Cousin Vegas Trip!!!

Is it wrong to love Vegas as much as I do?

I just have so much fun there!  It is especially fun when I get to spend time with my super fun cousins.  We all grew up close and we have stayed that way as we have grown up.  The most fabulous thing about my cousins is that they have all married awesome people, so in other words, we all have a blast when we get together.

Marrene, Me and Tawnya

We all met up at the pool at the MGM (which is where we all stayed), as soon as we got to Vegas.  Most of us had drinks in hand right away.  It felt so good to sit in the sun and catch up on eachother's lives.

 A picture of the whole crowd once we had all made it poolside at the MGM.

The only "cousins" we were missing were my cousin Megan who lives in New Orleans, my cousin Chris (who stopped by after I had left) and my sister in law Kate, who just sent Kevin this time.  We missed them though! 

Sitting by the pool for a few hours was the perfect way to start the vacation!

If you don't show up with the appropriate Vegas clothes, we take you shopping.  On our way back from the pool, the whole cousin crowd stopped at a very "Vegas - like" boutique  to hook my brother up with the perfect Vegas look!  It was actually pretty fun watching the guys try on all of their cool Vegas shirts and glasses.

Next up was dinner at the Mexican Restaurant at the New York New York!

What a fun dinner, lots and lots of laughs.  Our waiter's name was Maverick, which led to way too many "Top Gun" quotes.  "Talk to me Goose", "Where's Ice-Man", "You can do this Maverick".  I am sure that this poor guy had NEVER heard this before!  Don't worry, we gave him a big tip for putting up with us!

drinks at the bar before dinner (sorry, a little out of order)

*side note - whenever I say "drinks" it usually means Diet Pepsi.  Pancho doesn't drink at all and I usually limit it to one drink a night. . . but we always have a blast, and love hanging out with all of our "boozer" friends and family ha ha!

Francine and Sean

speaking of "boozer" family, these two were out of control the whole weekend!

-just kidding, in fact not even close, but a lot of fun!

 Yes - we are the "older" cousins.

My brother Sean is one year younger than me, and we have 4 boy cousins who are all a year apart.  Growing up, I was the only girl cousin.  Luckily for me, they all married such fun and amazing women!  10 years later 6 more cousins were born (the younger cousins) all a year apart.  Out of the 6 younger cousins, my brother Kevin is the only boy! 

My cousin Brian and his wife Tawnya, with my cousin Kendra popping her head in the picture!

They all flew out to Vegas from Montana.

 Ha ha, Kendra again!  with me and p-man.

Pancho was looking pretty "hot" in his Vegas clothes :)

After dinner we rented a Hummer Limo to take us for a ride around town to see some of the sights.  We had a few people in the group had only been to Vegas once or never been there, so we wanted to swing by the fountains in front of the Belagio and a few other famous sights.

My cousin Jeff, his wife Lisa (you go girl!) and my cousin Jody with his wife Marrene.

 Tawnya, Brian, Sean, Francine, Kevin, Pancho, Kendra and Kelly!

We were blasting the tunes and loving our luxury limo.  I felt like a Rock Star!

. . .the limo dropped us off at downtown Las Vegas.

This pic is of the whole cousin group in front of the Limo.

 Once we got downtown, it was a little wild and crazy!  It was all decorated for Halloween down there, and there were tons of people dressed up in costumes.  We saw about 5 Elvises, Ozzy Ozborne, Prince, Michael Jackson, Zombies, and Kiss.  There were also lots of little side shows going on that you could stop and check out.  We saw a concert, a magic show, a mad scientist, and there was all kinds of really weird "people watching"!

I loved it, so entertaining!

Sean got stopped by Zorro for a duel

Pancho and I were rockin out to the light show.

It comes on overhead about every half hour and it was all QUEEN songs, with a Halloween Theme.

It reminded us of Sam's love for Queen.

We also gambled while we were downtown.  None of us are big gamblers, and the tables are much cheaper downtown as opposed to the strip.  Francine was loving the "dozens of dollars" Sean had won at that point.

 . . . and here are some of the "younger cousins" :)

My cousin-in-law Joe, is married to my cousin Heather (middle) sitting next to my cousin Allison.

 We rented a cabana by the pool for the whole day Saturday!

It was so much fun!  We had a TV so that we could watch all of the Pac 10 football possible.  We have cousins who are Huskies, Wildcats, Trojans, and of course Duck fans, so there were a lot of games to watch.  Of course we also took naps, read magazines, soaked up the sun, had a few cocktails, and talked A LOT! 

*I love how Joe is acting like he is passed out, Francine and I are doing our fake Vegas Party Girl poses and Kendra has the model pose going on . . .

Heather, Tawnya and Kelly

getting the party started early!

On Saturday night, the cousins split into two groups.  One group went to a Motown show, but we chose to go with Jody and Marrene, Sean and Fracine to dinner and the Cirque de Soleil show LOVE.

We ate at this really nice restaurant called Nob Hill at the MGM.  I ordered the lobster pot pie and instead of a price (like all of the other items on the menu had) it said MP next to it.  I figured anything with the words "pot pie" in the name can't be that expensive.  When we got the bill, my dinner was over $100.  Whoops!  Apparnetly the Market Price for lobster pot pie right now is $85!  It sure was delicious  though!

 . . . before the LOVE show,  (sounds dirty, but it is really Beatles music) we had a few drinks at Revolution. . . a really cool bar in the Mirage where the LOVE show was.  Don't we look so Vegas? ha ha

Pancho, Me Francine and Sean

It was so much fun to get to spend time with these guys.

Marrene and Jody topped off our fun group of six. 

We had such a fun evening together.

I absolutely LOVED the Love show!  For real, it was so good.  Pancho and I have seen a lot of shows in Vegas including most of the Cirque shows, but this was by far my favorite.  I was so glad that we went.

After the show, we met back up with the rest of  the cousins one last time before most of us flew out the next morning.  We met up at the BB King bar in the Mirage.  There was a live band there playing great music.

We all exchanged stories about the shows we had seen and lamented the fact that this short weekend was not enough time together.

My weekend ended on the right note though.  Most of the time when you order a Diet Soda in Vegas, you get this tiny little cup with a drop of Diet Pepsi in it.  I was so happy that I finally got a decent sized Diet Pepsi!

What a fun weekend!  My only regret, was that we never made it to the tatoo parlor to get our matching "I (heart) cousins" tatoos.  There was talk of making this vacation an annual event, if so, We are in!  I really do  love my cousins and I am so glad that I got to make these fun memories with them.