Spring Break Travels: Las Vegas

We have been wanting to go back to visit friends in Las Vegas since we moved away from there, so we decided Spring Break was the time!  Our time in Vegas didn't get off to the greatest start.  As soon as we drove into town and had to navigate through the traffic on the strip, Sean's frustration level rose as he had to deal with taxi cabs and other rude drivers. We immediately admitted we were glad we had moved away!  Not that we drove on the strip very often when we lived there, but for some reason, we just felt good about our move.  We tried to forget about the stress of traffic and just look forward to seeing our friends.

This is new since we moved. I think it looks like a giant bicycle wheel!

Part of our time in Vegas was to be spent at a time share presentation.  We thought we would be staying at the time share property, but instead, they put us up at the Rio Hotel and Casino.  Not really a place I would choose for a family stay, but whatever.  We made a mistake in wanting to park our own car and take in some of our own luggage, instead of paying the valet and bellman.  That mistake only happened once!  We felt so out of place dragging luggage and four small children through that trashy place!  The parking lot was nowhere near the check-in and tower where we were staying, so we trekked through plenty of casino activity and got many strange stares from a lot of people.  Gabe thought the slot machines were games and ran to push some buttons, so we had to quickly explain that they were off limits.  It never used to seem so bad, but when you are with little kids, your perspective changes a bit.  I know it's Vegas and all, but it was just crazy to see a woman stage dancing with hardly anything on in the middle of the casino when it wasn't even 9pm!  Some drunk guy saw Soren's Utah State t-shirt and got up in his face saying something about "Go Utah!  Yeah Utah!  Did Utah win?"  (referring to NCAA basketball and March Madness).  Soren just ignored him and kept walking, thankfully.  When we finally got to our room, we decided we were not going to take the kids back out that night.  We were all hungry and tired, so Sean went down to move the van and let the valet park it and have a bellman bring up the rest of our luggage.  I put the kids in the tub and when Sean came back, we ordered Pizza Hut to the room.  We were shocked to hear the total of $52.00 plus tip for our two medium pizzas, but oh well.  Like I said, we were all worn out and ready to stay in for the night!

Rub a dub dub, four kids in a tub!

Maddie's trick!

After the first night, things got much better.  We had a much shorter walk through the hotel to get to valet in the morning as we headed off to church.  We went to our old Las Palmas ward where we were able to see so many friendly and familiar faces.  The kids were so happy to see Ella and the rest of the Reese family, as well as many other friends and former teachers we had known in that ward.  It was a warm, happy reunion!  Kim took some cute pictures of the kids at church, and I can't get them off my phone.  I'll add them later if I can.

After church, Sean's brother, Jeremy, wanted Sean to go to his singles ward with him, so we stopped by for a little visit with my friends, Gary and Candy Krausman, and then Sean and Soren went to Sacrament meeting with Jeremy.  I drove around with Gabe, Brooke, and Maddie, so they could finish their naps.  It was good to see Uncle Jeremy, and we're glad he's having a good experience attending the singles ward.

After church, we went back to the hotel to change clothes and then we went to Gabe and Laurie Gledhill's for dinner.  It was great to see them and their kids, Millan, Garren, and Jacobi, as well as other members of the Gledhill family... Gus and Viv, Misty and Luke, and John and Karina.  The kids had fun swimming and playing with each other, and it was great to catch up with the adults.  I didn't take enough photos, but at least I got some with Maddie and Lola as they were planning their escape through the doggie door!

The rest of the trip was a lot of fun as well, and it went by so fast!  Monday morning we all went to the timeshare presentation.  So many people commented on how well behaved our kids were as they sat through the first long meeting.  They had food to eat and Leap Pads to play with, so they did pretty well, but after breaking out into smaller groups to meet with individual reps, their attention span was lost.  It was a long morning, but we finally got to go over to see our friends, the Reeses.  Soren was so happy to see his "girlfriend" Ella.  He says seeing her was his favorite part of the whole trip.  We went to In N Out with them and then went to hang out and visit at Chuck E Cheeses while the kids just played and had a great time.  It was so good to see them again!

