I'm not REALLY here. Mama is OUT.

In recent therapy sessions my therapist has really pushed me taking a break from life and responsibilities, take some time to decompress and reflect on all that the last seven months has been. Think about what I need to do going forward to not let life get me down. I need to do a better job recognizing what my limits are now.

So, I'm in Vegas. 

Like right now, I am in Vegas. I flew out with my friend Tammy on Wednesday. It was a last minute decision, we found a great deal, she was able to get time off, and we were able to finagle kid care on my end and Matt told me to go. I think he has been pretty concerned about me and just didn't know what to do so when I tentatively asked him, thinking he'd say no, I was really surprised when he said absolutely- he'll handle the details on this end. 

I mean, I was really surprised. 

We don't have the money to toss into the wind like this but we've been really diligent with our Financial Peace University stuff, we got a decent tax return, and I wasn't going alone. I'm kind of scared to see how I'll do out of my daily routine I basically cling to, so far any major disruption has caused me to be confused (brain blinks), and I'm scared on what to do if I get sick. Or what if something happens? I'm kind of nervous, but at the same time, I refuse to be a hermit. I cannot live my life like that and I refuse. I want to be able to go out into the world like a normal person and not be worried something is going to happen. 

And I can't lie, part of me is worried that I'll have a break and enjoy it too much, maybe feel like not coming back. That scares me. Then I worry, what if I go and I come back home and I don't feel any happier? What if I end up resenting my life here? I'm in a scary damned if I do, damned if I don't position and I don't like it. Not at all. But I don't know what else to do.

I've been kind of quiet about my trip because the few people I have told about it have given me mixed reactions. It's basically a 50/50 split between the, "You deserve it- get out while you can!" and "What the hell is wrong with you? Could you be any more selfish?". No, I can't, and that's the problem. It's been my problem all along and I'm trying to do better. It has been drilled into me if I don't take care of myself, I can't take care of anyone else, and so I'm trying. I'm really trying to do everything I can to get better. 

So it's going to be quiet around these parts for a few days, but don't worry- next week I'm sure I'll have stories for you. Anything can happen with two non-drinking, non-partying, non-gambling moms in Vegas, right? 

Las Vegas.... Last Day

Our last day in Vegas was last Thursday and already the trip seems like it was forever ago. Our flight actually left on Friday, but our airport shuttle picked us up at 5:05 a.m., so Friday doesn't really count. So let's talk about Thursday. It was a pretty chill day overall since we were kind of exhausted.

We started our day off by going over to Mandalay Bay which was next to our hotel and I had wanted to see it. Mostly because from our helicopter ride their beach/pool area was by far the best on the strip. It has a lazy river and freaking wave pool. Come on.

 This was the entrance. Seriously- I need to stay here next time.

 Inside of Mandalay Bay they have the Shark Reef Aquarium which I wanted to go to because I'm a sucker for aquariums and ocean/underwater stuff. But I have to say- Mandalay Bay not only looks awesome on the outside, but the inside is amazing. It's at the end of the strip so it's quiet, but there are still people roaming around. It has everything all of the other hotels do but it is just so much quieter and more relaxing. Anyways.

The aquarium was fun.

 I thought the jelly fish kind of looked like sperm.

 Probably my favorite picture of us.

After Mandalay Bay we took the Monorail over to MGM because I wanted to go to the M&M store. On the way we met Michael Jackson. And his twin. Neither are dead but both smell of b.o. badly.

 After walking around and making our stop at the M&M store we headed back to our hotel to get ready for dinner and our free show (courtesy of timeshare people) which was the Criss Angel "Believe" show.

I freshened up. We decided we had an hour so I caught up on email, Matt watched some Billy the Exterminator and we were basically resting and hanging out. When all of a sudden....

(did you really think I'd get through an entire vacation without incident? Silly bitches.)

