Vegas Part One

These first few pictures, I forgot to include in the previous post, so here they are in the wrong post.  This picture of the kids makes me laugh.  During our off track break, they really got along well!  They played all day long and did great.  The sad part is, once school has started there is a lot more fights!  I'm not sure what that coorelation is, but I need to figure it out!  I'm guessing maybe there are some stressful things at school that they then are taking out on their siblings at home?  Life is hard sometimes, even (or especially!) for kids.

Erik has brought home a few things from work for free that have been quite helpful!  The first was all of these bushes!  I can't believe what a difference is it has made on the front of the house.  Now, we are just hoping they survive their transplanting!

So when I heard that my nephew Ethan was to be ordained a deacon the last weekend the kids were off track, I knew it would be the perfect time to take a trip to Vegas!  We also hadn't seen the Urrutias new home they just moved into, which we were very excited to see!

We left like in between meal times I think, so at one of the pit stops we got ice cream Dairy Queen.  Yummmm, Blizzards.

Once we arrived to Erin and James' new house in Summerlin, we set off pretty quickly for the strip.  Since it had been years and years since we had gone to Las Vegas as a family, I wanted to play the tourist.  Erin and James are fantastic Vegas tour guides, so that worked out perfect!  First we went to "Secret Pizza"- a hole in the wall little restaurant where you can buy pizza and ate that while we people watched.  Then we walked over to Shake Shack for some milkshakes.  Apparently our family can do milkshakes twice in one day, no problem. ;)

The boys were very impressed by the glitz and glam of The Strip.  Wyatt kept pointing out all of the really nice sports cars and Jackson couldn't believe how many limos he saw.  I wish that were the only part of Las Vegas though!  I felt so sad, when Wyatt said he didn't like seeing "the lady's bottom" that was on a billboard.  There is certainly a smutty side of Las Vegas.  We had a conversation with them about how special our bodies are, given to us as gifts.  And that it's important they we keep our special private parts private.  And that it's too bad some people try and show those parts off . . . .hopefully we didn't traumatize them all further!

I guess James has been wanting to take a picture with people inside this shoe whenever he and Erin take around visitors.  We were happy to oblige!

Waiting for the Belliagio fountains to begin.

 

On Friday morning, we got up, got ready, and headed over to the Hoover Dam.  This was the must do on Jackson's list.  He had learned about the Hoover Dam at school and wanted to see it first hand.

Waiting for the movie to start.  It was a pretty old movie, but was interesting to learn more of the history of the dam.

Taking a tour into the power plant.

Our tour guide was so knowledgeable.

Oh gosh there some people really into tossing pennies into the center.  At first, I thought there was some cool aspect of it, like the center was magnetized from the earth or something, but no, people were just tossing them in.  Erik and I joked that they were so used to gaming in Las Vegas ,they were taking that mindset wherever they were.  The kids loved it as well!

 



 

After we got back to the Urrutias, Anna really really wanted to go swimming in their neighborhood pool. Even though it was pretty chilly, I took them.  And they had a great time!

It was pretty sad though after I wrapped a towel around Anna to dry off, she started crying very loudly!  Turns out a bee was on that towel, and I had trapped it onto her legs!  It was so sad.

After the pool, we quickly got ready to go and see Tournament of the Kings.  I was excited to experience this dinner show.

We met James there.  Little Parker had a babysitter for the night.  Jadie looked so cute all dressed up, of course when Anna saw how fancy Jadie was, she wanted a fancy dress too.  Anna loved being with Jadie so much!

The food was pretty good.  There was Dragon Blood Soup (tomato), Cornish hens, vegetables, and a biscuit.  I don't think anyone ate their whole plate- it was a lot of food!

This was our knight we cheered for!  We were in the France section.  I'm pretty he was like the winner of the whole thing?  Overall it was a fun experience.  It definitely made it more worth it, because we had Erin and James' 30% off local discount!  I have to say though, that the Pirate dinner show we saw in Myrtle Beach, was a better show.  Still this was one was great, and it was especially fun being with family!

Even though it was pretty late, we did marshmallows in the Urrutias' backyard fire pit.  There is something so nice about ending a day by the fire :)