Vegas In Review

We are home from Vegas safe and sound. Good times, really, really good times this past week. And the weather, by the way, was perfect. 68 degrees every day. Not that we got to enjoy much of it, but it sure beat Springfield's weather!! For anyone who knows us well, you know how much Roger and I both love Vegas. In fact, we had a conversation while we were there about who has been there more times. I really thought I might win considering the first time I went to Vegas I was only 17. Not everyone has a cool dad who takes his teenage daughter with him on business trips like I do. But, alas, I only counted 9 trips to Roger's 12. That's okay, though. He's three years older than me, so I figure it averages out to about the same. And, for my friends Kate and Carrie out there reading this, I was reminded of some hilariously good times we had on our respective trips, which Roger had the pleasure of hearing about....again....for like the 50th time.

I thought I'd try to recap some of the week's highlights. Since we have only been officially waiting for almost a month now and it is waaaaaaay too soon to have any exciting adoption news, this post will selfishly be about us and our trip only.

First of all, thank you, Amy Buzbee, for recommending this great little shopping secret called the Primm outlet mall. Okay, maybe it's not a secret, but I certainly had never heard about it. Since the convention didn't start until Wednesday and we got to Vegas Monday afternoon, Roger and I (mostly me) decided we'd take the 30-minute charter bus ride for $15/person out to Primm, NV, to check out the highly-acclaimed outlet mall. Totally worth it. Seriously. I just wish I knew beforehand how good it was really going to be so I could have brought an extra suitcase for the shopping. It's an indoor mall with high-end retail shops such as: William Sonoma, Coach, Kate Spade, Neiman Marcus-Last Call, AG Jeans, Kenneth Cole, etc., along with some of the more regular stores like Banana, Old Navy, Gymboree, etc. I behaved impeccably well and only bought two pairs of AG jeans for myself, which were half price or less, by the way. For all the women out there who are built like, well, women, I have nothing but wonderful things to say about AG jeans. I have yet to find a pair of jeans that last as long and fit as well as this brand. Enough said. Moving on. The rest of my steals (not literally) I found were of course baby-related. Ever since we decided to adopt, every shopping outing turns into shopping for baby. For those of you out there who thinks it's completely and utterly ridiculous that I'm already buying clothes when we don't know how old our baby will be when we bring him home, or what season, for that matter, let me just try to explain that not only do I have soooooo much fun baby shopping (largely due to the fact that I've been waiting three years for it), it's also incredibly therapeutic. It makes this waiting process more bearable. Therefore, it's more than worth whatever amount of money I'm spending, which still isn't very much since I'm sticking to my rule of only buying stuff on sale. With that being said, the baby came home with the most stuff!

(Notice all the red clearance stickers, as described above)

(Apparently Roger's feet hurt so badly -- in CONVERSE TENNIS SHOES! -- after our day of shopping he had to take them off before we got back to the room! Considering the shoes I manage to wear out there, I'm not even going to comment on this.)

We also enjoyed eating some amazing food -- even if it was at 11 p.m. one night. When in Vegas! While we were out there we heard a lot about how the economy is really hurting Vegas' tourism industry, and let me just say -- no kidding!!!! Gambling aside, it's expensive just to be there! The food prices are outrageous! I mean, I know it's always been an expensive city, but it has gotten completely out of control. Fifty bucks for a plate of spaghetti and a chicken pot pie is hardly acceptable. And that wasn't even at a "nice" restaurant. Whatever. I'm not even going to mention what it cost for an adult beverage.


Okay, on to the whole reason we were there. Every January the promotional products industry has the PPAI show which showcases the new products for the year, is an opportunity to become familiar with new vendors, and also serves as a chance to meet up face to face with people you work with over the phone/email all year. A lot of the vendors also promote special show pricing for distributors, people like Roger and Elite Promotions. I say this like I know what I'm talking about. I really don't. I'm not even in the industry. This is just what I've gathered from Roger and from attending this show for the past five years. I'd like to think I do serve somewhat of a purpose while there, though. I just follow Roger around the 4.3 million booths (it seriously feels like it. It's a huge show)and get my badge scanned at the various booths as I'm instructed, along with taking notes for Roger when he sees something that will work exceptionally well for one of his clients. I did take one funny picture at the show. You see lots of crazy gadgets and gizmos, along with a lot of the same stuff, but once in a while you see something that catches your attention. I actually laughed out loud when I saw it. It's a giant Weepul, the oldest promotional product in the book!! Not for sale, by the way. Just an attention grabber.

Wednesday night was a super-fun time. Roger won an award for being a kick-a$$ pen salesman!! Seriously, he won an award. He nominated himself, but he was actually chosen and received an award Wednesday night at the House of Blues for having over $1,000,000 in sales in a one-year time period. That is a lot of pens, my friends! Congratulations, Roger!! Your salesman skills never cease to amaze me, truly. As shown in the picture below, the organization which gave out the awards is called OOPPS. Really? I think I'd come up with a different acronym. I can't even remember what it stands for.


Below are some pictures of Roger accepting his award. I apologize for the low quality pictures. We did take a camera with us to Vegas, but always forgot to carry it with us, so instead I had to use my iPhone. For all you iPhone lovers out there, the camera part of it (along with the cell phone signal) leaves something to be desired. More on the iPhone later.

(Roger accepting his award from the pretty blonde lady)

(Holding up his award true Roger style)

We then proceeded to continue the celebrations at an open house hosted by one of the vendors at RumJungle. We had a great time meeting a couple of promotional guys our age from L.A. -- who told me the shoes I was wearing were "very L.A." -- along with Roger's Springfield competition. Go figure! That's who ended up sitting right next to our table. What are the chances? But it was a great time. We decided to put the competitive spirit aside for the night and all be friends. Roger pulled out his famous dance moves that caught the attention of all the 40-year-old women around him. To show them what was up I may or may not have attempted to perform my own fancy moves involving Roger and a chair that ultimately ended badly, like on the floor, but I didn't see any flashes going off, so I guess we'll just all never know.



Before I continue with what Thursday was like, let me just preface this by saying I went to Vegas sick with a cold. I'm not even sure it's a cold. It's so nasty and long-lasting it deserves to be called something worse than a cold. I've had it since December 23rd. I thought I was getting better after taking antibiotics, but then Roger got sick last week and then I got sick again. So I woke up Thursday feeling absolutely horrible (nothing to do with the night before, I'm sure) along with a giant cold sore. Lately I have been the queen of cold sores. I'm pretty sure my immune suppression treatment I had during IVF in August is the culprit of all this disgusting sickness I can't get rid of, along with the 10 (no joke) cold sores I've had since then. Seriously, gross. I was a super healthy person before the IVIg immune treatment and now this. In case you're wondering what the heck I'm talking about, please refer to the IVF posts from August. This post is getting too long for me to rehash all of that. It's a little scary to think what would have happened to my body had I become pregnant and had to have immune therapy once a month for six to seven months! Yikes! Anyway, I digress. Roger ended up walking the rest of the show without me Thursday morning/afternoon while I laid in bed. I seriously left the room Thursday to eat lunch and dinner and that was it. What a waste of a day, I know.



But, on a positive note, that gave me a lot of time to use my iPhone to catch up on all our adoption blogs we follow. So addicting! I also found a new blog to read, and I'm learning so much from a particular family's experiences in international adoption and the attachment and health issues that can come along with it. So real, so funny, so informative, so great. So, yes, I have begun to bond somewhat with my iPhone. I know Roger alluded to the fact that I don't like it, and that is probably partially true only because I'm a computer idiot, and that's basically what it is -- a computer. I certainly had a hard time believing it had any cell phone function whatsoever after it dropped my call about four times in five minutes on Wednesday. But I'm slowly coming around to the idea. Roger keeps threatening to take it back every time I complain about it, but I think we will be able to co-exist in harmony in the near future (me and the iPhone, not me and Roger).



Okay, so that's it. Sorry for the long blog. I was trying to make up for my lack of entries as of late. In the coming weeks we are going to paint the nursery and get our vaccines for our trip to Ethiopia, so more pictures and adoption-related posts to follow. I think I'm going to wait until I'm a little more healthy to get my shots, though. My mom informed me that they recommend anyone who has had an immune suppression treatment to wait at least six months, so maybe I'm on to something. I don't know. I've also been meaning to post pics of the nursery bedding we got for Christmas. So cute.