*Old* Girls only Vegas thread. See new link in first post. Thanks!

[mommaU4]

Its ghetto, but ghetto-fabulous!

Not everywhere. Some parts are just ghetto-scary-as-hell!!
Can you tell I'm not a huge fan of downtown? But it's still a must see, at least once.

So everyone still wants to wait til June for this?

It's going to be lovely here today. High of 74, little overcast. Perfect weather for walking the Strip. Come on down today!!

For DING fares you need to go to Southwest and sign up. It's a program you download to your computer. You select which airports you are interested in, then when DINGs pop up for those airports, it notifies you.
Some have strict restrictions, but you can get really good deals that way.

He wants a bananna nut cake.. but with what kind of frosting?? i found caramel and chocolate and peanut butter?? we will see.

I like cream cheese on my banana bread, so maybe a homemade cream cheese frosting would be good on the cake.

I was looking at the exchange board.. and i saw where you did the snack exchange.. that sounded like alot of fun! We should do some things like that within the girl's only trip group. To kinda let people get to know others within the group.

I used to hang out at the exchange board all the time! OMG, at one point I was in 7 different exchanges at once. In fact, I hosted several of them. I've hosted a Princess exchange, a flip flop exchange, a candy exchange, a stationery exchange, and I started the snack exchange like two years ago. I got Stacielee and a few of the other ladies started on them.

They are fun, but it got to be too much for me so I'm on hiatus right now. Or rather my wallet is.

When I lived in MI and was hanging out online with the WDW ladies group, I hosted several exchanges for our group then too. (I hosted a Valentine's Day exchange, a beach towel exchange, a summer exchange, a Halloween exchange, etc)
The most popular one I hosted was the Christmas stocking exchange. Everyone loved that.
And I was already planning that if we don't do the Christmas theme for the Meet and Greet, that I was going to organize a stocking exchange for our group this November! Just for those who are interested and who celebrate Christmas.

The exchanges are a lot of fun!! I use to do them all of the time, but I just get so busy, the post office is horrible here. Its always, always busy!!

They are fun, but the are addicting. And I always spend more than the minimum so it was costing me too much money. I had to stop if I wanted to remain happily married. LOL
And sometimes you send a really nice one out, and I hate to say this but, you get a crappy one in return. That's why I liked doing the exchanges within our group of ladies because you knew you'd get something nice back.

 

[jordansmomma]

Not everywhere. Some parts are just ghetto-scary-as-hell!!
Can you tell I'm not a huge fan of downtown? But it's still a must see, at least once.

Freemont Experience fun. Binnions has a great late night steak deal. The concerts are great, if there happens to be someone there, if not the music they play is nice also.

It's going to be lovely here today. High of 74, little overcast. Perfect weather for walking the Strip. Come on down today!!

For DING fares you need to go to Southwest and sign up. It's a program you download to your computer. You select which airports you are interested in, then when DINGs pop up for those airports, it notifies you.
Some have strict restrictions, but you can get really good deals that way.



I like cream cheese on my banana bread, so maybe a homemade cream cheese frosting would be good on the cake.


Cream cheese frosting is super yummy on chocolate cake!!

I used to hang out at the exchange board all the time! OMG, at one point I was in 7 different exchanges at once. In fact, I hosted several of them. I've hosted a Princess exchange, a flip flop exchange, a candy exchange, a stationery exchange, and I started the snack exchange like two years ago. I got Stacielee and a few of the other ladies started on them.

They are fun, but it got to be too much for me so I'm on hiatus right now. Or rather my wallet is.

When I lived in MI and was hanging out online with the WDW ladies group, I hosted several exchanges for our group then too. (I hosted a Valentine's Day exchange, a beach towel exchange, a summer exchange, a Halloween exchange, etc)
The most popular one I hosted was the Christmas stocking exchange. Everyone loved that.
And I was already planning that if we don't do the Christmas theme for the Meet and Greet, that I was going to organize a stocking exchange for our group this November! Just for those who are interested and who celebrate Christmas.


That would be a lot of fun!! Or even a summer one for us.

They are fun, but the are addicting. And I always spend more than the minimum so it was costing me too much money. I had to stop if I wanted to remain happily married. LOL
And sometimes you send a really nice one out, and I hate to say this but, you get a crappy one in return. That's why I liked doing the exchanges within our group of ladies because you knew you'd get something nice back.

Sadly, that is true. One of the ladies she is from Washington, she always sends the best stuff!! She goes above and beyond!! I always loved getting a box from her.

