The week before we were supposed to leave, Lydia told Jake she was coming in to visit him for his birthday. When in all reality I had booked her plane tickets back in October so that she could come watch the kids while Jake and I were out of town.
The week we were supposed to leave the kids all got sick. Every one of them got an ear infection. And Lizzy was diagnosed with influenza. All of this added to my stress. And a few days before Lydia got here, Jake and I ended up sick with a cold and a sore throat.
So with everyone being sick, I decided I should tell Jake we were going somewhere for his birthday. And that helped ease the stress some, Jake and I were able to talk about other things we could do while in Las Vegas, and he helped out with his knowledge of the bus and train station schedules, because we were leaving the car with Lydia in case she needed it.
Jake went and picked Lydia up Thursday afternoon from the Provo Airport. She came in Thursday so it was less stress on everyone. The kids were really excited. And we just relaxed and talked for the rest of the evening. The next day (friday) she helped me clean (which I was really stressed about, so it was really nice of her to help). Then I packed, and waited for the time to arrive in which I would be leaving to go get Jake. I spent a lot of the day telling her where things were located and about the kids schedule (because up til now, any time she has visited, I was still there to parent) and anything and everything I thought she should know about.
*My inital plan was not to tell him anything, just to show up friday after work with a suitcase, get on the train with him and go to the airport. At which time I would have to tell him where we were flying*
How it actually went was, Friday at 4:55 I went to the bus stop. Thank goodness we have a stop just outside our neighborhood. I got on the bus at 5:10 PM (Jake had helped me figure out what time I needed to be tot the bus stop at) and road the bus to the train station, and road the train downtown. I met up with Jake and we road the train into the airport. We got to the airport at about 6:30 pm. Our flight wasn't scheduled for take off til 8:40 pm. So we stopped for some dinner, and Jake and I shared a meal at Cafe Rio. We then proceeded to the gate our plane was scheduled to take off from, and waited for an hour. At which time Jake went up to the counter to figure out our seat assignments. Apparently even though I had bought the tickets 5 months ago, I did buy a guaranteed seat. So Jake and I were on the wait list for seating assignments. I was really quite upset about that. About fifteen minutes into boarding (which started at 8 pm, so around 8:15pm) we got our seat assignments. We were relieved. We got on the plane, and sat on the tarmac waiting our turn to go down the runway. It was so fascinating to watch all the planes ahead of us take off.
We had a pretty fast flight, about 50 minutes long. We got to Las Vegas at 9 PM local time (which is an hour behind our normal time at home). I had scheduled a shuttle to take us from the airport to the hotel, because it was way cheaper than car rental. Well we missed our shuttle, because we had no idea how big the Vegas airport was. So we had to wait 20 minutes for another shuttle, and then we had to wait while the shuttle waited for other customers to get there so they could pick them up. So we didn't get to the hotel til about 11pm local time. Jake and I were so tired at this point. And BORED. We figured out that we could have driven down there and still been to the hotel before the shuttle dropped us off.
We got the check in desk (which was huge. Like 15 people working different check in stations) at the Luxor, which is where we were staying. It was a pyramid built in the early 1990's. We were staying on the 6th floor, room 6061. We had to travel to the back corner of the hotel to get to our elevator. You couldn't just take any hotel to that floor, because the floors and sides of the pyramid were separated by big columns holding the whole thing up. and the elevators went up those columns on an diagonal. After dropping off our luggage, we went out to find food and get some Dayquil and ibuprofen because I wasn't feeling very good. We found a 24 hr "convenience store" inside the hotel. It cost us $30 for the Dayquil and Advil. Then we went and found the food court and got chicken strips and a chicken sandwich for dinner, which we took up to our room to eat. We didn't fall asleep til 1:30am local time.
Our hotel, inside and out ;)
This was the view we had when leaving our room.
We slept in til 11 am local time. And then got up and ready for the day. I told Jake before we did anything that I needed to go to the box office and pick up the tickets for the event I had planned for that evening. So Jake went with me, and at this point because advertisements were everywhere for the group, I figured he had figured it out anyway. So i picked up our Blue Man Group tickets. To which Jake replied "I figured". hahaha.
We then wandered around looking for somewhere to eat. We finally found this restaurant in The Shops at Mandalay Bay called House of Blues. It had just switched over from breakfast to lunch. The food was really quite tasty-but oh my gosh was it pricey. After that we wandered around and eventually made our way to the Aquarium at Mandalay Bay, where we purchased a group of tickets, (they were having a special of buy 3 different shows/exhibits/experience tickets for $57 bucks/a person), to the Aquarium, CSI Adventure, and The Titanic. The shows were all at different hotels. We started with the Aquarium at the Mandalay Bay since we were right there. They had a polar bear/arctic exhibit, but unfortunately we didn't know it wasn't part of the Aquarium til after we bought the tickets. When we first walked into the Aquarium they had a Komodo Dragon and I started getting closer to the glass and it started stretching its neck to make itself look longer-Jake said it probably would have charged me if there wasn't glass between us. Since we had already been to the Aquarium before we kind of went through it fast, only really stopping on a few occasions. One was the octopus they had was just moving all around its "cage" and it was really cool to watch.
