All you need is Love

Sunday morning rolled around and Jim thought it would be a good idea to get up at 9am. Um, no. I lazed around in bed until we both fell back asleep and when we woke up for good, it was after 11am. Much better.

We changed into our suits and headed down for some food and pool time. We opted to eat at Riva, a casual dining cafe by Wolfgang Puck, next to the pools at The Venetian. The only downside to waking up that late is that even in Vegas, the poolside cafes stop serving breakfast at noon. Boooo. We had to settle for lunchtime goodies, a club sandwich for Jim and a burger with balsamic onion marmalade for me. Both came with a heap of fries and mini condiments - so cute! Jim enjoyed his sandwich and my burger was awesome. The white cheddar and onion marmalade gave it so much flavor, much more than I was expecting.

After lunch, we made our way back to the Palazzo pools and settled in on lounge chairs for a few hours. We read, we had a couple of drinks, we went in the pool - basically it was just a lazy afternoon in the super hot sun. Around 3pm, we headed in to get ready for the evening festivities. Since we were skipping lunch and it would be awhile til dinner, we stopped for a snack. Gelato is so yummy!

We have talked about seeing a show in Vegas forevah and this trip we finally made it happen.

The lobby of the theater was very cool.

I would have taken pictures inside the theater, but the big warning on the tickets made me think twice. In hindsight, I'm glad I wasn't worried about taking pictures and instead just sat back and enjoyed the show. It was fabulous! If you've ever seen a Cirque show, you know they're a bit wacky and this one was no different. But, since the real focus was on the music (of which, the arrangements were done so well) the wackiness was toned down a bit. There was a ton of different dance styles - everything from hip hop to modern - and tons of rope tricks. Our favorite number was to "Something (in the way she moves)" with 1 guy in the middle doing modern dance with 4 girls dressed in white on wires doing lyrical dance all around him. Just stunning. Our favorite trick was 4 girls that were pulled up from the bottom of the stage on ropes. The catch? They were sitting in a perfect lotus style with nothing but a rope wrapped around one leg to keep them upright. Even Jim turned to me and said that he didn't think people got just how difficult/cool that really was. We both highly recommend this to anyone who is a fan of The Beatles or Cirque de Soleil.

We danced our way out of the theater with the rest of the crowd and headed back across the street to The Venetian for dinner.

I had heard that the restaurant was good, not outstanding, but I still had to try it. I mean, it is a Keller restaurant, after all. The place wasn't packed when we got there for our late reservation and yet somehow, they still gave us a crappy table. I should have asked to be moved, but I just chickened out. Oh, and we are fairly certain that our waiter had a faux french accent. It took all we had not to call him out on it. Lame-o.

But, what about the food, you say? It was a mixed bag. To start, Jim ordered the Squash Salad (a special for the evening) and I had the mixed greens salad with goat cheese and herbs de provence. Jim's salad was just meh at best. My salad was awesome though. Simple, yes, but executed really well and the flavors were delicious.

For the main course, Jim went with another special - smoked sturgeon with cippolini onions and fingerling potatoes. Just okay. I guess the sauce was throwing things off, but once he took that off, he thought it was better. The bite I had was alright, but nothing special. I ordered the salmon with sauteed chard, red onion confit, english cucumber and buckwheat crepes. There was a lot going on, but it all worked really well together. The salmon was cooked perfectly and it all just tasted really good.

For dessert, we opted for the profiteroles, which were yummy. But really, can you screw up cream puffs with chocolate sauce? I guess someone could, but these were done really well.

All in all a good dinner. But our best dinner (and a pretty damn amazing snack) was yet to come.

Dinner ended and it was still before 11pm. I checked my phone while Jim used the restroom and saw that Vino, Spurs, Dressing Queen and some of their family were at the Wynn having drinks on the outdoor patio and that if we had time we should join them. She also mentioned something about seeing Daniel Boulud and that she hoped we had dinner at his brasserie and that we got to see him, too. (What a crummy night to eat at Bouchon!)

We high-tailed it over to the Wynn and settled in for drinks. Conversation was had, alcohol was consumed. Quite the typical scene for us all. Spurs and Vino looked so happy, but also tired. And who can blame them? It had been a long week for them. We had a good time watching the crazy watershow and making time for a quick pic.

Around this point, Jim and I got a second wind and decided to check out the new club at The Palazzo called Lavo since we had a card for ladies to get in free. They tout themselves as a "restaurant, bathhouse and nightclub." Mmm, okay. We got in quickly and made our way through the "restaurant" portion before going upstairs to the "nightclub". On our way up, we saw parts of the bathhouse:

Yes, those sinks had running water the whole time. We hoped they were just like a fountain system and that somehow the water was recycled. We also couldn't get over how that set up was just begging for someone to use those sinks for unintended purposes. I mean, seriously, how often do you think they'll have to "sanitize" those bad boys? [/rant]

Once we got up to the dance floor, the place was hoppin'. The DJ was awesome, the crowd was energetic and our drinks were yummy. Even though we're old and didn't really dance, instead opting to hangout on the side, we still had fun.

At this point, I was pretty sober, so it was fun to watch all the super drunk folks and how quickly security would descend on them and whisk them out the back door. We also found the addition of a saxaphonist on the go-go dancing stage during one set interesting.

Later in the night, as they were running out of songs, they played "Footloose". This resulted in all the white folks dancing like crazy people and everyone else just looking around with a "WTF? How the hell do we dance to this" expression on their face, go-go dancers included. Jim and I were cracking up as they played this at Vino and Sporty's weddings and everyone went nuts. :P

Finally, around 3am, we called it a night.