Surfin' U.S.A.

On Tuesday night Meagan performed at her school's P.T.A. program. They sang four songs: Let It Be, Surfin' U.S.A., a song in spanish, and another song that I can't remember right now.

I took this picture before we left the house.

This one was taken in between songs.

And here's one of Garrett. He did well during the meeting. I let him look through the pictures I have saved on my camera. That kept him quiet for, oh, two minutes or so. He watched the kids sing and stayed near his seat the rest of the time so I was happy.

I just wish he would lose this fake smile thing he has going on lately.

Little Bunny Foo Foo

Well I don't know if that's his name or not but this little guy was in my yard on Saturday night. We've seen rabbits before, especially in the spring time. I took pictures of this one because Garrett has been on a rabbit kick ever since Easter.

The Dolphins say hello

On Friday I went with kinder to the Texas State Aquarium.

Perk number 723 about my new job - no field trip to take every year.

All good time was had by all but boy do field trips wear you out.

Hoppy Easter!

On Saturday night we colored eggs as a family. Thanks Grandma Silly for boiling the eggs and buying the coloring kit! (I was really lazy so there are no pictures of us coloring eggs.)

The kids went to bed anxiously awaiting the arrival of the Easter Bunny.

Meagan woke me up at 7:55 on Sunday morning. "Mom! Can we see what the Easter Bunny left us?"

The bunny left Meagan a horse Webkinz and the High School Musical 3 DVD. He left Garrett a horse Webkinz and a play set with an airplane and a boat.

After all of the Easter basket excitement, we went to church. We were joined by Grandma Silly, Grandma Blair, Darla, Ashley, and Joey.

After church, Grandma Silly came back to our house.


These are the baskets that she made for the kids. Aren't they cute?? Each one had a Webkin in it along with some eggs, some candy, and some other goodies. The kids were really excited about the chalk. It came with 3D glasses and other tools to help you draw. (Garrett's "smile" is driving me crazy.)

Grandma Silly and the kids
After that we went to Grandma Blair's and had an Easter egg hunt.

I love the look on his face in this picture. He had just found a prize egg with money in it.

While the kids were hunting eggs, Grandma Blair was making lunch. We had homemade fried chicken and all of the trimmings. Yum!

Las Vegas Day Three

On our third day in Las Vegas we went over to the New York New York. Tina was determined to ride the roller coaster that is on top of the building. I wasn't so sure about it and Jimmy certainly wasn't going to ride the thing.

My indecisiveness about the roller coaster didn't matter after all because it was only 9:30 in the morning and rides didn't start until 11:00.
We decided to do some more sightseeing and you know . . . walk some more. As we were leaving the New York New York Jimmy decided that he had walked enough and went back to our hotel to hang out.

Tina and I set off to explore.

We walked down to a CVS because I already needed water and chap stick. (How come I can never remember to bring all of the little things like chap stick with me??) When we were paying for our water this lady walked up behind me. Me, being the wary traveler that I am, glanced back to see who had walked up behind us. I thought in my head that wow, that lady really looks like Juanita (my mother-in-law/Tina's mom) but I didn't say anything. Tina, not being shy at all, turns around and sees her and says, "Wow! You look just like my mom! Can I take your picture?" The lady pretends like she doesn't hear her and looks the other way. Tina continues to talk to her and the lady continues to ignore her. I finally finish paying for my purchases and get Tina to leave the store. I guess that old wive's tale about everyone having a twin is true. Juanita - your twin was in Las Vegas when we were!

We passed lots of hotels (they all start to blur together after a while) and finally end up at the Bellagio. We walked through the casino. I was looking for two of my friends who were in Vegas at the same time we were and staying there. I didn't see them. Tina then wanted to find the wedding chapel to see what it look like. Well, we obviously went the looooong way around. It took forever to find the wedding chapel. It was pretty but actually really small. (Tina says the one at the Luxor is actually lots fancier but I don't know because I didn't go into that one.)

We kept walking . . . . and walking . . . and walking . . . and came upon the most fabulous chocolate shop. They had this huge fountain of different types of chocolates running into the gorgeous pools. They also had a fabulous Easter scene set up - bunnies, eggs, etc. that was adorable. Tina and I couldn't resist the temptation so we bought chocolate dipped strawberries and various other goodies.