I have done the sock exchange (I love cute socks), flip flops, alphabet, snack, valentine, summer, and a few others.

hmm...maybe a summer exchange would be fun?

 

[mommaU4]

Sadly, that is true. One of the ladies she is from Washington, she always sends the best stuff!! She goes above and beyond!! I always loved getting a box from her.

I have done the sock exchange (I love cute socks), flip flops, alphabet, snack, valentine, summer, and a few others.

hmm...maybe a summer exchange would be fun?

You're talking about Nancy. (Meriweather) She is so nice. We used to PM a lot and I actually had lunch with her at the Cheesecake Factory when she was in Vegas on vacation. She paid, that's how sweet she is! And her exchanges always rock, she sends the best stuff.
I don't know if you read my post to Callie, but she's the one I mentioned built a house in AZ to be closer to her kids who live there, but now is stuck in WA because her house there won't sell. So frustrating.
I've invited her on our next ladies trip, so maybe she'll join us.

I thought about doing a summer exchange and I almost suggested it before talk about the expenses for the trip came up. LOL I kept quiet after that because I just figured at this point everyone would need to be saving their money for Vegas.
But it's up to y'all. I'm up for one if everyone else is. For a summer exchange it would be a $20 minimum, not including shipping and handling.

 

[fairykin]

Deb... this will sound like a dumbunny but it's true.. i didn't know washington had a desert. It gets SoooooooooooooooOOOoooooo hot in el paso... that we often will just go up to the mountains for the weekend to get a reprieve.

Ahhh... i know just what you are talking about Beth.. i do the same thing.. it's so FUN to make the exchange that when you get yours it's anticlimatic. It's good to do exchanges with a group of girls you know will be committed. Like us... we all need to be CoMMiTTeD!

The flip flop one sounds interesting.

Maybe we can do a series of exchanges on the girls only thread.. one around the 4th of July... one for halloween... and one for christmas.

It wouldn't be mandatory to participate.. and it would be open only to girl's only trippers. And afterall we have Beth who is a Pro at this.
hhhhhmmmmmmmmmmmm.... what do you think? It might futher a sense of community amongst the group.

 

[mommaU4]

Deb... this will sound like a dumbunny but it's true.. i didn't know washington had a desert.

Me either! I thought is was cool there all the time. LOL


Ahhh... i know just what you are talking about Beth.. i do the same thing.. it's so FUN to make the exchange that when you get yours it's anticlimatic. It's good to do exchanges with a group of girls you know will be committed. Like us... we all need to be CoMMiTTeD!

Yeah, that's why I stopped. I mean, I'm not trying to sound witchy or spoiled but when I spent $30 on an exchange for someone I don't know, and get one back that doesn't even look like they spent the minimum amount, that sucks.

The flip flop one sounds interesting.

The flip flop one was so fun. I started that one back when I lived in Michigan. I asked Patsy (mommytotwo) and Nancy (Meriweather) since they are pretty much in charge of the exchange board if I could host one and they said sure, no one else had done that before.
It was neat and we got lots of kids involved too.


Maybe we can do a series of exchanges on the girls only thread.. one around the 4th of July... one for halloween... and one for christmas.

It wouldn't be mandatory to participate.. and it would be open only to girl's only trippers. And afterall we have Beth who is a Pro at this.
hhhhhmmmmmmmmmmmm.... what do you think? It might futher a sense of community amongst the group.

You know I'd be up for a Halloween one! And the Christmas I was already thinking of doing.
The only thing is if people will want to do a summer one because of summer trips they might be saving for.

It's definitely not mandatory. Each exchange takes about a month so we will start them ahead of time. It's a week for sign up, a week to shop and mail, and then it takes about 2-3 weeks for all exchanges to arrive. So about a month to complete one exchange.
That's why for a Halloween one for example, you would start sign ups end of September at least. Which is fine since holiday decorations are always out so early in the stores.

 

[fairykin]

My vegas trip is going to be laid back and chill and not expensive. We will have just been at disneyland like the week before with my mom and nephew. I'm happy just to go and relax, visit with friends and have yummy food and drinks.

I'd be up for a summer exchange!
Tell us about the flip flop exchange!

 

[jordansmomma]

You're talking about Nancy. (Meriweather) She is so nice. We used to PM a lot and I actually had lunch with her at the Cheesecake Factory when she was in Vegas on vacation. She paid, that's how sweet she is! And her exchanges always rock, she sends the best stuff.
I don't know if you read my post to Callie, but she's the one I mentioned built a house in AZ to be closer to her kids who live there, but now is stuck in WA because her house there won't sell. So frustrating.
I've invited her on our next ladies trip, so maybe she'll join us.

