2009 - WELCOME!!
When we arrived here in California, among the numerous mail that Donna received were invitations from the various casinos to stay in their resort. One of them was from the Harrah’s in Las Vegas for New Year. On Sunday December 28, Donna called and booked the reservation. She was told it’s good she called because if she’s waited one more day she wouldn’t have been able to for it would have been too late.
Tuesday morning she packed our stuff for a three nights, four days stay from December 30 through January 2. At around noon she called Mary and told her we’re leaving around 12:30. Mary said they were getting ready to leave. We thought 12:30 was a good time to avoid the afternoon rush hour traffic. Wrong! It seems as if everyone was thinking the way we did. Including our stop at the Barstow station and a huge accident past Barstow, the usual four hour drive took us six and a half hours!
We were starving by the time we checked in so we had some snacks at the Harrah’s Diamond Lounge and then we went to see everyone at Robert’s sister Mila’s new house. I tried using the Prius’ GPS but it refused to give me proper directions. It’s good I asked directions from Mila’s son Ouel. Their house is located in a newly developed subdivision off the 215 freeway. Eph’s GPS is not updated, and that’s probably why it cannot locate the house.
They were watching the movie Get Smart when we arrived. We watched a bit with them while Donna and I were having dinner. They have a really nice home theater system with six built-in speakers on the ceiling, one center speaker and a sub woofer and they’re watching the blue ray disc on a 72 inch TV. Pretty impressive!
Mary’s sisters Alma, Shirley and Ate Lynn and her husband Cong Yeng were there. Romar, Girlie, Erline and the rest of the kids, Alma’s 2 teenaged sons on vacation from South Carolina, went to Disneyland and were driving the day after.
Unfortunately, when we walked out, I missed the last step outside their door and I twisted my ankle a little bit, not enough to do a lot of damage but I still feel some pain when I move it a certain angle. We went back to the hotel at a little past 10. Donna stayed downstairs to play while I went up to the room to try my luck going on line.
There’s no free WiFi in the room so I just downloaded the pictures I took into my laptop and started drafting this post.
Wednesday, New Year’s Eve, Mary called and said for us to meet them at the outlet stores. After a belly-bursting-lunch at the buffet, Donna and I went to the outlets to see them.
Here's Cong Yeng on the extreme left showing off his brand new Skechers.
We were anticipating the New Year’s Eve traffic so it was decided that everyone will go and park at the Harrah’s parking lot and we’ll go from there. Harrah’s is located in the middle of the strip, a prime location to wait and meet 2009.
Meanwhile, Romar and the rest of the gang have arrived and stayed at Onor’s place to unwind from the trip. They joined us before dinner. Robert had to meet them before they parked because there’s now a guard posted at the entrance of the parking garage asking to see either a room a key or a player’s club card.
After Theresa and Erline freshened up, we went downstairs to have dinner. We figured at $22 per person at Flavors, (we were thirteen in the group!) it’s going to cost us a chunk of change. We opted to go to Harrah’s Café this time instead of the buffet with Theresa and Romar treating. Thanks a bunch, you guys!
While we were waiting for our food, a few of us played Keno and Ate Lynn won $91.00
I had an open faced turkey sandwich and Donna ordered the crab meat/lobster salad.
Yummy!!
After dinner, the kids went out walking around the Strip and to meet Onor, Leann and JohnC. They’ve already closed off the Strip to car traffic by that time. Donna took me to see Steve Roy, an ex-employee of the old Hotel San Remo (aka as the Hooter’s Casino, nowadays). It turned out he’s now a supervisor in the High Limits Slots of Harrah’s. We haven’t seen him in years. His little girls are not so little anymore!
I wanted to give my ankle a break so Robert, Mary and I went back up to the room while the rest of the ‘old’ people stayed in the casino to try their luck on Las Vegas’ infamous one armed bandits. We all agreed to meet up front at around 11 for the count down and the fireworks on the strip.
This would have been our first New Year's Eve Las Vegas Strip experience. Now I know why we've always watched the countdown on TV either at home or in our hotel room. It was crazy!!
Check this out.
And here's the count down and fireworks.