We left the Reeses so we could meet up with the Power Squad at Cafe Rio on the other side of town.  Oh man, I love the Power Squad!  It was so great to see them.  Valerie and Jen were there, and Janel was there with her cute daughter, Bekah, who was born about the time we left, so we had never met her.  The Hiller family was there, too: Shannon, Matt, Claire, Miles, and Penelope.  And Shannon was due any day with baby number four.  She did not go into labor while we were all together, so that was good!  (Little side note: her water broke on April Fools Day!  No joke!  But the baby held off until April 2nd.  He's no fool!  Congrats to the Hillers on 2 boys, and 2 girls!)  After dinner, we went to a nearby park so the kids wouldn't destroy the inside of Cafe Rio.  It was so much fun to just be together and catch up and laugh and let the kids play.  I am so lucky to have them all as friends.  Wild woman Jen got her kite out of her car and flew it about a mile high in the dark.  The kids (and adults) thought that was pretty cool!  It stinks living so far away from these great friends, but I'm so glad to have them in my life, and they were such an important part of my life when we were in the singles ward together.

Kite flying adventures.  You can faintly see the kite string on the left side.

Maddie already thinks she's a big kid.  She could climb up and then slide down all by herself!

So now it's been a few weeks and I haven't finished this post!  My computer was in the shop for a while, so I guess I'd better wrap this up.

Around 10 pm, we left the park and the Power Squad and then met up with our friends and former North Las Vegas neighbors, the Browns: Jen, Ian, Weston, and Aurie.  We had an hour or so visit at McDonald's.  Unfortunately, the playland was closed, so it wasn't as fun for the kids as we had hoped, but we loved getting caught up with the Browns.  And I forgot to take a picture.

Tuesday morning, we went to breakfast at The Cracked Egg with Uncle Jeremy and Sean's good friend, Russ Cutolo.  We had hoped to catch up with my principal from Spring Valley HS, Bob Gerye, but he was out of town.  I talked to some other former coworkers on the phone (Shawn Boyle and Deneen Seebeck), but we didn't get a chance to see them.  We were able to drop by the Worthen's house and visit with Janet for a while.  Her husband, Robert, was my bishop in the singles ward, and we just love them and their family!  After that, we took our wedding rings to Jeff White, our friend and jeweler who made them, so he could polish them up and replace a diamond from Sean's ring.  It was good to visit with him.  We were able to pick the rings up Wednesday before we left town (except Jeff had to order the diamond for Sean's ring, so he has since mailed the repaired ring to us).  They look brand new all polished up!  When we picked up the rings on Wednesday, Jeff's wife, Michelle, was there and it was fun to visit with her, as well.  We really love our friends from Vegas.  So many good people there!

Back to Tuesday... After we dropped off our rings, the Reeses texted us saying they were going to Container Park and we were welcome to join them.  That sounded like fun, so we met them downtown at this new park.  The kids had a great time, and the adults had fun visiting again.  Uncle Jeremy met up with us for a short time there, also.  He and Gabe had fun building some stuff with the big foam blocks.  After the Container Park, we went back to the Gledhill's.  Our kids stayed at their house with their kids and played and ate pizza while Gabe, Laurie, Sean and I went to eat dinner at the Olive Garden.  We took Maddie with us and she got pretty fussy for a while, but then settled down to eat some chicken alfredo.  Hooray for food!

That was about it for our trip.  We woke up Wednesday morning and checked out of the Rio.  Goodbye Rio!  The kids thought it was a cool place because of all the lights, but I'm glad they didn't notice all the other junk!  We went to pick up our rings at Jeff White's, and then headed up to St. George.  On our way out of town, Shannon texted us to let us know her water had broken and she was on her way to the hospital.  We were sad we didn't get to meet Baby Henry before we left town, but we were so happy for her to be having that baby!

We wished we had more time to see more people, but we were glad for the time we had.  It was a good trip, and we are so lucky to have so many great friends in Vegas.  Thanks for a fun visit, Vegas friends!  See you next time!