I came to Phoenix the end of March over Easter holiday. We decided we were going to make a side trip to Las Vegas during this time since neither myself or Tim had ever been. We invited Tim's father Howard and his girlfriend Barb to go along with us. Instead of flying from Phoenix to Las Vegas we decided to drive the 5 hours. I'm so glad we did it is a very beautiful drive and we finally got to see our first Joshua Tree since we had been in the area. Definitely not what I expected a Joshua Tree to look like. We made it to Vegas in a little over 5 hours and stayed at Sams Town Hotel which was about 10 minutes off the strip. If you are looking for a hotel to stay at and don't want to be directly on the strip I highly recommend this hotel. It was very family oriented with a bowling alley as well as a movie theatre right in the hotel. Much more family friendly I believe then staying directly on the strip.
The following day we decided to make our way down to the stip to look around. We went to a couple of the hotels and finally met up with some of our family. Sharon our Sister In Law, our Nephew David along with his girlfriend Martyna and our Niece Alex. It had been several years since we had seen Sharon and David so it was so good to meet up with them and catch up.
That night we went to see the Cirque du Soleil at the Bellagio hotel. While we were waiting Tim and I won almost $400 in 30 minutes playing blackjack which was the most we had won during our time in Vegas. We saw the O cirque show and it was an OK show. I wouldn't go see it again, and I definitely wouldn't pay what we paid again to see it. The highlight of the night for me was watching the Bellagio fountain show. It was such a beautiful thing to watch.
The next night Tim found a German restaurant called Hofbräuhaus to eat at where if you asked for a shot they would bring over a large wooden paddle and the waitress would spank you. They also had a German band that played. It was a very festive restaurant with very good food.