Journal Entry for Monday, Nov 28th

Staycation – Day 2 After breakfast in our room, we picked up the car from valet and drove to the Palms to see Hugo in 3-D; only to find the theaters there closed for the day. Hello? So we then drove to the South Point and saw it there. Click “read more” at the bottom of the post for our review. After the movie we went to the “M” and played for a couple of hours before heading over to see the Mystic Falls Park Christmas show at Sam's Town. After ordering a couple of Mimosa’s, we sat back and enjoyed the show - a four story rolling waterfall inside a ten-story atrium comes alive with a lights and laser show that are complemented by fountains that shoot eight stories into the air and a special symphonic holiday music score recorded especially for Sam's Town by the Indianapolis Philharmonic Orchestra. We try and make it a point to visit this every year to get into the “holiday spirit”. After the show we drove to Brad Garret’s Comedy Club at the Tropicanna Casino. The headliner was Monique Marvez, a standup comic from Miami, known for her biting sarcasm and sardonic attention to gender issues. We both thought she was quite funny and enjoyed the show. Finally, it was time to return to our suite at the RIO and catch some shuteye.

Journal Entry for Sunday, Nov 27th

Staycation - Day 1 - And The Celebration Continues Connie Reading Her Book in our LR Suite After our Thanksgiving dinner at Mimi’s Café, we started our 41st anniversary celebration by attending Kathleen Madigan’s comedy show, “Gone Madigan at the South Point Casino. After taking a day off, today we started the continuation of our anniversary celebrations by watching the Patriots trounce the Philadelphia Eagles, 38-20. We then drove to the Strip and checked into one of the RIO Casino’s all-suite hotel rooms for a three night staycation. After getting settled, we went down to their Village Seafood Buffet for dinner. This 7-day a week, 13,000 square foot all-you-can-eat seafood buffet features lobster, snow crab legs, shrimp, fresh shucked oysters, sushi and dozens of seafood items from around the world. Even though the lobster tails were small Australian rock lobster, you don’t even want to know how many we ate! After this delicious meal we walked over to The Crown Theater to see the “The Platters, The Cornell Gunter Coasters & The Marvelettes” show.  For a full hour they performed some great renditions of such rock and roll classics as My Prayer, Please Mr. Postman, Charlie Brown, Smoke Gets In Your Eyes, Yakety Yak and about 20 other million selling songs. It was very good. After the show we went up to the  VooDoo Rooftop Nightclub for a nightcap. Long past our normal bedtime, we finally made it back to the room and straight to bed.

Journal Entry for Friday, Nov 25th

Black Friday Well today is what is now known as Black Friday, the day following Thanksgiving Day. Traditionally it is the beginning of the Christmas shopping season and is perhaps the biggest shopping day of the year. Though not the original explanation, today it is generally understood to indicate the point at which retailers begin to turn a profit, or are "in the black". It is also our 41st wedding anniversary; and in all of our 41 years together, I think I can honestly say that we have never gone shopping on this day. Today after exchanging cards, Connie made us waffles for breakfast. Between watching some prerecorded TV shows, we watched our latest Netflix movie, Arthur. In this fresh new look at a classic story, Russell Brand reinvents the role of loveable billionaire Arthur Bach, an irresponsible charmer who has always relied on two things to get by: his limitless fortune and the good sense of his lifelong nanny and best friend Hobson (played by Helen Mirren), to keep him out of trouble. We actually enjoyed it and would give it a strong 2.5 Stars. Connie starting a new book, and me playing with my photography site, we whiled most of the day away. At dinner time we, as like I’m sure most Americans did, had leftovers from yesterday’s turkey dinner. Following dinner we headed over to the South Point Casino to see Kathleen Madigan’s comedy show “Gone Madigan”, based on here newest CD. This is the third time we have seen her in person and again we were not disappointed. We were in stitches for the entire show and both agreed that it was her best performance yet. If you haven’t seen her before, or just haven’t seen her for a while, you can pick up her latest CD on Amazon for $12.00. Check her out now … Kathleen Madigan @ Amazon

Journal Entry for Thursday, Nov 24th

Thanksgiving Day 2011 Click photo to enlarge Today was just another beautiful, warm and sunny day, in the low seventies. We sat around most of the day, I playing on the computer, Connie reading, and watching a couple of prerecorded TV shows. After finally showering and getting dressed we headed out to Mimi’s Café for our Turkey Day dinner; and what a dinner it was. I had the homemade Roasted Tomato & Basil Bisque while Connie had her favorite, French Onion with Swiss, mozzarella and Parmesan cheeses. Click photo to enlarge These were served with a warm bread basket that included Mimi’s famous carrot raisin nut bread and other assorted breads and biscuits. Dinner was a traditional meal with four generous slices of white turkey breast on top of a cornbread stuffing, mashed potatoes, broccoli, squash, side of cranberry sauce and oodles of gravy. For dessert we both had two huge squares of Mimi’s Bread Pudding, baked from scratch with plump raisins, vanilla and a special spice blend that was served warm with a buttery whiskey sauce. These were so big that we had them both boxed and had them for dinner later in the evening.