Belated Birthday Bash!

 In 2020 during the peak of Covid we tried to get my sister to go to Vegas during her birthday - not the greatest idea in hindsight, but we were healthy, able to quarantine, and excited for limited crowds. This was to be her 21st, and what better way to spend it than at the craziest party city we knew??

Of course, this fell through, and we postponed... Until April of 2021! As a combination belated birthday trip for Angie and a birthday trip for me! 

And as an even bigger perk to the weekend trip, our parents flew in from Germany at the same time and spent the weekend with us in Vegas! Followed by a week long stay at my house:

The trip was an absolute whirlwind - no stops only tons of things to do! We arrived Friday evening, close to 1am our time - definitely exhausted - and spent the night teaching Angie some games to play. Then we crashed hard, and still got up a the ripe hour of 6 to get prepped:

AND THEN WE DROVE TO UTAH!! 

But wait. this was supposed to just be a Vegas trip?? No sir, we had family to visit gosh darn it! We drove 2.5 hours to stop in on our grandparents, cousins, aunt, and uncle - and we left the boys to play in Vegas for a few hours without us!

Lucky bunch!

Once the family visit concluded, we loaded back up and drove back into Vegas - this time with a few family members in tow! We had convinced our aunt and uncle, and one cousin to join us for a night in Vegas, followed of course by a brunch the next morning (which happened to just fall on Mother's Day, kismet!)

Because our first day in Vegas wasn't filled with a ton of adventure, Angie found something a bit peculiar for us to experience while mom was being pampered in the spa (she knows how to live it up in the big city). Enter: Omega Mart

(image curtesy of Google bc I suck at most photos)

Omega Mart is an immersive world hosted in a venue space in Vegas called Area 15 - tons of amazing looking spaces with fun food, bars, and the Van Gogh exhibit!

Omega Mart itself was designed to be a shopping center with very unique items, some you could buy (and eat!) like - 

• "Who Told You This Was Butter? (Do Not Eat!)" a butter scented room spray *barf*
• Plastic produce like a bell pepper with a face!
• Root Beer-Flavored Vape Juice-Flavored Root Beer
• Plausible Deniability (in the form of a laundry detergent)

some questionable soups!

everyone's essential needs

corn???

Now you're probably thinking (as I was at the time) - Liz, you spent $45 for a ticket to see a bunch of weird grocery items?? And the answer is - yes and no!

Omega Mart is just the front of this whole scheme - as it turns out there's a mystery and some very ominous beings involved with this experience. Now I was not in the best of moods for this exhibit (I'm not so good with the unknown and not having a goal in a place where the workers are there to supply you with riddles and confusion) so I don't actually know the full story, but there are some secret passages into otherworldly areas of the building! One of my favorites was a nifty room with panels of glass layers that were etched and lit up one after the other to create some fun patterns:

Following our fun excursion we zipped back over to the hotel to change into nice clothes and joined our parents for a fancy dinner - we all got the chef's choice meal, and I don't think I've ever been that full in my life!! I didn't get any photos of the night, but still had an amazing time with the whole family to wrap up our Vegas trip.

After ending the activities on a high note, it was only fitting that the travel home was a low note - I am usually in charge of flights, which means that our flight home was early so we dragged butt through the airport security, with mom and dad chuckling as they went through TSA pre-check, leaving us to putter through the longest line for TSA that I've seen since Covid....