Family Happenings: Viva Las Vegas

Ok. I know there has been no contact for awhile. This is the longest I have gone. Well I had nothing to write about and no time to write about it. Wait a minute, that doesn't make any sense. This month 4 of my friends have birthdays, plus my nephew, my son, my goddaughter, and there's... Valentine's day. I swear, I spend more time on the kids' Valentine's day activities than my own husband. Since when did Valentine's become such a big deal for little kids? Decorating mailboxes, cards for everyone in three classes, three parties (all of which I have to bring something for). And after making a (chaufferred) trip to Target last week and returning home, my son informs me that his teacher doesn't "like" chocolate...OK...what kind of woman doesn't like chocolate, I wonder? Is that even possible? Well, unless I can get my chauffer to take me out again, she won't be getting anything.

I am in still my splint. I had to make an trip to the emergency room 36 hrs after my new cast to get it sawed off because my arm was swelling underneath. That's when I noticed the vein running the entire length of my arm had ruptured and it was sore and bruised. Perhaps that's the reason for the swelling? So now I have been splinted for 4 weeks. Who knows if things are healing right. I won't know until the xrays on Friday. The swelling has gone down, but I'm not sure if that's because I started my meds, the vein is healing or time cures all wounds.

Our old pal, Bruin, is here for a few weeks while his family visits back east. They had a family emergency, so he gets to stay an extra week. The kids love this dog.

Last weekend we made a family trip to Sin City. We stayed at Excalibur, because I thought that would be the most appropriate place to stay with kids. We went to the Tournament of the Kings dinner show, the Shark Reef Aquarium at the Mandalay Bay, ate Krispy Kreme donuts and one too many buffet meals. We spent a few hours in the Fantasy Faire Midway arcade beneath the Excalibur, where the kids "won" lots of dust-collecting stuffed animal friends. But they love them, and had a lot of fun "winning". V got to see his old high-school and college buddy Mark and catch up with him. We got to meet his wife Christina. Before we left Las Vegas we stopped by the Bellagio and went to Jean-Philippe Patisserie (the first authentic European pastry and chocolate shop in Las Vegas). The kids really enjoyed watching and drooling over the ceiling-high chocolate fountain. But as you can see in the picture below, when given the choice of a tasty and tempting pastry or chocolate from the shop, they opted for Twizzlers and fruit-flavored Mentos! Go figure!

My kind of fountain!

Jean Philippe Patisserie and a child's peculiar tastes

Aquarium duds

Pirannha!

Krispy Kreme- a prebrunch snack

Elvis "pulling" me into Dick's Last Resort

The kids and all their "winnings". The girls won gold bands and came home to tell Grandpa about how they "got married" in Las Vegas.

Brunch at the Pyramid Cafe at the Luxor

Lunar New Year Celebration (so pretty at the Bellagio Conservatory and Botanical Gardens )

2009 is the Year of the Ox

There was some snow and ice in the mountains, and then there were those silly Californians, who had never seen snow before, stopping their cars on the side of the freeway to scrap around in the one inch of dirty snow on the roadside. (Of course, my crazy kids were begging to do the same exact thing). We saw a four or five car icy pileup on the way in (thank goodness it was on the Southbound side of the freeway!). The climax of the trip had to be when we saw the World's Tallest Thermometer in Baker, CA (pictured below) from the interstate on the way home.