Vegas Visit

I've been out of the blogging loop lately. A few big things to catch up on. First, a couple weeks ago we went for a quick trip to Las Vegas. Drew and I flew on Thursday and Bill joined us on Friday. As soon as Bill and I found out U2 was playing in Vegas on a Friday night, we were in! We hadn't seen them since 2001 and that concert still stands as the best I've ever seen. It worked out that some girlfriends of mine from Sierra Vista were going for a girls' trip the same weekend and my parents graciously agreed to take care of Drew while I hung out with my friends. The grandparents, Drew and Bill had a great weekend and Bill was able to help my dad get his new office furniture set up.

Bill and I enjoyed a delicious dinner at P.F. Chang's before the concert and then sat in traffic for a LONG time on the way to the stadium. The concert was supposed to start at 7, but as we were walking into the stadium at 7:30 we heard the Black Eyed Peas (the opening act) come on with the first song. We ended up being glad we didn't miss any of their songs because they put on a really good show.

Here's a picture of the stage--it was huge and the lighting and other special effects were really incredible! Unfortunately the photos of all that amazing stuff didn't turn out the best.


Here's Bono on the big screen. I had to take pictures of the big screen because we were in the second to last row of the stadium. We may not have been able to see the band that well, but we could hear them just fine. And I've said it before and I'll say it again. I could listen to Bono sing all day every day.


Here's a short video of Bono and The Edge singing the end of "Stuck in a Moment You Can't Get Out Of." My favorite duet of theirs.

And, for any other U2 fanatics, a longer video of the whole song "One." My favorite song ever.


Saturday night I went to the "O" Cirque de Soleil show with my girlfriends. O is a water themed show and it was just fantastic. Synchronized swimmers, acrobatics, just amazement everywhere your eyes turn. This is us outside the Bellagio after the show.


Sunday afternoon we borrowed my parents' friends' golf cart and took a short drive over to the club house pond to visit the ducks.

Here's Drew and Dad throwing bread to the ducks.


Drew & Dad again

Mommy & Drew in the golf cart

Drew pretending to drive on Dad's lap

Drew and Grandma in the backyard

Drew and Grandpa at the dinner table

We're looking forward to our return visit in December. Halloween pics coming soon!

Merry Christmas & Happy New Year to Me!

On December 30th, when Bill and I were hanging out on the Strip with my siblings, Bill saw a flyer that said David Cook (last season's American Idol winner in case any of you are unfamiliar) was playing that night at the Jet nightclub in the Mirage. Since we had to go over to the Mirage anyway to pick up our tickets for the Beatles Cirque de Soleil show (and since I'm a huge DC fan) we thought we'd check out the nightclub and see what time it was at, how much the tickets were, etc.

We were informed that David was recording two songs for the Fox New Year's Eve show and that tickets were $30. But, they gave us complimentary passes that they said should get us in free as long as we were in line early. We were also informed that the doors for the nightclub didn't open until 10:30 and they didn't know when David would come on.

I was all for it. I happened to be in Phoenix for work the night that the American Idol concert tour kicked off and am still kicking myself for being that close and not going. I thought it might take some convincing for Bill to willingly attend (though he should have thought of that before he pointed it out to me). Bill didn't mind my obsession with DC when he was on Idol. I actually think he thought it was fairly amusing. And he never tires of pretending not to remember which David the one I like is...Cook or Archuleta. I do think he may have thought I was losing it the night I rewound David's "First Time Ever I Saw Your Face" performance at least 4 times. Anyhow, he seemed to be willing to take one for the team because he knew how happy it would make me.

That night, we arrived at the Mirage shortly after 9 and took our place in line outside the nightclub behind about 20 people. We waited and waited, with several fans that were far more crazy than I. Finally at 10:30 the doors opened and we did indeed get in for free. When we got in the club we heard that David would not be coming on till 12:30. We found a good place to stand above the VIP tables right to the side of the stage, and there we stood for 2 hours, watching the craziness around us. It took Bill and I about 10 minutes to realize that our nightclub days are far far behind us now, but it was entertaining to watch all the barely dressed drunk people dance for 2 hours.

When David finally did come out at 12:30, he did not disappoint. In my opinion, he sounds nearly as good live as he does on his CD. He sang only the two songs he was recording for the Fox show, but he sang them each twice, with a 15 minute break in between. He is just a born performer. He has a way of looking in a general direction and making it seem as if he is singing directly to you. Anyway, I thoroughly enjoyed every second of it, even if I probably owe Bill for all of 2009 for coming with me.

Since most of you probably aren't as crazy as I am, I'll only post a couple of my favorites of the couple dozen pictures I took.

(And Julie, though I wasn't going for artistic on the first one, the lighting techs helped me out and I think it looks awesome!)

And two videos if you're interested. First is part of the song that didn't get played on the Fox New Year's Eve show: Declaration.

Second is part of his current hit single that was on the Fox NYE show: Light On.