Vegas, Part 1: Arrival

Background: Liz & Andrea go to Vegas every year on my birthday weekend. (I know, their priorities are way messed up.) Every year, they invite me to come along--"It'll be so fun! Hanging with your hockey pals!" And every year, I've just invited them to my birthday bash, which they can't attend.

Well, this year, my sister and I were going to take our kids to Disneyland that weekend, for a long weekend. It was going to be a little rushed, so we decided to go over Spring Break instead. I mentioned offhand that I could actually go to Vegas this year, and L&A jumped at the chance--they needed someone to watch beautiful, funny Val (oh man, you should see her when she scrunches her nose up!). They even offered to cover my airfare!

Let's see: free airfare, cheap (relatively) hotel, fun hockey pals, Vegas, and this mystery called Sonic about which they rave each year. OK!

I flew out Thursday afternoon, after working just a couple of hours and getting the house in order so it wasn't a shambles when I returned. I didn't run into any other hockey people (which seemed odd), but I did run into our church's music director! She is wonderful and we were able to have lunch together (in which I walked away from the register before paying--I get so caught up when I'm chatting! They caught up with me). The flight was uneventful, except for maybe spotting a blogging friend of mine in the Southwest magazine, and after I snagged my suitcase, I managed to get picked up promptly by the Lizvan. I didn't drive all weekend, and man, that alone was worth the price of admission. Plus, Andrea got lost on the Strip once so I got plenty of eye candy from that (ooh, aah, neon).

Met my roommate, who turned out to be a very cool gal (HS friend of Liz's), and went off to the first game. Didn't see much of it, but they did Burninate and win. (Val was very active and not too interested in sitting and watching hockey. Although she never did complain about my yelling encouragement to the team, inches from her ear.)

Slept.