Las Vegas

Annie and I decided last minute that we needed to go somehwere for Spring Break.  We were going to go to St. George, but our moms wanted to fly so we were going to have to pick them up in Vegas anyway.  We started looking at hotels, and Vegas was much cheaper so we decided to go there instead.  Keith got us an awesome deal at the Luxor so we were all able to have our own room.

Mom and Shawna decided that it was too expensive to fly and Blair had to finish a test at school before she could leave so that left Annie, the kids, and I in one car and everyone else in another.  Annie and I left first thing Monday morning.  We were packed in her car with all the carseats, boosters, and luggage!  I wish we would have taken a picture.  The kids did great!  We stopped in Lehi for lunch and a couple other quick times for potty breaks.  By the time we got to St. George the kids were restless and ready to get out.  We stopped for a coke and cookies and let them run around at a park for awhile.  They were sad about having to get back in the car to finish our drive.  They were pretty restless the rest the way to Vegas but still did pretty good for the most part.

We finally go into Vegas around 9.  We looked like a circus walking to the hotel with all our children and all our luggage!  We had several people comment that we were crazy :-).  Once we finally got checked in, the kids were starving.  We went downstairs and found them McDonalds.  By that time Mom, Blair, and Shawna had made it there too.  They were a lot quicker driving than we were, ha.

The next morning once we finally got up we exercised and went straight to the pool.  It was nice for Annie and I to be able to take turns exercising and watching the kids.  We spent most of the day at the pool and then got ready and went to dinner.

Wednesday was my birthday and the morning was pretty much the same.  Exercise and the pool.  We wanted something fun to do for the afternoon.  We ended up riding the tram and going to see all the classic Vegas sights.  Or at least sort of.  The first place we went was to see the lions at MGM, but when we got there we found out they had been moved.  We wandered around there for a bit and found a cool crocodile that made noises and sprayed water.  Bailee was terrified of it.  Next, we decided to take the older girls to ride the roller coaster at New York New York but when we got there they weren't tall enough.  It was starting to get stormy but we walked down to the M&M and Coke factory next.  By this time everyone was getting hungry so we decided to head back to get cars and go to dinner and then come back later that night for the pirate show, fountains, and volcano.  Well, the wait at Outback was outrageous and the hostesses were extremely rude to us because we had such a "large" party they weren't willing to accomodate us.  We ended up finally requesting two separate tables because it was going to take just as long to go anywhere else.  It was still a long wait, but we shopped a little at the outlets while we waited.  Finally, after dinner we dropped off Shawna at the hotel while the rest of us went to see the sights.  We had no idea, but they had gotten rid of the pirate show last winter so the kids were really mad about that.  The adults were all very tired and none of us wanted to get out.  We tried to convince the kids that the fountains were really cool from the car, but they weren't very happy about it.  They just kept saying over and over that it wasn't fair that everything got canceled.  It was quite the adventurous night.

Thursday we exercised and then got ready to go shopping.  We went to a fun little outdoor mall in Henderson and shopped and had dinner at California Pizza Kitchen.  We went to bed somewhat early so we could drive home Friday.

The drive home was long!  The kids fought a lot and we stopped a lot.  We missed our dads!  Cole and Tate would not go to sleep for the life of them and they succeeded in waking all the girls up.  We were relieved to finally get home and get out.  It was such a fun trip and such fun memories!  I love that our kids have each other and get to make so many fun memories like we did.  I don't know that any of us realized as kids how lucky we were to be so close and to always know we'd have a friend.  I hope that our kids' friendships will continue as ours have!