How many hands of blackjack do you have to win to pay for a kitchen remodel?

We’ll never know, because we didn’t win.

Sorry for the blog hiatus. We went to Vegas to celebrate ME. And frankly, the timing couldn’t have been better. When we left our house on Friday afternoon, there was an inch of dust (from the dry wall mud being sanded) on EVERYTHING. The particles floating around in the air stung your eyes, and we were virtually prisoners in our bedroom.

And then we came home on Monday. And guess what we had? Cabinets!

We were so nervous to come home and see the cabinets, especially after our contractor texted us a picture and they looked like shit. The good news is that we love them and the lesson is to never trust a crappy cell phone picture.

Before we get to the food, here’s the rest of the remodel update: appliances get delivered today. They will sit in the garage and hopefully stay in pristine condition until we need to move them in – probably about two weeks. The granite template dudes come today and then our actual slabs will show up in one week. At some point this week, the tile guy will start laying the tile. While we haven’t been told an “end date”, I would guess August 15^th based on where we’re at.

Now, on to the food.

Did you know restaurants in Vegas are almost always dark (i.e. mood lighting)? This made for difficult picture taking, as I didn’t have a flash on my phone, and probably it would have been annoying to see the flash in the restaurants. But here’s the picture of my favorite meal (it was course 2 of 4 – more on that below):

Friday night: Holstein’s in the Cosmopolitan. An “upscale” burger bar. I had a mini trio of Italian sliders and glass of prosecco to keep the class factor high.

Saturday night: Diego’s at MGM. A somewhat authentic Mexican restaurant. Jason had goat. He does not recommend goat. I had shrimp tacos. They were tasty. We got a pitcher of frida margaritas, and depending on who you asked, there was either a lot of tequila or no tequila at all.

Sunday night (my actual birthday): Sirio at Aria. This was my special birthday pick and I ordered the four course tasting menu. Although, to call it tasting was really misleading. There was so much food.

Course one: veal carpacchio

Course two: tagliolini with prawns and a pink vodka sauce

Course three: rack of lamb

Course four: some special birthday dessert. I don’t think it was very good, but I couldn’t tell you what it was.

Highly, highly recommend Sirio if you’re in Vegas. But bring your winnings…our dinner cost more than the amazing shoes I wore that night. Which is to say, it cost a lot.

Dinners eaten at home since remodel began: 9

Dinners eaten out since remodel began: 27