.... the door to our hotel room opens letting in two people with luggage who apparently have just checked into our room. Obviously, they were stunned the room was not empty and they just stood there. So Matt went over and explained to them that hey- this is our room but *shocker* they speak very little English. So Matt tries his door key, it no longer works. We call down to the desk who are completely confused and have no idea what to do. First they asked if we'd like to switch rooms which we said no to. Not only because it's completely a pain to pick up everything after we've been there for a week, but regardless, the room is dirty and those people paid for a clean room. So the desk figures out someone checked us out on WEDNESDAY (keep in mind, this is Thursday) but nobody knows how our keys still worked. <--Let that be something to think about when you check into a hotel. So they check us back in, get us new keys and those poor people had to wait an hour before a room was cleaned for them. Also keep in mind, it's about 5pm at this point.

So once it was obvious everything was figured out we went to dinner and the show. And I've got to be honest. Criss Angel's show was AWFUL. It was probably the worst thing I've ever seen? I've seen birthday party magicians, community plays with 5 year olds and nursing home sing a longs be more entertaining than the hour and half show we sat through. First off, our seats were in the way back and I didn't mind. But when you can see the stage people unhooking him from cables? That kind of sucks. If I can see it from row PP than by god I have to feel sorry for the people in the way front. Or the people who paid money for this show. It was really bad. It was basically 90 minutes of him talking, way too loud of music, and him pacing back and forth. Not to mention this is pegged as a family show- but he's not only swearing left and right, but there are obvious sexual innuendos and he made a rather lewd joke about his assistant sticking things up his ass. So basically- don't waste your time or money. He did *maybe* five or six tricks or illusions and they were all really bad. I mean, REALLY bad.

I also have to tell you about our hotel. I will start off by saying it was not the worst hotel I've ever been in but it certainly won't be a place I stay again. Our room was pretty clean for a hotel room but the first two days housekeeping never came. I'm pretty sure they only came Wednesday because they thought we checked out. Our towels stunk. And I mean they STUNK. When I called the desk to complain they told us it's because they recycle water. Which I knew Vegas did because every bathroom has a "we recycle water" sign so that's kind of gross when you think about your towel being washed with watered down urine. Anyways. And the hallways?

This lettuce and tomato plate was there when we got there on Monday afternoon and it was there when we left Friday morning. Not to mention room service carts full of left over food sitting in hallways for at least two days. I mean, it was pretty damn gross and you can just imagine what the smell walking down the hallway was like. And two of the elevators would just stop working while you were in them. I don't think we encountered anybody in the elevator who had not been stuck in it at least once. We only got stuck once and it was only for about 5 minutes, but still. Not fun.
**
So Friday we left to go home. It was a long week and we packed a lot into our week so I was ready to go home. I'm notorious for being red flagged at airlines so we make sure we are there at least two hours before because I hold everyone up. It's truly awful and I don't know what it is about me that screams "terrorist". But I thought I was doing well because I had no problems getting to Vegas and made it through the first area in Vegas with no problem. But when it came time to go through the scanners?

Yeah, they basically thought I had a fake I.D. The guy (who easily was in his 70's and had Coke bottle thick glasses) is looking at my I.D, at me, trying to scrape the I.D. to see if something comes off, he calls over a few other people, etc. This goes on for a good 15 minutes before he says, "Your hair is longer here." To which I reply, "Well, it's in a pony tail today, do you want me to take it out?" He says yes so I do. Voila- long hair again. Then he says, "You look too young to be 29" and I'm like, "Seriously- I can't help it I'm aging well." Meanwhile, Matt's laughing because he's waiting for me on the other side. They finally let me through but I went through the scanner and got a pat down. Oh well. That's the least invasive thing I've had so I was fine.

And then we came home. The flight was boring and long, and when I came home I totally took a nap. And proceeded to sleep ungodly amounts all weekend. It was glorious. :)

Domestic Bitch Saturday will be here tomorrow... watch out.

Vegas- Day Three

On our third day of vacation in Vegas we did something I've wanted to do for a very long time. And it was on my 30/30 list and I decided that come hell or high water, I was going on this trip. It was pretty much the splurge (OK- so the entire trip was a splurge, but this was a big splurge) of my trip and in the end, I only got to go because of a really good deal I found online a week before.

Bitches- we went to the GRAND CANYON.

In a bus.

It was as glorious as it could be.

