Easter in Vegas

Last week, Eric found out that he was going to need to travel to Las Vegas for work. He was going to fly out Sunday evening and return Monday evening.  But the non-stop flights from Vegas to Fresno on Monday weren't lining up the way he would need, so his boss suggested that he drive...and take his family along!  We had such a fun weekend.  We left Saturday morning, got to Vegas around 3:00, and the girls immediately wanted to go swimming.  The weather was warmer than it has been in Fresno - probably in the upper 70's.  We took a quick dip in the pool then headed out to Circus Circus for dinner.  We ate at the buffet, where I gorged myself, then headed up to the kids gaming area.  They have a little setup in the middle of the room for circus-type performances.  We could see the ropes and nets for a trapeze and thought that would be really cool to see.  Well, they do different performances every half hour, and the performance we got to see was a couple of roller-skaters doing tricks on the smallest roller-rink stage I've ever seen.  No trapeze for us, but that's ok - the rollerskaters were pretty incredible. 

Sunday, Anna woke us up with, "The Easter Bunny came!!"  The kids had left a note at home for the  Easter Bunny asking him to find us in Las Vegas.  They were thrilled to have a little Easter egg hunt in the hotel room.  After breakfast, we went to church in Henderson.  We met up with a friend of Eric's from college so it was nice to see some familiar faces.  Sunday afternoon we just hung out in the hotel room for a couple hours, then headed out to the monorail to take us to the MGM Grand for dinner at the Rainforest Cafe.  We stayed at the Marriott right by the convention center so the monorail station was literally right across the street.  The girls were begging to ride the "train" so it worked out nicely.  They loved it.  They loved everything...their little eyes and minds just took it all in.  So here are some shots from the Rainforest Cafe.  I took all the pictures with my phone, so not the best quality.  Silly me forgot the real camera.

Haylie with her souvenir cup and toy

Ian didn't get his own souvenir but Haylie let him play with hers.  Oh, and funny thing, every 20 minutes in the Rainforest Cafe, there is a thunderstorm complete with lightning and the animals go a little cuckoo...Ian was not a fan.  We had to get him out of his high chair and hold him each time it happened. So cute.

Anna with her souvenirs

Eric was pretty excited too!  ;-)

So on Monday Eric had to actually work (you know, the reason why we were in Las Vegas...) so the kids and I headed up to the Las Vegas temple.  It was beautiful, of course.  We walked around the grounds for a bit, until we all realized we needed to go potty.  Thankfully, there was a church building right next door and people were there, so we got to go in and use the facilities! 

Cute kiddos in front of the temple

This is the view of the temple from the church building.  Gorgeous.

This house was across the street from the temple.  I love Victorian homes, and thought this house was just beautiful.  Can't really see the turret behind the tree on the left, but it was adorable!!

We still had a little time to kill, and I couldn't find any parks around so we headed to the next best thing...McDonald's Play Place.  :-)  We played at McDonald's until Eric was ready to be picked up.  Grabbed some lunch and headed home. 

We stopped at a rest stop somewhere in the middle of the desert.  Haylie was pretty intrigued by the idea that we were in THE DESERT.  The girls have been watching a cartoon on Netflix called Oscar's Oasis.  It's a little gecko that is in the desert always searching for food and water. (reminds me of Scrat from the Ice Age movies - very cute)  Anyway, now we were in the desert like Oscar!  So I snapped some shots of the kids roaming the desert hills...

Anna

Haylie and Ian

I can't help but feel like this trip was another one of those blessings I talked about in this post.  I feel like we made this commitment to be debt free, and once again Heavenly Father blessed us with something that we didn't think we'd be able to have for a while (a nice vacation as a family).  Eric's generous boss paid all the expenses with the exception of gas, and our own entertainment/souvenirs. He does get reimbursed for mileage, which will more than cover the cost of the gasoline.  It's pretty amazing.  I feel so lucky and blessed, and grateful to be right here, right now. 

And now, back to the grind...