Vegas Vacation

Last weekend we took the kids to Las Vegas for a mini vacation with some friends and their kids. We had so much fun! We stayed at the Rio and had a really amazing view of the strip - at night it was amazing.

We drove up on Thursday afternoon and got in town and checked in just in time for a late dinner and bedtime but on Friday we spent mostly the entire day at the pool. It was awesome. The weather was pretty nice except for the wind. Apparently the winds got up to 20 mph and it wouldn't have been so miserable except for one of the pools has a sandy beachfront so sometimes when the wind would really pick up we would be pelted with sand. The kids are like little fishes and had a blast swimming all day.

Then in the evening we took the Rio Shuttle over to the strip and we took the kids to see the water show at the Bellagio. The show was really fascinating. All of the kids really enjoyed it except for Olivia (and her bestest friend, Brookie) they thought it was "scary" - I am not sure what was scary but they were hilarious about it. I think the people down on the strip are scarier than the water show - but whatever.

Then on Saturday we decided to have some family friendly activities so we took the kids to the Shark Reef Aquarium at the Mandalay Bay. Personally, I felt this was totally overpriced and dull. We walked through the entire place in less than an hour and it was so over crowed with people it was a real struggle to get close enough to see any of the neat things they had there. There was a walk through tunnel that was literally right through the tank (so you had water and sharks on all sides and under and below you) and that was pretty neat but you felt obligated to move along since there were so many others behind us.

Not to mention it was so dark in there that I couldn't get any decent pictures, this is the only one that really turned out. I need to learn how to use my camera in the dark.

Then we went back to the Hotel and took a good long nap - and then we took the kids to the Adventuredome in Circus Circus. It was a total blast! I wish so badly that we would have skipped the Aquarium in the morning and just spent the entire day at Circus Circus.

I discovered that my kids are quite the little dare devils. As you can see Ryleigh, Spencer and Ethan are all on this ride! Ethan was actually not comfortable with going on this ride at all - he was actually just hoping to get away with only riding the merry-go-round and the bumper cars but Dan (being the loving father that he is) "encouraged" Ethan to go on the rides. He actually ended up LOVING IT. This ride was his favorite of the night.

Olivia hated waiting in her stroller. She wanted so badly to get out and play too -

The kids on the bumper cars

This was the line for the Roller Coaster (it actually does 2 loops and a barrel roll) and Ethan had to have an adult ride with him so Dan and I flipped a coin and I won (and I say won - because we both wanted to go!) Ethan was so cute because his hands were so sweaty while we were waiting to ride! He did love it though!

Ryleigh ended up riding it again with Tayler, Kylie & Matt.

Finally it was Olivia's turn to ride some rides. We took her over to the Frog Hopper because she was giggling at it the whole time. She would laugh and say "that is hilarious" as she was watching the other kids enjoy it. This ride is one of those that shoots you up to the top and then slowly drops you back down and then up and down and up and down.... anyways.  It was not nearly as hilarious when she got on - to her anyways.

We made it up to her with a ride on a horsey (yeah, Dan lost this coin toss!)

Then on Sunday we got up, packed up and headed home. We left early enough so that we could get home in the mid afternoon so we could relax and get laundry done before we had to start up the week again. At about 1:15 we were about 10 miles north of Wikiup, AZ when we came to a complete stop... for a long time. After about 5 minutes of waiting in the car we got out to see if we could see what was going on. (This road is under construction so we thought it was that)

This is what we saw in front of us and behind us:

Yikes.

We decided to sit for a while because turning around and going another route would add another 90 minutes (easily) to our travels. At about 2:00 three life flight helicopters flew in. At 2:30 I got called my mom and had her check the ADOT website - she confirmed a serious car accident and said the site said that it would be 3:30 when the road opened.

Okay.. we can wait...

3:30 - my mom calls.... ADOT says 6:00 now!

We decide to turn around.

So we go back up to the 40 and take it East towards Flagstaff (oh, but my mom informed me that the I-17 was also shut down because of a serious car accident which left us with few options). We ended up taking this road through Prescott that is twisty and slow and windy and scary and carsickish.... bleck. It was awful. So we finally arrived home at about 8:30pm!

So much for relaxing.

That alarm clock Monday morning was rough. really rough.