Halloween with Liz in Vegas!

Day 1 - 10/29/18:

Sean and I had some excess Spirit miles we needed to use awhile back so we booked my little sis Elisabeth a roundtrip flight out to Vegas to visit us. 5k miles and ~$26 later, she was on our way to us as the best Halloween present ever! Small price to pay for the most wonderful, fun, sweet company possible, huh?! So come Oct 29th a little before 1pm, Sean and I were at the airport retrieving Liz with plenty of caffeine readily at hand! Back home, we had costumed pups ready and waiting to greet her. XD We spent pretty much the rest of the day catching up and pawning lots of my excess stuff off onto Liz who could definitely put it to better use than I. Sean was putting in work hours all the while, however, and even cooked us up a tasty dinner to keep us nourished while we dug through and sorted things. He's so freakin sweet! We did take some breaks with him to watch Netflix and munch but, come night time, we knew we needed to pull him away for a real break. Liz had some experiences to catch up on too! With festive beverages at hand, we got out the VR headset and got on the leg vibration machine while watching VR rollercoaster and horror vids. Such a wicked combo! Then, we munched and sipped some more while watching Sean play his old school Nintendo games, I think they were, and even joining in a bit just so he could absolutely show us up. LOL Lot of calories and a substantial amount of time spent playing with hilarious fridge magnets (making phrases out of word magnets and such) later, we took the party up to bed and watched scary horror movies together before all cuddling up to sleep. I never thought I'd be so happy to be sandwiched between two other people. Haha

Day 2 - 10/30/18:

To get us on our feet on day two, we made some healthy smoothies and heated up leftovers. After a quick go on Sean's video games again, we headed out on the town! Our first stop was Sunset Park where we took tons of old cakes we'd found outside a grocery store. Perfect food for LOTS of hungry birds! We couldnt believe how brazen many of them were. They had us surrounded! Geese, pidgeons, ducks, and more..We even got to pet a few of them. :)

Next up was Goodwill Clearance, where you pay by the pound for goods such as clothes, tech, misc household items, and pretty much everything else as well as get crazy deals on larger items. My sis had never been so we had to show her the deals! Amongst tons of other cheap items we scooped up, we left with an awesome computer chair for $1. :O

We headed home to get the dogs then. We had to be sure to catch the sun for our next outing: walking the dogs, showing my sister the sights, and burying my recently deceased tarantula Webster up at one of the best lookout points at Whitney Mesa Recreation Area. Everything went just as planned there and we had a lot of fun and got plenty of good pics there.

Next up was 99 Cent Store. We had to reacquaint Liz with the deals they had that she hadn't seen in so long (maybe since we used to go with my mom back in the day?). I think we won her over in the end because she said she'll definitely be shopping there from now on. :p

Back home, we made lots of unhealthy food in the form of poutine with bacon and Fritos pie for ourselves and Danny. Then we all munched while watching horror movies on Netflix downstairs.

Eventually, Sean, Liz, and I needed to call it a night so we went up to our room to watch more stuff and chat for awhile before cuddling up for sleep again.

Day 3 - 10/31/18:

Halloween!!!

We spent a little more time in the house today before getting a bit dressed up and heading out for errands.

We needed charcoal, a few groceries, and some booze so we went to Cardenas and Smith's to get ALL THE DEALS! Lol We even filled up a bit on free sushi and cheese samples at Smith's. We saved some stomach space though...

Next thing on the agenda was bbq time! We set up a bbq with hot dogs, hamburgers, and hookah in the backyard and got Danny and the doggies out to join us. We definitely couldn't start our night without full stomachs.

Liz and I spent a little more time primping then but were ready enough before long. Soon enough, it was time to head out for the night's shenanigans!

Our first Halloween-themed event of the night was a free haunted house I'd found while searching for things to do in Vegas:

16th Street House of Hell Haunted House
1230 South 16th street
Las Vegas, Nv 89104

As expected, there was a somewhat long line for the haunted house but it was pretty fast-moving and the haunted house actually wound up being really scary too! Besides, we watched part of a horror movie on my phone on Netflix, boozed a bit, and met a few fun people while waiting!

