Sometimes, Always, Never - Vegas the Mormon Way

I remember my first trip to Las Vegas - The lights! The color! The boobs! As a 6 year old I was particularly impressed with the enormous castle - Excalibur.

Even better I remember my single ladies trip to Las Vegas with my bestie Katie, who had never been.

"There is PORNOGRAPHY LINING THE STREETS!"


As a Mormon, Vegas can be a scary place with the boobs, butts and general grossness.  You can't go to clubs, you can't drink, you can't gamble, why even go? I'll tell you how and why YOU can do a Mormon Vegas Vacation.


The Beard and I decided to use an expiring voucher we had for 2 free nights at a Vegas hotel over Spring Break. We haven't been on a trip just the two of us since we've been married (over a year and a half! Thanks a lot Larry H Miller. We don't miss you), so we leaped at the chance.

My parents graciously agreed to watch Glen Coco, although after he marked EVERY territory in their house I doubt they'll have him back. And we were off! (Listening to Harry Potter audiobooks, obvs.)

This is how he likes to ride in the car - wedged between Ryan and the backrest

My Travel/Vacation uniform - black skinnies (Old Navy), gray v-neck (Gap), chambray top (F21), tortoise sunnies (Cotton On) and flipflops (Pac Sun)

Without further ado, here is my Sometimes-Always-Never for a Mormon trip to Las Vegas!

Sometimes

• Try out a piano bar! We went to Napoleon's in the Parisian and saw the dueling piano act. It's free, although they expect you to get drinks. A $3 can of Diet Coke was a bit ridiculous, but the dueling pianos were pretty awesome. They even take requests! Be prepared for a lot of Neil Diamond and people getting stupid drunk
• Walk through hotels/casinos. Even if you don't gamble or aren't staying there, those hotels are amazing! My favorites are the Parisian, New York New York, Caeser's Palace and now the Cosmopolitan! It's new and incredible.
• See a show, but make sure you read some reviews. I've always wanted to see a Cirque show, but I've heard a few of them can be a little racy. Many of the shows in Vegas are, so be selective. 
• Check out the LDS Temple! We didn't have time to drive out to it when we were there and I really wished we could have gone! Next time. :)

 Always

• Walk the Strip. There is no better people watching in the entire world. Pick a small section or marathon through the whole thing. Just walking with no real destination is hilarious, because you'll see yahoos like Bumblebee just chillin'. 

• While you're at it, see the free shows! The Bellagio Fountains, Atlantis inside Caeser's Palace and the pirate show outside Treasure Island.
• Also while you're at it, get some of the limitless candy at the Sugar Factory. That's all I should need to say. 

•  Plan for and try a fancy restaurant. The Beard saw Hash House a Go Go on Diners, Drive-ins and Dives (one of our faves) and fell immediately in love with their enormous Chicken n' Waffles, Meatloaf sandwich and more. He's wanted to go ever since, so we planned it into our trip and budget. It made it way more fun than just grabbing a quick, cheap bite somewhere, because we looked forward to it and it was AMAZING. Really. 

• Wear something edgier than you can wear at home because - duh- its Vegas! I went with leather leggings and a skull tee since I can't ever wear those to school. Well, and maintain some degree of respect. :)

It was late. That's my only excuse for this washed out face. 

Did I do my hair at all this trip? It's a vacation. No. 

• Plan for everything to be overpriced. Vegas is where you go to splurge, not save. If you are budgeting, bring your own snacks and drinks for the hotel room.

Never

• Wear heels on the Strip, or when you have no idea what your night will be like. I even wore my trusty, comfy wedges, and I've worn flat boots before, and my dogs were barking before the night was up. 
• Take or look at the fliers and pamphlets being waved in your face. Trust me. Just pretend they don't exist.
• Get a smoking room. Vegas smoking rooms are worse than smoking rooms anywhere else. It's like secondhand-smoke nation up there.
• Stay on the Strip past 1 am. That's when the funny to crazy ratio on the Strip gets really scary.

A Non-Gushy Anniversary Post (You're Welcome)

Today is our 1 year anniversary. This time last year we were cutting the cake, throwing my bouquet, retrieving my garter, cramming into the photobooth with my cousins and sucking down Diet Coke between hugs. The best day of my life.

I'm not going to post the million reasons why I love the Beard. Believe it or not, we talk in person regularly, so we actually share that with one another. The internet doesn't really care.

We are going on a small getaway trip next week, so we just spent our anniversary very low key - attending our new AWESOME ward, watching baseball and making delicious fajitas. A very Holdaway Sunday.

I'm just sharing how amazing temple marriage can be. I feel so safe, happy and reassured that the Beard and I have done everything right and now we can be together forever. Hey, if we made it through the first year, we're good to go, right? That's what they say, anyways. :)

"That's LAME." - Ed Budge, My Father

The other day, I was sitting at my brother's baseball game and my dad goes-

"Dan, those shoes are cool." - Ed

"Thanks, Dad!" - Danica

".... Sometimes, Always, Never..." - Ed

I LOLed. And then pondered on the fact that my dad regularly reads my blog, even the girly S-A-N fashion posts, and supports me.

To the man who taught me to love the Chicago Cubs from Day 1

To the man who loves Disneyland more than anything

To the man who spent countless hours with me at the softball fields

To the man who put our family first

To the man who helped me get to the temple (and to the new dad I got in the temple! I have a Chad now too!)

I have always and will always be a daddy's girl. I love you dad! Thanks for being the best. Not LAME.

Wales: Day 35 Pres(ton) Forward Saints

Saturday, August 7 might have been the worst day on record for the Welsh 2010 study abroad. But it was still pretty good. Possibly the most ridiculous day we had, so naturally tons of great jokes came out of the day's journey.

