Family Road Trip Part 2

Once we made it to Las Vegas and got settled into our room at New York New York...we were able to relax for the evening.

The girls and I stayed in the room and watched a movie while Chris went down to the casino and gambled for a little bit.

We have always been big promoters that Vegas is not a place to take your kids and we only decided to break our rule so we could see our friends that live there because they had never met our kids. Well, we knew we had that rule for a reason. Being in Vegas with little kids is STRESSFUL! There are just too many people and lots of things that their little eyes should just not see. So, needless to say, we spent a lot of time at the pool and up in the room where I knew they were safe and sound.

On Monday we ventured out to the Mandalay Bay to see the Shark Reef, which the girls really enjoyed.

They even were brave enough to pet the sting rays...well Ashlyn was because she is our child that has no fear...

It took Brooke the longest to get the courage to touch them, but she finally did and thought they were cool and slippery.

We took a cab down to the M & M world and the girls picked out some fun souvenirs.

And, on the walk back to our hotel, we ran into Bumblebee!  He was alway our favorite Transformer, so of course we had to get our picture taken with him!

That afternoon we were able to go and visit Rey and Karen and their son Ryan, which was a lot of fun. And we ended our day by taking the girls to see the Tournament of the Kings, which is a jousting show at the Excalibur.

They had a ton of fun rooting for the evil dragon knight! They were so excited that they wanted their picture taken with him after the show.

 And a couple other knights too...Brooke thought they were cute. :)

After the show, Chris and Ashlyn rode the roller coaster at our hotel. Ashlyn had been talking about riding it all day long and she finally was able to talk her dad into it.

 This was Ashlyn's first ride on a roller coaster and Chris' first ride on this particular one. Chris has been asked by lots of different people on many different trips to Vegas to ride this ride, but he has always declined as it really wasn't something he wanted to do...but his daughter was able to persuade him to finally give it a try.

Here is their "before" picture...

It was definitely an interesting ride for the both of them. Ashlyn apparently started screaming "I want to get off" as soon as the ride started going up the first ramp and didn't stop until it was over. Chris felt so bad because there was nothing he could do but try and cover her eyes..but he still felt horrible that she was so terrified. When the ride finally stopped, he took his hand off her face and there was blood everywhere. Ashlyn's nose had started bleeding during the ride and neither one of them had noticed due to all the screaming and shielding of eyes during the ride. He immediately was swarmed by moms nearby and ride employees with Kleenex and wipes and bandaids. Without any doubt, Chris would describe that experience as the worst part of the trip...and I would guess Ashlyn agrees since she still says that she will never do that again!

And...of course we didn't take an after picture...it would have looked as if she had been beaten up since she had blood all down her shirt.  But I did get a picture of Chris' hand...

Before we left Vegas, we had to stop one last place...

The Gold & Silver Pawn Shop...from Pawn Stars, which is one of Chris' favorite shows!  

We have driven by this pawn store a ton of times...but we have never actually gone in.  So, since the girls know exactly what Pawn Stars is...as they watch it a lot with their daddy...we decided to stop by and go in.  There wasn't any lines outside like there is a lot of times we have gone by...but we soon figured out why.  About 5 minutes after we entered the shop, we were told by someone "that looked important" that they had good news and bad news.  The good news was that they were about to start filming a new episode...

the bad news...they were kicking everyone out!  That was fine by us...we at least got to say that we had been in the shop!  It was pretty cool actually.  And no, we unfortunately didn't see Rick or any of the other guys from the show.

Once we left, we headed to the Grand Canyon, making it there late that afternoon.

 It was definitely grand!

Chris had never seen the Grand Canyon before, so it was an experience for both him and the kids!

I love this picture...it reminds me that my kids do actually love each other...even after being stuck in a car for hours together.

Stay tuned...for the final post of our family road trip!!!

Family Road Trip Part 1

We began out trip late Thursday evening after work to get a head start on the 8 hr drive to Colorado Springs.

