The trip to Las Vegas was wonderful, as expected. Many thanks to Stef and her parents for including me on this birthday getaway weekend. Anyway, here's the rundown...

Thursday: Great flight. We made it to LV by about 1 in the afternoon, but got hung up at the baggage claim while we waited for our suitcases to get unloaded. The airport was jam packed, and they were emptying three plane's worth of cargo on one conveyor, so it took about 45 minutes for us to gather all our bags before we could get out of there.

We made it to the Bellagio by mid-afternoon and got checked into our suite without any problems. There were two bedrooms attached to one big main living room area, so we just had to make sure to call the front desk to request a rollaway bed for me to use. The spread was pretty cool in the suite. We had a great view of the pool below us, and could see all the work they're doing on the ginormous City Center project on the vacant lot next door to the Bellagio.

We had an early dinner reservation at Michale Mina inside the hotel at around 5:30 or so. The restaurant was a little dead when we got there, but I think that was just because it was still so early. We had one of those long, drawn-out meals with course after course that you never want to end. The food and service were top notch, and this first meal together was probably everyone's favorite of the trip.

After dinner, Stef and I took off for the Forum shops at Caesar's to look for some dress shoes that she could wear with her new bright green dress that she bought to wear on her actual birthday. The dress is gorgeous, but it's a tough color to match with, and since it's already fall all of the stores were selling these dark shoes that just didn't work. Still, we had fun just walking around the mall and working off our huge dinner. I also had my first celebrity sighting of the trip while we were there. I saw Shirley MacLaine walking around with her entourage as we were on our way out of the Forum. It took me a minute to put a name to the face, but I'm certain it was her.

On our way back to the hotel Stef and I stood outside and watched the Bellagio fountain for a while. We never really got another chance to see it again during the rest of the trip, so I was glad we made it work on the first day. At 9PM we celebrated the official beginning of Stef's birthday (since it was midnight back home) by the fountain, and then went upstairs and collapsed.

Friday: Stef came and woke me up pretty early so we could go have a nice birthday breakfast before heading out to the pool. We ate at this little cafe near the conservatory downstairs, and toasted Stef's first legal drink with mimosas. After breakfast, we headed outside to catch some of the warm Vegas sun by the pool. The temperature in the water was just perfect -- not too warm, but not as cold as the pool at the Mirage, so it was great to jump in and cool off for a few minutes if the sun got too hot. We stayed down there until shortly after noon before coming upstairs to get cleaned up for the day.

Stef, Teri, and I grabbed a cab and made our way over to the Venetian to do some more shoe shopping that afternoon. We were a bit pressed for time since Stef had a salon appointment at 4PM before our 6PM dinner at Tao (inside the Venetian), and I think the crunch just stressed all of us out. The shoe hunt didn't go any better than it had the day before at the Forum, so I think Stef was getting a little frustrated. We popped across the street to do some poking around the stores at the Mirage and actually found some really cute shoes while we were there, but they were out of her size in every pair she liked. We were about to call it quits when we decided at the last minute to head up to the Fashion Show Mall and look at Nordstrom's. Thankfully, we finally managed to track down some shoes that would work with the dress, so we got those bad boys and got the hell out of there. Stef made it back to the hotel with enough time to spare before her appointment, so she went down to the salon at 4PM, while I spent the next hour getting cleaned up and ready for our night on the town.

Our dinner at Tao was really cool. This place is like the hippest new(ish) restaurant in town, and the decor is ultra-swank. We got seated a little after 6, and had another fantastic multi-course meal. Stef opened her gifts from her parents while we were there (she had opened mine earlier in the day), and we had another ridiculously yummy dessert to cap off the dinner. Afterwards, we did a little gambling at the Venetian (just enough for me to blow twenty bucks), and then made our way back to the Bellagio to kill some time before heading out again.

