On our way down to Nini and Bebe's for Thanksgiving this year we did something we have never done before... we stayed the night in Las Vegas. Now in Spanish Las Vegas means the meadows. I've been trying to figure this out, but I think this nomenclature is something like the Spanish version of Greenland. You know, the hell hole you want all the people you don't like to go to so you name it something nice. How do we get rid of all these people? Easy, we set up a city in the middle of the desert nowhere and call it "The Meadows". For some reason now, though, everybody seems to want to go there at least once.
Anyway, while I usually pride myself on being able to fly through the Mohave desert to arrive in LA county just before the kids wake up, stopping in Vegas is the only way we could have done the trip down. Getting out of Utah was a mess logistically with everything I had going on at school and my ritual pre-drive nap got nixed. So when Uncle M said he had a paid hotel room for that very night that he wasn't going to use, we said "Thanks!"
We got in late to THE Hotel at Mandalay Bay. Just in case you get confused about anything, THE people there have labeled it all for you. Instead of going to THE Casino, walk through THE Lobby, after parking in THE garage, and check-in at THE desk. After that, you can take THE elevator to THE Room, where THE key will open THE door. By the way, THE shampoo is for you hair and THE soap is for your body. (That is a lot funnier after you stay at THE Hotel, I promise). It seems like either a lot of stupid people stay there, they are trying to teach foreigners English, or after so many hours of alcohol and gambling you just need a little help identifying everything. Anyway, THE other guests at THE check-in desk made us wait half an hour at 1:30 am because THE Hotel had reserved them THE single room suite instead of THE double room suite. At that point, I was about ready to put THE pen on the desk through THEIR necks.
Once in the room it still took a while to get to sleep because we played musical beds. We had B on THE couch with Little K in THE bed with us. Well, B decided he wanted to be with us, which made it crowded, so K went to sleep on the couch. After that both kids started wanted to be on the couch with K. (Gee, who's the favorite parent). So we finally got both kids with K in the bed and I was on the couch (which is what I wanted to do originally, but nobody would listen to me!)
K's indecisiveness played out in the morning when she had me calling down to room service to cancel and reorder our food several times. Finally, we ended up eating brunch in the miracle mile shops.
The day was pretty darn fun. B REALLY wanted to go on the "roller coaster" (the monorail). Since we had to pay for it we stayed on it for a loop even though we were only one stop away from where we were going. We took the kids to see the lions at MGM Grand and the guy in the cage got one to come stand on the plastic tubes right over our heads. Then we went to M&M world where the kids saw their first 3D movie. Both were mesmerized by the entire wall of M&M's. Miraculously enough, we got out of there before either kid realized you could buy just about everything in sight. I'm not quite sure how we lucked out on that one. On the way back to the car we passed a guy pretending to be a robot for money. B went and put a buck in his hand to get a sucker and then posed with him. Pretty brave for such a little guy. I'm not sure he realized it was a real person. He was pretty excited though, because the guy also gave him a coupon to a restaurant which he told us later was a $10,000 bill. Yeah, that would have made me excited too!
Probably some of the best fun though was at IN N OUT on the way out of town. Seriously, they gave the kids little sticker books, and paper hamburger hats. You should have seen these two, they thought they were on top of the world. The deal only got sweeter when they realized they were getting french fries for lunch (Little K especially). What a pair. The only thing that could have really topped the whole trip was seeing the cousins at Nini's house. It's a good thing that's exactly what we did next.
Little K got a day care set for all of her babies (if only they paid...). Bebe treated the little girls to story time that night, which they loved.
