When Marcus decided to join the Army, I decided to join an online message board of women who are military spouses and some even military members themselves. While friendships weren't instantly formed, we all bonded over the joys of being military wives, the stresses of being military wives, some marriages, a couple of divorces, children, dogs, etc.
At some point, in the beginning of this year, Southwest Airlines was having a flight special and a couple of girls got super cheap flights to Vegas. They extended the invitation to everyone, and "The Great Vegas GTG 2011" was born.
After months of planning, lots of Facebook status updates, and hours of research and communication, the trip went by WAY TOO FAST! Las Vegas 2011 Recap: Thursday, October 20th... I woke up at 4:00a to get dressed, grab my stuff, and head to the airport. Marilyn was volunteered by Marcus (I think) to take me to the airport because he didn't want to be up that early. Hah. My flight to Vegas left DFW at 6:58a, and landing in Vegas at 7:50a. It was a relatively non-eventful flight, which is always great when you are as scared of flying as I am. I get to Vegas, grab my luggage, and take a $25 cab fare to our hotel... theHotel at Mandalay Bay. I had a wonderful breakfast at theCafe, explored the hotel (every single square inch), and hung out by the "beach" area reading a book until Krista sent me a text to tell me she was on her way.
Krista was the first person to arrive after me. She called me when she got into the check-in line. I recognized her immediately... it wasn't hard, she was the only blonde in line! Hah. As she checked in, the hotel told her that her room was ready, as was mine, so we headed up to the 24th floor to settle in for the next four days! Krista was exactly as I pictured. It's weird, because we really don't have that much in common... I wonder if we could be more polar opposites, but we clicked, and I had a wonderful time laughing and joking with her! After we got our luggage upstairs, we headed to the Irish Pub in Mandalay Place. At first, I thought the food was okay, but I think that was just because I was starving... it was not good.
After lunch, we just killed time until Tonya called to tell us she was there! Oh my gosh. Tonya is NOT at all what I expected, she's better. Hah. I haven't laughed that much and that hard in a really long time, but Tonya is a hoot. She says what she means, and means what she says, and I completely respect her for that. We got Tonya upstairs, settled in, and went to grab her some lunch. Now that she's annouced it to the world, I can annouce it. She's PREGNANT with her third baby! :o) And she's the cutest pregnant lady. We literally just sat around, laughing, joking, in tears at points, relaxing and waiting around on everyone else. :o)
The next group of people to arrive were Emily and Shannon. They flew in around the same time, so they shared a shuttle to the hotel. We met them at the elevator entrance while going to meet Ashley in the parking lot to bring all of our liquid beverages (and some clothes) into the room.
