Las Vegas

It seemed like everyone I knew was going on some kind of vacation.  Ben and I had nothing planned since we are saving all our extra money to pay off the truck.  I told him we needed to get away if only for a few days.  Since we didn't want to spend a lot of money we knew we were going to drive and the hotel and activities had to be inexpensive too.  Las Vegas came to mind and I found a room at Circus Circus for $27 a night.  They have a small amusement park in the hotel, so I knew it would be perfect for the kids.

It was a long drive and we gave Sophia anything we could find for her to play with.  We barely made it there with our sanity!  After checking in we spent the next few hours wandering around the hotel before crashing for the night.  For some reason Brandon chose that night to throw up- at least he made it to the bathroom.

The next day we bought all-day passes for the adventure dome.  We weren't sure if there would be any rides Sara would go on (besides the carousel), but in the end she said she would do five rides- the carousel, bumper cars, airplanes, laser tag and the Spongebob 4-D show.  We told her that we were buying all day passes, so we would be here all day going on rides.  She did those five things all day long until the place closed at 11pm and loved it!

We knew Brandon would go on just about anything and he did!  I think this was his favorite ride and surprisingly he didn't get too wet (just slightly damp).  He loved playing laser tag with Sara and went on the rides over and over again.  The only time we left the adventure dome was to eat at the buffet.

Sophia wanted to walk around while the kids were going on rides and since it was a Monday it wasn't too crowded.  She loved "playing" or "riding" on the games and had so much fun.  I got to take her up to our room for a nap and got an hour or so to relax and read my book while she was sleeping.

I made sure the hotel had a pool and since it was so hot we had to try it out.  The kids loved it and didn't want to leave.  A group of kids there thought Sophia looked like Charlie from the new Disney show "Good luck Charlie".  We told them it wasn't her, but they were already yelling at their parents and then everyone was looking.  We assured everyone that it was not Charlie and continued to have a fun time in the cool water.

Tuesday we drove to the other end of the strip and went to the aquarium inside the Mandalay Bay hotel. Brandon loved listening to all the information and Sara really liked looking at all the fish and sharks.  It was Sophia's nap time, so she slept in the baby wrap while we walked around.  When we were done at the aquarium we headed over to M&M world, then got lunch and did some shopping.  We were going to go look at some of the other hotels, but it was around 108 degrees, so we went back to the hotel.

Back at the hotel we had nothing to do, so we decided to let the kids play some of the carnival games.  They each won 4-5 stuffed animals and had lots of fun!  We watched a magic show then went up to our room for baths, movie and bed.  I told Ben to go have some fun gambling while I got the kids in the bath and then into bed.  I was shocked when he came to the room a little later and said he didn't really play anything.  He used to love playing blackjack, but he said he was really tired and just wanted to go to bed.  Since Sophia had kept everyone awake the night before crying for an hour we were all tired and turned in early.
Sophia woke up again tonight throwing up, so no one got much sleep and we had to drive all the way home tomorrow!  It was LONG and hard, but Ben drove the whole way and we got home around 1am.  It was a fun trip, but with very little sleep and the long drive we were all tired and slept in late on Thursday.   Unfortunately Ben had to get up early to work, but he went to bed early that night and felt a lot better Friday morning.