Stef really wanted to go to a club to celebrate her 21st birthday, so Tim made a reservation for us at the Mirage's nightclub, Jet, at 10:30. The line was ridiculously long when Stef and I got there, so it was pretty cool that we got to skip the wait and get seated right away. There weren't a lot of people actually inside the club at first, but it filled up pretty quick. Stef and I ordered a couple bottles of champagne (they came with the table), and sat around for a little while before the dance floor started to fill up. The DJ was really great (he played all sorts of music, reaching back to stuff from the 70s and 80s, as opposed to the same recycled hip hop crap), so we had a great time cuttin' a rug out on the dance floor. Of course, being the old man that I am, I totally hit a wall at 12:30, and if it wasn't shoulder-to-shoulder in there, I could've laid down on the floor and taken a nap. By a little after 1 I was pretty much ready to go to bed, so we took off for the hotel. I don't think I broke stride on my way into bed when we walked into the room; I was out in under 30 seconds.

Saturday: Stef and I got up pretty early again to head down to the pool with Teri. We got our spot on the chaise lounge chairs, and then popped over to the outdoor cafe to have a light breakfast. Tim came down and joined us a few minutes later, so it was nice that we all got a chance to eat together. Stef, Tim, and I spent most of the morning bobbing around in the pool, chatting up a storm. It's always nice to have time to just sit around and chitchat with Stef and her dad like that.

I ran upstairs at noon to change and get dressed for the day, and then Stef, Teri, and I went out for another shopping venture. This one was decidedly more low-key than the day before, mostly because we weren't under any pressure to find a specific item. We spent most of the afternoon over at the Forum again, and had a nice, quick lunch at this little Mexican restaurant inside the mall. The only thing I bought in all these shopping trips was a pair of jeans at the Gap (for $20!) and a few pairs of work socks... nothing too exciting. Still, I had fun spending time with Stef and her mom and walking around town.

We had tickets to see the new Cirque du Soleil show, "Love", at the Mirage later that night, so we all went to the new restaurant Stack at the casino. The food and decor were amazing, as expected, but it was quite a bit different from the other two restaurants we'd already gone to. I also had my second celebrity sighting at dinner... Jenna Elfman was there celebrating her birthday, so Stef made a point of saying hi on our way out of the restaurant. Jenna seemed really nice, and I think it's cool that Stefy can say she had actual contact with a celeb on her big birthday trip.

The Beatles "Love" show was out of this world. I've seen two Cirque productions before ("O" and "Ka"), but this was definitely my favorite. I was a little worried that it would seem hokey or self-indulgent, but that wasn't the case at all. There were a million creative things in "Love" that I can't even begin to describe, but it was without a doubt one of the most consistently entertaining shows I've ever seen anywhere. I'm glad that they put so much thought and imagination into a Beatles-themed show... the greatest band in human history deserves nothing less.

We all made our way back to Bellagio after "Love," and Stef and I putsed around the casino for a couple hours. We only gambled a little here and there, and neither of us did particularly well. I only played with $20 the whole time we were down there, and while the money actually went pretty far (I never had to break into my wallet a second time), I pretty much ended up losing all of it. From time to time we would stop by the blackjack table where Tim was playing to check in on how he was doing. One time when we came by we saw this guy come along who started playing $10,000 a hand... on three hands at once. We only saw him play one round, but in that one round the dealer busted, so he won all three hands. Pretty nuts, but I guess that's Vegas for you.

Teri had a third (and by far the biggest) celebrity sighting on Saturday night inside the casino, but Stef and I weren't around to see for ourselves. She saw Simon Cowell, Randy Jackson, and Ryan Seacrest standing by the cashier kiosk chatting while she was waiting to cash out at the end of the night. Teri said she was right behind them in line, and thought they all seemed to be having a good time, so it's a little funny to learn that some of the animosity you see on American Idol is just for show.

Anyway, that was pretty much it for Saturday.

Sunday: We had an early flight at 11 out of McCarran airport, so there wasn't enough time to go back down by the pool. Stef just ran downstairs and grabbed a quick breakfast and brought it upstairs for us. We ate real quick, packed up our suitcases, and checked out at 9. The flight home was uneventful, we made it back to Detroit by 6.

So yeah, that's it for the big 21st birthday bonanza in Las Vegas. Thanks for reading this insanely long post.