Viva Las Vegas!

Yesterday we went to Vegas. It's been about a year since we've gone there other than for a quick airport drop-off or pick-up so and we wanted some family time in the midst of all the homework and Scouts and basketball and finishing the new Power of Moms website and Jared working on his CoolCab thing and keeping MGTrucklines going. Life has just seemed so busy and stressful lately - but good, very good for the most part.

Anyway, our main destination in Vegas was the Shark Reef Aquarium at Mandalay Bay. The kids were totally mesmerized by all the amazing fish and Isaac was super good at asking good questions to the aquarium staff they had on hand while Ashton and Eliza were content to glean all the information they could from the "audio wands" we had. The twins were pretty into the audio wands as well and told me a thing or two about some of the fish. We learned a ton about all sorts of fish, especially sharks, and it was so fun to have all five kids so totally interested in the same stuff.

Kids "petting" sting rays - they feel so weird and squishy!Had to put this in - I love jelly fish - they are so amazingly beautiful to watch
and I learned that they actually are a plant for part of their life cycle - so interesting.

We also watched the dancing fountains at Bellagio, saw the beautiful flowers there, visited the M&M's and watched a great fire dancers and some hula girls in the Hawaiian plaza. One of the twins' very favorite things was riding on the little train that links up some of the hotels (you should have heard their squeals of glee as that thing started moving forward!) and riding on countless escalators and elevators. Oliver had a total meltdown when we passed an escalator (or excavator as he and Silas kept calling them) at the end of the day without going on it. We made a slight detour to do one last escalator ride so everyone could leave happy!

Bellagio flower gardens decked out for Chinese New Year -
stopping for some water from the camelback

These are some awesome kids. We walked clear up and down the strip - several miles - and had a hard time finding much to eat (not a lot of kid-friendly or somewhat cheap options on the strip!) and Jared and I realized as we were driving home that the kids did not complain ONCE about being hungry or tired. They were just thrilled to be there and it was so fun to share in their excitement. The kids loved seeing all the people and lights and impressive gaudy fake stuff all over the place - plus the lights on all the slot machines in the casinos were very enticing. Ollie and Si thought for sure those "games" were for them and were quite put out when we didn't let them play with any slot machines. The glitzy larger than life appeal of Vegas is especially attractive to little kids! For adults like me and Jared, it can be tiring and the seedy side seeps through and it's hard to ignore the glazed over sad looking people at the slot machines and the scary outfit choices of some people. But hey, it's fun - for once a year, anyway.

Ollie and Si were great about holding my hands or Jared's the whole day. Their little legs probably clocked at least double what Jared and I did - plus they were jumping and skipping half the time. Needless to say, they fell asleep about 2 minutes into the ride home.

It's more and more fun all the time now that the kids are all able to walk and talk and enjoy so many of the same things!