I thought about doing a summer exchange and I almost suggested it before talk about the expenses for the trip came up. LOL I kept quiet after that because I just figured at this point everyone would need to be saving their money for Vegas.
But it's up to y'all. I'm up for one if everyone else is. For a summer exchange it would be a $20 minimum, not including shipping and handling.

Yes, it is Nancy, she seems like such a nice lady. My first exchange came from her. I think my kids loved the stuff almost as much as I did.

I would be up for an exchange.

Deb... this will sound like a dumbunny but it's true.. i didn't know washington had a desert. It gets SoooooooooooooooOOOoooooo hot in el paso... that we often will just go up to the mountains for the weekend to get a reprieve.

Yes, there is a desert, I like smack dab in the middle of it. Hotter than HE** in the summer months & colder than Alaska in the winter. Its crazy around here. Infact I heard that it snowed last night over by Capri. In Quincy, its like 20 minutes away it snowed there also. It was so COLD here last night & windy. It made baseball so horrible. But Jordan pitched his game wonderfully!!

Ahhh... i know just what you are talking about Beth.. i do the same thing.. it's so FUN to make the exchange that when you get yours it's anticlimatic. It's good to do exchanges with a group of girls you know will be committed. Like us... we all need to be CoMMiTTeD!

The flip flop one sounds interesting.

Maybe we can do a series of exchanges on the girls only thread.. one around the 4th of July... one for halloween... and one for christmas.

It wouldn't be mandatory to participate.. and it would be open only to girl's only trippers. And afterall we have Beth who is a Pro at this.
hhhhhmmmmmmmmmmmm.... what do you think? It might futher a sense of community amongst the group.

OOOHHH.....a halloween exchange would be so fun!!
I love exchanges, they are so fun! I love getting home & getting a box of goodies.

 

[fairykin]

Me too! I always make something like i would love to get! But then again.. i have alot of time. You know what i mean

I have done one private exchange on the Disboard with the sweetest girl. We did it right before our trips at Christmas and it was so special.. she really was thoughtful.

 

[mommaU4]

My vegas trip is going to be laid back and chill and not expensive. We will have just been at disneyland like the week before with my mom and nephew. I'm happy just to go and relax, visit with friends and have yummy food and drinks.

I'd be up for a summer exchange!
Tell us about the flip flop exchange!

What are y'all planning to do while you are here? That's the nice thing about Vegas, you can totally tailor your trip to suit your needs. However, since we have some Vegas virgins in our midst, no way am I letting them off the hook.
They are getting the full Vegas experience. At least this time, they can chill next time.



The flip flop exchange I did was open to everyone (men, woman, children). It was a $12 minimum exchange. That doesn't include shipping and handling. None of them do. That is always an extra expense that you take on. Also many people include little freebies or extras, those are also not included in the minimum price.

For $12 it was up to you what you sent. Either one pair totaling that amount, or I bought some cute ones to send from Payless that were BOGO so I was able to send two pair. Plus I was sending to a kid which is usually cheaper.

When each person signs up I had them include their shoe size and style preference, gender, age, as well as address, etc. Also do they want a high heel, something with a decoration, a certain color, a certain character for kids, soft strap or plastic strap, etc.
I always remind people though that those are just requests and ultimately it's up to your sender to choose what to send, so if you are someone who is picky about flip flops, and can only wear certain styles I'd recommend they think twice about signing up.

It went really well. I think that's one of the ones of mine that Stacielee did.

 

[jordansmomma]

My vegas trip is going to be laid back and chill and not expensive. We will have just been at disneyland like the week before with my mom and nephew. I'm happy just to go and relax, visit with friends and have yummy food and drinks.

I'd be up for a summer exchange!
Tell us about the flip flop exchange!

Vegas is going to fun. But I am not going over board since, I am going to Maryland for a wk in August, with many side trips, Disneyland in October for a wk (that will be cheap, most of our meals will be at the time share), hopefully if I can get the time off the first wk of December.

 

[mommaU4]

I'd be up for a summer exchange!

I would be up for an exchange.

Let me PM Mary Jo and see where she thinks the best place to post this would be. I do not want to post it on the regular exchange board because we want to keep it just us.

