June 11th, 2010 ~ Vegas baby!!!

Woke up bright and early and headed for Las Vegas! We stopped in St. George for a bite to eat and rolled into Vegas about 3:00 in the afternoon! It was hot... and it felt sooo good... we drove by the famous pawn shop from the show "Pawn Stars" and the boys had plans to go but by the time we got checked into our hotel they were closed. They are only open until 4 and the boys didn't quite make it... We stayed at the Golden Nugget... The kids were excited because they wanted to swimming!!! So we parked, got unloaded, and headed to the pool!! The have a water slide at the pool but what was really cool is that in one section the tube was clear and it went through a shark tank! Not really sure who it is going through tank in the pictures but I do know it's someone in our family! I think the first one is Jace, then Tanner, then Justin... They had a pool surrounding the tank and we spent a few hours in the pool until everyone started getting hungry... Now before we left on vacation we told the kids we weren't going to spend alot on food by eating out at big fancy restaurants every night which the kids totally agreed with! Maybe once or twice cause we basically has four adults to feed and if ya go some where fancy it can get expensive real fast!!! So no one knew where they wanted to go but decided on the Rain Forest Cafe in the MGM! John and I looked for a McDonald's or something but never found one so we went to the Rain Forest Cafe... It was ok...and just for the record, it ended up being our most expensive meal of the trip ~ $126.30!! Granted Justin ordered ribs, Hannah didn't order off the kids meal, and the kids got $3.50 non-refillable bottles of root beer {another lesson learned....when you order a root beer make sure it doesn't come in the bottle...those are expensive and non-refillable!!} We loaded up in our cars and went to drive the strip...

We didn't walk the strip cause I think we were all worn out! The kids enjoyed the lights and seeing all of the people! Even saw a few crazy ones!! Justin and Jace were quite shocked when a truck with a huge billboard of scantily clad girls on it advertising girly shows pulled along the side of us! They were trying their hardest not to look but kept glancing sideways, you couldn't help but notice them when they were 10 feet high and 12 feet long all light up pulled up right next to your car!! We went and parked and walked through the casino to Fremont street...the old part of the strip! It's now covered with a huge tarp like thing and they have light shows on it! We walkked up and down that but Jace started getting a headache from all the cigarette smoke so we headed back!! The kids couldn't believe all the smoking, drinking, and people gambling!!! Let me tell ya...it was a real eye opener for them and I don't think they liked it!! When we got back to the hotel apparently these palm trees were screaming out to Justin...."CLIMB ME! CLIMB ME!!" So he did... We headed back to our rooms! We were on the 6th floor so we got to ride the elevator alot!! It was nice to go back to our non-smoking room and shut out all the noise and smoke!!! Had to get rested up for another long drive!!!