Keeping Up With The Kolbeck's: What Happened in Vegas...

What better way to celebrate a quarter century of life than spending a weekend in Vegas with a dozen of my closest friends!

It had been over a year since we'd spent taken a trip out there so we decided to take the opportunity and use my birthday as an excuse to go.

Samantha was lucky enough to get us three FREE nights at the Wyndham Grand Desert Vacation Resort (no thanks to the fact that her dad personally knows Mr. Steve Wynn himself).

The hotel was a block or so off the strip but had two full bedrooms and two full bathrooms as well as a pullout couch, a kitchen and a dining area. It was perfect. Because we had such a big group making the trek out to the desert, we all arrived at different times. Samantha, Margo and I flew in on Thursday evening and met Jacene, who was already there for work. We checked into the hotel, had dinner, made the compulsory stop at Fat Tuesday (our favorite place to get blended beverages) and proceeded to sit at the BlackJack tables at the New York, New York for at least three hours.

This was the night that I won $120! Considering gambling never ends well for me or anyone else, I was ecstatic! I finally decided to walk away ahead of the game and celebrate with the others. Tara, Rob and Casie had arrived while I was busy playing and, to nobody's surprise, Rob knew of a suspect little dive where we could get a hot dog and a beer for $2.50. Obviously, that was our next stop. Suddenly our "relaxing" first evening in town became a long, late night.

Once we got up and about on Friday morning, a few of us went to brunch at The Cheesecake Factory in Caesar's Palace.

Every time I walk through Caesar's I am reminded of the trip Kylie and I took to Vegas with Grams and Poppy when we were little. We stayed at the MGM Grand but made a special trip to Caesar's to get Poppy the Caesar's cologne from one of the kiosks in the middle of the indoor mall. Apparently it was his favorite. I don't think Grams and Pops have been to Vegas in quite some time so I wonder what type of cologne Poppy's wearing these days...

Lauren, Sean, and Ashley arrived on Friday. It was Sean's birthday as well so we got dressed up for our joint birthday dinner at PF Chang's. After dinner we headed to Jet, which is a nightclub at the Mirage.

The Birthday Kids

Lauren and I after dinner

The Girls outside of Jet

(There was a serious color scheme going on!)

Samantha and I at Jet

Me, Ashley, Sam, Margo, Casie

Tara, Me, Casie

On Saturday morning we ate at the Terrace Pointe Cafe in the Wynn hotel to help soak up the night before and kill some time before Tiffany and Scottie arrived. (They were troopers and flew in for about 24 hours! Actually it was 23 hours with the time change...Scottie was not happy when he realized that he'd lost an hour.)

A small group of us gambling junkies then rented a family mini-van and drove to Oldtown Las Vegas to spend the day gambling for cheap. This is the point where I lost everything I won plus some. I guess I should have known that would happen because nobody leaves Vegas with more money than they start with, but I was still pretty angry. Once everyone had lost their fair share we picked up pizza and had dinner as a little (or should I say BIG) family in our hotel room.

For our last night in town we were headed to The Bank. Unlike most banks, this bank was a money eater, but it was a great club located in the Bellagio. We hopped in a limo and were on our way...

Happy Birthday to Me!

Me, Casie, Tiff and Tara in the limo