The day started with getting picked up at our hotel in a shuttle bus at 6am. There was quite a bit of confusion about which bus we were supposed to be on because there were two different canyon tours and everyone figured out we must be going to a holding place first. In my eagerness, I almost got onto a bus before I realized that the entire thing was full of Chinese people and nobody (not even the driver) spoke English. I was fairly certain that was not my bus. And finally, our bus did come, only a half hour late.

Once we got to the tour place, they made us sit on this bus for (no kidding) an HOUR. Every other bus got to get off, and get onto the bus that was taking them to the canyon. Seriously, after an hour I was kind of cranky. So we get off, we get organized into which group goes where (we were doing the South Rim tour and the other people were doing the West Rim tour, which is more expensive but I think would be more fun, more on that in a bit), and you get "breakfast".

 Matt and I picked seats on the top (it was a double decker bus), near the back. We weren't the dead last row, but the one in front of it.

 This is my breakfast. The name looked Swedish, but the thing was awful. I'm marking this as my "eating internationally" thing on vacation. It was the closest I came.

From there, we drove like two, almost three hours to the Hoover Dam. Which was actually kind of awesome.

 And this is the new bridge they made for it for cars to go over since you can't drive over the Hoover Dam anymore because of terrorist prevention. The cool thing was that they said the concrete in this wouldn't fully cure for at least another 100 years. Kind of awesome.

 And these angel statues were pretty neat. The one on the left is for the first man who died while working on the Hoover Dam and the one on the right is for the last man who died working on the Hoover Dam. Coincidentally, it was a father and his son. Amazing?

 From there we drove another six hours to our first Grand Canyon stop point. We saw the Grand Canyon IMAX movie (kind of lame) and had "lunch". Lunch was included with our tour and honest to baby jeebus it was awful. First off, there are signs everywhere saying they have no running water because of a water main break. One of the workers said it had been that way for TWO WEEKS. No, I don't know if they mean the break, the lack of water, or both. But... gross. The bathrooms? I won't even talk about and you better be appreciative I don't have a picture for you.

So we get our food (Matt gets some faux Chinese food in a box under a warmer and I get a turkey and cheese sandwich) and get back onto the bus. By this point, we were running way late since we started way late so we had to eat and drive which was fine. Matt scarfed down his lunch and I took one bite and decided my gum had to do it because the sandwich was hard. The bread, the turkey and the cheese had all very clearly been hanging out together on that counter for quite some time. I'm going to say picking up food from a gas station would be better. Approximately 15-30 minutes after Matt finished his food, his intestines were clearly unhappy and it's probably good there was so much cold air blowing because everyone would have suffocated. I'm not even kidding.

But we finally got there. And it was worth it.

 Nothing can really prepare you for how incredibly massive the Grand Canyon is. You know it's huge but seeing it, and knowing you are seeing less than 1% of it? Is just amazing. And being a kind of Geology nerd I was in total nerd heaven.

 Another thing off my 30/30 list for sure.

We drove another half hour to the second (and last) Grand Canyon stop off point and that place was even more gorgeous.

 This lookout point had a pretty huge cliff that you could walk fairly far out onto, and so that's where I got this one. Look at those striations in the rocks!! How cool is that??

 After that stop we got back onto the bus for the long ass drive back. We stopped at a McDonald's for dinner (thank god- I was starving) and we encountered probably the stupidest and rudest McDonald's worker by far. First off, this place gets hit with a minimum of 10 buses daily, so this makes me assume that the staff here are pretty accustomed to working a large crowd in a short amount of time. I've worked fast food, I know getting a bus sucks, but you do it and you do it fast. Nope. They have two people working registers and our gal is kind of young. I'd say early 20's. For every single customer, after they ordered something, she'd say, "Are you sure? Because you should get something else." Just to be an asshole. Then the lady in front of us had to look at ingredient labels of EVERYTHING, but wouldn't move over so other people could order while she decides. Needless to say, we stood in line for 20 minutes, finally got our food only to *barely* get onto the bus and realized, that she rang us up wrong. I got the wrong meal all together and then half the stuff wasn't in our bag. Awesome.

