Jewel of the Nile...

...or Jewel of the Strip? Anyhow, I realized that I had never been to Vegas just for the sake of being in Vegas. My cousin got married in Vegas and I went there for that; I've been there to visit family, and I've driven through more times than I can count, but I had never gone just to have a good time. So, there's a first time for everything, right? Now, gambling isn't my style, so I passed on that aspect of it, but I did get to stay in a super sweet hotel!

I have ALWAYS wanted to stay in the Luxor! It had become kind of a bucket list thing and I found that if you stay there during the week, rather than the busy Vegas weekends, you can actually find some pretty awesome rates! So, I booked! It was amazing! The room was nice and it had the slanty windows that you can see from the freeway.

AND in the evening, we had an awesome view of the Excalibur with a little bit of New York, New York.

Aaaaand it was amazing inside too! Here's what we saw when we walked out of our hotel room door:

How awesome is that!?!?!
We also got to experience one of Vegas' many buffets, which was conveniently located in our hotel, as well as visiting the old Mormon Fort in a part of Vegas that was...uh...definitely on "the other side of the tracks". BUT it was still cool!

And YES, I did wear capri pants with tennis shoes, which looks fine on people with long legs, but not on my short legs. It was super dusty and dirty, so flip-flops were absolutely not an option. Don't judge me! : )
We also got to visit the Las Vegas Temple and do some work there.

It was awesome, of course! And all of these things made for a fabulous trip!

Off The Beaten Path

I had the opportunity to go with my parents to visit a section of Arizona that is, lets just say, less populated than others. We stayed in Holbrook and visited a few cool things around there.

I got to explore a little bit on the Navajo Reservation, which was cool and absolutely beautiful since it was mostly just undisturbed nature. We also got to do some work in the Snowflake, AZ Temple. It was such a pretty temple too! The pictures we took were'nt spectacular because it was SO windy there, BUT they have their charm : )

On the way home we visited the famous meteor crater. It is the world's most well-preserved meteor crater, as well as the first crater to be proved as an impact crater, rather than one made from a volcano. You know how sometimes, you'll go somewhere and you end up with a crappy tour guide that only knows the 10 facts he learned from reading a script? Well, we were way excited because our guide was not like that at all! He made that huge hole in the ground sound like Disneyland. Seriously, though, I really do love stuff like this and our tour guide made it even more awesome!

We also stopped in Lake Havasu and got to see the real London Bridge! It's crazy to see such an awesome, old, and dignified piece of architecture in a place like Havasu, which is, well...kinda ghetto. Ya know, the place where people go to get drunk and run around like crazies! : )

Anyhow, we enjoyed our little trip, which was pretty much spontaneous and got to see some cool things along the way.