We walked some more and finally came to the Conservatory. (This is the whole reason I wanted to come to the Bellagio in the first place.)

It was breathtaking. See for yourself:

It also smelled heavenly. We spent almost half an hour in there looking at all of the different types of flowers.

We were exhausted by that point and so we took a cab back to the hotel. We had planned to walk down the strip some more and go eat at Margaritaville but the timing just didn't work out. Oh well, there's always next time right??

Once we got back to the Luxor Jimmy, Tina, and I went back to the New York New York so Tina could ride the roller coaster.

Long story short, I rode the roller coaster. And then I felt sick for about an hour.

We went back to the Luxor and rested for a while and then I went to the Bodies Exhibit. Neither Jimmy nor Tina had any desire to see the exhibit so I went by myself. It was horrifying and fascinating all at the same time. I highly recommend it. Jimmy went to the Titanic Exhibit which he said was really good too. I would have liked to see it too but we were running short on time.

By then it was time to get ready for the last show we were going to see. We went to see:

Not Fantasy!!! We went to see Carrot Top. The show was really funny.

This is Tina with Charlie. Charlie does an opening act before Carrot Top's show. It was neat to get to talk to him. Tina was looking for Carrot Top at the clubs in the casino and spotted Charlie instead so she went up to him and started talking to him. Again, never shy, that's Tina!

Early the next morning (although thankfully not as early as Monday morning) we flew home to Texas.

I can't wait to go on vacation again!

Las Vegas Day Two Contined

Here is a picture of me next to a giant coke bottle. This was outside the Coca-Cola store. As I said in my last post, I was so grateful to find a real coke in Las Vegas. I could have kissed the machine!
We walked farther down the strip sightseeing and having a good time people watching. It was St. Patrick's Day so there were plenty of crazy things to see. (Now that I think about it, there's probably always crazy things and people to see in Las Vegas - St. Patrick's Day or not.)

We ate lunch at P.F. Changs on the strip. These were crab won tons that were really good. The fried rice was also really good. It had lots of veggies in it that I really liked. My entree wasn't great but Tina's chicken was really good.

After eating lunch we walked around some more. (I know I keep typing that sentence out but if you go sightseeing in Las Vegas, plan on doing a lot of walking!)

We went into a Field of Dreams store (sports memorabilia) and went past the Sony store. There was a giant playstation portable on the front of the building.

We then walked back toward the hotel. We stopped at the MGM Grand to see the lion. He wasn't impressed with all of the people who were gathered around to watch him. He basically just layed there. I did buy a cute magnet for my fridge at home. It has a lion on it and the words Here human, human. I thought that it was really funny.

We played the slot machines for a little while and then headed back to the hotel.

We rested for a while and then got ready to go to our next show.

What show did we go to you ask?

(insert picture here)

We went to see Criss Angel.

It says insert picture here because you are not allowed to talk pictures during the show and I am too lazy to find a picture of Criss Angel on-line.

The show was called Believe and it was really cool. I had never seen any of his shows so I really enjoyed it. I know that some parts of the show have to be illusions but the execution of the show is flawless. You cannot tell how he is doing them. The show also had Cirque de Soliel elements in it.

After the show we went to eat at Dick's Last Resort. All I'm going to say about that is that you have to be in the right frame of mind to eat at Dick's or it is going to be a really frustrating experience for you. My burger was good though.

Las Vegas Day Two (Part I)

Update: For some of you who are wondering, Tina is one of Jimmy's four sisters. She went on the trip with us. She isn't pictured in this post but she was in the last post - the picture with the drinks.

Now for the next Vegas Vacation installment:

Jimmy and I were up early on Tuesday of our vacation due to our early bedtime the night before. (We are probably the only people who went to Vegas and were in bed before midnight.

Anyway, we got up early and went to the food court to eat breakfast. (Starbucks has really good oatmeal, by the way.)

After that Jimmy and I went down to the casino to gamble while Tina got ready for the day.

Jimmy sat down and played video poker and I wandered around until I found a slot machine that only took 50 cents to "fill up." (I don't know what the correct term for this is. My mom always told me to fill up the machine. In other words, play the maximum bet. She's been to Vegas lots so I followed her advice.)

