Vegas

As I mentioned before, Steve and I took our first Ruby-less trip to Las Vegas to celebrate Steve's 30th birthday. Steve's first time in Vegas was exactly 18 years earlier on his 12th birthday. He and his parents spent a few days in Vegas as part of a long road trip. The next time he was in Vegas was for his 21st birthday, just days after our first meeting (not counting the one when we were kids).

(Steve didn't take any pictures of himself during this trip, but in this one you can see his reflection in the window and the timestamp showing he had just turned 21.)

Ever since then, Steve has been an avid visitor of Las Vegas, making at least 2-3 trips per year. Our first trip together was in June of 2003, when I was still too young to drink, gamble, or loiter in the casino area.

We returned 6 months later, this time with my friend Andrea, but I was still the only person on the trip to be underage.

On our next trip together in December of 2004, I had finally turned 21, so Andrea had been replaced by this:

We went again in the summer of 2005 as a newly engaged couple.

About a year later, just before our wedding, we organized a trip to Vegas with all of my classmates.

After that, I decided I had had enough of Vegas for a while. Steve made another trip on his own, but we took a bit of a hiatus, and then we got pregnant. Therefore, this trip was our first time back in 5 years. Obviously the motivation for this trip was quite different than in years past. There was no clubbing, or excessive drinking, or staying out till dawn. We were just hoping to relax as much as possible. Our recent family vacation with Ruby, while fun, could definitely not be considered relaxing, and we really needed a vacation to recover from our vacation. Plus we had about 2 years worth of missed date nights and couples retreats to make up for, so we did our best to squeeze it all into 2 days.

To this end, our trip was probably over-indulgent especially in terms of fine dining. But this is one of things we missed the most since having a baby. Here are some of the highlights:

Grilled prime rib at Craftsteak

Side dishes at Craftsteak (all incredibly delicious, and I forgot to take a picture of our appetizers, roasted red pepper salad and lobster bisque, both amazing)

"Exotic fruit" crepe with coconut ice cream at Jean-Phillipe Patisserie

Tasting menu at Picasso: Maine lobster salad, seared day-boat scallop, sauteed steak of foie gras, roasted lamb chop, and I don't even know what to call the desserts, but they were insane

Spanish tortilla at Julian Serrano

Seafood paella at Julian Serrano

In addition to the gluttony, we also spent an afternoon at the spa in the Mandarin Oriental and got massages (so ridiculously nice). Needless to say, we had a great time on our first post-baby vacation. However, I still missed Ruby terribly, and there were times when I would have given anything to just give her a hug. Ruby, on the other hand, was surprisingly unphased by our absence. She had a great time with the grandparents, was on her best behavior, and my mom even said that she didn't feel tired or stressed in least chasing her around for 2 days.

Steve is very excited to introduce Ruby to Vegas one day. To prepare her, he is starting her gambling habit early.