Sunday, August 30, 2009

Fun In Las Vegas

My niece is visiting me for a few days which is always fun. It's been three years since she was last here and I've missed her. She arrived two nights ago and we've packed our days with shopping, movies and food.

She arrived in the evening so we stopped at Trader Joe's for supplies and then headed home. We ate pasta and salad and watched TV until the pièce de résistance of the evening: Project Runway. Yay.

The next day we had a leisurely morning and then headed out to The District for window shopping. Then we had Rubio's fish tacos and some Cold Stone ice cream before heading off to the movie. We saw Post Grad which was entertaining and fun. It got pretty bad reviews and I can see how it was a little sloppy in parts but overall I agreed with Roger Ebert's take. I liked the characters and was happy when things worked out for them.

After the movie, we stop at Ethel's (It will always be Ethel M's to me) to get some treats for dessert. Then on to Blockbuster for a couple rentals. Finally, back to Trader Joe's to get pizza fixings. We relaxed a bit before making our pizzas; garlic herb dough topped with pasta sauce (tomato basil for her, spicy Arrabatta for me), fresh basil and fresh mozzarella with grated Parmesan on top when they popped out of the oven. We munched our pizzas while we watched Duplicity. Meh. It was just okay. This time I didn't really agree with Roger. The plot was so convoluted I had a hard time catching up. And when I did catch up, I wasn't impressed. Both main characters were lackluster and there was zero chemistry between Julia Roberts and Clive Owen. A little snack of Ethel M's helped me get over the disappointment.

Yesterday, we headed over to our newest mall, Town Square. It is another outdoor mall which I find strange in Las Vegas. The shade from the buildings, along with the misters, helped but it was still pretty warm for shopping. It is bigger than the District and took us a few hours to see everything. We ate lunch at Cadillac Ranch which is new to LV and which was quite tasty. Allie had ribs and I had a portobello mushroom burger. We also had the onion rings. Not the best onion rings in the world but certainly tasty. We took a lot of food home with us. Oh, and we made a stop at Godiva, just to make sure they were still making chocolate. Then it was back home where we took naps and then watched our other movie, I Love You Man. This was much better than Duplicity and there were some laugh out loud moments in Paul Rudd's quest to find a best friend. Roger liked this one best. A tad too much sex humor for me and especially for me while sitting with my 19 year old niece. Aunts don't like to think their nieces know anything at all about sex and I'm sure nieces don't like to think their aunts know anything either. But it was fun. No fancy food, just leftovers. And chocolate.

Today we're heading over to William Sonoma for a technique class in crepes and croques. Neither of us know what croques are, we're just hoping they aren't crocs. I'll update you all later.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Sounds like FUN! Maybe today you should stop at See's to make sure THEY are still making chocolate. That was very funny.

Karen

Kathy said...

And I think that "croques" are "croquettes", though I'm not sure what they look like or taste like. You'll have to report for us!

Kathy

JohnnyB said...

You are having fun, wish I were there.

Jenny said...

I loved "I Love You, Man!" I think it was partly too true to life--Gavin has very few friends, so that is something that we're working on...him finding friends on his own, and both of us finding friends together.

Cali said...

You seem to know all the good places for shopping and food in LV. Maybe I should check with you next time we plan a trip! :) Glad you are having a good time with your niece!