Holiday Trip Week 1- Las Vegas

We headed down to Las Vegas to attend my sister, Erika's graduation from UNLV. We had such a great week there and got to stay in a really nice hotel suite with my mom and dad. At the end of the week, we were scheduled to fly on to California but got the rare opportunity to watch an entire city come to gridlock due those mysterious white flakes that fall from the sky. This included the airport that wouldn't know what to do with de-icing equipment if they had even heard of it. To give them credit, they did what they could...wait it out. We spent quite a while in the airport trying to figure out what to do and we ended up getting interviewed by the local Vegas paper. You can check out our 3 seconds of fame at: http://www.lvrj.com/news/36367204.html. After many, many phone calls to various hotels, we ended up having to stay in Hooters Hotel. Expecting the worst, it actually turned out to be just fine. It was clean, comfortable, and fairly modest. After a very short night, we were up and waiting for our shuttle back to the airport by 4:30am. In just 7 short hours, after getting an open gate for the wandering plane and waiting for the guys with shop brooms to sweep the wings, we were airborn.





Erika, the graduate!



Talia loves her Auntie!



Can you see the lazy lions sleeping on the shelf behind the glass? Sam took Talia out for some daddy/daughter time and they went to see the lions at the MGM and then on to some rides at Circus Circus.



Riding the Zebra...Talia's favorite animal, at least for this week!




Talia was brave and rode the train rollercoaster ride all by herself. She had the perma-grimace and was borderline traumatized by the jerking but daddy convinced her it was fun.

We found this great park at one of the shopping centers and Talia had a blast! Thanks again to Daddy who took Talia and Brady to the park while Mommy shopped with the girls.

Who knew unicorns were so fast!

We took a vegas wildlife hike. It was a 3 hour trek through multiple habitats of creatures, some that just sat as hypnotic lights and sounds caused spontaneous donations of money, some in unnatural combinations of high boots and big sunglasses, and then we saw Cleopatra just roaming around. All we were trying to see were some tigers...but the wind had closed down that exhibit early...then we had to go back. It was a fun adventure through and the hotels looked beautiful all "dressed up" for Christmas.

Grandma with Talia in the arboretum of the Bellagio. They had gigantic Christmas displays and a lot of them were made up of organic items like fresh flowers that they would change out every few days.

These reindeer were made entirely of nuts, and were so amazing!

We took Talia bowling in the hotel next to ours. It was fun for all of about 10 minutes before she decided that she was done and pouted the rest of the time.

Let 'er rip!

Here we are in front of the Hoover Dam. It was a really beautiful sight! Behind us in the hills you can see where they are building a new bridge- wow! What a feat that looks like! We got to see it up close and I can't even imagine all it takes to build something like that! This driving rain soon turned to the fateful snowfall.


As we drove along the highway this was the view from my window...palm trees covered in snow!


A very tired baby! He finally fell asleep as we waited for our plane. The kids were amazing with all this crazy traveling...cancelled flights, getting to bed super late, up at 4 am and then waiting for hours and hours to board our plane. Vegas was just the start to all of our delays & cancellations over our 3 week trip.


There was our lonely airplane waiting for it's berth!

Here was the view of the mountains as we were leaving Vegas...beautiful!