We must be CRAZY!

So, one day my sister-in-law, Valerie (Jacob's sister) said, "Hey, I want to do a girls weekend up in Vegas, we'll invite out other sister-in-law (Sabrina) and just have some fun!"..... Sounded good to me! So we picked a weekend, tweaked the participants a little (Sabrina) is a super busy lady! And up they came. (Natalie who is 6, Kyla who is 7, Val and Carrie who I won't age because after 25 it's just not nice)

On Friday they met us at our church where we were having our congregation's Christmas Party. After a little singing we thought we would go hit the Bellagio, see the Christmas Display and enjoy the Christmas themed Water Show...

This is the Bellagio Christmas Display. Most everything is made of flower or some other plant material.

Then we walked down to see the fountains. This is a side view but the kids wanted see it from right in front, so we walked down the rest of the way... Which was quite an adventure, making sure your own kid and someone else's kid doesn't get hit by some crazy Vegas taxi driver took a little energy and lots of holding hands!

Here are the 3 girls waiting for the next show to start.

This show (they are different every time) was really cool! It started with fog, which was beautiful with the instrumental Christmas music.

Then we walked all the way around the Bellagio because 1 it has a wall separating the sidewalk from the street and 2- it made it so that us big girls could window shop.

The little girls window shopped too!


On Saturday we woke up and got ready to see the Secret Garden at the Mirage. And we had a ton of fun! Seeing the dolphins and the white lions and tigers and all those fun things!

The White Lions at the Secret Garden

The dolphins hanging out. They have 3 generations of dolphins in this tank

After the Secret Garden we drove over to the Silverton to try and see Santa, which didn't work out with 1 hour lines! But we did get to see the Mermaid. You may remember me blogging about the mermaid before, (actually i looks like we hit all the same spots in March) I don't have any pictures from this trip because my camera batteries died... but the girls loved it!

Then it was over to Menchies for frozen yogurt and home for playtime, dinner, baths and bedtime. Kyla and Natalie went to church with us on Sunday and were VERY WELL BEHAVED!

I know I say this ALL THE TIME!!! BUT I LOVE that Kira has cousins and that even though we are not in California anymore we still live close enough to have fun weekends from time to time. Hopefully Sabrina can make it up next time and maybe Dallin will get his turn to visit us in Vegas soon.

March ... so far

For those of you who know me well please excuse this next little bit while I give some history...

When I was a kid, my family moved a lot ... and when I say a lot I mean A LOT(16 moves in 18 years)!!! My Dad was NOT in the army but sometimes it seemed so. I lived in some pretty cool places and some not so cool places. One of the cool places I live was in England. We moved to England in March 1994 when I was 14. After we lived in a hotel for a month while looking for a house we moved to a little town called Light Water, which put us in the Bracknell Ward, which is where I met Jo.

Because of all the moving,Jo is my oldest friend, not in actual age, but in the length of time we have been friends. We haven't always been in really close contact, before the Internet and facebook we didn't keep in constant touch but it didn't matter how long it had been since we last talked, we just picked right up like there was never a gap. Since moving back to the United States in October of 1994 I have seen her 5 or so times. One of those times was this past week.

Jo landed on Tuesday night and stayed until Wednesday morning. She brought her oh so funny husband and we had a great time together! We shopped, ate lots of food, walked A LOT!, shopped some more, saw the tigers, dolphins and lions at the Secret Garden, the lions at the MGM, the fish at the Silverton, shopped some more,saw the river in the Venetian, the chocolate fountain in the Bellagio, and then did some more shopping!

Here are some pictures!

On Wednesday we took it easy. We hit the outlet mall and Town Square where we did a little shopping and had CPK for lunch (mmm)
On Thursday we hit the strip! We had every intention of going to the dolphin habitat on Thursday, but we stated at the Mandalay Bay, took the tram to the Excalibur and walked across to see the Lions. After the Lions we hit the M&M store, the Coca-Cola Store and had lunch. After lunch we hit Caesars Palace, and the Bellagio... then it was time to go home for dinner, so we didn't quite make it to the Mirage.

Jo has a weird fascination with License Plates, here we are sitting on a bench made out of them

A great shot of New York, New York

M&M Store

One of the Lions at the MGM......

Here is the sample trays of 16 popular sodas from around the world. My favorite was the Mango one from South Africa, my least favorite is the one from Italy... TOTALLY GROSS!!

Jo and Adam with the Cola-Bear at the Coke Store.

The Largest Chocolate Fountain in the World, in the Bellagio.

On Friday, we started out at Treasure Island, or now known just "TI" and went straight to the Secret Garden. The cost wasn't too much. We had fun watching the Dolphins do tricks. They don't do a formal show, they just have employees "play" with them all day. (What a hard job huh?) There were also the White Lions, White Tigers and some other misc. animals.

On Saturday I had to turn Jo and Ad'z over to Sara and Aaron (Jo's sister) who had driven down from Utah. So Kira and I both got NAPS!!!

On Sunday we went to the Silverton after church. They have a mermaid show on Thursday thru Sundays. A mermaid comes down into their big tank and swims with them and interacts with the guests. Kira thought it was great that she got to see Ariel. She was so excited!

Monday, Jo and Adz went back to the strip to do some things they hadn't gotten to and so Kira and I headed home for naps. We got all settled and there was a knock at the door. Jacob went to go get it but couldn't see who was there because someone's finger was over the hole. So Jacob opened the door and out popped my brother Brett and his friend Amy.

They didn't stay long but it was good to see him all the same and Kira LOVES her Uncle Butt!

Tuesday consisted of last minutes stops to the church book store, Target and Jacob took us all to probably his favorite casino, the Hard Rock. We also ate some really good frozen custard in a scary part of the strip but oooohhh was it good.

It was so great to see Jo again, I can't believe how quickly the time flies! It's amazing all the stuff we fit into a week and it just flew by!
I don't know when I'll get to see Jo again, but when I do, I know what things will pick up where we have left them off and until then, I have all these great memories to think back on.
Adam, thanks for bringing her out here to see me. Hopefully we'll get to go see you soon!