We finally made it out of town around 7 pm and drove into Goodland, Ks at nearly 10 pm. About 2 hrs into the drive our girls started asking the dreaded question..."when are we gonna be there?"...and we knew then it could be a long week!

The next morning we woke up and it was snowing. The girls were very excited to see snow, but we were not since it would most likely slow down our travel time. Fortunately, it didn't seem to last and once we were an hour or so into Colorado it had pretty much stopped.

We were very thankful that we broke up the drive to Colorado Springs as we were able to get there by noon on Friday. We ate at this really cool restaurant that had a actual plane built into the building and we were able to eat in the plane...and play in the cockpit.

We then went to tour the Cave of the Winds that afternoon.

We chose a hotel in Manitou Springs, just outside of Colorado Springs and after settling into our room and resting for a little bit, we went down and had dinner at a fondue place in downtown Manitou Springs. It was a really fun experience to enjoy as a family.

It was EXTREMELY cold in Colorado and on Saturday we were not able to go do the sightseeing activities we had planner because it was just too cold to be outside. So, we improvised and found a mall where the girls and I got pedicures.

Chris was very patient and to reward him we found a local spa and set him up for an massage appointment. While Chris was at his appointment, the girls and I headed to Target to stock up on a few supplies, including a couple of long sleeved shirts. We were not expecting such cold weather and we had clearly not packed enough warm clothes.

That evening we met up with my good friend Lauren and her husband Adam for dinner at a local eatery. We enjoyed seeing her and meeting Adam, as it had been long overdue.

Once we were done with supper, we headed back to the hotel to let the girls swim in the pool before hitting the sack early as we planned to leave the next morning extremely early!

We had the vehicle packed with everything except the clothes we were going to wear, which made it super easy for getting up at 4:15 AM. Our goal was to scoop up the kids and hopefully get some driving time in while the kids slept in the car. Unfortunately they didn't fall right back to sleep as we originally hoped for and both Maddie and Brooke fought car sickness with all the curves and elevation changes that come along with driving in the mountains.

Sunday was our long driving day as we were going from Colorado Springs through Utah and down to Las Vegas. It was over a twelve hour drive with bathroom breaks and we went from frigid 12 degrees in the mountains to 88 degrees in Vegas...so we did a lot of shedding of clothes throughout the day. The mountains were beautiful and we saw them at sunrise, which was awesome!

We made a quick stop at Grand Junction, CO for gas and to get the girls changed out of their pj's before heading into Utah. Maddie had asked to change seats with me at Grand Junction and I had informed her that she would have to keep daddy company since I would be in the back an most likely fall asleep. She assured me that she would, but when I woke up...I woke up to a car full of sleeping kids! Maddie had apparently gone to sleep about 15 min after the other two girls and I had, leaving Chris to fend for himself to stay awake by eating twizzlers and guzzling energy drinks.

I immediately switched seats back and saw why it was so difficult to drive in Utah. It is the most barren country EVER! It was canyons on the right...

and barren land on the left.

 There were no towns along the highway, which surprised us as it was Interatate 70 and ever exit said "no services available". It was a good thing that we had filled up with gas before we left Grand Junction because I'm not sure what we would have done. There was no signs of life at all...no towns...no houses....no trees...nothing! And to say driving in Kansas is boring...I would have given anything to have been driving in the plains at that moment...at least it's green! We had packed fixings for a lunch, which came in handy at this point, since there was no pulling over for a happy meal anywhere.

 The drive was much more bearable once we got to Salina, UT (ironic, huh!)

 and we made good time getting into Las Vegas around 5:30 pm that evening. We were thankful that we had gotten up early and the kids did relatively well on such a long day of driving. We were thankful for iPads and vehicle DVD players, as they kept our kiddos well entertained throughout the day. I don't know how we managed road trips before them!

Well...that is the start to our first family road trip. Stay tuned for more!