Happy New Year!!

I hope that everyone had a fantastic New Year's and had tons of fun. Ours was pretty insane this year. NYE is usually kind of a let down, but once I found out we could get in to Kaskade's show at Marquee Las Vegas I knew this one would be epic and we had to be there.

Since we are already in SoCal for a 3 week holiday escape from the cold, my parents happily took Gus for a couple of nights. It was an easy drive to Vegas Friday morning. We were worried traffic might be horrendous but we sailed right through and were in our room at the newly renovated Tropicana by late afternoon, changing into bathing suits, popping some bubbly and heading to the hot tub under the palm trees. After relaxing and getting ready we walked across the street to MGM Grand and shared the delicious Chinese tasting menu that included perfectly prepared lobster, steak and chicken at swanky Pearl, followed by a cocktail at Seablue - a place I helped handle PR for when I lived in SF - then headed back to the tropics for a good nights sleep.

We needed to rest up for Saturday night..so during the day we checked out downtown Vegas with the Golden Nugget, Fremont St, etc, did more hot tubbing/reading/relaxing, then finally headed out around 8 pm and found the strip closed down to cars and a lot of people walking in the streets, which was pretty cool. We were heading up to SEA at Bally's..Jeff wanted Pho so I told him to look on Yelp and they were highly recommended. Once I realized where we were headed I reminded him we had already been to SEA in Williamsburg with our friends who lived there several years ago, and loved it. While the Vegas location was more expensive, we had an amazing meal - seafood pho which was the best pho I've ever tasted, and some sort of chicken noodle dish. The sassy host sent out some free dumplings and beers and I finished it all off with a Thai iced tea to help me make it through the night. Then it was back to the strip with the increasingly crowded/drunken strip to walk down to Cosmopolitan Hotel and Marquee.

I have to say, I have been to a lot of fabulous clubs around the country, and am fortunate enough to have been on Kaskade's guest list at many of them. But, I have never been treated as well at any club as we were at Marquee. The service was impeccable. When we arrived, I told a bouncer we were on his list and we waited maybe 10 minutes total at a crazy mob scene of a line and were in the club. Another bouncer escorted us to "our table" where we found our awesome jet setting Canadian friends and free flowing Veuve, served by the best cocktail waitress I have ever encountered. Once I asked her for a drink she remembered it and kept the refills coming..Jeff was double fisting with champagne and a Grey Goose/cranberry for much of the evening..so much so that his lips turned all red. The bouncers were so good that on one trip back into our little table area a drunken reveler tried talking to me and was immediately shut down by said bouncer who pushed him out of the way and let me back in our spot. Pretty awesome. We arrived just in time to grab a glass of bubbly, put on our party hats and watch our friend Kaskade count down to 2012 on the mic, then play "Turn It Down," - one of his many amazing original tracks - as the club went insane, confetti dropped down, lights went perfectly with the music, creatively costumed dancers performed and I had tears in my eyes because there was no other place I'd rather be at that moment. Truly an amazing way to ring in the new year. We danced our arses off to Kaskade's incredible set, hung out with our friends including his amazing and beautiful wife, met some fun new peeps and managed to keep the party going til 7:30 am. He even played our favorite song "Let Me Go" - (video above) per Jefe's text request, around 5:30 am which was one of the highlights of the evening. Kaskade's 12 hour set started at 11:59 pm and went til 12:00 pm New Year's Day, which is really insane, and impressive. Wish we could have made it to the end but we needed a few hours of sleep and a double double from In-N-Out before we could drive back home to see our lil' guy, who we missed like crazy. I hadn't come of a club in the daylight hours in quite a while..felt like I was 21 again. Such a great weekend, one we will never forget. Happy 2012!