Jones Family Chronicles: Las Vegas Road Trip

Eric finally convinced his dad and got it scheduled to take the defensive hand gun course at Front Sight. His mom invited the rest of us to come along and play while they were training so with the desire to bet cabin fever (plus I'm a real baby about being home alone, thank goodness Eric doesn't have to travel for work!) we all headed to Vegas.

Thursday morning Jan 26 we took a ridiculous amount of time to get out of the house not leaving till after we hoped to be in Delta (anybody else have hard time leaving the house?) and met his parents in Delta. Deb had lunch already for us, ate and were on the road. The kids did fabulous as we only stopped for gas in St George getting into Vegas after dark. Now my kids list of states they have been in has doubled from just Utah and Idaho to include Arizona and Nevada, hooray! We stayed at the Silverton casino/hotel which was waay bigger than I had ever been in before. In fact the kids and I never left the whole time we were there.

Here are Miriam and Aaron in their first hotel room/bed. Deb got us a room with 2 queen beds and Miriam always slept in other one and did great. You can also just barely see their new stuffed animals Grandma got them; Miriam a bobcat (appropriate as Eric calls her that) and Aaron a fish (even though we tried to talk him into cuter ones). On the right is Rachel crawling amongst our belongings.

As we walked there was an enormous aquarium with all kinds of fish, rays and tiger sharks (brought back 10th grade memories of dissecting a tiger shark). We happened to come when a diver was in feeding the fish and flirting with the guests. The diver would come up to the glass, wave, high five the kids, give knuckles and blow bubble kisses. At first our kids and all the other kids were to shy to interact but each time we saw him they were involved and excited to see him. Even Clifford gave him high five. They even had "mermaids" in to perform for a little while doing water acrobatics.

First night we had Mexican food and then checked our the Pro Bass Shop out that was connected to the casino. It was huge, every time I went in there I saw something new. They had awesome waterfalls, stuffed animals (taxidermy), fish tanks, the works.

Rachel and Russ at dinner Friday night at a pizza place after the guys got back from training. Grandma, the kids and I spent the day eating (big pancake breakfast, Johnny Rockets for lunch and ice cream for mid afternoon snack), going through Pro Bass shop again and hanging out in our room. They had a pool but it was outside and a little too windy to go swimming, drats. I tried getting everyone down for naps and eventually went for a little nap in the parking lot which was nice to get fresh air.

Aaron and Grandma watching a movie on the computer. They watched lots together. Saturday the guys went to training and we took a leisurely breakfast and packed up to check out at noon. Deb couldn't get the rooms for Saturday night so we ended up doing over to Mesquite for that night. It was perfect time for the kids to take a nap driving over. We found a nice diner for lunch when we got there and then let the kids play at a park before we checked in to the Virgin River casino (luckily all rooms were outside and we didn't have to go through the casino this time).

The guys caught up to us that night and we just hung out in the room and ate all our leftovers. We were going to go to the hotel restaurant for breakfast Sunday morning but they were packed so we found our way back over to the diner. Miriam at the diner buttering her own pancakes. I was pretty tired of dealing with kids in restuarants by this time. Packed up and came home. Stopped on way home for gas and went to Delta and let the kids play for a couple of hours because they had a harder time being cooped up coming home (no movies I guess was the problem). Eric and I got to have a good visit with Grandma and Grandpa Johnson in the mean while.