Randomness and a black eye

While I'm working on Vegas post 2, I thought I'd post some random pictures of the last few months.

Abby went through a little phase where she would create what she calls a "book chair." I think it might be self-explanatory.

Charlie came over for a visit a few weeks ago, and we watched the Celtics game.

Several weeks ago while I was working, Abby was playing outside and thought she'd go after a Rapunzel bike a neighborhood girl was riding. It didn't end well. She took the handlebar in the eye!
She got a black eye and some scratches. It really blossomed over the days afterward and deepened in color, but these were taken the night of the accident and the following day.

 

Poor girl. There is no trace of the black eye anymore, but it must have been pretty traumatic because she still talks about the fact that a little girl hit her with a bike.
These are old pictures- it's difficult to catch this girl since she's always on the run.

Vegas trip, part 1

We went on vacation to Las Vegas!

As it turns out, we go to Vegas quite a bit in the spring. Last year we went and stayed in the Signature at MGM- a non smoking, non gaming resort- and had a great time. It was our first family vacation since having Abby. (We went to Vegas for one night after our friend Marina passed away to attend her funeral when Abby was not quite 6 months old- doesn't quite count as a vacation. We just needed a place to sleep and stayed at the Excalibur.)

Take a minute to watch last year's post and take a look at the videos of Abby when she was a little one year old playing with the window- I miss that baby!

Anyway, we stayed at the Signature again. It is a suite that has a kitchenette, complete with pans, stove top, microwave, blender, toaster, fridge, and of course cutlery and dishes. We had a balcony this time around, much to Abby's delight. We endured long periods of "go play outside balcony" several times a day.

I didn't realize I had smudges on the camera lens, no doubt thanks to Abby, and I didn't catch it until later!

Our balcony sliding glass door served as my full length mirror. (It was more fun than using the one in the suite.)

I hope you don't mind me giving detailed accounts of where we went to eat. It was one of the highlights of our trip. Okay, thanks for understanding.

Our first night in town was Mother's Day, and we went to Roy's. It's a delicious Hawaiian fusion seafood restaurant, and I looooved it.

Abby loved going in the elevator!

A few years ago we went to Vegas in June to celebrate our 5 year anniversary. We sort of decided to celebrate this week too, a little early, and our fancy restaurants were so nice to help us celebrate!

 

This is one of my favorite pictures of Abby, recently. She is really so, so sweet and expressive, and I think it looks like her personality, even though she looks like a big girl. Me and my girl on Mother's Day! Too bad it's blurry.

You now have to endure pictures of our food, haha!

We were really surprised how kid-friendly Roy's was! We have been to really nice restaurants where they seem to tolerate kids and give them crayons, and at The Cheesecake Factory they give babies bananas and bread for free (which is cool), but Roys tops them all.
They give a spread of crudite with Ranch dressing, apple slices, a few pieces of quesadilla...

and a scoop of ice cream with their name written on the plate- for free! If you do buy a kids meal, you get an entree included with all of that. But I've certainly never seen a restaurant, apart from some sort of "kids eat free" deal, give that much food to toddlers on the house.

We told her that it said Abby, and for the rest of the night, and a few days later even, she'd randomly say, "...it says Abby..."

Yummy spiced edamame (the ribbons around our candle were our anniversary decoration, I assume, since no other table had them)

We had some delicious Lobster Potstickers with a togarashi miso butter sauce to start, but I forgot to take a picture of it.
My entree- Grilled Shrimp Scampi with sauteed spinach and crab cannelloni and red pepper marinara. Super yum.

Spencer's entree- Herb Grilled Lamb with Truffle Potato Au Gratin with Cipollini Onion Balsamic demi glaze. This was also delicious. Really. So good.

Our dessert- Hot Chocolate Souffle with Belgian Chocolate, raspberry coulis, and vanilla ice cream. 

They surprised us with an anniversary treat too, they are some kind of shortbread with chocolate ganache, and fruit. They were very good, and very rich.

There's our trusty full length mirror! We were partially dressed-down after dinner. Abby watched a lot of Toy Story that week.

We had lunch the following day at Pinks at Planet Hollywood, after a long morning of shopping.

We went swimming in one of our hotel pools that day. Each of the three towers has one, and we went there several times.

That night we went to Isla Mexican Kitchen located in the casino of Treasure Island. It was okay, the guac was good, but the restaurant was weirdly empty.
There were probably three other parties there.

 Spencer got the grilled steak burrito,

I got tacos with grilled pork and pineapple

The food was good, but I'm not sure we'll be going back. There's too many other good restaurants to try.

We also saw the last few minutes of the free outdoor TI show. I saw this show a long time ago, when it was an actual pirate show, although in 2003 they changed it to be the "Sirens of TI," with singing and dancing women plus pirates, intended to appeal more to adults. If you talk to any Mormon, they all say to not watch the Siren show, because they've all gone with their young sons expecting to watch some pirates and explosions in the water- but we sinned and watched the end anyway. Lighten up. It was fine.

Next was gelato at the Palazzo by the Grand Canal shops.

We had a celebrity sighting at that spot three years ago- we saw Judah Friedlander several times that trip. Here's our creepy taking-a-picture-of-a-celebrity picture from that trip:

The next morning we went to the pool again.
We had complete access to The Grand Pool at the MGM pool as well, and while it is awesome, we only made it once.

 They have a lazy river, which Ab liked, except for getting splashed.

 

Abby thought she was fearless in those waterwings.

We had Panera for lunch, and did some shopping at Fashion Show. Such a crazy mall.

Dinner was at Joe's, a very nice seafood restaurant located in Caesar's Palace in the Forum Shops.
Joe's is known for their stone crab, and while it was a very pricy appetizer, it was very good. It came with two claws, btw.

My crab cakes. They may look unappetizing (in fact, all of these pictures probably do...) but they were very good.

Spencer got scallops. Very tender.

Sides of asparagus with lemon butter sauce and really delicious, fatty potatoes.

Joe's is also known for their pies. We were stuffed, but got half slices.
I wish I had the thought to take my picture before I ate half of it... I got the chocolate fudge pie, and it was so freaking good.

Key lime pie. One of the best I've ever had.

This poor bug was so tired, but loved the water fountains around the shops.

This concludes our food tour, part 1!
No really, we just had fun, went shopping, and decided that we would treat ourselves to yummy food, so that's what I'm showing you, if you're interested!