Fabulous Las Vegas. We spent a week in the area and did our best to experience everything we could.

On our very first afternoon in the area we drove down The Strip and on the first big billboard I see…Elvis. Oh Lordy. Littlest and I are huge Elvis fans thanks to my mom. I grew up with Elvis music in the house and have passed that on to Littlest. I’m listening to his smooth, crooning voice as I write this post.

Elvis seems to be everywhere in Vegas. If he slept there, ate there, or graced an establishment with his presence at all, it’s advertised for all to see.

We spent one afternoon walking around The Strip and that was enough. We didn’t get to see everything, but I’m not sure I could talk anyone into going back with me. It’s not really our scene…too many people, too much noise, too…adult for kids. The boys learned not to reach out and take anything someone is trying to hand you. That’s a big nope in some places.

We parked at The Cosmopolitan. Yea for free parking! Even the parking garages in Vegas are decorated. You can see just one of the many murals that can be found in the parking garage in the photo above. We had to walk all the way through the casino to get to The Strip.  Once we found our way through, we went to the Bellagio to catch the first fountain show of the day.

The Bellagio Fountains were really neat. We took in the show then headed to The Buffet at Aria.

We got lost a few times trying to find it…the casinos are more like miniature cities, but we finally found it.

We did a ridiculous amount of research before picking a buffet. We finally settled on the one at Aria. It had good reviews and wasn’t the most expensive thing on The Strip. Everything I had was really good, there was a nice selection, but not as much as what I thought there would be. We all ate way too much, then headed back out to explore.

We eventually found our way out of Aria. We ended up seeing the inside of a few different casinos, and I do believe I like Aria the best. And not just because it had huge cakes on display…although, that was a definite plus.

The Aria felt more family friendly. Not to the point you thought you were at a kids place, but it had a nice balance of elegance mixed with some whimsical touches like the butterfly hot-air balloon in the picture.

We walked quite a bit of The Strip and I was the quintessential tourist the whole time with my camera in front of my face more often than not. I won’t put all of the photos up, but I’ll share with you our favorites. We loved the fun outside of the M&M World store.

Inside there was a really great mural that showed the progression of the M&M characters through the years.

They sure have changed.

The store has four floors. We never made it past the second floor where the wall of M&Ms is found. What you see in the picture above isn’t even half of the wall. I got a sugar rush from just standing there looking at them. Littlest wanted to buy an M&M dispenser, but we couldn’t figure out where we would put it in the RV. We have one more day in this area…if we can figure something out, we might try to talk Jerl into going back.

We got to see the big bronze MGM Lion. Did you know he weighs 100,000 pounds? That is one big kitty!

The boys liked Excalibur with its castle spires and turrets.

New York, New York was really neat with its skyline and roller-coaster.

As the afternoon turned into evening the street acts came out. Littlest and I could have spent hours listening to all the musicians.

We ran into Darth Vader. He was nice enough to pose for a picture or two. There were a ton of characters out and about.

We stayed to see the lights. They were magical.

We stopped back by the Bellagio Fountains for one more show on our way back to our car.

The Cosmopolitan was glitzier and more glamorous. It was all lit up as we walked back through to our parking garage.

Las Vegas was definitely a different kind of experience for us. The boys had never really been in a city like it. Vegas was one of those destinations I was looking forward to, but at the same time not looking forward to. It might have been less stressful without the boys in tow. We couldn’t really even go into souvenir shops without some highly inappropriate sights.

I think Vegas was probably a one and done type of thing for us.

See y’all down the road!