Viva Las Vegas!

We went to Vegas on Boxing Day to celebrate Hayleys birthday. For some reason we thought it was going to be warm there and were a bit gutted to find its as cold as Vancouver in winter, bugger, but the sun shone for 3 days so it wasn't all bad.

Vegas is all about big is better and copying other people ideas. Paris Paris is a fine example of this... Here is the Eiffel Tower...

And here is the inside of one of the restaurants in Paris Paris! Its exactly how you imagine Paris to be - its hilarious! This is where we had a Vegas style buffet - they are massive!
This is one of the Christmas decorations in the Bellagio... It was pretty cool, all covered in tiny mirrors. I took this photo while I was waiting for Jesse to get off the phone - little did I know that he was on the phone to Dad asking his permission to propose!!

One of the many buildings of Caesars Palace
Outside The Mirage
Treasure Island's Pirate Ship
Mirage again

Outside the Forum at Caesars... mmm Chanel, Dior, Versace... one day...
One of the fountains at Caesars.
More Caesars extremes
This is the walkway at The Venetian... Beautiful... Unfortunately we didn't get to see much of it or go for a gondola ride in there (yes seriously!) because we were running late cause of some last minute shopping (little did I know it was cause Jesse was buying diamonds...!)

The Venetian's roof
Over looking the pool onto the Strip
My Model in a window

The craziest thing about Vegas is that you go to some of these hotels and you could actually think you were in the place its named after.... Madness really but soo cool!

Viva Las Vegas by night.

Vegas by night is quite a different place... It so much more vibrant at night and you could happily just cruise around taking it all it.

This post is a bunch of random night shots.

This is one of the many fountains outside the Wynn which is a 3000 room resort!

Our hotel is home to the 'Crazy Girls' Show - nice. Here is Hayley and Jesse seeing if they have what it takes with the classy statue out the front of the hotel.
New York - Vegas style.
Stratosphere hotel. This one has full on rides at the top of the tower... Scary!
Bunch of tourists!
Vegas version of the Eiffel Tower.
Our classy hotel.
The Strip.
New York again.
Statue of Liberty - Vegas style.

The Canyon is indeed Grand!

When in Vegas it would be wrong not to go to the Grand Canyon so being the tourists we are we booked a trip...

If we'd known it ws going to be this beautiful we might not have sooked so much about getting up at 5.30am to go on our Grand Canyon helicopter flight!

We thought that if you're going to do the trip you might as well do it in style... Here we are in the limo that picked us up to take us to the airport!

Sonya striking a pose by our chopper.

Classy headphones! We had this funky as music playing for our trip. While we were waiting to go we were listening to the Austin Powers theme (pretty pimp for 6am) followed by the Top Gun theme while we were taking off - hilarious!

The view of Vegas - ya can't miss Trump Towers!

If you haven't been to Vegas and can't believe the stories of how big it all is then check this out - this photo was taken 20mins away from Vegas by chopper! Its just a big blot in a desert...

And here is the Hoover Dam on Lake Mead. This is a man made lake that they then dammed. It might look familiar cause its featured in loads of movies, Fools Rush In is the only one I can think of right now...

The Grand Canyon!

You may or not heard about the controversary surrounding the Skywalk over the Canyon. Well here is what all the fuss is about - that tiny thing in the middle is the Skywalk built by the Native people for tourism purposes. Its a big glass horseshoe shaped thing that hangs over the edge of the Canyon.

Actually standing in the Canyon!

This is where we stopped for a champagne breakfat.

It just keeps on going...

Early morning in the Canyon, god it was cold!

The Crew freezing in the Canyon - taken by a crazy Japanese dude! It was voted best photo of our trip!

O

We got all frocked up to go see 'O' by Cirque de Soliel at the Bellagio. It was absolutely phenomenal! For anyone who hasnt been to see Cirque you really should - the things they do and the presentation is really quite magical. 'O' is a water based showed that is performed over a 25 foot deep pool which is why we chose to go cause it problem won't travel the world cause of the logisitics of the pool.

Unfortunately no actual show photos but these are some we took on the night.

Sculpture in the foyer of the show.
Penguins from the Christmas Display at the Bellagio.

The Bellagio

Everything is huge in Vegas - this 4x4 was bigger than Jesse!
Now for those of you who have seen Oceans 12 this is the fountain that they stand by at the end of the movie. This fountain is awesome!! It goes every 15 minutes, is different every time and is choreographed to music - I could've watched it all night long! Click play to watch it.

PS - I won $500 on the pokies at the Bellagio - sweet!

White Christmas

We had an ex-pat christmas at our place with Emma and Gareth, Natalie (kiwi), Kristian and Gill (Pommy) and Erin (Aussie). Had a great day with much excitement when it started to snow! All week at work everyone told me I was dreaming and that Vancouver hadn't had snow on Christmas day for years! But what do you know - it snowed! Not a lot but enough to make our day extra cool.

Heres Natalie giving Kristian some advice on turkey carving.
E and G bought this awesome pavlova - so kiwi and so good!

After many bottles of Oyster Bay we thought it was time to capture the day. Then as people started to fade thanks to all the wine we decided it was time to wake up!

So we did a bare foot run in the snow!! That sure woke us up!

The boys...

One very pissed Mr Burgess holding centre couch at about 2am! God him and Gareth can talk shit for hours!

We had a great day, not the same without family but still a good time enjoying our second Christmas together.