Theresa called Robert from Caesar's and told her Dad there's no way for them to come to us in front of Harrah's because there was just way too many people on the Strip.
Can you find Robert in this picture??
...notice Donna and Mary's matching polka dotted pants?? (Allegedly a good luck charm for the New Year, and I thought only Chinese did that!!)
Our hotel room became the New Years headquarters of sorts. When the second group of revelers came up, all their shoes are muddy. (Sorry, you have to have a Facebook account to see the picture.) Onor explained something about walking on the ditch to avoid someone who's starting to have a panic attack around a throng of people.
And here's everyone just hanging out after the celebrations at the Strip waiting for the gamblers to come up!!
I couldn't take a proper picture of the triplets, they've lost their New Year's Eve glamour, by this time! There was no room on the two queen beds so they crashed on the floor.
New Year’s Day, we got up and had brunch at Flavors and then we did a dry run to the location of Choice Real Estate and Rental Management. This is the company which manages Nido and Emy’s rental property here in Las Vegas. He has some issues with the renter and the homeowner’s association and he gave me some documents to hand to Choice. I tried the Prius’ GPS this time. It did work but somehow old school me still prefer a regular map. It should be easy for us to find the place Friday after we check out before we go home. We went to Harrah’s Diamond Lounge for some snacks before watching the movie Valkyrie at the Orlean's. It’s about the last assassination attempt on the life of Hitler before the end of WWII. Tom Cruise did a good job playing the lead character. Donna was able to sweet talk the kid in the box office into selling her senior discounted tickets although we're not 62 yet. The perks of old age, don't knock it till...
We woke up around 9:30 this morning and as soon as Donna packed our stuff, we went downstairs and she checked us out. We then went back to Choice to drop off the paperwork Nido wanted me to give them and after a quick lunch at a nearby El Pollo Loco, we headed on home. The drive back wasn't as bad this time, in spite of a freeway advisory by Gold Strike Casino announcing "Heavy traffic to California.. expect delays"! I had Donna take a couple of pictures of scenes on the way home.
The opposing north bound traffic was a different story, however.
After five and a half hours we arrived in Cerritos. Donna wanted to do a little shopping at Target before going home. But she called Dan first and we met at Samurai for dinner.
And with that...
the Christmas Holidays are finally over!
Tuesday morning she packed our stuff for a three nights, four days stay from December 30 through January 2. At around noon she called Mary and told her we’re leaving around 12:30. Mary said they were getting ready to leave. We thought 12:30 was a good time to avoid the afternoon rush hour traffic. Wrong! It seems as if everyone was thinking the way we did. Including our stop at the Barstow station and a huge accident past Barstow, the usual four hour drive took us six and a half hours!
We were starving by the time we checked in so we had some snacks at the Harrah’s Diamond Lounge and then we went to see everyone at Robert’s sister Mila’s new house. I tried using the Prius’ GPS but it refused to give me proper directions. It’s good I asked directions from Mila’s son Ouel. Their house is located in a newly developed subdivision off the 215 freeway. Eph’s GPS is not updated, and that’s probably why it cannot locate the house.
They were watching the movie Get Smart when we arrived. We watched a bit with them while Donna and I were having dinner. They have a really nice home theater system with six built-in speakers on the ceiling, one center speaker and a sub woofer and they’re watching the blue ray disc on a 72 inch TV. Pretty impressive!
Mary’s sisters Alma, Shirley and Ate Lynn and her husband Cong Yeng were there. Romar, Girlie, Erline and the rest of the kids, Alma’s 2 teenaged sons on vacation from South Carolina, went to Disneyland and were driving the day after.
Unfortunately, when we walked out, I missed the last step outside their door and I twisted my ankle a little bit, not enough to do a lot of damage but I still feel some pain when I move it a certain angle. We went back to the hotel at a little past 10. Donna stayed downstairs to play while I went up to the room to try my luck going on line.
There’s no free WiFi in the room so I just downloaded the pictures I took into my laptop and started drafting this post.
Wednesday, New Year’s Eve, Mary called and said for us to meet them at the outlet stores. After a belly-bursting-lunch at the buffet, Donna and I went to the outlets to see them.
Here's Cong Yeng on the extreme left showing off his brand new Skechers.
