercising shoes (which we got for a steal)! We looked around for a bit and then went to meet Nadine and Joel for lunch at the Planet Hollywood Buffet. Can I just say, if you only have one option for a buffet in Vegas, choose this one! Oh man it was SO good! An around the world buffet which even included Cotton Candy! It was great! On our way to the car we stopped to play a free 'Wammy' game! You had to hit a buzzer and try to stop the light on a prize. Marcel won a free, dinky plastic shot glass and I won a free ride to the top of the Eiffel Tower during the day (which we ended up not having time to do, and it's better at night anyway). Nadine and Joel won complimentary drinks!

After claiming our prizes we headed to _______ to look at the lions! They were all sleeping but they were SO cute! We found out that you can actually have some interaction time with the cubs if you pay and set up a time! We may have to do that next time........!

Once we were finished gawking at the snoozing kitties, Joel had to go to work. After saying bye to him we had some time to kill so Nadine was teaching us how to play 3 card poker. Her phone rang so she asked Marcel to sit in for her. He finished playing that hand and the next one he was dealt was a Royal Flush of spades (Ace, King, Queen) which is EXTREMELY rare and it pays out 40-1!! Nadine hung up her phone when she saw what he had and shouted in excitement! Marcel won her quite a bit of money! He would've won her a whole lot more had we known about the little insurance bet you can do before a hand is dealt. If we would've done that he would've won her almost $7000! Dang, I know!! But still she ended up giving him $100 in commission for winning so much for her so it was still pretty awesome!

After cashing in we split up once again and Marcel and I walked the strip for a bit and then headed to see....wait for it.....~*Phantom of the Opera*~!! I've been wanting to see this live since I first heard the CD around age 10 or so! Nadine found a great deal online for us to go see it for just $99(+tax) for the two of us! You can't beat that deal! We were in the top balcony, in the very middle and we had a great view! I honestly had goosebumps the entire show because of it's awesomeness! Marcel laughed at me when it first started with the theme song because of the excited face I made! What can I say, I WAS excited :)! They got mad if you took pictures so we didn't get very many so we had to mostly take mental images!

After Phantom we headed to Fremont Street! We watched a guy create an awesome picture using spray paint (if you haven't seen this you should, amazing and it's free to watch!), found some t-shirts to buy (Marcel got a Las Vegas Fire Dept. shirt and I got a cute Vegas shirt), ate dinner, watched the light show, and went to gamble a bit more!

I played the penny slots for a bit, mostly just to say I have! I lost a dollar in the end but we played for about a half hour so it was cheap entertainment! Then we sat at a 3card Poker table long enough for Marcel to lose $40 because there were some rules he wasn't aware of! So we went and sat at a black jack table where Marcel played for about 2hrs and I watched (I was too tired to play!). It was fun watching him and interacting with the dealer and the random people that would join in! We met a funny Irish(?) man who was hilarious! He ended up losing quite a bit so he left but we had fun chatting with him while he was there. Marcel was doing really well until these 2 ladies came and sat down, one next to me and one next to him. The lady next to him was throwing a fit because she kept getting crap hands so she wanted to switch me places (since I wasn't playing). So I did and Marcel started getting her bad hands and she got a blackjack that very next hand, then a 20 the next, both of which would've been Marcel's had she not moved. Needless to say we walked away at that point. We were pretty annoyed with the lady since we'd been at that table for almost 2hrs but oh well. We still came out on top so it's all good!

We headed back to Nadine's after that because we were both exhausted! We small town folk ain't used to the big city night life ;)! Haha! Plus we needed to get up and drive home in the morning so we needed our sleep.

The next morning we got everything packed up, said our thank you's and goodbye's and headed home.

It was a very long ride home but we made it back in time to see them cleaning up what was left of the Antler Fest they had at the rodeo grounds here in Nephi. We lucked out by getting there when we did though because we were able to get some awesome stuff for a great deal! We just had lots of luck with random things this weekend!

After the Antler Fest we went to pick up Toby and boy was he happy to see us! Suzanna took such great care of him and the other 2 while we were gone! She's awesome!

Overall we had a great weekend and made some more great memories and can't wait to go back and do it again! :)

Yesterday was Jessica's 20th birthday! Yes you read that right, "20"! I know, I can't believe it either! She has become such a beautiful woman! I know it's cheesy to talk about her that way since she is only 2 years younger than me but if you're an older sister, then you know exactly where I'm coming from! I love her so much! She is the best sister ever!

For her bday presents Austen made her a goober pot!

Marcel and I gave her some Paparazzi Jewelry!

My parents got her a super cute outfit!

And we all gave her a key chain display that cannot be bought in stores! Lol! That's my way of saying we made it! Yep, I'm not gonna lie, I'm pretty proud of the way it turned out! And she LOVES it! We made this for her because in all of her travels she always buys a key chain as a souvenir from the different places. So she has all these awesome key chains hanging on a hook in the back of her closet where no one can see them. Problem solved!! :)

For dinner we had Jes's favorite, Tuna Casserole! It was delicious! We also had cake and ice cream which was also delicious! For her cake my mom added some lemon filling to the middle so it was AwEsOmE!!

After dinner we watched "Megamind" which can I just say, is HILARIOUS! I laughed the entire time! Haha! Oh man if you haven't seen it yet, you need to! It's great!