My 30th Birthday Extravaganza

Well it's official, I'm mother flipping 30! My birthday was incredibly epic, much better than I could have anticipated. Thanks to my wonderfully awesome boss, and a few great friends, I was able to have a spectacularly special, fun, and incredibly memorable 30th birthday.

On my actual birthday night, a few of my girlfriends treated me to dinner at local restaurant. For birthdays, they give their signature dessert a Pizookie which is a pizza shaped cookie with a scoop of ice cream. It was so freaking good! I felt guilty for eating it. Here I am, freaking 30 and still incredibly adorable!!!

In reference to my uber fab boss, she gave me as a birthday gift a two days in Vegas! I didn't go on my actual birthday, but I went on Labor Day and the day after so it was super cheap. Two of my best friends Mel and Brit went with me, and we stayed at Paris Las Vegas. I loved pretty much every single second!

It is tradition with the girls and I to go to Fat Tuesday's after we first arrive in Vegas and get one of those blended drinks and walk around The Strip. Since it was my birthday, I decided to step it up and get the half yard Octane...rookie mistake. Octane contains Bacardi 151 and since I was feeling extra festive, I agreed to the extra shot. That's 3 shots of 151, and just an fyi...151 is the proof of the alcohol, NOT how many countries the rum is made in as I initially thought. Yeah, found that out the hard way! Here I am in front of the fountain at Paris. Perfectly happy and content with my half yard of geteffedup juice:

As the afternoon progressed, I decided it might be a good idea to call a few select people in my phone book and let them know I loved them. Did I mention the 151 proof?


Unfortunately, the rest of the night (and my dignity) ended up taking a huge turn and there are no other photos of our first night in Vegas other than this:

(Don't judge me...it was my birthday and I was in Vegas! I think a little drunken foolishness is called for!)

The next day started off much better! We had brunch (one of my favorite things in the world) at the outdoor cafe Paris Las Vegas, Mon Ami Gabi. I had a spinach and Brie crepe and orange juice, and we ordered their fruit plate to share. Look at it!

Soo gorgeous right? It was almost too pretty to eat...almost.

Cheers to three awesome friends on a beautiful day in Vegas! We were sitting there right when the first Bellagio fountain show started!


The rest of the afternoon was spent doing typical touristy stuff like posing with Elvis.


And lounging by the pool. We were toasting the birth of our friend's new baby. We found out she had been born while we were lounging. PS - Nothing is more fabulous than the Paris pool...so relaxing and beautiful scenery. Best part is we met a really cool British couple who were completely enchanted with my hardcore anglophile-ness. I knew more about Britain than they did! I'm sad I didn't get a pic of them, but they did give me a 20p coin!


Also, I loved that even in Vegas I can find my people. I must confess that I took this picture without her knowledge, but had she known me and my fangirl status, she would've consented I'm sure.


That night, we decided to grab some dinner and head out to New York, New York and see what Coyote Ugly was all about.

Sadly, it was just a few hot girls with megaphones yelling at drunken frat boys and inviting soccer moms in feather boas to dance on the bar. Yes, I'm perfectly serious. One of the women even had a fanny pack and since I still have no camera, Mel was the paparazzi and I forgot to ask her to get a pic of that truly hideous faux pas. Trust that it was a sight to behold! After 10 minutes of standing there in complete awe that people actually pay to participate in this madness, one of the "coyotes" points the megaphone at me and since I was the dumb ass wearing a birthday pin she orders me up on the bar. Mel completely bailed out on me, but Brit was all for it and we got up there and danced to "So What" by Pink. Naturally Mel got a pic of that momentous occasion.

After the forced humiliation, we received a shot of some seriously sour swill masquerading as liqueur which was poured directly into our mouths by the loudest Coyote who was wearing an Ed Hardy bikini top over her practically non existent boobs. I think the word Ew pretty much sums up the experience. We hightailed it out of there shortly after that.

We made our way down The Strip to another Vegas tradition of ours Cantina del Diablo. We stopped and had a drink and I chatted up an adorable Scot who had just arrived there that day. Nothing really came of it other than he took a picture of the three of us. Good times.


We ended our night at a lounge in the middle of the Paris casino. We wanted to wind down with a few more drinks before calling it a night. We ended up sitting next to a table of Swiss men who just so happen to be a bachelor party. The groom to be was the only one who spoke really good English and he took it upon himself to come over and sit with us. I think he was about 5 or 6 gin on the rocks in, but we had a blast trying to decipher his drunken English. By the time we all posed for a pic together, he was well past drunk and on the midnight express to Hammered. Hands down one of the funniest interludes we had the entire trip.


And maybe Brit and I were *slightly* tipsy as well.

Au revoir Paris Las Vegas ! La séparation est tant de douleur douce

Or for the non francophiles - Goodbye Paris Las Vegas! Parting is such sweet sorrow.



My birthday was one of the best I've ever had! I never believed that I would end up in Vegas to celebrate turning 30. I feel so incredibly grateful that I got the chance to celebrate exactly the way I wanted to. I think by ringing in 30 in such an awesome way, I've opened the door to nothing but wonderful and fabulous things to happen to me in this next decade.



I'm 30 Bitches!