Second Day in Vegas

Forgive me for not posting much! My computers stink and I'm having so many problems with them. It gets so irritating that I'm resorting to blogging from my phone again. I don't like it because it pushes all my pictures to the bottom of my posts. Oh well. I'm such a busy mom it's hard to find time to sit at a computer anyway. :P I'm writing at the dentist office while my kids are getting their checkups.

Our second day in Vegas we were feeling like we didn't get to see enough and had a family discussion about staying longer. So when my sister Jodee asked if we wanted to come visit their church. I was like yeah! Jodee and Dan have always amazed me because ever since they got married, even before, they just had a vision to reach souls for Christ. They haven't looked back since. They even built a church in South Africa for several years and did a really good work there. So we were excited to see them while visiting in the area. The kids got to see their cousins. That's all the pictures you're seeing on here. ;)

After church we went to the Bellagio and watched the fountains. It was around 11pm but we didn't care. Vegas is fabulous at night! The fountains were so beautiful and are synchronized with music.

It is super fun to shop in Vegas. I've always loved bling on everything and that's where I can find it real easy and not overly expensive. Charles is stinking awesome because he kept making me go into stores to buy all my favorite stuff. Even if I was holding back he would tell me to find stuff because it's harder to get where we live. :D Yay for guys that love to give to their wife!

Bringing Our Large Family to Las Vegas

True to our former ways, Charles and I took our family off on an adventure.  We are known for not really planning.  Just deciding one day to up and take off for another fun trip.  5 years ago we were eating breakfast and decided to take our kids to Disneyland.  We picked up the kids from school and took off for 7 days.  The kids still talk about that trip!  Ashley was a baby and I had just found out I was pregnant with our sixth child.  It was an amazing trip.

Sometimes planning is good but sometimes it takes the fun out of it for me.  We knew we might do something but we literally didn't know what we were gonna do for sure until the day of our trip.  All we knew was we wanted a Christmas get away!  I'm not usually the traditional type where I have to keep up with different traditions for the holidays.  If it gets to where it's the same year after year, we have to shake it up a bit.

 We decided to take our kids to Knott's Berry Farm in California for Christmas and then to the beach.  The night before our trip my husband said he's always wanted to take the kids to see the Vegas lights in Nevada.  I'm like, "Okay, we'll pop in there for a couple of days and then head off to California."  We made sure not to arrive into Las Vegas till night because we wanted the kids to see all the lights from very far away.  Well, that's not hard when driving far and with a large family.  We had to make tons of potty stops.

  The kids loved all the lights in Vegas!  They oohed and awed.  It was getting late so we headed quickly to our hotel.  Because we knew Las Vegas could be iffy for families, actually for Christians in general, we tried to figure out a casino hotel to stay in that was safe.  You know, simple things like not wanting strippers on a pole while trying to check in our hotel.  Someone suggested we try Circus Circus because it's so family friendly.  TRUE it is very family friendly.  We weren't very pleased with our room and it was pretty outdated.  The service was very slow and the lobby for horrendously crowded with families.  Normally that is a good thing but it really did feel like a circus. LOL.  

Regardless of our hotel we had soooo much fun looking at everything that the kids voted to make the entire trip about Vegas and not leave so soon.  Fine with us! Less driving and more sightseeing! Even though we got checked into our hotel late we HAD to walk around the casino and look for a yummy buffet.  They had a decent one except for how expensive it was.  Basically $16 per person. Normally not a big deal with one other person but there were nine of us. Well, I had to show the kids how awesome Las Vegas buffets are!  It was huge and the kids were having to go into different rooms to find all the different types of food. It was goooood.

As much as I wanted to live it up, we passed out early because of all the traveling.  Oh well, the next day we would live it up!