When I did the WDW ladies exchanges, we started new threads for each exchange on the DIS Meets board as that's where our trip planning thread was back then, and none of the mods ever said anything to me about having exchange threads on a Meets board. I made it clear in each thread title that it was an exchange for the WDW ladies only trip members and we never once had anyone else try to join in. It worked out perfect.

So I'll ask her if I should post it on the DL planning section where our thread is now, on the new DL community board, or if we should just keep in within our thread. The last one is my least favorite choice because it will get lost, but we'll see.

I'll PM her now.

 

[mommaU4]

Vegas is going to fun. But I am not going over board since, I am going to Maryland for a wk in August, with many side trips, Disneyland in October for a wk (that will be cheap, most of our meals will be at the time share), hopefully if I can get the time off the first wk of December.

You posted you're doing Love though right? I think that's the big ticket item, but well worth it.

The rest is mainly shopping, food and drinks, which can all be tailored to each person.
Meaning you can spend as little or as much as you want on that.

I'm confident we will get discounts for those other shows so I'm not worried about that cost at all. Just make sure you've got plenty of ones handy for the OG!

 

[fairykin]

Oooohh the flip flop exchange sounds super fun!!
Yeah Yeah.. i never stick to the budget.. we should do an exchange together since we do the same thing!!!

Paula has had a rough year.. her mother has breast cancer and it's Paula who takes her mom back and forth to the Doctors. She also is the only parent to a very sweet teenager daughter. Right before christmas she was laid off for 3 months and she's now signed a contract that is being renewed monthly. We are going to sleep late.. stay up later... sit and have drinks and talk... and order room service to have while we watch movies we haven't gotten to see at the theater.

I understand about the first time you wanna do everything and see everything.. vegas is really pretty at night! And there is just so much to do..everyone will have a great time...especially with such great tour guides!

 

[jordansmomma]

You posted you're doing Love though right? I think that's the big ticket item, but well worth it.

The rest is mainly shopping, food and drinks, which can all be tailored to each person.
Meaning you can spend as little or as much as you want on that.

I'm confident we will get discounts for those other shows so I'm not worried about that cost at all. Just make sure you've got plenty of ones handy for the OG!

I am going to Love. I will share food with my sister Wendy or whoomever.
My only real splurge maybe a new COACH purse from the outlet. I have paid full price & outlet price, I prefer outlet prices.
The other shopping, meh...I can go to Bellvue Sq. so I will be window shopping.

Are we going to Madame Toussands? (or however you spell it)

Oooohh the flip flop exchange sounds super fun!!
Yeah Yeah.. i never stick to the budget.. we should do an exchange together since we do the same thing!!!

Paula has had a rough year.. her mother has breast cancer and it's Paula who takes her mom back and forth to the Doctors. She also is the only parent to a very sweet teenager daughter. Right before christmas she was laid off for 3 months and she's now signed a contract that is being renewed monthly. We are going to sleep late.. stay up later... sit and have drinks and talk... and order room service to have while we watch movies we haven't gotten to see at the theater.

I understand about the first time you wanna do everything and see everything.. vegas is really pretty at night! And there is just so much to do..everyone will have a great time...especially with such great tour guides!

Aww...that sounds like fun!!

 

[mommaU4]

Paula has had a rough year.. her mother has breast cancer and it's Paula who takes her mom back and forth to the Doctors. She also is the only parent to a very sweet teenager daughter. Right before christmas she was laid off for 3 months and she's now signed a contract that is being renewed monthly. We are going to sleep late.. stay up later... sit and have drinks and talk... and order room service to have while we watch movies we haven't gotten to see at the theater.

Wow, that does sound rough. It's nice you'll have this trip together to just hang out, catch up and spend time with each other. Sounds like she could really use a break.

Are we going to Madame Toussands? (or however you spell it)

We can! It's not on the schedule but Friday and Saturday are pretty much free days. So we can see how things are by the end of the week, how people are doing money-wise, and decide from there.
That's one place you can usually get discount tickets to from the booths on the Strip.

 

[mommaU4]

Another thing to keep in mind is I get emails daily from a website that offers free show tickets to locals.
So far today for example, I've gotten emails offering me free tickets to the Nathan Burton magic show, The Sopranos Last Supper dinner show, and The Mentalist. None of them are exactly top rated shows, but they are free. LOL

We actually got 6 tickets to see Nathan Burton and the whole family went not that long ago. It was pretty good.

