Emma’s Fantabulous Blog

As I mentioned beforehand, Devon and I went to Las Vegas last week for a belated 2nd anniversary trip.

My favorite pic from our trip:

Devon wrote a really nice write-up about our adventures in a blog entry (entitled Snakes in the Desert). So I won’t repeat the same basic spiel that he did. But I’ll give a quick recap.

Some fun, delicious and beautifully decorated places we ate at were: Wolfgang Puck’s Trattoria del Lupo, RM bar, SeaBlue, Tao, Shanghai Lilly.

Some fun stuff we did was: Saw some cute sea critters at the Shark Reef, rented a Dodge Viper & drove out to the Hoover Dam (a random aside: I love the landscapes in the SW. I always feel so happy and serene there.), relaxed at THE bathhouse at our hotel (which I recommend as an absolute must to anyone who gets the chance, seriously, OMG, it was awesome.), saw Crazy Horse (awesome), saw Zumanity (I enjoyed it, Devon thought it was just ok.), and lost $15 on slots in an incredibly short amount of time.

Check out all my photos here!

This year for Thanksgiving, our friends Russell and Jenny kindly invited us to have Thanksgiving dinner with them. They provided an amazing spread of traditional turkey day goodies and we brought over a homemade pumpkin pie and supplies to try out my henna skills on Jenny. (She’s incredibly brave!)

The next day I still had a bunch of goo left and decided to try out some new ideas and doodle on my hands again. This was the result. Not super amazing, but it was fun to try some new patterns.

And then Devon decided to be brave and let me doodle on him!!! I tried my best at making an Apple computer power button on the back of his neck. I drew one almost perfectly, but unfortunately the back of your neck is a location that’s really hard to keep from smudging. So it didn’t end up staining well… But the initially it looked really rad.

Duran Duran has a new album out! It’s called Red Carpet Massacre. From what I previewed on iTunes, the album is kinda “meh” but I really love one of the songs. Falling down. Plus they made an awesome video to go along with it. It features a Britney Spears look-alike going to rehab. (As a random connection: the rehab building in the video looks strangely familiar to an abandoned hospital featured in on of my favorite shows: Showtime’s Dexter.)

But yeah. Check out the vid.

So Devon and I are going to Vegas this holiday season for 5 days. We’ve been meaning to take a real 2nd anniversary trip and finally found a good time.We got an awesome deal on airfare (if you fly on a major holiday you can get great deals), and 4 nights for the price of 3 nights during a certain holiday time-frame at theHOTEL at Mandalay Bay (we had an awesome time there last year!).

I’m currently reserving seats at shows and restaurants.  Currently we’re booked to see Crazy Horse (at MGM Grand, previously named La Femme – which we have already seen and totally adored!) and Zumanity which is the “adult-themed” Cirque du Soleil playing at New York New York Hotel.

D and I have another free night and we’re debating to also see either: a.) X Burlesque at the Flamingo (basically what it sounds like) OR b.) ICE direct from Russia at the Riviera (Ice skating gymnasts and acrobats.) Yeah. Guess which one of us wants to see what. No but really, both seem really cool. Actually whatI really want to see is The Thunder From Down Under at the Excalibur, but there’s no way in hell that Devon would pay to see that with me.

For dinner, I reserved us a table at Tao (a restaurant/nightclub where lots of celebrities like to party). It serves a bunch of delicious sounding Asian dishes, and I’m totally looking forward to that. And hey, maybe we’ll even see Britney or Paris there.

Also, I’m intrigued by Joel Robuchon at in the MGM Grand complex, but the meals there are $$$$$.  They offer 6 course tasting menus for $225 per PERSON as well as a 16 course menu for $360 per PERSON!?!?!!!!

But yeah. Any rec’s for amazing entertainment or food in Las Vegas?

I recently finished reading The Road by Cormac McCarthy. I know. An Oprah Book Club book. Shoot me now. I have no good excuse.

It’s the story of the love between a man and his son and set in post-apocalyptic times. They are on a journey with no safe place to call home and no way to find food other than scavenging. All the while they’re trying to avoid cannibalistic bandits which roam the roads and abandoned buildings.

I’m really glad that I did finally read The Road, as it’s earned a spot as one of my favorite books of all time.  It had touching and emotional moments. It also had gruesome and raws moments.  The entire time I was reading it, I was wishing that I was closer to the end (even though I was totally engrossed in reading their journey) so I could find out what happened to the main characters.

The book had some raw moments, so I wouldn’t necessarily recommend it for someone with an extremely delicate composition. However I loved it and found it very powerful and I highly recommend it in general.

We had a great Saturday at Fifi’s Halloween costume contest. Unfortunately they (the store running the contest) seemed unwilling to let a reptile win the contest, as the awards were cat and dog focused. We did get a $10 gift certificate to PetCo, but we didn’t place, or even win honorable Mention. In short. We were totally robbed.

However, Fifi totally rocked her “dog”costume. Especially amusing was the fact that a dog showed up wearing a lizard costume.

1st place went to a pirate team consisting of a little dog and a little boy. (They ALWAYS award the little kids! So unfair!)

2nd place went to a dachshund (i think) dressed as a Red Hat Society Lady. His/her costume was completely hand sewn and beaded/sequined by it’s owner. Including it’s feathered hat. The dachshund totally deserved to win.

3rd place went to a little dog team dressed as Men in Black. Talk about dressing up as totally behind the times characters. *yawn*. Fifi totally deserved at least 3rd place.

Devon took lots of pictures. Check them all out. I think my favorite “cute” costume was the squishy pug dressed as bumble bee.

Now I know, I usually see the word “carob” and i generally think “a weak excuse for chocolate”.  Normally I would agree with that, but after coming across this “snack bar” I can’t disagree more.

I was rummaging around Central Market’s organic/herbal/medicine section looking for flax seed or something hippy-ish and random like that, and I noticed that they had a refrigerated organic section. And that’s where I found this snack bar.

Brand: Perfect Foods Bar. Flavor: Carob Chip.

First ingredient: Natural peanut butter. Second ingredient: raw honey.

Ok. stop right there. I’m sold.

It tastes absolutely amazing. Seriously. It tastes like the filling of a Reese’s Peanut Butter cup except it doesn’t have any junk in it. I had it for breakfast this morning and I was totally filled up (although I would’nt have denied a glass of milk if I had one to go with it.) Calories: 282. And I think it cost $2.50-ish.

But yeah. Totally amazing. Unfortunately I think that they still have a somewhat limited distribution, but check to see if they have a distributor in your area/state.