It was a really long day. I got one picture of the sunset as we drove. OH! I can't believe I almost forgot the best parts! OK, so our neighbors on the bus? The four seats ahead of us (two on each side of the aisle) were gay boys from England. VERY gay boys going on an American tour of sorts, who spoke no English. Anyways. So they were going through their camera looking at photos (which I can clearly see because there is a huge gap in the two seats) and I see a TON of pictures of all four boys doing.... very sexual things. If I ever had questions about gay relations, those questions were answered.

The people behind us (two Chinese people and two people from Mumbai nobody speaks English well) were a trip, too. First off, the Chinese people made out almost the entire trip which completely offended the people from Mumbai. Only I think it did because the Mumbai people were an older married couple (I'd say mid 50's) and the guy was yelling at the Chinese couple (young 20's) and I kept hearing the word "Mumbai" which makes me think they were from Mumbai. It was entertaining for about an hour.

The people in our row on the other side of the aisle were nice, they were from South Carolina but have a vacation home in Lake Nebagamon, WI (which is like 30 minutes from me, if that) and they were lovely. But they (mid 40's, not married) yelled at each other. When they weren't, the guy snored and the lady read a romance novel and moaned a lot.

Not to mention? The Mumbai lady behind me? Well she was using the spring loaded foot rest and kept letting go of it. Not a big deal (aside from the annoying noise) except when she let go, it smacked the ass part of my seat. So for the ENTIRE trip, I was basically getting spanked by a foot rest. Not only that, but she chewed gum the entire time and was smacking it like a cow. AND? On the last leg of the trip she kept putting her feet in between my seat cushion and back cushion, completely fondling my ass with her foot. FINALLY, I had enough so I slammed my hand on her foot and she smacked the back of my seat like I was the asshole.

It was a long day.

I also should mention? This trip lasted an entire 16.5 hours. So.. put all of these people on a bus with me for 16.5 hours??

Miracles do happen.

Vegas - Day Two

Day two in Vegas was certainly more eventful. When I think about everything we did on that day alone I feel kind of tired. So let's break it down.

First up was the timeshare presentation we were told would only last 2-3 hours but really lasts six. They shuttle you to the place which they tell you is 5 minutes away but is really closer to 30. We get there and immediately get the feeling like we're really just in a bunch of cows working our way to a slaughterhouse. At least that's how I felt. We're given our personal representative, Sharon, who I notice limps along mostly at a shuffle and is wearing slippers. Like legit bedroom slippers. So that's odd.

The first thing you do is watch this presentation with a way too perky sales person pretty much saying how we need to own our vacation because we're going to die and you don't want to die at work. You maybe want to die on vacation and you CAN with your annual roll over points! I'm obviously snickering and barely controlling my laughter, Matt's whispering to me that I'm embarrassing him, which is hilarious since he's saying this as he eats his fourth or fifth pastry. Complimentary is not the same as buffet. FYI.

After a three hour presentation and having to share favorite vacation memories (which was difficult in a room with very few English speaking people, by the way), we were given a guided tour. Our tour guide was actually really nice and I feel fortunate that we had a disabled guide because we got the super abbreviated tour. After the tour (the place is gorgeous and I'm sure it'd be lovely) we're taken into a huge room with people "booking their deals". We sat through their offers and obviously we can't afford it if we're there mainly for food vouchers so we don't starve on our vacation, we're shuffled to sales person #2 and #3. Both of whom are pissed we can't buy a timeshare. So *finally* at almost hour five, we're taken to the "exit room" which is smaller and we have sales person #4 who basically is bitchzilla because I flat out told her to just give us our vouchers and we'll leave. She huffed and puffed... and let us go. We got our vouchers, got on the shuttle bus and ended up waiting on the damn bus for an HOUR for the rest of the suckers to come out.

After that stressful morning, I decided we were going to the pool.

 Matt liked the pool too.

 And despite being slathered in Coppertone SPF 50, the tops of my legs burned. Which was a super fun thing for Day Three.

