Vegas!

Now that it's done, I still can't believe we took an almost 3 yr old and a barely 3 month old to LAS VEGAS. Even more so if I hadn't done it myself I wouldn't have believed that it could be so fun with little ones! It probably helped a TON that the kids were complete angels!!! We did so much (as much as we could between sleeping in until 8:30 FINALLY, taking naps, frequent-I mean FREQUENT- Hailey feedings, and early bedtimes out of exhaustion)! We stayed at Circus Circus (I'll go for a LITTLE pricier room next time. it was livable, but not the best...) and went to their indoor Adventuredome. That was probably Matthew's favorite part. The best part about that was we didn't even have to fork out much money :) matthew thought he was playing the arcade games anyway. heehee. bonus that comes with taking a newbie to arcades!

This Dance Dance Revolution had to be his favorite. I couldn't pull him away from it for more than 2 seconds to take a peek at a clown on the stage.

A close second was this airplane/helicopter ride. He went on that over and over!
We did some window shopping. I had no idea that there were stores there like Gucci and all of those other fancy pants ritzy places. The funny thing is it's all in the name. Their stuff wasn't any cooler than Aeropostal or JC Penny. Okay, okay, except for the fact that their stuff had real diamonds....

My favorite part was the Shark Reef at Mandalay Bay. It was pretty sweet!!! Maybe I'll put some more pictures up a little later.

Matthew absolutely LOVED the starfish!!! I mean "Sea Stars" as he calls them :)

This part of the aquarium was pretty sweet. The tunnel goes right under the water. I recall something similar to this at Sea World I think.... It's been a while since I saw that though, like when I was 10.

It spooked matthew when the sharks would come swimming right at us and then swoop up just before the glass. I don't think he always took into consideration the thick glass between us and the sharks.

The little corner of Arizona we drove through was beautiful!! maybe it was part of nevada, or maybe it was still southern Utah, but anyway somewhere around there. yes, we DROVE the entire way. We left at 4:30 in the morning (Matthew woke up and stayed awake until 2 pm!!!!) and got to Las Vegas around 5 pm. matthew was so stinking good the entire time!! We brought a super thick preschool workbook and some crayons and markers (although the markers got taken away when he said "Look at my beard mommy!" and I turned around to find a red and blue face looking back at me!) And Hailey slept almost the whole time except for when she'd wake up to eat every few hours. And they both still slept through every night from 9 pm to 8:30 am (except Hailey would wake up briefly to eat around 6)!! What a trip! It was way fun! We want to go again next year for our anniversary and maybe leave the kids behind. If Lion King is still playing there we want to see that and little kids aren't allowed in. OR if anyone wants to come with us we could take turns going out and staying with the kids.....any takers?.....

What a great family vacation. It's really nice to sometimes just go out with your own little family to a destination that you've never been before and explore things and do things on your own time schedule not worrying about anyone else's plans. A family vacation like this is going to be an annual tradition from now on I think. Thank Heavens Matthew and Hailey were good and made it a good experience so Curt will want to do it again! He was worried that it would be a lot of crying, a lot of tantrums, and a lot of milk.....okay, so it was a lot of milk...but that was manageable. and it did help me learn how to nurse in public discreetly. Kind of.