Las Vegas, Baby! (With babies!)

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Good morning, Lake Las Vegas! The kids were pretty excited to look out of the window in the morning and see the lake right outside and a few ducks swimming in it. They seemed in surprisingly good spirits given the lack of sleep the night before. Jake had about six hours (half of his usual amount), Kyla had about five hours (again, about half her usual amount) and Scott and I only got about four hours. These were not quality hours, either, but broken sleep. Hmm, it might be a tough day!

Today was mostly a work day for Scott. We had a company brunch to go to from 10-12. As it turned out, people just came and went as they pleased, nothing formal, and we managed to get through it without any disasters. Phew! We then had an hour or so to ourselves to explore. Jakey kept asking for the ocean (yeah, good luck buddy!) but we assumed he meant the lake. We walked down to it and explored the hotel grounds a bit. It really is a lovely Italian-style hotel with a cute waterfront area, a covered bridge reminiscent of the one in Florence, and even a couple of quaint streets with shops, restaurants, and of course a casino. Soon enough, though, it was time for Scott to head out to his "team building" exercise. I took the kids for a drive in the hopes of forcing a long nap. Jake took a 90 minute nap but Kyla amazingly didn't fall asleep. At least she got to hang out and relax and see some of the sights of Vegas go by.

Once Jake awoke, I went back to the hotel and got them into the double stroller. We went exploring and had fun making echoes under the bridge and then continued on to find the waterfall we'd seen from our room (man-made of course) and I was surprised to see that it led to a small but pretty white-sand beach (again, man-made. This is Vegas, after all!) Luckily for us, someone left behind some sand toys and these kept the kids entertained for over an hour. When we finally decided to move on, we took a walk around the lake and over the Florence bridge and back to the quaint little streets. We found a bean bag toss game outside an Irish pub (there really is an Irish pub everywhere!) and that kept us entertained until Scott was able to join us. Soon, it was time to head back to the room to get ready for the biggest challenge of the trip - the company dinner.

We all got ready surprisingly quickly, which was a good thing as being in the room was a bit of a nightmare. Jake had decided that his favorite game was rolling the wheeled crib around the room but there wasn't a lot of space so he kept getting stuck on things, causing him great frustration! We soon headed out to the 5:30pm cocktail hour. A few drinks helped to make Scott and I more chilled out when the kids decided to play a game of rolling-around-the-floor-giggling. Oh well, at least they were happy!

At about 6:45 it was time to sit down for the meal. It was a strange table arrangement, with everyone facing inwards in a large square, reminiscent of a few seating plans I'd used in my fourth grade classroom! We ended up directly opposite the CEO - there was no hiding in the corner! Given that it was Jake's usual bedtime, I was fearful. Amazingly, both kids sat the whole time, for about 90 minutes, and did a fantastic job. Looking back, I still can't believe it, but I guess they just knew that they had to rise to the occasion?! Luckily for me, Jake got sat next to Adam, a young sales guy who had a lot of experience with nieces and nephews. He kept Jake busy and happy, and gave his iPhone to Kyla with Finding Nemo playing on it!

By about 8:30, Kyla said she had to use the bathroom, so that was my segue to head back up to the room for the night. Scott kept Jake and said he'd join me a little later. Soon after I left he realized that Jake had a poopie diaper and that was his excuse to leave. Oh my! He must have been sitting in it for a while, poor little guy, because let's just say it was like having one of those newborn poop explosions to deal with, but stinkier! It was all up his back and had leaked through his diaper onto his pants. Our only option was to strip him down in the bathtub and wash him down with warm water. He was not impressed at all! We calmed him down with reading books in our pajamas before putting both of them in their beds. They were both asleep within minutes! The amazing thing was that they slept through the night, not waking until 7am the next morning.

Today was our day to explore by ourselves with no work commitments. After breakfast, we packed up our crazy amount of stuff and loaded it all onto the double BOB stroller. We walked through the hotel like a bunch of homeless people ha ha! Whatever works, right? After checking out and loading up the car, we headed to the Las Vegas Strip. I was amazed that you could park for free in the major hotels/casinos, but I guess it makes sense as they want your business. We decided to keep it simple and visit just a few hotels. We started with Venice. The kids enjoyed watching the gondolas go by and the general atmosphere. At one point Kyla asked, "What are those circles in the sky?" We realized that she didn't know we were inside, but thought we were outside and the sky just looked weird! It always fascinates me how their minds work! We then headed out to see the pirate show at Treasure Island only to find that it has been discontinued about 5 months prior. Oh well, the kids liked seeing the boats anyway. After eating lunch in a Mexican restaurant overlooking the Grand Canal, we went to "St. Mark's Plaza" for ice-cream. Yum! That was probably the highlight for the kids, truth be told!

Now for the final challenge - the trip back home. We set off a little late at 1:30 and Jake fell asleep instantly. An hour and a half later he awoke to find that we were stuck in 10mph traffic on the freeway. It stayed that way for a long time, over an hour in total. That kind of speed doesn't go down well with a toddler so I had to come up with some pretty elaborate cabaret. We went through all their favorite songs from our music class, did a puppet show with their stuffed animals, and read several books several times each. When the traffic picked up I couldn't help but nag my slowpoke husband to speed up. I wasn't sure how much longer I could keep this up!

At 5pm we finally rolled into our chosen break spot: Peggy Sue's 50s Diner. It had been advertised on freeway billboards from as far away as Las Vegas and apparently had giant dinosaur statues in their outside patio area. Perfect! I imagined a Padaro Grill type place (for you Santa Barbarans) where the kids could run around and play hide-n-seek around the dinosaur legs while we watched the desert sunset, sipping on our milkshakes. You can imagine our dismay, then, when we walked into the dinosaur yard and found it to be completely abandoned and derelict. You could tell that it used to be a hot spot but was now completely unloved and unused. There was a concrete pit that used to be a man-made river. Where bar stools used to be, there were now just rusting metal posts. The concrete tables were crumbling and the ice-cream shack was abandoned. It was eerie in a way. The kids didn't seem to notice, though. Thankfully, they just ran around and explored while Scott and I followed closely, having heart attacks at all the old and unsafe crumbling infrastructure. The dinosaur statues were still there and intact, so at least that was something. The best part was an old stage that still had speakers blaring 50s rock 'n' roll music. The kids ran up there and spent quite a bit of time jumping and dancing around! After getting some wiggles out, we went inside the diner. It was surprisingly big and sprawling and quite busy. We got a booth and quickly ordered food. Jake and Kyla were enamored by the chocolate milkshake and barely ate anything else. Think we will be on a health kick when we get home! After eating, we killed a bit of time wreaking havoc in the giftshop before getting in the car at 7pm, Jake's bedtime. Both kids fell asleep quickly and the remaining 3.5 hour trip was relatively peaceful. It was only in the last five minutes, part way through Carpinteria, that Jake woke up and started to loudly whine, "Out, out, out!" I was so glad that we were able to pull into home five minutes later! We made it!

It was a fun trip overall and a break from the daily grind. I just wish we could have flown instead of driven. That would have been much more fun!

***Scroll all the way down for more photos!***

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