vacation | RatnamResidence

Third and final attempt at wrapping up our Vegas trip. I shouldn’t be surprised it’s taken me this long to share all our pictures and stories since we did spend a whole week there! Ok, so I shared last week about our hotel and exploring the strip, and Monday I shared about the shows and the hoover dam tour. Today we’ll wrap up with a trip to Paris, stories from the black jack table, and fun at the M&M store!

TWENTY ONE

When in Vegas, gamble! And gamble we did. Vinay more so than I did. But when he finally convinced me to sit down next to him at the black jack table, I made bank! Well, he did too. The first time I played, we had put in $200 or something along those lines and cashed out $779. Balla! I have to admit, I didn’t really know what I was doing, but I quickly caught on….obviously! My favorite times were when the dealer had a low card and I got to double down. Oh and I LOVED the people. We met so many people from all over the world. What’s fun about black jack is that everyone isn’t playing against each other so you can cheer for and congratulate someone else for getting a black jack or good hand. We had a few times where we were THAT TABLE. The one cheering and yelling and high-fiving that you can hear across the casino floor.

It wasn’t like that every time we sat down though. We tried different Casinos and lost here and there. And I was NOT fond of the stupid slot machines. Maybe it’s because I played poker in college and love cards more and the thought it requires. Slot machines are a whole ‘nother world. They are SO BORING! You push a button, it dings and then you find out if you won or lost. Boring. And I lost $4.90 in a matter of 30 seconds at one machine…so done with those silly things!

But back to the card games – can I tell you how many times I got carded?! I have no problem getting carded – I know it’s the dealers job and I’m glad they do it. PLUS It’s flattering and I hope I get carded in my 30s! But EVERY time Vinay sat at a table and I watched, they carded us. Then if the dealer changed, they would card me again. I lost count, but I know I was carded over a dozen times. One lady told me I looked 18(I’m 27)! Quite a complement

M&M

I have to say, one of the places I was excited to visit (again) was the M&M store. It’s 4 floors of M&M goodies, and it smells of chocolate! Here we are outside the store in 2009 with Vinay’s favorite M&M:

This visit, we had fun looking for goodies for Avery. He LOVES mini M&Ms! We got a little distracted during our search and found hats, cars, and giant M&Ms to pose with…

Oh, side note – they had this contraption that you could design sayings and images on M&Ms and put them into this contraption and they come out. Pretty cool. We were observing, as they cost $20 for a tiny bunch of them, no thanks, especially since Avery wouldn’t care what was written on his M&Ms, but anyways, on the screens where you type in the stuff you want on your M&Ms, we were watching this woman and she was writing ‘Will You Marry Me?’ We didn’t know if it was for real or a joke, because we couldn’t see her ring finger, and trust me, we lingered really long to check it out, with no luck, but she was really serious-faced while typing it in…. I hope he said yes!

We found the best gift for Avery – a sippy cup with sparkles and M&Ms, oh and a tube of mini M&Ms of course!

Pari

Speaking of yummy food, we had a delicious dinner in Paris one night.

We sat on ‘outside’ which was really like a fenced in eating area inside the Paris gallery overlooking casino games and a great spot for people watching. I indulged in a french burger and some pomme frites, yum!

Our big dinner was at Benihana’s on our last night of vacation. They cooked the food right in front of us. A fun experience and we got a souvenir picture to remember the night by.

The Goods

In addition to the M&M goodies for Avery, we snagged a Sesame Street T-shirt for him. Vinay won a used deck of cards from Ballys. We also found a snow globe on the monorail, and brought back some chocolate casino chips and a die lollipop for Grammy, Grampy, and Aunt Sarah to fight over.