Vegas was RAD

I’m taking a women’s self-defense class called ‘RAD’ which stands for “rape aggression defense.” It is two hours twice a week for three weeks. At the end a man dressed all in protective gear ATTACKS YOU and you defend yourself using the skills you've learned. I feel a lot more confident in defending myself and a lot more paranoid.

March 2nd & 3rd was the annual “Trouble in Vegas” ultimate Frisbee tournament. As some of you may remember, I went to this tournament last year with a mixed club team (men and women). This year we were able to take a men’s team down as well as a women’s team. Justin and I are involved with both teams so we took the weekend off to play in Las Vegas!

We left Thursday to start the weekend off early. We drove down in our little white car with another married couple that we’re good friends with, Scott and Christina. We rolled into Vegas around 11:30 PM, but not before a state cop decided to pull me over! I was so confused when I saw the patriotic lights come on in my rear view mirror because I wasn't speeding! Turns out he said I was ‘crossing the yellow line’ a lot (whoops!) so he wanted to make sure I was ‘okay’ aka…checking if I was sober. If I wasn't awake before he pulled me over I most definitely was after. Holy smokes I was shaking for like 20 minutes after that. Adrenaline rush!

At the apartment we locked ourselves out of the bathroom...whoops. We stayed up for an hour trying to open it with Justin's trick he used on his mission to no avail. This involved a hanger, floss, paper, and a computer cord...Good times.

Friday we saw all the sights we could see. We drove to Las Vegas Boulevard and walked up and down the strip. In 75 degree weather we saw the Luxor, New York New York, MGM, the Bellagio, Monte Carlo, Circus Circus, the Mirage, the Venetian, Treasure Island, Excalibur, and Caesar’s Palace. We also saw the M&M store and a bunch of stores in between like you see on The Devil Wears Prada. $1550 for a pair of men’s alligator shoes whaaaat? It was fun. Justin and I packed lunches but we were starving at around 2 so we split an appetizer as our friends got lunch at Gilley’s. We were on our feet from 11AM to 7PM. After we were done walking up and down the strip we went to the outlet malls to kill some time before dinner.

Caesar's Palace

M&M store

I'm sorry Mom!

The Mirage

Vintage Cars Museum

act 'fierce'

Excalibur

One thing that was fun on the strip was all the people dressed in costumes. There were people dressed in hello kitty, master chief, minney and mickey mouse, optimus prime and bumble bee, and Darth Vader. Our friend Scott got a picture with Darth Vadar and he got to hold his light saber. Sweet!

I made a dinner reservation for us at the Stratosphere. 800 feet above Las Vegas you can eat at the three star restaurant “On Top of the World!” that rotates counter-clockwise, so by the end of dinner you see the entire city from 800 feet in the air! It was amazing. Like I said, we packed food for our breakfast, lunch, and dinner for the whole trip so we could spend money on fun dinner Friday night. Justin ordered lamb and I ordered salmon; both were to die for! We also ordered a dessert and the four of us split it. Delicious! That was definitely the highlight of the trip.

dessert...red velvet cheese cake with a white chocolate shell...and reindeer chocolate horns and fruity garnishes

waiting for our elevator...it took surprisingly long

Saturday morning we got to the fields at 9:30 and it felt like 3 PM. The sun feels so weird down there! At 9AM it feels and looks the same way it does at noon and at 6PM. In Idaho there's definitely a morning, afternoon, and evening "look" to the day. Down there if you didn't know what time it was you would guess it was 2 PM no matter what time of day it was. Anyway...our women's team played three games plus a pick-up game with BYU and our men's team played five games. We won our first game and played awesome! We were so happy to have a win! This was my first tournament win in a year and a half! We lost the next two but we were fine with that because we were so happy we won the first game. The other teams were good sports so even though the last team killed us 13-2 we had a lot of fun. Justin's team won two of their five so that wasn't too bad. We headed back to the apartment and cleaned up, then went to dinner at a buffet. We drove by the Mirage and saw the show they put on every hour with huge flames you can feel from the street. We were dead after that so we made it back to the apartment for the night.

The show at The Mirage; it goes off every hour. You can feel the heat from the street.

Dinner in the Stratosphere

Men's Team

Because this is my favorite

captains

Sunday we drove back all day with no harm or accident and no cops pulling me over. Overall it was a crazy fun trip and I'm so happy we went! Now it's back to reality in Rexburg with 20 degrees outside...spring come quickly!