i hope you have a blast in las vejas

thanks maury, ill try. and thanks dad, i did. it was a great trip. we left thursday evening and stayed that night in st. george at some family friends of rachel's. let me just tell you that hanging out with their children was not only reason enough to make the trip, but also to consider going again very very soon.

food. so much food. garlic bread, some sort of delicious meat and bean dish, veggies with ranch, cereal, waffles, various juices and more. that dang garlic bread though, i tell ya...he just kept it comin.

ice skating. the korean with the classic blue dress was my fav. why do ice skaters think they have to have some crazy complicated outfits? simplicity is beautiful. and i love the olympics.

rest. the sleeping situation in st. george was beyond ideal. "...who slept on the couch? she is a crazy sleeper..." yeah i know. i listen to her coo every night. rachel read us scriptures before bed and the combination of her voice slash tone with the material was so soothing. it put me right to sleep.

VEGAS! the next morning we arrived in sunny and wannabe "fabulous" Las Vegas. first order of business was to get some in n' out. clearly. i convinced liz to try a double double and she wasn't disappointed. there was some tension about milkshakes but we're all still friends. the pigeons were terrorizing rachel. somehow i got down to like a fourth left of my bun and toppins but i was all out of patty.

shopping. we went to the outlets and everyone got a bunch of new shtuff. highlights include rainboots, a hOOdie, jeans, dresses, cardigans and various shoe items. we checked into our hotel, took something similar to a brief nap, and got all dressed up to go out for sushi which...was... FANTASTIC. if only i could find a man that would take me out for sushi. 007 with spicy crab, philidelphia, cucumber, sugar daddy, eel tempura...it was all to die for. we counted it was somethin like 9 rolls that we ordered for the four of us. not too shabby. "i think im just in love with the eel sauce." the rest of the night we just hit up all the hotels on the strip, walked around the casinos and stores, and got rejected by mon ami gabi. bananas foster shall remain a mystery to some, at least for the time being. emily and i gambled a whole dollar (count em, one) in a penny slot machine and walked away empty handed. i at least had a good experience because i got to pull the big handle (which is all either of us wanted to do anyway), but emily was shafted for sure. the louis vuitton store lit up like everything else in las vegas, but it was exponentially more beautiful. we were constantly attacked by those men with the girls girls girls shirts slapping the dirty cards in our faces. emily did a really good impression of them. we hit up m&m world which was so much more than i ever even knew. it was seriously sweet and like 5 stories tall. it got late, our dawgs started to hurt and so we turned in for the night.

the next morning we were treated to a delightful continental breakfast. i shamefully spilled my entire cup of oj all over the counter immediately after i had poured it and the lady hated me. which was absolutely unnecessary because i already hated myself for wasting precious juice. the objective for the day was stratosphere all the way. we went on all three of the rides at the top and perhaps even more enjoyable than the thrill of the ride itself was watching rachel cry and liz let go for a split second then grab on to the bar again, let go then grab on, hands never making it past chest height. especially with the contrast of emily-arms fully extended, screaming "ezma, put your hands in the air!!" and leaning over the edge. we shopped more and cruised around the strip until we were too hungry for mexican food to continue. we ate at la salsa and i ravenously finished every bite of food on my burrito ranchero plate.

we went to freemont street and there was some sort of country concert going on for all the nascar folk. i bravely tried deep fried oreos (which sounds like a recipe for bodily disaster) and you know what? i liked it. and liz got a frozen chocolate covered banana like at disneyland. i decided i might take my bananas frozen more often. the texture is phenomenal. this is where it gets crazy. somehow it happened at this point that we were in dire need of and desperately searching for a restroom, to no avail. what was the deal?? we finally snuck into an employee bathroom at a gas station and got caught in the act. then there was rain and a man cupping his eyes and pointing at us. there was darkness and there was confusion and there was an on-ramp near death experience. during which there was silence. we made it back to georgie alive though and went to church the next day with the family we were staying with. this is when so many outrageous pictures of us were drawn by Sarah, their oldest girl. i can't even actually explain what happened here, so you'll just have to come over and see them for yourself as they're currently being displayed on our fridge.

then we visited my grandparents. we ate cheese and crackers and talked about our lives. grandpa dropped some epic lines...which was to be expected but he more than delivered on this particular occasion. The conversation went something like this:

the girls: "Oh yeah I graduated from BYU and have a sweet job." "I still have a bit left, only because I'm double majoring. At BYU of course.""I'm graduated. Yep that's right. From BYU. And I love my job."

Grandpa: "well Lindsay wasn't SMART enough to get into BYU."
.....thanks gramps.

don't feel bad, he didn't mean it like that. plus i yelled at him anyway. hes just sarcastic and doesn't really censor what he says. like how after he sent my mom an email about our visit and said "here's a picture of the girls...after they ate everything that wasn't nailed down." classic. he talked about how vegas was so much better when the mafia ran it, how they used to fly in on their private plane and step out onto a red carpet. sometimes i wonder who this man even is, besides my grandpa.

then we drove back to prov. done. so the moral of the story here is...vegas for my 21st birthday? check. "that's one more for exotic bird bingo!"