The Stark's: January 2009

My brother Jesse was planning a vacation to Las Vegas. As he was telling Toby and I about it I started to think how nice to would be to go on a vacation. So we invited ourselves. It was so much fun. So far in our relationship we have had a hard time with vacations, they ALWAYS have something that goes wrong that makes the whol

e trip not worth it. Even our honeymoon was a mess. Vacations for us always add more stress. This time we broke the curse and we went on a vacation with no problems...well one but it was little and it turned out to be a good thing!!

Jesse was taking Brooke "his girlfriend" for her Christmas present. The plan was to pick Brooke up from the airport Friday night and leave for Vegas Saturday morning, early! She was flying in from Cali and because of the weather she had already spent 3 hours in Vegas, then after another 2 hours in the air they landed. During our car ride home Jesse decided to break the news to Brooke about her sweet vacation present. Jesse didn't exactly get the excited reaction that he was hoping for. But after hearing the thrilling events scheduled for our trip, Brooke then became excited!! If only we would have left for Vegas when we found out that her flight was delayed, we could have meet her there and saved 5 or so hours waiting around for her to get to Utah... haha..

The first night we stayed at the MGM Grand. The rooms were great especially compared to any hotel room we have ever stayed at before. That night we went to a great restaurant. We had the most fancy food we have ever had. Then we went to a Cirque du Soleil show called KA. It was amazing. I can't even explain how much I LOVED it. We all loved it!!!

This was not us at the show we cheated a little. We saw this poster of KA and Toby did a great one handed picture taking job.

Cute Jesse and Brooke after KA.

Funny story...when we went to KA Jesse got a cocktail and it was the size of a Big Gulp for 711. It was MASSIVE. It had VERY strong. So for some reason Jesse thought that it would be a good idea to do some push up's. I still don't know why but he felt like he really needed to do 40 push up's. He only got to 30.

Brooke said something about doing the push up's where when you come up you clap behind your back...so of course Jesse had to try one or two. I hope this picture helps you imagine how he did. I'm surprised he didn't get rug burn. But it was terribly entertaining.

The next day we went to the Bellagio. We walked around for a while looked at the BEAUTIFUL hotel. I really like the hotel part of vacation. I enjoy having a nice room and just spending time in there. But we were in Vegas so there was a lot to see.

During our stay at the Bellagio we had a ton of fun checking out the shops and casino. BUT...Jesse and Brooke's room was not ready when we got there. And it still wasn't when we left..... After doing some window shopping and hanging pool side for a while, Toby and I went up to take a nap while Jesse and Brooke stayed and played in the casino. Then the "fun" began.... Long story short Jesse's 1st room smelt of smoke. Then the next one was not clean, the robes were, the glasses and towels were all use and the bed was not even made. It was just gross... So they got ready for dinner in a dirty room and asked for it to be cleaned while we were at dinner. We went to a steak house in the resort, called Prime, it turned out to be spectacular! . I know I keep saying that but every time we go out to dinner it is just great!!! It was a really neat experience because the restaurant was right on the water where the fountain show was. It was even better then the night before. After dinner we wanted to go watch the fountain show but when Brooke and I went up to her room to get her coat the room was still not clean...err... Again, to make this long story short, they didn't comp us fairly enough for the trouble that we had to go through. So we left the hotel. It turned out to be a very good move. YAY!

We went to the Venetian! The other two hotels that we had been to were beautiful but this one, whew, was incredible! The shops and the casinos and the rooms and EVERYTHING was just AMAZING!!! They had the most beautiful painting and sculptures.

For our last night in Vegas we went to the exquisite restaurant called Tao. The food was sooo good. Throughout our dinner we had brief interactions with the restaurant manager, he was really cool. He obviously liked us as well because he ended our night with complementary dessert, it was probably one of the greatest desserts of all time!!

Our rooms came with 50 $ credits, so we played some slots.

Gina pretty much rocks the house...Yes, Yes that would be a royal flush. Gina won 60 bucks. I was so stoked because she won some money!!-Toby

When Jesse moved in with my parents he brought with him POKER. Not that there wasn't poker before then, it just didn't happen at my parents house. So when he came we all went crazy. At least a game a night and the loser had to do the dishes. Just to say Jordan did a lot of dishes. Jesse is a great player so he decided to play in a tournament. He got 6th out of about 60 people so we were all proud of him for that!!

The last night we felt like we needed to see another show. So we went to Phantom. It was fun but the boys had a hard time with it. Brooke and I really liked it. But it was still nothing compared to KA.

Sorry about all the talk here are a bunch of pictures: