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Monday 8th August 2005 (Jack's 11th Birthday!) - Las Vegas
Jack's birthday.... and an excited Jack started the day opening those few presents
we'd brought from home plus the various items we'd secretly bought whilst travelling.
We had breakfast at Starbucks across the road and then walked down to the Stratosphere
tower, which turned out to be quite a long and hot walk! But it was worth it.
The Stratosphere has 4 theme park rides, all of which are built *at the top
of* the 900 foot tower. The best of these was a "tower of terror"
style ride which accelerated you upwards from the top of the tower and then
dropped you fast. Very exciting. We'd bought "all you can eat" tickets
so had a number of goes on all of them.
After Stratosphere we got the bus back to the hotel and went to the arcade
where Jack insisted that the whole family play a four player The Simpsons game!
From here we went to the pool where we spent the remainder of the day. We had
dinner at the California Pizza Kitchen (at Jack's request) in the hotel. A very
weird experience, the restaurant being right in the middle of the casino with
gaming machines on one side and all of the sports betting going on on the other!
Martin had mentioned to the restaurant that it was Jack's birthday and "was
there anything they could do to make it special?" and they responded with
a huge chocolate fudge sunday with a candle and four spoons at the end of the
meal. Excellent.
Following dinner, we walked down Las Vegas Blvd and watched the "dancing
fountains" at the Bellagio again, Marina's favourite attraction. We watched
the Mirage's "volcano fountain" as well, this time from street level.
Finally we played a while at the arcade again, it being Jack's birthday.
Click on the photos for full size versions
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Happy 11th Birthday to Jack! Jack started his day opening
cards and those presents we had bought for him whilst travelling (the
rest were waiting for him at home)
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Money! Some $$$ from Angela, Colin and Elliot
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Jack had *so* wanted this gun!
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In the hotel lobby
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The Hotel
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Vegas is weird. The gondolier was singing opera whilst
punting!
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Stratosphere in the distance
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And closer up
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Vegas is weird! One of the many newly weds were saw
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900 feet up. 1 park. 4 rides.
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And Jack was tall enough!
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The best ride of all. Serious upwards acceleration!
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And this one was *scary*!
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Poor quality pics, but they just had to be included.
Arcades like this are *everywhere* in Vegas
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Back at the hotel, we spent some quality time in and
by the huge pool
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Guess what this restaurant specialises in? It's the
California Pizza Kitchen by the way.
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Yup, it's a Pepperoni Pizza!
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Phew! Full!
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The surprise dessert had candles, lots of chocolate
fudge pieces and four spoons!
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Pretty fountains :)
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The Mirage's volcanic fountain
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