Vegas

What a great weekend this was. Last December Lisa heard somewhere that for his 65^th birthday, Donny Osmond was giving a gift to all his fans. On the day of his birthday they could buy tickets to any of his shows for 65% off. Well that was all it took for Lisa to decide that we needed to make a trip to Las Vegas to see Donny’s new show. The Donny & Marie show ended a couple of years ago but now Donny is back with his own show. The show was this weekend. To seal the deal she was able to find two round trip tickets to Vegas for $75.

So Friday (Feb 24) we dropped the boys off at school and we headed to the airport for a weekend of fun. We got off to a rough start. We got to the airport, parked the car, got through security and then we couldn’t find our gate. We checked the monitors and there was no Frontier flight to Vegas. We went back to the ticket counter and there was no one at the ticket counter but as Lisa was talking to another person she noticed that our flight was leaving at 10:10 PM, not 10:10AM.

After a moment of panic we decided to take another airline. We checked out Spirit but they were sold out so we moved on to Southwest. Southwest is always reasonably priced but they are rarely the cheapest flight. We considered driving but that did not sound like much fun so off we headed to Vegas.

We checked into our Hotel and then promptly made sure we knew where the show would be. When we found it, they had this cool display with some of his costumes over the years. They had his outfit from “Joseph and the Technicolor Dream Coat”,  his outfit from “Dancing with the Stars”, and my favorite, the Peacock from “Masked Singer”.

We then decided to go and get some fish & chips from Ramsay’s. They were easily the most expensive fish & chips I’ve ever eaten but they might also be the best.

We then decided to wander around the strip. It was pretty cold but we had planned ahead and were warm enough.

We then wandered across the street to check out the water fountains at the Bellagio. Those are probably my favorite attractions in Vegas.

And then it was time to head back to see Donny.

The Donny Osmond show was amazing. I’m in no way an expert of shows like this, and I have attended very few of them, but this one was by far my favorite.

Donny made me feel like he was talking just to me. Because we got the tickets so cheaply we decided we may as well get good seats. We were sitting on row seven or eight.

At one point he stopped and talked to us about how it is difficult to address all of his fans because they are from a range of six decades. He gave some examples, he mentioned how just a few weeks ago this little eight year old recognized him and said, hey, I know you, you’re the peacock.

Others would stop him and say, hey, I know you, you’re Joseph from the Amazing Technicolor Dream coat, Others would say, I loved your song “Puppy Love”.

Hey then told us that he wrote an autobiography but instead of an autobiography it was an “auto-rap-ography”. It was amazing and went from when he started show business at the age of five until today.

It was such a good show.

After the show we continued to check out the strip. 

The Bellagio has a room that is always decked out with flowers. It always has a theme from whatever the season is. The last time we were here it was Chinese New Year’s, and then Alycia posted about it a few weeks ago.

Well it was still Chinese New Year and it was still amazing. While we were checking it all out we realized that this is Lisa’s year. She is the year of the Rabbit.

From there we went to the volcanos. Those don’t go as often as the fountains but they are pretty spectacular.

Saturday morning we slept in, but mom doesn’t know how to sleep in so when I woke up at 8:30 she was sitting in the chair checking out her social media. We decided to go eat breakfast at the Mon Ami Gabi.

We had the perfect table right on the sidewalk and you felt just like you were on a street in Paris. We were right across the street from the fountains but they didn’t go off once in the whole time we were there.

After a wonderful breakfast we headed back to the hotel, checked out, and hitched a ride to the airport with an amazing Lyft driver. We enjoyed an uneventful ride home. Our uneventful trip home became rather eventful in the car park garage.

We have found the cheapest airport parking to be a groupon with the Laurel street parking garage but the downside is that they are obviously a dated garage and not really well staffed with the brightest employees. The upside is that I always buy a roof top parking spot because it is cheapest but more often than not when we show up they are full but rather than turn people away they valet park us. After the rush is over they will then move our car to a regular parking spot which has never yet been on the roof.

Yesterday when we arrived for our car they hand me my keys and says that my car is parked in 331. When I got to 331 it was not my car. I checked the entire third floor and couldn’t find my car. I go back down and the guy figured that maybe the first “3” was a “B” so we went looking in the basement. My car was not anywhere in the basement.

We then decide that he is going to drive me through all six floors of this parking garage while I look for my car. As we’re heading to his car he notices on my tag that there is a 240, 241 written on the back of the tag. We decide to take the elevator from the first floor to the second floor (the old man couldn’t handle one flight of stairs) and as we come out of the elevator there is my van. It was not parked in 240 or 241 but I was just glad to find my car.

It had been a long day so we stopped and had some nice kabobs for dinner and then headed home. It was almost dark by the time we got home but I still got most of my wiring finished in the back yard.