What happens in Vegas... shows up on my blog!

That's right! I actually got some time away with the hubby for 3 days and 2 nights! We even got to have some friends (W&W) with us!

NOTE: None of this would have been possible if my sister, Jessie and mother-in-law, Lynne hadn't stepped up to the challenge of watching our kids... I can't thank them enough.

It was so much fun! I just had to put together a video of some of our highlights. It was amazing and I am still in shock at what we were able to do! We had gotten a great deal for $50/night at the Luxor so we were really excited to actually stay on The Strip.

The view from our hotel room

We left Wednesday morning after I got the kids off to school. I had forgotten to give Brother his morning meds so I had run around the block to catch the bus on the other side. When I got on there I ended up talking to his us driver and she informed me that her son worked on the stage crew for The Phantom of The Opera... What? She said she might be able to work out to get us tickets. I told her we were only there 2 nights an that we already had plans for the second night so we would have to go the night we got there. She said she would see what would work out and would call me that afternoon around the time we would be in Vegas.

At 6pm is was worked out for us to go to The Phantom and the show starts at 7pm. We rushed to get ready and make it to the Venetian on time. We missed the first 5 minutes which was a bummer, but the rest was A M A Z I N G!!!!!!!!!!!!!! The ushers even upgraded our seats and we ended up sitting right beneath the "falling" chandelier! Seriously, you HAVE to go see this show! Just the theater alone was amazing! Wish I could have taken pictures... but, we did get the backstage tour!! I just asked to meet Karlin (the bus driver's son) afterwards to tell him thank you in person and he ended up giving us the backstage tour!!! We even got to meet up with the Phantom (Anthony Crivello) in his dressing room while he was getting his make-up removed. We caught him just in time and he even let us take pictures, very nice man.

The next day was a day of walking the strip and checking out as many sights, shops and free shows as our feet would allow until our next big show at the Monte Carlo, the Jabbawockeez!

We went to the M&M and Coke stores, Hard Rock, the malls, Caesar's Palace Forum Shops, the Bellagio Fountains and we saw our fair share of really strange people—funny and scary. We even got scared to death by some "tree" guy who was hanging around and we didn't see him hanging from the limb. We were wondering what everyone was looking at... he said "hello" and we found out in a hurry! Woo!

Our very fun Ukrainian waitress

Yo, Marc

M&M Vegas style

kissing a pink monkey...

and a pink pemguin

Then we were finally able to get to the Jabbawockeez. Our good friend Thomas hooked us up with one of his friends, Ronnie Boy, a dancer with the Jabbawockeez! Holy cow that was amazing!! Ronnie was such a great guy and met up with us after the show and told us a bunch of cool stories and insider info. You really need to check them out! It was an incredible show, way more than I even expected: comedy, audience involvement, emotional moments, phenomenal dance and just all out fun!! We were cheering almost the entire time (even while the drunk man off to our left was yelling at the top of his lungs and dancing until the bouncers came and pulled him out.) Ronnie was able to tell us which Jabbawockee he is by describing one of his awesome dance moves, check out a clip of him here.

So, it was a well-deserved holiday and I will remember it for the rest of my life.




On our way home we stopped in St. George for lunch, a little tourism, and some treats.

We had lunch at Chili's and then went to check out the Waterford School because Wendy has some family ties there and it was all on the same block as the water park, an old fashioned merry-go-round and the St. George Tabernacle. It was all so awesome!

Thia is actually in another part of St. George but, I had to show it, because it is even more amazing to see this sculpture in person.

Wayne didn't realize that Marc was going to pull the car up front... it's Wayne's car...

Marc outside the Tabernacle

Marc listening to the Sister Missionary tell some stories about the tabernacle, for instance we learned that the entire balcony was lowered about 6 feet after it was already completed to accommodate Brigham Young's desire for the balcony audience to be able to see the speakers better. The spiral stairs were already in place and could not be altered,  so once you get to the top you go back down a few steps to the balcony seating.

This sign gave me a bit of a chuckle...

I really want to get my kids to this water feature and park area, so much fun!

After our little tourism experience we went to Thomas Judd's Store Co.

It was like a walk back in time, literally. They sold candy there I haven't seen since I was a kid, and a lot of it gave me a really good laugh. For instance, the candy cigarettes, Big Chew and licorice pipes... what? You read write. That used to be candy... hmmm... too funny. But it was fun to buy the wax lips, the wax soda bottles, taffies, slap stix, zotts, razzles, and all that old stuff. It took me back to growing up in a small town when we would ride our bikes down to the corner gas station (the one and only that ever existed in our little town) and we would be ten cent treats and if we were really good we got to get a twenty-five cent treat. (smile—aw, the good ol' days when we were happy with such small things)