The Hodgepodges: Mommy gets a vacation

And, with that May is over! Hopefully I can sit down and get a May isnta catch up done.
Ha ha ha. Right. Natalia's birthday is Tuesday and I'm so behind in party work and house work, and I realize now that I haven't yet made Quinton's Birthday book on Picaboo yet. UGH! Oh well. Natalia will be done with school in two weeks and I'm hoping (fingers crossed) I'll have a few more extra minutes to get some stuff done around here. One can dream. ;) Charlie left for his boys trip right after I got home basically (he had to postpone his trip because of his last work trip to Boston and we had to use his plane ticket so we wouldn't lose the money... and it happened to be the weekend after I got back that he went) back to back trips like that isn't ideal but it knocks them out of the way at least. ha ha ha.

Anyway, I went on vacation! Woo.

But before that I had a wonderful girls night with my two sisters in law, and four of my friends. We started the night getting manicures and pedicures at a salon. I got a fun pattern to mine instead of doing a solid color and I was really happy with it. Then we got dinner at Old Chicago and after that we all went to Pitch Perfect 2. It was so funny and I loved it. We had such a fun night and I kept thinking we should take a picture and we never did. I got these two from Alison and then just added pictures of my fingers and toes ha ha ha. Oh well!

Then it was off to Las Vegas with Cheryl and Amy. We had such a great time! We stayed at the Mirage this time and got a really good deal on our room. Now what do three girls who really don't do the typical Vegas things do in Vegas? We ate tons of yummy food, did lots of shopping, relaxed by the pool and got to see great shows! It was seriously so nice. Not to mention the giggles and jokes we had going on. We got a three day bus pass and rode the bus a lot vs walking the strip so much. These pictures are all out of order and I didn't take tons anyway.

As far as food goes: we ate at our favorite California Pizza Kitchen (always got to go there when we go on vacation!) Serendipity- finally got to try the frozen hot chocolate, Magianos- their pasta is so so good, and we tried Shake Shack which is all the rage I guess. It was pretty good though, but we didn't get a shake. We also tried a Mexican place in Mandalay Bay called Border Grill that we were all pleasantly surprised by. Our Michael Jackson show was there so we looked up Mexican food on Yelp and it had such good reviews. normally we'd scan the menu to be sure we'd like something there but for whatever reason didn't this time. Once we sat down we were all worried because it was super fancy and not what we'd find at a Mexican restaurant at home. Me being the least picky of the three I ordered taquitos that had brisket beef in them. OMG. SO good. The meat was so good. Cheryl (cheese and chicken) and Amy (just cheese) both ordered quesadillas and the tortillas were fresh made and they both raved over them. We all agreed we would definitely go there again.

Shopping: we hit up the outlet mall on the North end of the strip and then also the Fashion Show Mall. I was disappointed in the selection at the Coach Outlet and ended up with a super cute Kate Spade purse for a really good deal. I of course hit up the Disney Store in both malls. ;) Ours closed a few years back and I just had to get the kids some Disney souvenirs!

Shows: the first night we went to see Air Supply... ha ha ha. We kind of like (actually love) 80's music, and well it was pretty entertaining. The two lead guys are so so old, but it was a fun show anyway. The second night was our Michael Jackson show. Seriously so cool. The music is of course amazing. The dancing and aerial tricks/what Cirque Du Soliel is known for did not disappoint. We were way in back and I wish we would have splurged and went for more middle of the auditorium. But it was such a cool show! The last night we had gone on Yelp and looked up high rated shows... and came across 50 Shades of Gray Parody the Musical. Holy crap was that funny. All it does is make fun of the book/movie and it's so great. We were dying laughing the whole time and Amy even said it was her favorite of the three nights.

Pool Time: the nice thing about the Mirage was that it had a great pool (we still prefer the MGM pool, but the Mirage location on the strip was way better) but this pool had tons of mature palm trees which provided lots of shade and we got to just sit out on lounge chairs and enjoy our afternoon. I got to read tons (got half way through a book and have yet to pick it up since being home ha ha)

Anyway I love those two girls dearly and really am glad I got the chance to take a girls trip with them. They had me laughing all week and it was so fun. I missed my babies so much and was happy to be home with them! (Quinton went from still half crawling/half walking to only walking during my four days gone!)

Ok on to the few pictures I did take:

Inside the auditorium for our Michael Jackson show. I was so excited for this show and looked forward to it for months. It was so good and I would seriously go see it again!

Starbucks in our hotel meant I splurged a little and got coffee two mornings in a row! I laughed when I saw what the barista had written on my cup the first morning.

Pool side! Warm sun and totally relaxed!

Trying to get our picture pool side, I hated all my smiling ones they seemed like big fake smiles and I really was happy to be there.

I really don't gamble, I feel like my money is better spent else where. But I could help put a couple of dollars into this machine... I felt like it was made for me. ha ha ha. Except I totally didn't win anything! We feel as though it should have involved Friends trivia in some way... definitely would have won something in that case!