 After frying poolside for three hours, we decided to shower, change, and go use one of our new food vouchers. Sadly, you couldn't use it at a buffet and they were only good for things inside of our hotel, so that left us with basically the Pyramid Cafe (doesn't it scream "classy"?) because everywhere else had weird foods I knew I wouldn't eat. And of course... I had to pee. And of course... I had my camera. And guess what? This bathroom didn't disappoint!

 After dinner (which was actually pretty good) we walked over to MGM so we could go to the Cirque du Soleil show we got free tickets for at the time we booked our trip. 

 This was the show we went and saw, and you can see a preview trailer for it HERE.

 You weren't allowed to take pictures in there, but you know I tried. Just for you.

This was the side theatre and it was like this on both sides. Basically (though you can't really tell) those are long corridors the cast members could walk on and they would launch into their acrobatics from there too. Overall that show was AMAZING. Like, beyond words. It was really that good. So good in fact, that I would totally pay to see it again. Between the stunts and the visuals of the entire show-- genius.

After the show we had to grab a taxi from MGM to some weirdo office inside of a garage facility. Sounds sketch, huh? Well we were hoping it was less sketch than our timeshare ordeal, because we were hoping to for real take a helicopter ride over the strip in the dark. Sounds awesome, right? That's because it was. The other weirdo thing was that we bought our tickets while on the plane to Vegas... and we got some really shady instructions on how to actually book your flight and everything. Once we got to the place we see that it is PACKED. Not only are Matt and I one of only five English speaking people, but we are also the whitest. I mean, the WHITEST people in there. The lady working the counter is Russian and she's screaming at me in Russian and honestly I have no idea what she was talking about even still.

After we check in and get weighed we have to join this group for a safety video. Which was absolutely not helpful because of the protocols they tell you are going to happen- none of them did. So... that was nice. After our video we get put into groups of 10 and get onto a shuttle bus.

 Our neighbors fell asleep immediately despite us only driving literally five minutes. They also snored.

Once we got to the tarmac area, they dump you off and you just wait. Which is kind of scary in hindsight because it's a poorly lit section of the tarmac, nobody anywhere near you and you're with a bunch of strangers. I don't know about you, but I felt kind of weird about it. Finally after about 30 minutes of waiting, it was our turn. Our group consisted of Matt and I, a lady next to me who kept rubbing my arm and leg, and two people from Mumbai in front, then the pilot.

 Officially crossing something else off my 30/30 list..

The ride itself was only 10-12 minutes and kind of scary. Mostly because it was pretty windy that night. I normally don't have a problem with heights or motion, but no lie, I kind of got quesy.

 But soon after we got a little more stable in the air, I got to see some really awesome things and seeing Las Vegas from above is pretty amazing.

After we landed in our helicopter, we got a shuttle back to Tropicana Hotel/Casino and we decided to just effing walk it across the way to our hotel. And the Tropicana definitely has a Florida-senior-citizen-rest-home feel to it and smelled weird.

By the time we got back to our room, it was almost midnight and we were effing exhausted. Which wouldn't be such a bad thing... but we had to be up at 5am the next day for our mega bus trip....

Coming tomorrow. ;)

Vegas- Day One

Bitches, I have all KINDS of fun stuff to post about from my Vegas trip so hang tight.

So our trip started last Monday. My inlaws took both of our kids for the entire week so that was nice. And we had a pretty laid back morning getting ready since we didn't have to be at the airport until 11am since our flight left at 1pm.

 I have to be honest- I'm kind of looking awesome. My blue sparkly eyeliner and eyeshadow are kind of amazing. I need to wear it more often or something. And Matt doesn't look drunk so YAY. The other awesome thing was that I was not flagged by airport security. This was the first time flying that I didn't get flagged right away, I wasn't molested, and my bags weren't searched. It seriously is such a regular thing we are always there at least two hours early knowing I'll get held up.

 Goodbye, Duluth!

 Hello, Vegas!

So once we got to the Vegas airport, we had to hustle to find the shuttle people to get to our hotel. Once we found the shuttle people we had to wait outside for 30 minutes or so until the next one came back since hello, we missed the first one by about 30 seconds. Awesome. Obviously everyone warned us that the heat would kill us, and when I saw that it was 107 degrees I was kind of worried. But it turns out I'm either much more tolerant to heat than I already knew or the majority of people are babies. Mostly because 107 degrees with no humidity is like 80 degrees with humidity back home.

