Part One

Staci has invited me into the blogosphere again and I’m very excited to be here as a guest. I am the photographer for ShopMapel.com and would love to share a very recent story

by: Mrs. Cleary O'Farrell

So my guy and I just got back from a vacation in Vegas. My understanding was that we would go for his birthday, have a great time, lay by the pool, see a show, hit up a buffet... Go to Vegas for what reasons people do; to escape reality. So we left on his birthday and arrived in time to have lunch and lay by the pool for a few hours in the 105 degree heat.

Since we arrived on his birthday I had laid out little gifts for him along the way: a pancake breakfast with "2" & "9" candles on top, a treasure map leading him to his gift from the cats, and then to the one from me (a book about soccer of course).

I made some Mad Libs poems for him as well, sixth-grade-crush style. At the airport I whipped out some mini bottles of liquor, on the plane I gave him an "Outdoors" mag and his favorite candies, blah blah blah. You get the pic.

That night we got 'done up' I took him out to a steak dinner at Mon Ami Gabi in the Paris. It all turned out great- our table had a wonderful view of the Bellagio fountains and we had so much fun (and so much wine) that we ended up walking back to the hotel amongst the romantic sounds of the sex peddlers throwing pamphlets at us. (and of course we made use of a casino or two).




The next day we went poolside for a while, and ended up going to see "Zumanity" that night. It was 'the sexy side of Cirque de Soliel' and wowza. It's the type of show where people grab you and make you come on stage - one guy ended up losing his pants AND shirt in front of many many people and he didn't speak a word of English. Another couple of people (both with someone else but brought on stage separately) were put on a bed and told to demonstrate their favorite sex position. Outside the show there were peepholes in the walls that had dirty pics in them. It was all very gratuitous...

We had so much fun that night we decided to forego the cab again and walk back to the hotel. Saw the M&M factory for the first time which was kinda fun.

Woke up the next day and decided to see the dolphins and tigers at the Mirage. I was super excited and the exhibit did not disappoint. Dolphins are such lovely and smart animals & so peaceful and happy. Quite a contrast to the tigers and lions which paced around and stared blankly with glazed-over/bored looks.

Afterwards we decided to go get tattoos at the Vince Neil tattoo shop (you know the guy from Motley Crue). I picked out a lion from my family crest but it turned out it needed to be super big to show all of the detail. So after looking around for 20 minutes we headed out. I noticed Dave was quiet for a while and when we got out on the sidewalk, he spoke and his voice sounded different. It was deeper or something and he was almost hesitant. He said "What do you want to do now?" I said "Whatever we want!" and he had a question for me.

.....to be continued......