Downtown was next on our list. We were planning to go to Gold Spike to check out the Halloween party we'd heard about through an email they sent us. There was a long line to get in there too but this one was much slower. They were handing out candy in the line, which was pretty cool, but we never actually made it inside. Well, Liz and I did for a moment but quickly saw that Sean had been funneled off, along with all other males, without explanation. It was all downhill from there. From a review I left them later:

"They are very underhanded and dishonest about door fees and their security is quick to manhandle undeserving people just to get them out of the way and move business along more quickly. Security acts entitled and above the law when it comes to grabbing, shoving, talking down to, and disrespecting people. I'm sure there are a few good ones but there are at least several bad ones ruining it for everyone. We even caught one of their door men trying to slyly let a group of his guy friends not only cut the entire 30 minute+ line but get in for free when they were charging other men $20 each on the door. They had been advertising their Halloween party everywhere - via email, Facebook, various other websites and flyers - but nowhere was there mention of any sort of entry fee. After waiting in line over 30 minutes to get in, men and women were separated into two lines where they couldn't even see each other to know what was going on. Women were quite literally pushed along and rushed into the building, not allowed to get to their men til they were inside. Men were then told they could either pay or leave but could not get in touch with the women they'd arrived with who had already been funneled inside. The door men would not locate the women for their men either so men were left with no way of contacting the women they'd arrived with to tell them what was going on (aside from waiting outside for these women to hopefully check their phones that had hopefully not run out of battery by that point in the night) and no option other than to pay a $20 entry fee to rejoin them inside. They were given no time to discuss or think about it and told they would have to wait in the entire line again if they needed a minute to assess the situation or discuss with their partner. Women were told they would have to wait in the entire line again if they exited so going out just to see if their man was still stuck outside was not an easy option. Wtf What about men whose women were holding all of the cash for the night?!! First off, there was no shortage of party options that were more fun and cheaper than here or even free to get in (ie: the Nerd, The Griffin, Fremont Street itself, maybe Artisan,..) but this was also an extremely underhanded way of getting money out of customers. Worst of all, however, was the hostess letting the men in. She had a truly disgusting personality and was cruel to the confused men who showed up in front of her only to be surprised by a previously unannounced $20 door fee, which would've been perfectly fine with the majority of patrons, I'm sure, if just posted or mentioned ANYWHERE in advance and not handled in this manner.

I've been to this establishment at least twenty times with my husband, alone, and with friends visiting from out of town but after such an appalling experience we will absolutely not ever be back. Fortunately for us, we didnt waste our Halloween here this year and we instead had an absolutely incredible time drinking, dancing, gaming, bowling, and so much more at The Nerd. We got way more value for our money too because, rather than spending that $20 on Gold Spike's surprise door fee, we got to add it to our drink budget at The Nerd, where we ended up partying til maybe 4am?! All this after dancing for free and just buying a couple of drinks at the completely packed, awesome bar called The Griffin.

Tl;dr: Spare yourself the frustration and the bs and don't fund the employment of the sorts of people they hire to work the doors here. Plenty of better options in town that you don't have to look far for."

So yeah, I guess you could say I wasnt happy with them. XD That's okay though! We truly did have an epic night and soon realized we would've missed out on so much if we'd spent our night in Gold Spike. After getting turned away there, we walked over a block or two to Fremont Street, which was absolutely swarming with people celebrating the holiday! Wow, we really hadn't anticipated it'd be that busy but it was awesome! So many cool costumes and people in high spirits. Looking around, we did decide to head towards a bar I like called The Griffin. Turned out they had free entry there, even tonight, so we went in and danced in a busy back room we didn't know they had while they played scary movie music and the corresponding movies and vids on a huge tv til we got too creeped out by the vids and moved on to the next place. XD

Before long, we came across a nerdy-looking (in a good way!) girl handing out BOGO vouchers for drinks at a place called The Nerd which turned out to be upstairs in Neonopolis, where Jillian's used to be. They had free entry there too (well, with drink purchase but close enough for us!) so we went in! There was a bit of a line at the entry here but not bad at all and so worth it. Inside, we got some drinks, met a couple of guys that were pretty cool to chat with for the rest of the night, danced, checked out all the cool costumes there, watched the costume contest a little later (big cash prizes!), played some of their arcade games (on freeplay!), and played some of their other free-for-the-night games (a bag toss thing, Cards Against Humanity, even bowling!). Time really escaped us there. I guess we were having too much fun? I think it was 4 or 5am before we finally left!!

Back home again at last, we munched absolutely everything while Netflix-horror-movie'ing. Then, we cuddled up and passed out as the sun was coming up.

Day 4 - 11/1/18:

My sister had to head back home to the bay area today. :( Luckily, we got to keep her til evening as her flight wasn't til around 7pm. While she packed, Sean and I cooked up a mini storm as a last attempt at fattening her up before sending her off. Haha We made creme brulee, rice with eggs and seaweed, celery with peanut butter, and the most fattening hot chocolate we could possibly come up with. We had some very festive, delicious egg nog too! Liz came down to munch with us last minute and Danny hung with us for awhile as well before we had to head out.

Come 5pm or so, it was time to go. Sean and I took Liz back to the airport and said last goodbyes. :'( On the bright side, Xmas is just around the corner and we'll likely see her again for some holiday festivities around then!

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(Pardon any typos; I was in a hurry writing this up!)