Pumpkin Pie Flavored Coffee: Vay-Gus! (Also known as Las Vegas. But that's Boring.)

we just got back from our vacanymoonaversary with my bestie and her hubby in vegas. (we went to vegas for our honeymoon, which was months after sky and i got married, so we called it a vacanymoon = vacation + honeymoon. this time was also an anniversary...) they drove from their neck of the country and we drove from so-cal and met in vegas! it was incredible. i failed to get photos of our fabulous hotel (which was actually in henderson, about 15 minutes away from the strip). we stayed at the homewood suites and had a two king bedroom, two bathroom suite with a shared mini kitchen and living area. the cleaning service still came and made our beds, washed our dishes and put them away - they even folded our dish towels all fancy!

all in all, we had a killer time. jo and i went shopping for some much needed girl time (we bought things like soaps and shampoo bars) while the boys went to the pinball museum and gambled a little. (after lunch at serendipity 3 which was delicious, but i failed to take a picture of that too...) we played tons of board games with the other couple and ate lots of good food (and loads of snacks we all brought!)

jo and zachy's anniversary is only two days after skyler's and mine, so since we traveled on our anniversary, we planned a fancy dinner and show on their anniversary for us all to celebrate. first the boys killed a little time with some roulette while jo and i took it easy for a little bit in the palazzo. here's jo having a snack at the coffee shop

doesn't she look adorable? she bought me a delicious iced chai tea - it was milky, spicy, and not too sweet. i've recently discovered that i have a little bit of a problem drinking milk (cheese, yogurt, heavy cream, etc all seem to be okay), and this drink was huge, so i probably should've taken it easy. i didn't though, because it was so delicious and refreshing!

i didn't regret it a bit!

after checking out the seasonal decor in the palazzo, we headed up to Emril's Table 10 for our fancy dinner. it was incredible! they started us with a little amuse bouche for our anniversarys. it was a little skewer of icy cold fresh tomatoes, mozzarella cheese, baby basil, olive oil, and balsamic. jo is picky and didn't eat hers, so zachy lucked out with double! it was lovely, fresh, and so good.

skyler and i shared a sweet potato soup to start which was sprinkled with spicy candied maple bacon. i thought the soup would be rather sweet, but it was thick, rich, savory, and so creamy. i'm very glad we only shared one, since it was so rich! i forgot to get a picture of the soup, but i did get this shot of the empty bowl as i was considering licking it clean.

for our main courses, skyler chose the special, which was beef filets with fingerling potatoes, green beans, and cognac-mushroom sauce. it was spectacular, and probably the best dish of the night. i chose the sea bass, which was ultra crispy and meltingly tender. it was served with broccolini, mussels, andouille sausage, and yukon potato puree.

jo ordered truffle mac and cheese with her dinner and it was too pretty to not photograph.

after dinner, we went over the the mgm grand to see Ka, which sky and i had seen before, but it was the other couple's first ever cirque show. it was every bit as good the second time as the first time! we hung around the hotel for a little bit before the show started and i munched on some jelly beans. one of which fell in my coke!

our fancy date was on our last night in town, but since we didn't have to leave super early, we had lunch together the next day at Margaritaville, which is always so fun. jo and zachy hadn't been there either, and we got to share the famous volcano nachos.

they are so good! i also got a cuban sandwich and fries on a gluten free bun, but should've stuck with eating our nachos as my appetizer and entree. they are incredible, but the sandwich wasn't worth writing home about. plus, i was pretty full from the nachos!

jo and zachy left right after lunch, since they had a little further to drive.

blurry but happy!

after we ate, sky took me over to the coca-cola store on our way out of town. i love coke, it's like a comfort food for me. it's not the healthiest vise, but there are much worse! we did a coke tasting from around the world, where they gave us little cups of 16 of their top non-coke drinks from around the world for $7.

it was a lot of fun! they were all so different. most were way too sweet, even for soda. some tasted like jolly ranchers or sprite. however, there was one that was one of the worst things i've ever put in my mouth. i won't say which one, so you can be surprised, but it was flavored with tonic water and black licorice. you've been warned.

then my sweet man got me a pink souvenir cup with coke for the drive home!

we saw a dog in a sidecar on the way out of town, which cracked us up.

car snacks: lots of peppermints and turkey/cheese crackers!

jo and zachy also got us hooked on puffcorn, which we happened across in a gas station. way addictive!

when we finally got home (i got us a little lost and detoured), i made some super fast chicken enchilada soup because i had been craving it for days. it's super fast and easy (recipe coming next time i make it! i was beat when i made this batch!) and totally hit the spot.

sky picked up a chipotle burrito on the way home, which he had been craving for days, and grabbed a couple of soft corn tortillas for me to have with my soup. what a guy!

anytime i'm around jo, i crave shortbread. it's her favorite. so this morning after i took appa to his appointment for grooming, i ran down to the store and got some shortbread cookie mix (i like Bob's Red Mill - they're gluten free shortbread mix is the best i've ever had, gf or not!) and a package of premade.

i don't recommend them. they were dry and tasted gluten free. they didn't have that delicious salty sweet thing that good shortbread cookies do. they tasted sort of like a dry and bland sugar cookie.

so i have this blanket. it's blue. i've had it since i was about fourteen. that's a decade. it's twin sized and has traveled all over with me. it's also falling apart. as in, it's so threadbare around the edges that i've got more than one piece of duct tape holding what's left of the stuffing in. jo happens to be very crafty. she took it to make something new out of it for me (i cried) along with a bunch of old tee shirts and sweaters to make a quilt for us. the problem (aside from the grown woman weeping over a blankie) is that i no longer had a blanket that felt right. i'm very particular about texture! skyler helped me find this quilt on the way home and it's just right. plus, it's very orange and so pretty!