First of all, we woke up exhausted. Probably the most tired I'd been on the trip. We'd been sleeping in hostels for a week, walking and running around like crazy, and even though we didn't have Tom's hyperactive structure, we really ended up walking, running and dealing with more stress in general because we didn't have him. Peeling myself out of that uncomfortable little bunk was a challenge, but I told myself "Ok. I just have to get through my tour of Preston and soon we'll be 'home' and I can finally get some rest."

Now, I'll admit. I was not in the best of spirits and attitudes this morning. I am usually very positive, regardless of my situation. I was extremely tired, injured, sick of driving around in a cramped van (even more cramped because we had to pile everyone's luggage in around us, see?), sick of being with people 24/7 (I need to have my private room. Really.), and feeling sick from eating nothing but Tesco food.



And embarrassing confession. I actually have human feelings. This whole time I hadn't really MISSED people. I was having a great time, the time of my life even. I was making great friends, laughing and loving every day. I missed my friends and family in the sense that I'd get excited thinking about seeing them again, but I never really got an aching, MISSING feeling before. Well. I woke up MISSING. The travel and hostel situation had made it difficult for me to stay as current as I had been on internet communication, and there were developing situations that were unduly concerning me. My baby sister was moving out soon and I started to feel weird about that. I was only going to have a couple weeks with one of my best friends when I got home. But the strangest was that someone I thought I wouldn't see until September was actually in Provo at the time. To stay, I hoped, but I wasn't sure. I had been totally solid, prepared for September, but here I was, tired, nothing left but a free week in Cardiff, realizing this person was home and soon I would be too. A lot of my patience and resolve crumbled to leave me once again excited, but now also anxious to get home.

We were supposed to leave at 8, but half of the van thought we were leaving at 9, so we started off on a good note. Irritated and running late, we finally hit the road. Sick of the front seat, I transferred to the back of the van so I could listen to my ipod and brood in privacy. Turns out. There's more than one "Preston" on our Gypsy. Translation: We spent over an hour driving around the Yorkshire countryside aimlessly. Now that is some beautiful countryside, and if I have a windowseat and my ipod I actually really love long drives. But not when all any of us wanted was to get "home."

The rest of the day was an equal mess. By the time we reached Preston, everyone was stir crazy and we all had to use the bathroom, so we pulled into Tesco. After using the bathrooms, we reluctantly stuffed ourselves back into the vans and ended up driving around the city, looking for who knows what. We finally park on this crowded, winding street and walk a ways to a park. We split into our cohorts and that's where we gave our tour presentations. That took approximately 3 minutes and then one of our adult leaders, Susan, jumped in with her plethora of British Church history knowledge, which was great because I was completely underprepared. Whatever, I was just trying to get it over with, and it was fairly painless. It went like this "Wilford Woodruff and Dan Jones were both AWESOME and the Church is true."

A couple people expressed interest in seeing the River Ribble, where Heber C. Kimball baptized the early converts in Great Britain. Of course most of us were hoping to skip this step and just get food and go home, but the adults felt bad that we hadn't actually seen anything in Preston, so we went. After driving around for half an hour or so, we found a random dead end to park in (I could write a blog post dedicated solely to our parking practices) and walked a mile or so to the River. There was all this construction, so we couldn't even get to the bridge that the Church built. We walked through mud clear down to this park where some clowns were putting on a puppet show for kids (which was the best part of the day, incidentally), and then turned around and walked back. At this point we were starving. But we were so sick of eating the pre-packaged sandwiches, crackers and sodas from convenience stores, so we were begging to go somewhere with a food court or restaurants. Unfortunately Preston has no such thing, so we found ourselves once again at Tesco.

Anders was very cautious parking the van because it is HUGE, so he'd always park away from cars to have more room. The parking lot wasn't very full, but Anders parked really far away from the nearest car, and as a result we were almost in the parking lot for the building next door. Everyone was tired, irritated, hungry and sick of meaningless transportation. We pull in, stop and no one even moves. Then suddenly, from the back of the van, a deadpan voice blurts out -

"Let's park further awayyyyyyyyy....." - Jessica Sloan

I laughed harder, longer, and more intensely than I have in a long, LONG time. Tears streaming down my face, I struggled to catch my breath. When we all finally composed ourselves, we clambered out of the van and walked the 2 miles of parking lot into Tesco. I went with my standard baguette, hummus, Dairy Milk chocolate and crappy Diet Coke. Feeling a little better we hung out and ate raspberries off the bushes in the parking lot (Our best idea? Probably not. We can't be held accountable for the decisions we made that day.) and tried to flush the bad experiences and irritation of the day.

Once again we were taunted with the prospect of finally heading home. We were only 15 minutes away from the Preston Chorley Temple, never mind it was 15 minutes out of the way. I really didn't mind though, because I love temples and it's a good opportunity to see one. Unfortunately the grounds were closed, but we got to see pretty close anyways.



Finally we hit the road. This ended up being one of my favorite van rides ever. Everyone was bugged and tired, so we all crashed. I almost never slept in the van (well, at all, really. I was known for being the one who was perpetually awake), but I just passed out for half the drive. Once everyone had napped, we were all up and going. We took off the headrests and all of the fun people in the back with us congregated and talked. We played the A-Z movie game where you have to name as many movies that start with the letter A and then move on through the alphabet. We swapped our favorite sound bites and catchphrases from the trip and lamented that this would be our last real day of touring and van-riding.

I never thought I'd be happy to see Penny Lane. But I was. Instead of going to bed, I stayed up super late talking with everyone online. In one week I'd be in transit to Salt Lake City! I was mildly sad about my study abroad experience basically being over, but I finally felt ready to come home.