Road Trip

I hardly know where to begin to tell you about our road trip.  I guess I'll start at the beginning and when I come to the end, hopefully, I'll stop.  Aaron has a convention that he goes to every year called Infocomm.  It alternates between Las Vegas and Orlando.  The kids were asking me when we were going to go to Las Vegas again.  Apparently, the last time we went, they had a fabulous time swimming in the hotel pool.  We invited my Mom and Dad to come with us to baby sit the kids because some of the companies hold parties in the evening that are a lot of fun, but not family friendly.  Aaron flew down on Tuesday and I caravaned down with my parents on Wednesday.  We got in pretty late, but I was pretty proud of myself for driving the whole way, thanks to diet Coke and an audiobook. 

Thursday morning dawned clear and hot.  The kids had plans to spend the whole day in the swimming pool, so we proceeded there after Caleb threw up on the hotel bed, locked his sister's favorite pillow in the safe and forgot the number he put in, and breakfast.  The throwing up was not unexpected, my sister had a stomach bug a few days before, and we watched her little girl for her.  Actually, Caleb did most of the watching.  He played with her so nicely and when we praised him for it, he told us the reason why--he was earning money for Lego sets.  That boy seriously needs a part-time job so he can buy all the Lego sets he wants.  But, Caleb seemed fine after he threw up, he even ate breakfast and was happy, so I figured we had got off easy.  After spending three hours in the pool, we had lunch and went shopping at the outlet malls.  On the way back to the hotel, the air conditioning went out in our car.  Then, as my mom was dropping of me and the kids at the front of the hotel, the car stopped working altogether.  The hotel had its own rescue car, so they gave me a jump and I was able to park the car next to my Dad's, so he could give me a jump in the morning when we would have time to sort this out.  

That night my Mom took the kids to Madagascar 3.  Caleb was so excited!  He kept asking us all day if it was dinner time, because we told him we would go to the movie after dinner.  The kids thought it was a fun movie.  Aaron and I went to Crestron's company party.  There was a yummy poolside buffet, featuring cheesecake pops.  Then they had a performance by a group called Quixotic--sort of a modern dance-acrobatic type show.  Afterwards the comedian Sinbad performed.  He was really funny.  Apparently, he had done the show last year, and everyone liked him so much that they invited him back.   

We ate our dinner sitting on these fun seats that were in the water.
I took off my sandals and kept cool with my feet in the water.  

The party always features dancing girls and this time there were girls performing in large balls on the water.  

Friday we woke up early so we could get to fixing my car.  I suspected that it was a bad battery.  My Dad was going to drive it to an auto parts store and have them fix it.  The kids wanted to go swimming again, so we took them out to the pool again.

Caleb and Katrina posing pool side.  I hardly saw the big girls.
They played in the big pool the whole time.

You can never have too many floaties.

I love this picture of Caleb.  What a silly pose!

I hadn't been there very long when I got a phone call from my Dad that my car had made it two blocks and completely died.  We called for a tow truck and my Dad had a 45+ minute wait in the hot Las Vegas sun.  I cannot thank him enough for this.  If he hadn't been there, I would have been out there stranded with the kids and that would brought new meaning to the word hell.  Much anxiety and worry later, he had the car at a repair shop where they were doing an emergency replacement of the alternator, battery, and belt.  We decided to meet him at a local McDonald's for lunch.  Just as we arrived, they had a fire in the restaurant and Caleb threw up again.  We ended up at In-N-Out.  Caleb laid down on my lap and fell asleep.  He was not feeling well.  

Alien eyes require two pairs of sun glasses. 

We drove to St. George to buy groceries for the second half of our trip.  We were going camping for my Dad's family reunion.  But, by this time, Katrina had a raging fever, Caleb had diarrhea, and I was just done with this whole trip.  We were trying to decide what to do and when we asked Caleb, he said he wanted to go home.  The big girls, though, wanted to go camping--some of them were in tears.  My Mom and Dad offered to take them on to the camping while we went home.  We got in at 1:30 am and spent a peaceful night in our beds.  Everyone dragged through Saturday, but by Sunday, we were all feeling much better.  

The big girls had a lot of fun with Grandma and Grandpa.  They slept in a tent, went exploring, played with cousins, and won prizes in the raffle.  Maggie had her camera and took pictures for us.  

They found a Sego Lilly.  It's a very pretty flower.
 I wonder how the bulb tastes. 

Here's Maggie's horse, Brownie, looking fancy. 

Now it's Maggie's turn.

Hannah made a hat out of the tinfoil they used to wrap toys to play with on the trip.

They also found a horny-toad lizard.  I remember catching those as a kid.
They named him Squirmin because he squirmed when you held him upside down.

They got home this afternoon, hot, tired, and dirty.  But, they really had fun thanks to Grandma and Grandpa.  

This next week the Badge of Fun is Learn Something New.  Here are the suggested activities--Explore your world-find out more about static electricity, Solve science puzzles-experiment with angular momentum, and Play with the alphabet-find letters in unexpected places, ie pavement cracks or telephone lines.  Last summer, I had my kids pick out a non-fiction book from the library every time we went.  We learned how to make clay figures and how to knit, not to mention Caleb's ever expanding knowledge of animals.  I would love to hear what you decided to learn about.