Las Vegas: Day #03 - August 12

On Wednesday, Mary and Becky went to Eleven Spa to get massages and manicures. (The owners of Eleven Spa are parents at our school, so we were given a discount.) Janet, Rhiannon, and I didn't want to spend over $100 for a massage, so we had a quick McDonald's breakfast again and headed downtown. WAY downtown...

After a $25 cab fare, we arrived at one of the oldest and dirtiest destinations in Las Vegas. I must say, it was pretty neat to be in "old" Las Vegas, but it certainly wasn't worth the round trip cab fare.

We walked around and saw some sights...

Then, we came to Mermaids, a super-old casino. I knew of it from watching Kathy Griffin: My Life on The D. List. In the season premiere of the current season, which actually just ended, Kathy Griffin met up with Bette Midler in Las Vegas. For dessert, Miss Griffin brought Miss Midler to Mermaids for their "reasonably priced" dessert items...

Being that Bette Midler stepped foot in this casino, I had to do the same!

Let me tell you...

It was so small and so dirty! Our feet were sticking to the floor, but I didn't care. I had to try fried oreos and a fried twinkie, just like Bette Midler and Kathy Griffin!

We ordered our deep fried goodness, and I recognized the gentleman who worked there from his appearance on the episode. I asked him if he was there when Kathy Griffin brought Bette Midler, just to make sure. He said that he was, and he pointed to the table where they sat, or stood, I should say...

Of course, as my luck would have it, another couple grabbed that table by the time our food was ready. Rhiannon and I went to another table and enjoyed our treats...

However, as soon as the other table opened up, I moved our stuff over there and finished it up at the same table where Kathy Griffin and Bette Midler enjoyed theirs!

After our deep fried good time, we made our way to The Golden Nugget and walked in, turned around, and walked out. We just wanted to say that we've been there! :-)

We walked to the end of Fremont Street, turned around, walked back, and got a cab. Another $25 was paid to get us to Caesars Palace, where we walked around The Forum Shops some more. I had to stop and pose with the newest poster for The Showgirl Must Go on...

Then, we ventured down The Strip to Planet Hollywood's Miracle Mile Shops and walked around there for a bit to kill some time.

On our way back to Excalibur to get ready for our evening, we stopped by MGM Grand to catch the lions actually in The Lion Habitat.

The plans for the evening were that we would all get ready and meet downstairs. The five of us would head to Caesars Palace for dinner and split up to see our respective shows: Janet, Rhiannon, and I were seeing The Showgirl Must Go on while Mary and Becky were seeing Cirque Du Soleil's O.

However, I had something up my sleeve before we met up with the ladies for the evening. They were "in the loop", so they knew that we'd be a tad late meeting them downstairs.

After I quickly got ready, as most men do, I waited for Rhiannon to finish. She came out, looking beautiful as always, and gave me the look that asked, "How do I look?"

"I think that you're missing something," I said.

Her look quickly became kind of disgusted, like, "What do you mean?!"

I showed her a box and said, "Perhaps, that something's in here."

I opened it, where an engagement ring was waiting, dropped down on one knee, and asked her to marry me.

She immediately said, "YES!", and I slipped it on her finger. The best is that she had NO IDEA!

Let me back up and give you a little bit of a back story on this aspect of the trip...

Once I knew that this Las Vegas trip was happening, I planned to propose there. Rhiannon's only request about the proposal was that it happen somewhere that means something to the both of us. (She told me that a long time ago, so I stored it for later use in my brain.) Las Vegas is like "our place". We took our first "big" trip there and have now been back twice after that. We just love it there!

I bought the engagement ring in June, had it sized, received it in July, and kept it hidden until August. Whew! Of course, my fat mouth unloaded to almost everybody what I was planning to do!

A week before the engagement, I asked her dad for his blessing, which he replied, "You have it! It's about time!" Her stepmother even called me and gave me her blessing. :-)

I asked Janet to hold the engagement ring through airport security on the way to Las Vegas because, with my luck, they would've searched my backpack and taken it out right in front of Rhiannon! Janet and I were so swift with passing it back and forth that Rhiannon never had a clue.

I was so glad that it was a shock to her... That made me so happy!

Now, we were engaged! I had to tell her the next part... I passed a note to the gentleman who escorted us out of Bette Midler's green room the night before. In it, I asked Miss Midler if she could congratulate us on our engagement during her show. I knew that it was a long shot, but I wanted to try. I mean, after all, she had just met us, so she had faces to put with the names on the note.

We made our way downstairs where the ladies were waiting for us. They screamed and ran towards us... "CONGRATULATIONS!" We were floating on that cloud again!

We grabbed a cab to Caesars Palace for dinner and called our parents on the way there. Then, we each made several other phone calls. I had to call all of the people who already knew because they'd been waiting SO long to hear that it was finally official: my best friends, Sarah, Nikki and Paul, Becc, and Al, my boss, Tami, and my brother and soon-to-be sister-in-law, Jeff and Lina.

I sent out a text message to several other family members and friends while we were at Trevi, an amazing restaurant in The Forum Shops for dinner.

We enjoyed our meal and the excitement of being engaged! Now, it was time to see Bette Midler for the second night in a row!

I showed Mary and Becky how to get to Bellagio to see their show and met up with Rhiannon and Janet in front of The Colosseum. They gambled for a bit while I perused the Bette Midler souvenir shop one more time. It was weird walking through there, looking at her pictures and such, and thinking to myself, "I met her last night!"

We took our seats, which were about twelve rows from the stage, and I was almost more excited that night because Janet had never seen Bette Midler in concert before. I always love going with "newbies" because I know that they're in for a real treat!

The show was absolutely amazing! Miss Midler sounded great, and made the show so memorable. During the Soph segment, she messed up on a joke. It was priceless! Most entertainers would just continue on without admitting their mistake.

Not The Divine Miss M.!

She immediately dropped to the floor after realizing that she messed up the punchline and said, "If I have to tell that f***ing joke again, I'll kill myself!" The entire place was dying laughing at this point! She retold it, got the punchline right, and was met with thunderous applause and laughter!

She's certainly one of a kind!

You may be wondering if she congratulated me and Rhiannon during the show. Unfortunately, she didn't. However, I'm not blaming her. From the look that the gentleman gave me when I handed him the note the night before, I truly feel that he didn't give it to her. He probably read it and threw it in the garbage on his walk back to escort the other V.I.P.'s out.

Oh, well... I tried.

Janet LOVED the show and thanked us for recommending it to her.

We headed back to the hotel, Rhiannon and I grabbed a milkshake from McDonald's, and headed back to our hotel room for the night.