One place that Bobby and I love to visit is funny enough Las Vegas, and I say funny enough because we don't drink, we don't gamble and we don't exactly party all night, especially now because of our little Kate. Yet we love Vegas because of all of the fun lights and different shows and just the feeling of being on vacation even though we're only about 5 hours away from home. We also love to visit Bobby's uncle Mike and his family, we have a lot of fun with them. So we packed up the car and off to Vegas we went! On the road we stopped at a place called Cove Fort, where the early Hinckleys lived and it was really cool to see the history there, although Kate wasn't too interested, she was much more interested in making piles of dirt.
We decided to stay for about 4 days, which is just enough time to get everything in and get home for the holiday weekend to relax before Bobby started his rotations for pharmacy. We were planning to stay with Bobby's uncle so we talked to him 3 weeks before and he said all was good to go.
Well after a 6 hour drive we got to Vegas around 9 at night only to find out that Bobby's uncle Mike forgot to mention that we were coming to his wife...This wasn't a good thing in this case because Nikki (Mike's wife) is so sweet and is very much a type A personality so no warning from her hubby really stressed her out. She was so overly worried about the house being messy because she hadn't cleaned anything at all for the past month I guess and was really worried that Kate would choke on stuff all over the house that she kind of hinted at the possibility of getting a hotel for the night...Mind you it took about 2 hours for her to get to this conclusion until we finally just did it because we were so tired and found a little $25 hotel for the night. It was OK, a little old, but clean enough for a night. Honestly it was kind of an adventure! We all shared the room and of course Kate LOVED that so hence the notion of sleep was not an option until about 1:30 in the morning, while trying to soothe Kate in our bed I got tired of her hitting me screaming as loud as she could for fun "mamma!!" and then hitting Bobby saying "Dad!" as if she couldn't believe that we were actually there! It was funny for a while but then exhaustion hit and I put her in her pack n play so she could fuss for a second and then pass out.
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| The first hotel we stayed in |
That morning I decided to take Kate to the pool so we got all ready and headed down, it was so hot outside already at only 9 am so I was excited to jump in. So after getting down there getting both of us ready to get in I took a careful step in the water and lost my breath at the utter coldness of the pool. Still I thought "well we'll get used to it" so I gently put Kate in her floater thingy and slowly waded deeper into the water. Oh my goodness...there was No getting use to that water!! So we lasted about 5 minutes until I decided we were in long enough and got out. I can't believe it, but it was a relief to feel that Nevada heat! So after the pool experience we got showered and dress and went off to the outlet malls because it was still too hot for the strip. The malls were fun! We even went on a carousel for Kate, which she wanted more and more of. Horses are kind of her thing right now, so she practically jumped out of my arms screaming as loud as she could "Neigh!!" over and over on the ride, it was fun to watch.
Bobby recorded and Kate asked to see this video over and over the rest of the day by pointing to the camera and saying "neigh?"
Bobby and I decided that we wanted to stay in a hotel the rest of the trip because it really made us feel like we were on a vacation, and we didn't want to stress Nikki out (although she later said she wished we'd stayed there the rest of the trip) so we got hooked up with an awesome price in a Marriot Residence Inn (thanks Jill!!) which if you have ever tried with a kid is a life saver! I'm talking Two rooms here! So we could put Kate down for bed and still enjoy a movie or something in the other room, yay! That night we walked the strip, and Kate loved the lights, and of course the music. We would let her walk at times and she would have to stop every few steps just to get jiggy with it and dance to every song. I swear we could have put a hat in front of her and made good money with how many people were stopping and watching her just enjoy the music. ha ha. We probably weren't the best parents on this trip though because we walked the strip until about midnight every night, and Kate honestly never showed any sign of being done, I think she loved it just as much as we did! We took her to see all of the fun free shows like the water at the Bellagio (our favorite), the Volcano at the Mirage and the pirate/siren show at Treasure Island (least favorite) and then the huge fish tank (she loves fishes) and she was as happy as a clam.
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| Kate Dancing all down the strip! |
The next day we went swimming and then Bobby and Kate took a nap, and since I swore off homework for the trip for my own mental health, I pulled out my beloved Ipod and watched the movie, "How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days" (love that movie!) It was honestly so relaxing, I loved being lazy for a change.
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| Kate made this funny face when she tasted the chlorine, can't really tell if she liked it |
After that we got ready and went to the Excalibur Knights of the Round Table show with Uncle Mike, Nikki and their Adorable 6 year old son Evan, we chose this show because it has horses and obviously that would interest our little Kate! Well it definitely did! The second those horses came out Kate went Crazy with "Neigh neigh!" all night, so it was well worth it, we didn't have to get up once to walk around and it was over an hour long. The food was good, although I don't particularly love eating everything with my hands, especially with peeling meat off the bones of the chicken, but hey it was part of the atmosphere so it was fun.
King Arthur show
Then more of the strip until late again to finish off the night.
The next day was sadly the day to go home, I really didn't want to because I knew that it would be back to life, which meant back to studying and homework but c'est la vie! So we met Mike, Nikki and Evan one last
time for lunch at this delicious burger place, Creation I believe? Wow, I have never had a burger that good, I would go back to Vegas just for that place. And said goodbye then headed home. Evan was real sad to see Kate leave and Kate gave him so many loves, those two were friends from the beginning, and Bobby and I get along so well with Mike and Nikki that it was sad to say goodbye. But it was such a great little getaway, and very much needed! The thing about Vegas, is that yes it definitely is the city of sin with all of the gambling etc. for those who party, but for those of us who don't do that, we get to see the different aspect of Vegas like the Awesome shows, the cool lights and decorations and surprisingly there are a lot of art displays there too. One in particular I loved had all blown glass, it was truly amazing. So yes, the good things may be hard to find, but definitely worth it if you take the time to look.
One funny story happened in the art studio with this amazing art, I was walking around and the worker there asked if I was interested in buying any of it, I mentioned that we were both students so it obviously wasn't in the budget. He asked what we were going into, I said I was going to school to be a teacher and he gives me a sympathetic nod and then I mentioned that Bobby was going to school to be a Pharmacist and the guy jumped up and said "Oh! Well you can afford these! Give me a call!" as he practically throws me a business card. It was just funny to see his demeanor change from observing us as lowly students (and me as a lowly teacher) to actual potential clients, as in people not wasting his time. That has never happened before, why can't people jump up when I say i'm going to be a teacher? What, you mean $30,000 a year won't make me a millionaire?! ;)
