Thursday, August 28, 2008

Viva Las Vegas!

We took a trip to Las Vegas to celebrate the end of summer and our 10th anniversary.  Our first stop was Hoover Dam which really is quite impressive...that thing is huge!
One of our traditions in Las Vegas is to get some hot donuts at Krispy Kreme...we found out that they stop making them hot at 11, so if you arrive at 10:55 and see the last few donuts going down the belt, don't wait 10 minutes for your kids to watch the cinnamon rolls go down the conveyor belt and under the glaze waterfall.  The hot donuts won't be hot anymore and they don't make anymore until 5pm.  Just sayin'....
We took the kids to the Mandalay Bay casino shark reef aquarium.  We saw some pretty cool fish and even got to pet a sting ray (Kyle, Ben and I did--the other two opted out).  I liked watching the jelly fish swim around. 
The sting ray felt pretty squishy.  Believe it or not I was the first brave soul and had to convince Kyle to take a turn!
The kids spent many hours on the trampoline in Janet's back yard.  We enjoyed the grass and got few good jumps in too (I didn't realize how much I'd miss grass living in Santa Fe).  Kyle still does back flips on the trampoline...I hope he figures out when he is too old to flip before he breaks something.
Angie and her fiancee Trent.  They are a cute couple and he is a great guy.  I can't believe how grown up little Angie is!
We were excited to help John celebrate such a big birthday.  We can't be there for his baptism, so the birthday was a good option.  He is a hoot--he kept telling us how glorious all his presents were and he thought he might leave them in their packaging and not take them out yet just because they were all so glorious and he wanted to enjoy just how glorious they all were.  LOL
It's hard to see the beautiful sights of the Las Vegas strip without having to walk through the smokey gloomy casinos...but we did our best.  Kyle and I left the kids with Janet and had a mini vacation on the strip.  This is the fountain show outside the Bellagio.  We lucked out on this one because it started just as we were walking by.  The fountains are coordinated to music and it was quite impressive.
Definitely the highlight: we went to the Blue Man Group show.  It was an amazing experience!  
A weakness for us (mostly me): beautiful pastries.  I love beautiful food!
We meant to leave Las Vegas on Friday, but Mark found out we had never tried real sushi (just california roll which doesn't count) so we postponed leaving and he took Kyle and I out to lunch.  Raw fish is really a gross thought, but we both tried it and actually liked it!  Kyle said it's not something he'd want often, but once a year or so he could handle it.  
This was in the middle of nowhere, Arizona.  Luckily our van carries a full size spare...because our car troubles ALWAYS happen Friday evenings (aka...when there is no chance of finding a repair shop open).  My excellent strong man Kyle took care of the tire and we were on our way.  Luckily there was a gas station just a few miles away to fill up the slightly flat spare tire.
Not too much later we saw this beautiful double rainbow.  Not a bad way to end a (mostly) wonderful vacation!


2 comments:

KAT said...

Wow! That looks like a full trip. Lots of fun (except the flat tire).

debbie said...

OK...that tire looks scary! You guys always seem to have car adventures on your trips. About Kyle's back flips...he may still have a few good years left in him. My dad was in his 60's when he finally stopped flipping! Nice to finally see a picture of the fiance. Glad you had such a GLORIOUS vacation!