So if for some reason Tony and Tina's or Lucky Cheng's doesn't work out, maybe we can do something else cheaper or even free. Just an option. The emails and shows change all the time so you never know what's going to be offered.

 

[CaliforniaDreamer]

Morning, Debbie, Dawn, Beth and anyone who just jumped on!

Not everywhere. Some parts are just ghetto-scary-as-hell!!
Can you tell I'm not a huge fan of downtown? But it's still a must see, at least once.

It's going to be lovely here today. High of 74, little overcast. Perfect weather for walking the Strip. Come on down today!!

For DING fares you need to go to Southwest and sign up. It's a program you download to your computer. You select which airports you are interested in, then when DINGs pop up for those airports, it notifies you.
Some have strict restrictions, but you can get really good deals that way.

I like cream cheese on my banana bread, so maybe a homemade cream cheese frosting would be good on the cake.

The most popular one I hosted was the Christmas stocking exchange. Everyone loved that.
And I was already planning that if we don't do the Christmas theme for the Meet and Greet, that I was going to organize a stocking exchange for our group this November! Just for those who are interested and who celebrate Christmas.

And sometimes you send a really nice one out, and I hate to say this but, you get a crappy one in return. That's why I liked doing the exchanges within our group of ladies because you knew you'd get something nice back.

That was what impressed me with our tote exchange. Every tote was good, made with love or nicely chosen. I went over the budget too but didn't think everyone would. I was amazed. I think a Christmas stocking exchange in Nov is a terrific idea.

Yup, 74 degrees, that sounds like travel weather!!

Oooohh the flip flop exchange sounds super fun!!
Yeah Yeah.. i never stick to the budget.. we should do an exchange together since we do the same thing!!!

Paula has had a rough year.. her mother has breast cancer and it's Paula who takes her mom back and forth to the Doctors. She also is the only parent to a very sweet teenager daughter. Right before christmas she was laid off for 3 months and she's now signed a contract that is being renewed monthly. We are going to sleep late.. stay up later... sit and have drinks and talk... and order room service to have while we watch movies we haven't gotten to see at the theater.

I understand about the first time you wanna do everything and see everything.. vegas is really pretty at night! And there is just so much to do..everyone will have a great time...especially with such great tour guides!

Your poor friend, Dawn. She will really be able to rejuvenate with you.

Another thing to keep in mind is I get emails daily from a website that offers free show tickets to locals.
So far today for example, I've gotten emails offering me free tickets to the Nathan Burton magic show, The Sopranos Last Supper dinner show, and The Mentalist. None of them are exactly top rated shows, but they are free. LOL

We actually got 6 tickets to see Nathan Burton and the whole family went not that long ago. It was pretty good.

So if for some reason Tony and Tina's or Lucky Cheng's doesn't work out, maybe we can do something else cheaper or even free. Just an option. The emails and shows change all the time so you never know what's going to be offered.

Beth, how can they afford to give away free tickets to these shows? Do they make it up in drinks?

 

[stacielee]

Air units in the desert run differently than those where there is high volumes of humidity. Ours run on the lack of humidy, they produce great savings on light bills. Maybe Beth and Stacielee have these kinds of cooling units? We have 3 within our home. Thank Goodness we've replaced them all now, our home is over 30 years old.

We used to have an evap unit at one of our old houses, would love to have it here, but it's pretty expensive to have it retrofitted.

 

[Queenbillabong]

I exchanges too!!! But I do have three issues:

1. Unfortunately, I have gotten some crap when I spend a lot of time, money, and effort in my exchanges (I did the flip-flop exchange once because I LOVE flip-flops. I ordered a really cool pair of sparkly Baby Phat ones to be sent to my buddy and got three pairs of dollar store flip-flops in return. Seriously, they had paper thin bottoms and were just not nice). I was very sad.

2. I live in Canada and the shipping here is not nice for whoever sends me a gift That's why I usually end up sending my stuff overseas to England or Scotland. There are some really nice DIS ladies who live in the UK and they GET how to do a good exchange too

3. Sometimes your buddy who you send an exchange to flakes off and you never hear back and they don't send out their exchange (which is really not nice!!!).

Not all exchanges are bad, but I would certainly be in for exchanging with you guys, whatever, whenever!!! I just took part in the snack exchange and the candy exchange - both were

 

[stacielee]

Okay, so Debbie is in it for Love!! So we have 9 of us; I'll call and see what I can find out about the tickets. If I can get them now at the discount , I'll do it. Beth, can you post the link again for the discount, and remind me where I should look for tickets? Thanks!!