Since the kids had school off for UEA weekend we thought it would be the perfect opportunity for us to FINALLY go to Vegas and visit Syrie, Bryce, and Stryder (they've only lived there 17 months already)
We headed down Wednesday when the kids got out of school. One afternoon we took the kids down to see the strip. (below: the kids saw the roller coaster fly by them at New York, New York)
We went to the Hersey store and let the kids wonder around looking at all the sweet goodies...
We then went across the street to the M&M store where they had a short 3D movie that the kiddos thought was pretty fun. The store is 4 floors with different merchandise on each floor. We meandered all over for a least an hour. It was nice to let the kids take the lead and we just followed wherever they wanted.
When we were finished with those 2 places we went to eat.... the kids wanted Denny's (which we were okay with since we already knew what each of them would be ordering) That was it for there. Later that night, Syrie and Stryder went with us to see Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day.
Friday was a nice day. We took off and headed over (not far from Henderson) to Hoover Dam. The kids thought it was cool (well mostly anyway) that they were able to be in different states at the same time.
Below: when the boys spotted this angle of the dam they both got all excited and started talking about Transformers. Then it was suddenly a pretty cool pit stop on the trip.
There is a place to pull off the highway (the bridge) so you can walk out ON the bridge and look at the dam... we were planning on doing that AFTER walking across the dam and looking in the souvenir shop, but the kids were done walking (and ONE was too scared to do it)
Lake Mead looked so beautiful and blue. It made me wish we had a boat to take out on the water and play for a while, but that was NOT going to happen so I snapped this shot on our way outta there.
AFTER the visit to Hoover Dam we drove on out to see the LDS Temple (set up on the East side of the Las Vegas valley)
THIS was such a quiet, tranquil place to visit. The kids each had different "favorites" but the picture below is one of mine ;)
Kaiya's "favorite" was being able to walk up to the Temple and actually hug the building and hold the door handle...
...see Jer hugging the building? Well that's pretty much what Kaiya kept doing.
Kotah wanted to take a picture of Jeremiah and me... this may be one of the cuter pictures we've taken in a while and to have it occur with our little family while we visited the temple grounds meant a lot to me.
As I was getting the picture above the picture below was occurring right in front of me on the grassy hill... each child took their turn rolling down the hill. I almost asked them to stop, but realized they were just being kids and Christ has told each of us to "become as a little child" so instead I just stood back and smiled at the joy my children were experiencing of their own.
These two pictures were taken by Kotah also...
We were attempting to get a family photo and these were the BEST options... we had a guy come over and interrupt our laughing, only to insult the boys by saying, "oh, you have 3 girls huh?" to which I replied, "No, 2 BOYS and a daughter"... I mean, sure they're sporting the longer hair, but come on Kaiya is in girly colors and cute clothes/shoes with her hair pulled into pony-tail loops and the boys are just in jean shorts and white T-shirts.
Saturday we went to Stryder's soccer "game". He is still so young that it is really more like a practice. We pretty much just hung out the rest of our visit. We DID go swimming 3 different times while we were there (at the apartment complex). Sunday morning arrived and it was time to head home. Kenai was the most upset, but he was also very glad he got to play with his "best friend cousin". So until next time (Thanksgiving). Fun family trip.
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