Vacation!!

    
Over fall break we took at trip to Las Vegas.  Neither Jason or I are normally very interested in going down there, but some friends had gone this summer and recommended a good place to stay--Tahiti Village.  We invited Jason's dad, Randy, and step mom, MarySue, to join us.

We took off Tuesday afternoon and arrived in Vegas about 6:30 (their time).  We checked into our rooms--we had 2 rooms adjoined.  One of them had a master bedroom/bathroom, living room and kitchen and the second room was a lockout with a kitchenette, living room with a hide-a-bed, bathroom and bedroom.  Randy and MarySue took the Master and we had the lockout.  Jacob used the living room as his bedroom.  We left the bed out and he used the kitchenette sink to wash, brush teeth etc.

It worked out really well since he couldn't reach the bathroom sink very well.  That night we headed to Chili's for dinner.

Lounging in the "fort" Jacob made in the living room

Wednesday morning we were up at out at the pool by 9:30 a.m.  Problem was the weather was only 72 degrees.  Not cold for an October day in Salt Lake, but cold for a swimming day in Las Vegas.  But Jacob was dying to get to the pool so we went.  Jason took him in the pool while the rest of us sat in lounge chairs. The life guards were all covered in towels.

Notice the lifeguard in the background wrapped up

 When Jacob got cold we wrapped him up in towels and sat in the warm sun.  Not being wet it was actually warm sitting there.  The water changed things.

Next we headed over to the lazy river, which was a little bit warmer.

I even got in.  Both the pool and the lazy river were great!  Plenty of towels, chairs (granted it was not high season where we had to fight for a chair--that I'm sure helped), warm sun...relaxing!

That afternoon we took the hotel shuttle into Vegas.  We had looked up some free things to do with kids and tried them out.  We first went into Caesar's Palace and walked (and walked) down to "Fall of Atlantis" only to find it was under renovation.  

Notice the sign says it opens back up in October.  I guess someone forgot to tell them it IS October! There was an aquarium we saw before we walked back and over to see the fountains at Belagio.

The fountains were beautiful!  Caesar's Palace was beautiful too.  The area we walked down was made to look like a small shopping area in Italy.  The ceiling was high, concave and painted to look like the sky.  One thing I have to say for Vegas is the architecture is amazing and fun to look at!  There is always something to see.

Thursday morning Jason and I went to the Las Vegas temple.  The Celestial room there is amazing!  It reminded me of the San Diego temple celestial room, but not quite as big.  It was nice to be able to go and Randy and MarySue took care of Jacob.

While we were gone, they took a walk to McDonald's for a Sprite and then went to the activity center and made a mug with Jacob.  That was another great thing about where we stayed. They had an activity center with a pool table, air hockey table, games and craft activities for the kids.  It was open 10 a.m. - 9 p.m. so you could go in at any time and play.  In addition, they had 3-4 activities a day for the kids.  Jacob made a mug and later that afternoon he decorated cookies.

Those were the activities we had time to do.  They usually had something going at 1 p.m., 3 p.m., 5 p.m. and 7 p.m.  When we got home we went out to the pool and lazy river again for a while.  It was warmer that day (around 75 degrees).

After the cookies we took the shuttle again into Vegas and walked down to Circus Circus to see and acrobat artist hang from "silks" and twist and wind around in them.  Then we stayed to see the juggler.  Both acts lasted about 10 mins.  We then walked back down to Treasure Island and outside of that building they had a pirate show with two large ships, pirates, Sirens (we were far enough away from that ship that Jacob couldn't really see them)...they fought by "shooting" cannons at each other until finally one ship was sunk and the pirates jumped into the lagoon to swim to safety.  It was quite the show and well done.  We got back to the hotel about 9:30 and were tired from all the walking!!

Friday we drove out to Red Rock Canyon and did a short hike.

Sitting on a turtle at Red Rock Visitors Center

 It was a very pretty area.  Because we had gotten up late, we arrived there late and didn't get back until 2:30.  We went to the activity center for ice cream sundaes and then went to the pool.  It had finally warmed up to about 79 degrees.  I wish we had gotten out to the pool sooner to take advantage of our last day of warmth and sunshine, but it was still nice.  We swam and Jacob and Jason played in the sand area.


















We tried to go out to dinner that night and tried several places, but there were waits etc.  It was 8 p.m. and Jacob was so tired...so we went to Chili's.  Same place we had eaten at the night we arrived.  :)

Saturday we got up and left.  We had a great time and I was sad to leave. I could have done 1 more day, but was glad for the time we had.

Home Insulation

Last month we began to look at things that we might have to replace, etc. in the house since it is getting older.  We had the water heater and furnace replaced and Jason, and his brother, put insulation under the floor of our family room.

Jacob wanted to help so they saved one small section for him to do.  They were such a mess.  The laundry room, just outside of the furnace room where the entry to under the family room is, was a mess.  I vacuumed and washed doors and walls from the messy insulation grime that gets all over.

The following weekend is when we had the water heater and furnace replaced and I went down and vacuumed, washed down walls etc., again!  That is more than I've cleaned it in the past 3 months!  Glad it is done!!