Las Vegas!

Our trip began on Monday!  Not bad planning on my part, since it was President's Day and I got paid for eight hours of it.  We hit the road by 7:30 after picking up Taryn and Grandma. By Santaquin, Micah had already asked, "Are we almost there yet?" twice.  Thankfully we came prepared for a drive!  I wrapped presents they could open intermittently, bought new coloring books, packed movies and books, and made dry-erase activities like road bingo, hangman, tick-tack-toe, and word searches.  Grandma's iPad helped, haha.  We stopped in St. George for lunch and the kids stretched, ran, played, and ate the picnic I packed.

We broke up the ten hour drive to California by staying in Vegas on Monday night.  The kids were in awe with all the hotels, millions of lights, and thousands of crazy (half-dressed, drunk) people.  We hit M&M world, the Hershey Chocolate Shop, and Coke world.  Taryn got eaten by the Coke Bear, Dakota found every soft thing in sight, Micah relished over the color choices of chocolate M&Ms, and Copper was just her cheery self. At $14 lb., the kids literally got less than a handful each.  To my surprise, they were happy campers!

We walked around for a bit, ate a late lunch, and headed to our "castle" hotel, the Excalibur. 

 Copper showed Grandma her homemade board game, equipped with eight destination towers, dozens (and dozens) of cards, itty-bitty spaces (less than one inch), stickers, and activities.  Don't worry- Copper came prepared with other activities.  In her duffle bag were nine chapter books to read (I took out seven), three homemade games (I took out two), four journals (I took out two), her Valentine box and candy (I took out all of it), numerous craft projects (which also got left home), and several stuffed animals (she got to take one). I did let her keep her own chapter book she's working on writing. And her clothes.  It was a struggle.

 We lounged around and watched GSN.  The best part of a hotel stay for me is Game Show Network and late night watchings of people making fools of themselves but winning fantastic prizes.  It used to be a dream of mine to be on a game show.  No, really.   Now, I'm pretty okay sitting for a few hours living vicariously.

With three young girls in tow and an impressionable-aged tween, Vegas is not my style.  Thankfully we were only there a night, with only a few hours out on the dirty, filthy town.  And more thankfully, God did not swallow up Sin City while we were there.