Finally our shuttle got there, picked us up, and we were off to our hotel. We were staying at the Luxor and I was excited because I like Egypt and stuff, and this was a pyramid. Little did I know that staying in the pyramid versus the towers is like comparing Motel 6 to the Hilton. I mean, the pyramid is straight ghetto. But we'll get to that.

 Our view from our window was a direct look at Mandalay Bay, which we didn't explore until the last day. Which was probably good because it made our hotel look like a complete dump. AND their pool was so much nicer.

 This is the view from our balcony. This is inside of the pyramid part so that slanted wall is the pyramid side. It's actually pretty cool inside and this hotel has the LAX nightclub and Liquidity bar which were both cool. We only went into LAX for a minute but realized we were much too old to be in there, and I was freezing inside of Liquidity.

So we decided on our first night we'd walk the strip. Now, I have a TON of pictures from my trip overall, so I won't post everything. I'll post them on my Facebook page instead. But can I tell you how excited I was to see showgirls?? Because I was. And I secretly wanted a hat. AND I was happy that my boobs were bigger.

 And I knew I wanted to eat at Margaritaville. One, I'm a Jimmy Buffett fan. Two, when we went on our honeymoon to Madeira Beach, Florida all we heard the entire week was Jimmy Buffett, which was fine because again, I'm a fan. So this being our first real week long vacation without kids since then, I thought it'd be a fun way to kick off the week. And oh my, was it.

 And me being a non drinker had to throw caution to the wind and get myself a strawberry margarita. And oh-my-fucking-god was it loaded with tequila. So much so that I couldn't taste the Coke I got a side drink. I mean, not at all. And I'm not ashamed to say I got a wee bit tipsy. And I also realized I don't drink tequila because tequila makes me feel like I have pokey things all over. Weird? Yes. I'm also sad our waitress was dumb and brought me a stupid glass (that you keep) over the 48 ounce blender cup. I WANT A BLENDER CUP. But, whatever. The food was really good, the atmosphere was awesome, and the strawberry mixer they use is heavenly. Like kool aid. YUM.

They also have a mini show every hour with a very pretty woman. She shimmies all over the place, does stripper moves on a fish hook instead of pole and slides down into the Booze In The Blender tank. It was great. So after that we hit up the strip some more. Basically, we walked the entire strip on Monday night and anybody who says you can't do it is a filthy liar. :)

 I don't even know where we are here...

OH! I saw a midget Elvis! I did. You know I had to get a picture. One thing I love maybe more than goats and various farm animals are midgets. And midgets dressed as Elvis? Bitch please. Except this one was kind of drunk and said he was having a bad night so I couldn't get a picture with him.

 And then we saw Spiderman just randomly walking. Which was fun because on Thursday we saw a super overweight Spiderman who was less camera friendly.

 And I'll tell you now we never did see the fountains of Bellagio, but I did see the volcano at the Mirage.

 And I'm not 100% certain where I was, but this is the ceiling of a hotel lobby. It was Bellagio or one near it... I think. I can't remember. But basically throughout the entire hotel they had umbrellas hung from the ceiling, but then when you got to the lobby, you saw this. It was pretty amazing.

 And we basically spent our entire Monday walking the strip.

Things we learned on our first night:
- You need a hell of a lot of cash to do much in Vegas. We had maybe a total of $500 for two people- not nearly enough hookers. Food is expensive (our tab for dinner with only one drink was $60 + tip and no appetizer). Cabs are expensive, so we didn't take any except for one time on Tuesday (more on that later), the bus is kind of expensive for what you'd be using it for, and if you want to buy something? Yeah, you need more.
- Because of this you might make the really sad realization you either need to win big on a machine, become a prostitute, or go to a timeshare presentation to get yourself some damn food vouchers.
- Which leads to you going to bed around midnight Vegas time (2am home time) only to get your ass by the shuttle bus pick up doors at 6am for said timeshare presentation.

Which brings you to Tuesday. Tomorrow. ;)