After the Aquarium we headed outside to find our way into the MGM Grand hotel for the CSI Experience. It was a little confusing to figure out how to get from where we were to where we wanted to go. We had to get on a tram that took us from the Mandalay Bay to in front of the Excalibur/Luxar hotels. Then we had to walk across the walkway and over into the MGM Grand. Probably took us a good 15 minutes to do so. Once inside the MGM we had to wind our way around the hotel to the back where the CSI Experience was. I was super excited for it. When you first get in to the experience they give you a clipboard for you to fill out as you go along. They actually use the original cast from CSI to introduce everything and help you figure out what to do with a piece of evidence. They have a bunch of boards, scenes, and other things for you to "figure out the clues" to your particular mystery. Working together Jake and I of course got the right answer to who our murderer was and what happened to our victim. While in the MGM we got a huge Pina Colada Drink (yes, it had alcohol in it). By then end of drinking it I was tired, buzzed, and acting a little drunk. Jake, however said he didn't feel a thing. (by the time we got back to the Luxor we had to go to our room for like 30 ish minutes while we finished drinking it, and I laid down.)
After the CSI Experience we headed to our last exhibit, which was the Titanic Exhibit which was in our hotel, The Luxor. We had to find our way back to the tram and inside the Luxor we headed to the exhibit. They prohibited any photographs while inside the exhibit because of the proprietary information inside. They had actual items from the Titanic. They had a metal section of the ship (which looking on a map it was actually really, really, really small in comparison to the rest of the ship) which was huge when standing next to it. They talked about when they brought up that part of the ship how it took years to get rid of all the salt so it would stop corroding, and all the preservation efforts they took to keep it in good shape. They brought up pots, pans, some ceramic dishes that had survived. It was soooo AWESOME. I wish I had some pictures to remember it all by. They even had a giant wall that listed all the passengers by class. They listed the people by who survived and who died according to class. So every single woman/child from first class survived. Some of the women/children from second class survived. And hardly any of the third class women/children survived. Because they loaded all the first class first, then second class, then third class that is why the death toll is so high in the lower classes. Men stayed on the ship because it was women and children first and they didn't have enough life boats to get all the men off. They had signs all over the walls telling about different facts and I can't remember if it was one of the signs or Jake was telling me that because of the Titanic sinking it changed a lot of how companies had to prepare their ships. How it became a regulation that all ships have enough life boats to hold every passenger. That they put bright spotlights on the front of ships to help with the watchmen watching for ice burgs and other ships (because on the Titanic, the watchmen were sitting outside, on the front deck of the ship looking out in the dark, searching for ice burgs. And because they were only able to see so far ahead of them with no light they didn't spot the ice burg in time to turn the ship). They also had signs about some of the people aboard the ship. Some of them were last minute passengers getting transferred from a different ship to the Titanic. How second and third class people actually had real beds & real mattresses, which they had never had on ships ever before, and the Titanic changed that.
Anyone it was a good experience.
After the Titanic Exhibit we had enough time to grab a quick bite before we had to get to the Blue Man Group. Which, lucky for us is right across the room from the Titanic Experience. Cell phones were also a no go here. Which is sad because there would have been some great shots to take.
The Blue Man Group was so awesome. I would go to again and again. I loved it. Jake said I was probably the loudest laughing person there. :) We sat 5 rows from the front. There are 3 guys, who never talk during the entire show. They just use facial expressions. They had several different "acts". They played drums on "different" items. But they had an actual "band" up in cages, dressed in neon paint that played through most of the show. The 3 main guys actually have a blue paint/mask. The first act one guy was tossing "paint balls" into the air and another guy was catching them in his mouth and spraying the paint on to a canvas. Then the guying throwing stuff turned to the third guy and started throwing marshmallows. They did this for probably 5ish minutes and then presented the artwork to the audience. So the paintball guy gave his canvas away to someone in the audience, and the marshmallow guy put his "statue" (which he basically spit out all the marshmallow into a pile) into some lady's purse. So funny and gross at the same time. There was another act where they brought an audience member up on stage. She sat with them while they acted, and tried to figure out what she was supposed to do. They started sharing food, which totally grossed the lady out. They had pipes that came out right in the chest area and it sprayed the food they were eating out of it. Which the first time it did that scared the crap out of the lady-Hilarious.
Anyway, they did a lot of funny things. I can't wait to go again.
After the show we raced to The Rio to watch Penn and Teller. We had to take a taxi. First time doing that. And it was so much more expensive than I hoped it would be. But when you leave the hotel you get in the taxi line, and there are a million taxis out there just in line ready to take the next person wherever they need to be. Because we had bought seats last minute we were in the balcony. They actually encouraged having our cell phones out, and even had an audience member come up and used her cellphone in one of their tricks. Our eyes were so tired near the end of the show, because it was like 1 am back home. I am really glad we did all of this. Jake and I had a great time. I have NO idea how they did some of their tricks. But they actually invited kids upon stage, so if we're ever in Vegas with our kids I'd let Sydney go upon stage.
Jake and I ended up spending close to $800+ on our weekend stay. But it was so worth it. This was our first vacation just the two of us since our anniversary trip in 2010. We never had any problems with this flight getting home. We did have to ask Bindy if she would pick us up, because the buses don't run on Sunday. So we had to wait about 30 minutes before they got to the airport. It was so nice to get home and see the kids. William didn't even cry one bit for Lydia while we were gone. I'm happy he didn't for her sake, but a little sad he didn't' for my sake.
Lydia was supposed to leave on Monday, but snow delayed her flight until Tuesday morning. So we got to spend an extra day with her. I am glad for that. My kids don't see Nana enough. We played in the snow. Jake, Sydney, and Josh built a snowman (the snow wasn't good for snowman building though so Jake was dumping water on the snow to help it along).
The drink bottle wouldn't fit in our suitcase, so we didn't bring it home.
Each of us tried sitting in a garbage bag, turned on the vacuum and sucked all the air out. How it weighed inside the bag was the weight of the atmosphere.
 |
No comments:
Post a Comment