What Happens in Vegas... goes on this blog.

I have done a bit of traveling lately and the weekend during Blake's visit, we were going up to Vegas for his little brother's 21st birthday. Vegas is not usually a place that I am very fond of. I do not like crowded places, loud music for a long period of time, paying too much for anything, or inhaling large amounts of second hand smoke. Too bad that is pretty much the life blood that keeps good ole Vegas' devil heart pumpin'.

Regardless I was excited to celebrate Ryan's birthday and experience Vegas with Blake. The first night we ran across the strip to Surrender at Encore for a Lil Jon & Skrillex concert. The venue was around the pool and the place was packed. Naturally filled with too many people and blasting loud music but I was handling it okay. That was until the 5 hours of being in my 5 inch heels started to kick in, and then it was quittin' time. Lil Jon came on first and announced that he had been drinking all day and had no idea what he was going to play for us. The whole time he was up there there was a guy in like a Lil Jon mascot face and I know at the end of the show they put the real Lil Jon in there so he could make a clean getaway. I just know that's how they did it.

After the concert all I could say the whole trip was "My... Name.. Is... SKRILLEX" (Click on the link to hear the song) Just could not stop.

Then the next night we were supposed to either be hooked up at the Marquee in the Cosmopolitan or just wingin' it. We ended up stumbling upon the Chateaux at Paris where Akon was playing. That place was beyond crowded but we showed up just in time for Akon to start walking through the crowd to leave and guess who got a picture with him. ME.

Okay, okay. I know you can't really tell its him, but I would never lie about meeting Akon. Also I was talking to him for all of 3.5 seconds and I told him he looked great (apparently that is what I tell celebrities because I also said that to Craig Robinson when I met him earlier in the night)  And he and Akon both said "You too, baby." Both of them!

I case you don't anything about my favorite show, Craig Robinson plays Darryl Philbin on The Office. I was so mad I did not ask him if he becomes Regional Manager or not. I bet he would have told me. Probably.

We went to Bond at the Cosmo later that night and that little bar was pretty cool. Anything and everything at that hotel is cool. We also checked out Shadow Bar at Caesar's Palace, now that place is crazy.

I also got a picture with Nicole whoever, the lead singer of the Pussycat Dolls. She wasn't as impressive.

Well I guess she was really unimpressive because I must have deleted the picture I actually got with her. Or its on Blake's phone. Either way, unimpressive.



We went on the New York, New York roller coaster this trip which I was not able to do one of the times I was in Vegas before for a gymnastics meet. Nor was I allowed to go on any of the rides at Circus Circus, and this was how I felt about that:

Not. Happy.

We stayed at Bally's which was a prime location and the view out of our window was the Eiffel Tower from the Paris Hotel. One the second night after   Chateaux we were headed back to our room when I noticed one of the doors in the hallway propped open with music and voices coming from it. So me and my bold self decided to knock and then proceed to open the door to see what all the scuttlebutt was about. Turns out these guys had this party going on in their humungous suite (with full up bar) right down the hall from us and I quickly made friends. They invited us in and the party continued where we met some girls from Malibu. The next day at the pool, these girls recognized me (the notary, however, was not necessarily mutual) and they were our new tagalongs for the rest of the trip. Well Ryan made some fast friends.

The girls supposedly set up a reservation for us to eat at Tao but when we get to the Venetian and then to Tao it turned out the reservation was just NEAR Tao. Just near it. At this Cheesecake Factory type place called the Grand Luxe. The food was good but we had our group of five, these five girls, and then these random Asian guys that the girls had met earlier. Our server brings one check for the 15 of us and we are just about to start divvying everything up when one of the Asian guys plucks the check off the table and sticks his credit card in. $400 tab at least. Ballin'.

Later that night we met up with one of Blake's friends who lives in Vegas who knows all the bartenders and bouncers around so we get free drinks all night at V Bar. The Tropicana was the next stop (I'm thinking 'oh great, really?') so we hop in a cab and the girl says we are going to have to take the freeway. Well these guys are telling her 'no way' and tell her she has to make a u-turn or they won't pay her a dime. Meanwhile I am scared out of my mind in the back seat as the girl flips the u-turn on two wheels practically and radios for the police to meet them at the Tropicana. Perfect.

She drives like a maniac the whole way there, I am trying to tell the guys to shut up but they live there so what do I know, and the guys keep going on and on about her ripping them off, and I want to die.

