Jason and I rarely miss an opportunity to live it up. We firmly believe that life is worth celebrating and what better excuse to party than reaching nine years in an amazing marriage. It was Jason’s turn to be in charge of the anniversary revelries this year and he wisely chose Las Vegas, the partying Mecca of the world, as our celebration location.

We stayed at a hotel on the strip, the Palazzo, in a room overlooking the strip. It was surprisingly entertaining watching the constant bustle of people and Treasure Island Resort’s Sirens show from our birds-eye view. All that cannon fire, smoke, and lighting looked pretty cool from 24 floors up.

As sweet as the view from our hotel window was, surveying tiny swarms of people could not keep me from my true purpose. For there are two things I love about Vegas: the excellent shopping and the amazing food. Jason is a smart man; he knows that I’m quite fond of both of these things and that they go a long way in increasing Rachel vacation satisfaction. So he planned for a day of shopping and assumed the risk to our wallets. We found a great shopping center, Town Square, just south of the strip. Among its many stores was a large H&M – the reason we chose this particular shopping venue. An unanticipated plus of purchasing at this center was that getting from store to store required walking outside, which meant an opportunity to have some rays intersperse our shopping experience. This turned out to be a rather big plus because the temps were in the high 70’s and low 80’s the entire time we were in Vegas, with never even a hint of a cloud in the sky. Ahhh…sunshine and shopping …I felt like I had gone to consumer heaven.

Jason fulfilled my desire for some first-rate food by taking me to dinner at Mon Ami Gabi, a French restaurant located in the Paris hotel. The filet mignon with a Merlot butter sauce I ordered was super yummy! I’m drooling just remembering how it seemed to practically melt away in your mouth. Delicious!

In between burning through money and chowing down we found time to attend the Cirque du Soleil show LOVE, which features Beatles music. We loved it! Jason said it reminded him of a dream and I definitely agree that it had an intoxicatingly imaginative dreamlike quality.

We also couldn’t resist spending a little time reading books by the hotel pool. With weather that nice who could refrain from sneaking in a little sun? And what sane person would want to refrain? Certainly not me.

It was a great trip but that’s no surprise. After all, I prefer spending Jason’s money over anyone else’s and there’s no one I’d rather stuff my face with until I feel like I might possibly vomit. A great trip, a great marriage, a great man – life is pretty darn great!