THURSDAY
After work we all met at Hobby airport to embark upon the greatest weekend ever. The cast of characters for this epic journey was Shawna, Dena, Rashell, Lori, Chelsea, Jen & I. I carpooled to the airport with Shawna & Dena and we got a mini preview of exactly how the weekend would go when we parked in a suspect lot and had to walk about half a mile following essentially hand-written signs with arrows to find our way into the airport.
Oh look... there it is.
Obligatory plane pic- Lori & the Bride
Shawna & Dena... Apparently enjoying the in-flight menu.
Thursday night we all arrived and spent some time ooh-ing and aww-ing over our amazing rooms at Aria. Like any adults, we displayed our love of the room by jumping on the beds, repeatedly opening and closing the blinds with the touch screen controller and touching things we shouldn't in the mini-bar.
Kriss kross will make you... (I seriously can't believe I just went there)
... jump, jump (but I'm not so appalled with myself that I won't finish the lyric).
I want a touchscreen remote for life.
The most expensive late night snack ever.
The only time it looked like this all weekend.
After we exhausted the photographic opportunities in the room, we decided to head down to explore the casino and the rest of the hotel. The remainder of the night was fairly low-key... Jen nursed her roulette addiction with Lori & Chelsea while the rest of us decided to grab some late night food and people watch in the hotel's 24 hour restaurant. Low-key was definitely a wise decision considering what the rest of the weekend held in store for us.FRIDAY
Friday morning on our quest to find breakfast we serendipitously ran across our new friend Joe from New York who runs a frozen to-go beverage stand. Like the responsible adults that we are, we waited until AFTER we had eaten breakfast to have a jello shot with Joe. Our parents would indeed be proud.
Cheers to matrimony.
I wonder if Joe enjoyed New York as much as he enjoyed this picture.
We helped finance Joe's trip back home that weekend by purchasing a few tastey beverages for our walk and then hightailed it to the pool at Aria. We planted ourselves in the pool at the Aria for the better portion of the rest of the day. While there we made several new friends- 1 of whom had a "mortal cord" tattooed on his body, 2 of whom were there for the National Beer Pong Championship, and many of whom were there for a bachelor party who scored a suite at Aria. With our new friends we discussed such cultural hot topics as the market for Bachelorette party koozies with male members on them, the names of teams in the Beer Pong Championship and the fact that Chelsea is "from Africa" and attended "Cape Cod University". She may or may not have meant Cape Town.
Poooooooool.
Bathing beauties.
Koozies- definitely the golden ticket.
While You Were Out: Bachelorette Party edition
Willie.
The makings of an excellent evening.
After the great reveal we got snazzy and headed to dinner at N9NE, the delish steakhouse at the Palms. Post best-meal-ever we headed up to Moon to get our dance on. On our way up to Moon, we were summoned by Caesar, the Chaffeur-tainer (seriously his business card says that), to "meet his friends." We briefly talked to 3 gentlemen, 1 of whom obviously played in the NBA. He took a shining to Chelsea and third grade-style had Caesar follow us after we left to retrieve her number.
Our pretty Bachelorette.
Me & the BFF (Jen not Willie).
Trouble times seven.
Lori, Chelsea & Shawna at N9NE.
Me, Dena, Jen & Rashell. We are also at N9NE - crazy coincidence.
Once we made it up to Moon we spent about an hour trying to decipher whether we stuck in the middle of a SYTYCD episode or whether the little man Rashell dubbed "Tiny Dancer" was really dancing like he was part of Newsies to Katy Perry's "Firework". We eventually decided it was way too crowded... (and how were we ever going to compete with that little man's dancing skills?!)... and decided to head to Marquee at the Cosmopolitan as our new NBA friend had a table there.
Tiny Dancer fan club.
Proof we were at the Palms.
No wonder Caesar pulled these hotties aside.
We high-fived Tiny Dancer and headed to the cab line. After the most entertaining cab ride ever (Cash Cab, TMZ Factory, "Shawna?", "I've been roofied by 25 drugs," and "Would you rather...."), we arrived at the Cosmpolitan. We somehow managed to skip the line even though we pronounced the name of our new NBA friend incorrectly- which should have signaled to the bouncer that we did not know who he was. We hung out at said dude's table for about 30 minutes and once we felt we'd sufficiently put in our time to deem it a story... we took off our shoes and headed home. Night 2: in the books.
Oh, I forgot that Jen got serenaded by these gentleman on the way back home. Outside Tiffany, no less. Brendan, watch your back.
SATURDAY
Saturday we lazily wandered the Strip and grabbed some breakfast. At 3:00 we surprised Jen with a massage at Aria. The rest of us either got massages or mani/pedis. We lounged and watched awful TV until about 7:00 when we all reconvened for room service din-din and a surprise lingerie shower for the Bachelorette.
Mmmm... Bellagio chocolate fountain.
Looove the Bellagio.
Paris. Obvi.
Brady bunch action.
Groping the Situation.
Shawna relaxing. Duh.
Roooooom service.
After sufficiently making Jen blush, we headed out for the final surprise of the day- Thunder from Down Under. Nothing makes you more excited about getting married than watching men with fake Australian accents dance around in knee pads. Nothing. We were unsuccessful in getting Jen on stage but we had a fantastic time nonetheless.
Look how excited everyone is about some knee pads.
Ohhhh yeah.
As we were exiting the theater, we were approached by yet another club promoter, but something about the glow of Australian shirtless-ness and a few more jell-o shots made us actually listen to this one. He promised us a table and a free bottle if we went with him to CatHouse. We, of course, had no idea what CatHouse was but we were lured by the promise of a table and free-ness.
We agreed to follow him and we wound up having the best night EVER. Why is that? Let me count the ways: (1) Jen shaving a man in public, (2) Jen's signature dance move, (3) Rashell agreeing to go to San Diego, (4) Dancing, (5) Yours Truly thinking I was the Ice Princess and flinging ice on everyone in a 1.5 foot radius, (6) Not knowing we were at Luxor instead of Excalibur until we went to leave and (7) Good old fashioned AWFUL dancing on a booth with some amazing ladies.
Shaving a random man's leg.
This is either a baseball pitching signal or some other inside joke I've now forgotten.
I hear this is actually how Celine Dion got her start.
Dance fever.
Byyyyyye!
SUNDAY
We woke up on Sunday feeling like... well like we'd spent 5 hours at the CatHouse. We hurriedly packed and booked it to the airport for our way-too-early flight. Somehow we wound up scoring a limo for the first time on our trip there- which is ironic considering we were probably looking the least luxurious we had all weekend. Some members of our party may or may not have still been wearing their attire from the previous night.
We spent the rest of what felt like the longest day ever slowly making our way back to Houston. Layovers on the way back from Vegas are never a good idea. As awful as we felt, we still spent most of the day laughing at the weekend's ridiculousness.
All in all I would say it was an incredible success. Thank you to all of my fellow Veg survivors and thanks to the Bachelorette for giving us reason to celebrate.
Adios Vegas.
The end.
This is so much better than the NSFJ posts!! Let's figure out a way to have more bachelorette parties.
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