Leaving for Las Vegas

Well, it's May 6th in real time and our big trip has passed, Easter has passed and the kid's birthday has passed, too, and I still need to write about it! I also will share the big project I've been working on the past few months, which has made it hard to stay current with what we've been up to.

So, on March 30th at 7:15 at night, we boarded a plane heading for Las Vegas. To make a long story short, we were planning a trip to Europe this year, but Steve's work had a convention in Las Vegas and was going to fly out every one's families, too, so we decided to take advantage of the free airfare and extend the trip to include two weeks in San Diego, too.

Even though it was late when we landed (11:00 p.m. our time) the kids were raring to go. They climbed on some sculptures in the airport. Jared was in such a good mood that he actually let Steve take this picture with me.  Believe me, we don't get to see this sweet smile in pictures too often; he usually has to be very silly.

We stayed at the hotel Aria which was a nice hotel, I guess. We just were not impressed at all with Las Vegas. It's just not who we are. The hotels are more like mini-cities in themselves. It took us 40 minutes to leave our room, walk through the casino, out through all the complexes outside and across the street to a McDonald's for breakfast. Of course, some of that had to do with the kids wanting to stop every five minutes, but still, it takes a LONG time to get anywhere. Plus, all the hotels smelled like smoke, filtered air, and incense.

Still, it was interesting, at least for the first day, to walk up and down the strip in the morning, looking at all the other hotels and buildings.

If it hadn't been for Steve's work we wouldn't have gone there. And for sure it's not a place to take the kids. I thought things would be fine going out in the morning, but as we were walking down the street, there were people at every corner handing out pictures of topless women. We know because they'd also scatter them all across the sidewalk. And then we walked past an open bar restaurant, butted all the way up to the sidewalk, where some woman with a skirt barely covering her butt and wearing a bra was dancing away on a table with lots of dollar bills sticking out the top of the skirt.

Needless to say, we had to have a few conversations with the kids (Why do people like to take naked pictures of other people, Mommy?), but I guess the conversation would have come anyways. But I am very thankful we were able to travel with Steve rather than be separated from him for a week.