We were anticipating the New Year’s Eve traffic so it was decided that everyone will go and park at the Harrah’s parking lot and we’ll go from there. Harrah’s is located in the middle of the strip, a prime location to wait and meet 2009.
Meanwhile, Romar and the rest of the gang have arrived and stayed at Onor’s place to unwind from the trip. They joined us before dinner. Robert had to meet them before they parked because there’s now a guard posted at the entrance of the parking garage asking to see either a room a key or a player’s club card.
After Theresa and Erline freshened up, we went downstairs to have dinner. We figured at $22 per person at Flavors, (we were thirteen in the group!) it’s going to cost us a chunk of change. We opted to go to Harrah’s Café this time instead of the buffet with Theresa and Romar treating. Thanks a bunch, you guys!
While we were waiting for our food, a few of us played Keno and Ate Lynn won $91.00
I had an open faced turkey sandwich and Donna ordered the crab meat/lobster salad.
Yummy!!
After dinner, the kids went out walking around the Strip and to meet Onor, Leann and JohnC. They’ve already closed off the Strip to car traffic by that time. Donna took me to see Steve Roy, an ex-employee of the old Hotel San Remo (aka as the Hooter’s Casino, nowadays). It turned out he’s now a supervisor in the High Limits Slots of Harrah’s. We haven’t seen him in years. His little girls are not so little anymore!
I wanted to give my ankle a break so Robert, Mary and I went back up to the room while the rest of the ‘old’ people stayed in the casino to try their luck on Las Vegas’ infamous one armed bandits. We all agreed to meet up front at around 11 for the count down and the fireworks on the strip.
This would have been our first New Year's Eve Las Vegas Strip experience. Now I know why we've always watched the countdown on TV either at home or in our hotel room. It was crazy!!
Check this out.
And here's the count down and fireworks.
Theresa called Robert from Caesar's and told her Dad there's no way for them to come to us in front of Harrah's because there was just way too many people on the Strip.
Can you find Robert in this picture??
...notice Donna and Mary's matching polka dotted pants?? (Allegedly a good luck charm for the New Year, and I thought only Chinese did that!!)
Our hotel room became the New Years headquarters of sorts. When the second group of revelers came up, all their shoes are muddy. (Sorry, you have to have a Facebook account to see the picture.) Onor explained something about walking on the ditch to avoid someone who's starting to have a panic attack around a throng of people.
And here's everyone just hanging out after the celebrations at the Strip waiting for the gamblers to come up!!
I couldn't take a proper picture of the triplets, they've lost their New Year's Eve glamour, by this time! There was no room on the two queen beds so they crashed on the floor.
New Year’s Day, we got up and had brunch at Flavors and then we did a dry run to the location of Choice Real Estate and Rental Management. This is the company which manages Nido and Emy’s rental property here in Las Vegas. He has some issues with the renter and the homeowner’s association and he gave me some documents to hand to Choice. I tried the Prius’ GPS this time. It did work but somehow old school me still prefer a regular map. It should be easy for us to find the place Friday after we check out before we go home. We went to Harrah’s Diamond Lounge for some snacks before watching the movie Valkyrie at the Orlean's. It’s about the last assassination attempt on the life of Hitler before the end of WWII. Tom Cruise did a good job playing the lead character. Donna was able to sweet talk the kid in the box office into selling her senior discounted tickets although we're not 62 yet. The perks of old age, don't knock it till...
We woke up around 9:30 this morning and as soon as Donna packed our stuff, we went downstairs and she checked us out. We then went back to Choice to drop off the paperwork Nido wanted me to give them and after a quick lunch at a nearby El Pollo Loco, we headed on home. The drive back wasn't as bad this time, in spite of a freeway advisory by Gold Strike Casino announcing "Heavy traffic to California.. expect delays"! I had Donna take a couple of pictures of scenes on the way home.
The opposing north bound traffic was a different story, however.
After five and a half hours we arrived in Cerritos. Donna wanted to do a little shopping at Target before going home. But she called Dan first and we met at Samurai for dinner.
And with that...
the Christmas Holidays are finally over!
posted by reyjay @ 2:52 PM
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