Since it was so early there were hardly any people around. I picked a machine based on the fact that is was only 50 cents to play and that there were no smokers playing nearby. (I know that these are funny criteria for most people - but they worked for me ok?)

I put in a $20.00 bill. (Do you know how hard it was for me to do that? It takes me an hour to make $20.00!) Before I knew it, all of my credits were gone.

I reluctantly put in another $20.00 bill. Once again, I was down to almost no credits very quickly.

I had $1.50 in the machine and had already decided that when that was gone so was I.

I pushed max bet and to my surprise this came up:

This was the top prize for the machine I was playing. I looked up and saw that I won but it really wasn't registering how much I had won.

Just then a drink girl came around. "I won!" I told her. At this point I thought I had won $400.00. Come to find out, 4000 quarters is a lot more than $400.00! (Yes, I'm a teacher. I obviously need to work on my mental math skills.)

The look on Jimmy's face when I told him how much I'd won was priceless. I wish I'd taken a picture of it.

I carefully filed away my voucher for my winnings and we went out to sight see.

Here we are in front of the MGM.
We spent over an hour in this store. It was four stories high. It had some museum type parts which told about the history of M&M's and how M&M's are made. It had tons of really cute merchandise to buy too.

(It was also next door to the Coke-a-Cola store so it contained a vending machine that sold Coke! The Luxor only sells Pepsi so I had been drinking Sierra Mist. I had a terrible headache from a lack of caffeine. About an hour after drinking my coke however, I was just fine!)

This was up in the museum area. As a teacher I couldn't resist taking a picture of this little diorama. In case you can't read it, it says "I will not melt in the hand." Adorable!Here's my picture with the big blue and red guys.

Las Vegas Day One

Here is a picture of me, Jimmy, and Tina. We flew out of the Houston International Airport. We had to get up at 3:00 in the morning so that we could get to the airport on time. Never again will I book a flight out at 7:00 a.m.

Since we left SO early, we arrived in Vegas at 8:20 a.m. We took a shuttle bus to the hotel but had to check our bags since it was too early to check in. We were starving but no one was serving lunch yet. We wound up eating a second breakfast at a restaurant inside the hotel.

We walked around a little, gambled a little, and were then able to check in. We went to our room and took a nap to recover from our early arrival time.

We stayed at the Luxor on the strip. Here's a shot from inside the hotel. We stayed in the pyramid portion of the hotel. It was very cool inside.

After a nap we were ready to go. Jimmy and I took a cab to Treasure Island (stop laughing - the two hotels are pretty far apart and we were still really tired!)

At Treasure Island we stood in line for almost an hour to pick up our tickets to Mystere, which is one of the shows that Cirque du Soleil performs.

We ate dinner at Kahunaville where Tina bought me a drink that was larger than my head!
This was a huge seafood appetizer that Tina and I shared for dinner. The grilled shrimp were fantastic
The waitress was sweet and took this picture for us. Tina wanted to have photographic proof that I actually had a drink.

We still had a little time before the show so we went to the casino and gambled a little. I won some quarters but the drink had obviously gone to my head because I was unable to convert the number of quarters I won into dollars. A text message to Veronica later and I knew that I won $18.00. However, by the time she got back to me I had already lost it! Oh well, easy come, easy go as they say.

Mystere was AWESOME! I had no idea what to expect out of it and it was breath taking. I am really glad that we went to see it.

After the show Tina persuaded us to walk back to the hotel. "It's not that far," she insisted. We walked by the Venetian and saw the gondolas and by the Mirage. The volcano was erupting but we were too late to get a spot up close enough to really see it.

We then started walking back to the hotel.

We walked . . .

and walked . . .

and walked . . .

An hour later we stopped for a bottle of water and I drank half of it in one drink.

We proceeded to walk some more.

A total of an hour and a half later we were back at the hotel.

So many people told me that the hotels were not as close to each other as they seemed, and you know what???

THEY WERE RIGHT!

Oh, well. It was really neat to see everything all lit up at night. However, due to some construction, you could only walk on one side of the street at some points so it was pretty crowded.

When we got back to the hotel we gambled a little and then turned in early. (Is it considered jet lag when you fly somewhere with a two hour time difference??)