Vegas, Baby!

Work sent me to the COLLABORATE 10 Quest Conference in Las Vegas, so I'm currently writing this blog from the 31st floor of Thehotel at Mandalay Bay. I don't know why it's called Thehotel instead of The Hotel or even The Hotel at Mandalay Bay, but there you go. It's probably a cool and modern way of distinguishing this part of the hotel from the rest of the Mandalay Bay buildings, but I don't think I'm cool enough to get it. Every time I look at the way it's worded I keep thinking that someone made a spelling mistake. :-)

I'm really looking forward to this trip. Since I'm here for PeopleSoft Payroll 9.1 information, and there just isn't a lot to to be, I have quite a bit of free time on this conference. A lot, actually. Monday is a pretty full day with five or so conference sessions, but Tuesday only has two sessions, and Wednesday only one session. That leaves a lot of hours open and needing to be filled. Since I'm a good wife (hee, I'm a wife now!) I originally asked Nate if he wanted to join me for the conference and we could hang out during my off hours. Since we just got back from the honeymoon a month ago Nate didn't want to take the extra time off of work since he's a little short on vacation hours. So I asked him if it would be okay if I asked my Mom to join me since she's never been to Vegas and has mentioned going a few times. He thought this was a great compromise as I got my buddy to hang out with and he didn't have to take time off of work. I then called my Mom and gave her the official invite to join me. She screeched and said she'd call me right back. 30 minutes later she'd talked to my Dad to get his buy-in, called the airline to see about getting cheap tickets, made her airline reservation, found a few Vegas shows that she wanted to see, and asked her boss (and got his approval) for the time off. She was so excited! I don't think she'd ever made as big of trip plans as this in such a short amount of time. :-)

At this point I've checked into the hotel, checked into the conference, had dinner with the co-workers at the House of Blues in Mandalay Bay, and am now waiting for my Mom's plane to arrive. I'm not sure what the rest of the night will entail. Going out or staying in? Normally I'd say going out as it's her first night in the city, but we had a whirlwind weekend. My cousin, Mindy, had her wedding shower this past Saturday in Seattle that my Mom and I helped host. Friday morning we drove over to Seattle and stayed up until midnight chatting with my Auntie Sue and Grandma and getting everything ready for the shower. Saturday we woke up early, continued chatting and getting ready for the shower, had the shower, chatted more, and then drove home to the Tri-Cities getting in around 10:30pm. So with two late nights and two early mornings I'm not sure if she's going to want to head out tonight or get to bed early and sleep in and go out with a bang tomorrow night instead of a potential slow night tonight. Hmm, still not sure. Either way I'm goint to do whatever she wants. I remember my first time here and wanting to take in as many of the sites as possible right away. I certainly don't want to take any of that away from her simply because I'm tired and have been here before. I can sleep later!