Spring Break 2011~Las Vegas

I am so sick of all the snow and really wanted to get away for the week that the kids had off for Spring Break. Justin wasn't going to be working then so we decided to get out of dodge. Justin's parents are a part of Worldmark and for Christmas 5 years ago they gave all the kids a free stay using their membership. We hadn't used our present yet so we decided to use it for Vegas. It was great, the condo was spacious and had a kitchen so all we had to pay for was our gas there and back and groceries for our meals. The condo had several pools and hot tubs and all the kids wanted to do was swim. Our original plan was to leave on Sunday the 27th of March and spend the night at my cousins and then get to Vegas on Monday. We were so anxious to leave that we decided to take a little detour and go stay at my parents house in Twin Falls. We left Saturday and got to Twin around 9:30pm. My parents aren't living in the house yet so we let ourselves in and got everyone situated and to bed. Me being the brilliant one that I am accidentally armed my parents alarms system which they have no code to. I didn't realize it until 8 am Sunday morning when I hear this beeping and then one of the most terrible sounds I have ever heard as the alarm system is going off. I'm sure all the neighbors could hear it. I called my poor parents to wake them at 6 am asking them if they knew how to turn the damn thing off! They didn't and lucky for us the siren turned off after about 5 minutes. The unlucky part was that the system was still armed and we were trapped inside my parents house. After rummaging through all the paper work and messing with the alarm system we got to sit through another round of the siren going off as I tried to muffle the sound while standing on a chair on tiptoes with a pillow over the siren. Thank goodness Justin is handy and he finally just un-wired both the siren and the system until my parent's can get it figure out. Once we got things cleaned up and stopped our ears from ringing we were off to Scott and Camille's house in Spanish Fork. It was great to spend the evening with them and we are grateful for their hospitality. Monday we made our way down to Vegas and as we drove the temperature got warmer and warmer. St. George was beautiful and just under 70 degrees. By the time we got to Vegas the weather was right around 70 and the kids were dying to put their shorts and flip flops on. Monday evening we went down to see the Treasure Island pirate ship performance which is much more seductive then when I was young. Luckily the boys didn't seem to notice much except for the pirate ships and the pirates. We watched the volcano go off at the Mirage, which was really cool and all the kids liked it except Luke. He hid himself behind Justin's legs while it went off. Tuesday of the trip was my birthday and we decided to head back down to the strip during the day. We went to the Belagio to see the conservatory which was one of my most favorite parts of the trip. The flowers were so amazing!! We missed the fountain show that the Belagio puts on later in the day but the flowers made up for it. We then walked over and saw the flamingos and the Flamingo and then walked our tails off to go see the lions at the MGM. By the time we were done there we had to practically run back to catch our shuttle or we would have been stuck on the strip for another two hour. After we got back to the condo the kids got to swim for a bit. Wednesday we swam all day, the kids had a blast even though their brainless mom bought "water resistant" sunscreen instead of waterproof so they all got a bit burned. It was an incredible day with temps in the low 80's. Thursday we packed or things and got ready to leave and realized that our DVD player had been stolen out of our car. That was a bummer but it was a cheapo so we tried not to let it get to us too much. We drove over to see the Hoover Dam that day and it was amazing but the most amazing part is the bridge that has been built to cross that canyon. It is awesome!! We then made our way up to Cedar City and spent a wonderful evening and night with my Aunt Sheryl who was my mom part of my junior year of high school. We got to visit with her and Katie and Cameron, we had a wonderful time and wish we could have stayed longer. Friday we left Cedar and drove to Bryce Canyon then up through Panguich, Richfield, and then Manti and Ephraim. It was a beautiful drive and I loved it, although there were a couple of times I really wished we would have had that DVD player to calm the kids down a bit. The Manti temple is beautiful and I really liked the town of Manti, I think I could live there. We stopped for dinner in Ephraim at around 7:30pm and decided that we didn't want to pay for a hotel that night. We decided to drive all the way home, it was rough but we finally made it home Saturday morning at about 3am. It was a great trip and so nice to get away to where it was warm and sunny.