The One With Vegas, Baby!

Well, a week from today I'll be joining the dirty 30 club. Luckily, I'll be in Vegas, living it up in the warm, sunny desert. I plan to have some drinks, do some gambling and eat some decadent food. The boyfriend and I have big plans for our vacation--we will be in the southwest for 8 days & 9 nights! I am MORE than ready to get out of the cold, slushy, snowy midwest and into the warm, sunny desert.

We plan on seeing several shows, including: this, this and this. We've heard amazing reviews about all of them, and there are SO many wonderful shows out in Vegas. It was very hard to narrow it down to only those 3.

We also are planning to go to BLT Burger and have a Twinkie(!) shake and a frozen hot chocolate at Serendipity 3.

We both love to gamble and we plan on hitting up many casinos to try our hands at blackjack (our fave!), keno, roulette and lots of fun slot machines. We will be visiting Death Valley National Park, Zion National Park, the Grand Canyon, Lake Mead & the Hoover Dam while we are in the area as well. I have been doing a LOT (and I mean a LOT) of research about our trip and I can't believe how many beautiful and historic places are in the area! So many people think Vegas.....oh that's just for gambling, drinking, etc. But there are so many interesting things to do, even if you don't gamble!

So, it looks like it should be a stellar birthday vacation. My amazing boyfriend has really gone all out with the planning and I can't belive I'm so lucky to go somewhere so awesome to celebrate turning 30.

Have you been to Las Vegas? What sights do you recommend seeing while we are out there? Any casinos we can't miss? Places to eat?