We finally skid into the drop off at the hotel with no cops waiting for us so I sprint to get inside and away from all the nonsense while one of the guys from my group (who isn't totally rude/crazy out of his mind) tries to pay her with a good tip because he felt so bad but she wouldn't take any of it. Nightmare.

But the Tropicana was so nice. They had done some serious remodeling and the club there would have been awesome had there been more that 20 people there. The club had windows out to the pool that had also been remodeled and had teepees for cabanas. Teepees! But we ha more free drinks and I was sick of people anyway so I was good to go. Also we closed down the place so Blake got the DJ to place Tipsy for me. It just felt like a good one to end the night on.

Then everyone left one by one the next morning and Ryan and I were so Vegased out that we headed to the airport 3 hours early. We were hurtin'. Also I saw Ice T and Coco at the airport. I should be a celebrity blogger like Perez Hilton at this point.

Boom. VEGASED.

Full of Surprises.

This past year has been a complete 180 from where I thought I might be at this point. Everything has changed for the better in every way, I have completed my Master's, I have a full time job that fell into my lap, I have the opportunity to save up my money before leaving my wonderful roommate to live on my own, I am continuing to live near my friends, and best of all I have dated my boyfriend Blake for almost an entire year now.

From this:

To this:

A whole year of going back and forth from Oregon to Arizona to Colorado and soon to Vegas. A lot of traveling to keep up this long distance relationship but it has been one of the most exciting years of my short little life. A lot of surprises that I never saw coming. 

Blake and I have actually known each other since the summer of July 2004. Our families were both new to Utah and we were expected to be neighbors. I met him out at the pool and thought he was the cutest guy I'd ever seen. We became really close friends and had feelings for each other that we couldn't place. Or at least I couldn't and wasn't necessarily ready for. I didn't want to lose his friendship if something went wrong and things usually went wrong with my relationships ( if you could even call them that). 

Here is when he came to my highschool Christmas Formal:

Eventually my family moved to Arizona and I began college. We tried to keep in touch but it was hard, especially when we had our own lives going on. After I graduated and my parents moved to Alaska, I was staying up there for the summer and Blake and I reconnected. We would Skype all the time and I started to realize that I wanted to be more than just his 'best friend'. We had decided that when he and his father were going to be in Arizona for a fraternity conference, that they should come down for the night so we could see each other. 

That night changed our friendship into something more when Blake told me he wanted to be with me and had wanted to for a long time. When I told him that I felt the same way there was a new issue to deal with, the distance. We decide to be in a hypothetical relationship because it would be too hard to maintain anything across the country. But when he came down for a week in August, things were finally made official on the 30th. The reality of the situation was starting to set in but became increasingly worse through this past year through trying to see each other as much as possible.

As hard as the distance is, though, I believe it will only makes us better in the end. I lost some of my independency in college and the distance was helping me to learn to stand on my own two feet, even when I have someone to carry me sometimes. It has been a crazy year but I don't think I could have done it with anyone else. 

That's pretty much the story of how we met and why we are together now (maybe plus or minus a few details...). BUT its pretty close :)

The distance is obviously hard day-to-day but even more so when special occasions such as birthdays and holidays are missed. This year my birthday was on a Tuesday this ast month and since I had already started working full time and Blake was in summer school, I knew having him come visit just wasn't going to work out. This summer has been the longest time we were going to go without seeing each other, a whole 3 months.

Well my birthday comes and goes and I never got so much as a card from Blake, so of course I'm thinking "whadaheck"? Well he insists that there is a package in the mail that should have been there by now so he is sorry it didn't make it in time. Okay, I can wait for it. He also said that since our weeks were so busy we should set up a time to have a Skype date for a couple hours where we have enough to time to maybe eat dinner together (oh yeah, this is what our lives in long distance have come to) and maybe watch a movie. So that was decided to happen after I got home for work on Friday.

The work day was long and miserable and when I walk in the door I am hustling around because I don't want him to be waiting around for me. When I walk past the kitchen, the roommate yells "Your package is here!" So I am excited but still trying to hurry. I walk out of my room and into the living room to see Coco going nuts and she scratches my leg, this is what happened next:

Biggest surprise of my life. I had no idea, none whatsoever. Also I sound like the biggest whiner when I am yelling at the poor dog who is only freaking out because of the strange man in her house.

Isn't my boyfriend just the best in the whole world? The funniest thing was that even though Blake was standing right in front of me, I was still feeling like I needed to rush to get onto the computer for our date!

Total shock. Best weekend ever.

Boom. Posted.