Las Vegas Vacation

Hi Everyone,

Well, we've survived our first trip without our girls! C had a convention in Las Vegas which just happened to be over our 5th Anniversary, so we drove down through SLC and dropped the girls off at my mom's house before heading down to LV.

First off, the girls did great. We were at my mom's for two days with them before we left, and by the time we did, both girls were just so thrilled to be with Grandma, they didn't even care we were leaving. They were excited to see us when we got back on Friday, but they haven't been half as clingy as I was expecting.

Well, we jumped in the car and headed south on I-15, stopping for lunch in Cedar City. We got out of the car, went in, ordered, ate our lunch, then paused and stared at each other. It had only taken us about fifteen minutes - something that would have taken at least a half hour with the girls. Wow. What a difference it is to be by ourselves.

C had the convention to attend Tues-Thurs, so I got to play. Tuesday, I sat in the room reading for the morning, then explored the hotel/casino, found the swimming pool and all the resturants and shops, met up with C for lunch, then read some more. Wednesday I got to go see my good friend, Rachel, who lives in LV. I found her house easily, thanks to her good directions, and we hung out talking most of the morning. I got to meet her little girl, who is six months older than my S. She's a doll, and she made me miss my own girls. Rachel keeps much better track of all our old friends than I do, so it was fun to hear how everyone from that time in my life is doing.

Wed night we had an adventure. Chalk this one up to my own naiveté: I saw the taxi fares written on the side of a taxi: $3.50 base charge and (I thought) $.20 per mile afterwards. Well, we were at the Hilton, on the north end of the strip. I figured fare from the Hilton to the Luxor would be around $5. Well, except I'd read it wrong, and it's $.20/30 sec afterwards, or somethign like that. And our cabbie took the scenic route. We ended up racking up over $17 in fare before we got to the Luxor. To make it worse, I left my purse in the cab. I realized it almost immediately, and we were able to call the cab company and have him bring it back to us within ten minutes, but I was almost beating my head against the wall, I was so mad at myself.

After the insane cab fare, we decided we were going to walk the whole way back to the hotel, so we did. We took breaks at the Bellagio to see the waterfountains and the garden, and again at the Venetian, where I wanted to show C the indoor canal. We didn't get back to the Hilton until 10pm - just late enough to find out that the "city that never sleeps" closes all its resturants at 10pm. There was only one still open, but it had a line out the door, and our feet were shot. So, we went back up to the room and ordered pizza.

Needless to say, we were tired on Thurs, so I spent the morning in the room reading (praying there would be some kind of redemption at the end of John Grisham's The Appeal - there isn't. I hated it. I do not recommend it.)

Then we went to The Gun Store in the afternoon. C is thinking about gettting himself a handgun now, but if he does, we want it to be something I can handle, too. We went to shoot a forty caliber SIG, and the range instructor we got listened to why we were there shooting and pulled his Glock off his hip and let us fire it. I liked the Glock much much better than the SIG, but then, the SIG had a compensator on the barrel that made it very barrel-heavy. My wrist just isn't strong enough to hold it straight comfortably with all that weight on the end. I was able to handle them both, though, so now C's thinking about a 1911 .45 instead of the .40.

We went back up to Salt Lake on Friday, just in time to meet my mom's whole family at Snowbird. We got to stay there two nights with everyone before coming home on Sunday. There are a lot of people we wish we could have seen driving through Utah, but it was such a busy trip, we didn't have time. To all of you: We love you!

I did take my camera, but I never did get it out and take pics. Sorry.

I think that about sums it up. It's so nice to come home after a long trip.