Las Vegas Baby....Family Style!

With a 3 day weekend quickly approaching we decided (very last minute!) to take a little family trip! We decided to head to Vegas. We booked a room off the strip using my cousins amazing discount at Marriott and got our selves a cool little King Suite for a rockin price. We quickly packed our bags and went grocery shopping so we could take a bunch of food down there and headed down south! We made it there in good time with just one stop to feed Riley! We drove down the strip and checked out all the lights on the casinos on our way to the hotel. We got checked in and spent the rest of the night just hanging out in our hotel room.

 Here is Riley testing out the bed for us!

The girls thought it was so fun to hang out in bed and eat snacks and watch whatever cartoons they wanted on their own tv in their room!

The next morning we ate bowls of cereal and some doughnuts,

 made some sandwiches for lunch, took showers,

and then headed out for the day.

 The first stop on the trip was the Mandalay Bay Shark Reef Aquarium. Trent got pretty good last weekend learning how to maneuver this beast of a stroller through all the crowds! It was such a lifesaver to have though so we didn't have to keep track of Lexi running around!

Riley was a good sport and loved hanging out in the stroller sucking on her straps!

The girls were in heaven looking at all the reptiles and fish everywhere. We could have spent all day there!

Erika's favorite part of the aquarium was the sting ray exhibit where you could pet sting rays.

 We stayed there for a good 30 minutes and had to pry Erika away from it!

 Lexi was only interested in playing in the water and then rushing over to the hand washing station and then washing and drying her hands...only to run right back over to the water and splash around in it!

As we approached each new exhibit Erika would run up to it and say "Are there any starfish...is this the starfish tank?" We finally found a tank full of starfish and she was so excited!

 After we left the aquarium we hung out by this projected sign and the girls had fun running through it. When you ran in front of the sign it would make a ripple effect like it was made of water. They thought it was pretty cool!

Next stop was the M&M Factory where we saw the free 3D movie they play there. Pretty good stuff for a free thing to do!

After that we walked up and down part of the strip (the clean part where no one hands out any *ahem* cards) and the girls had fun watching all the different street performers. Lexi's favorite was the silver man that would hand her suckers out of his pocket whenever she would walk up to him...we walked away with 4 suckers!

That night we went out to dinner with Brad (who happened to be down there at the same time!) and then went back to the hotel to watch some movies on tv and eat more snacks! Rio kept playing over and over on one of the channels so we kept catching bits and pieces of it all weekend!

The next morning I woke up early to feed Riley and found Erika like this

At like 7 in the morning she had the tv turned on cartoons really quite and was sitting in bed eating a box of doughnuts...what a rough life! Trent and the girls had fun breaking in the beds by doing some wrestling moves on each other. Who says we need boys! Trent wrestles with his girls all the time!

 While they wrestled I laid in bed with our princess and watched her sleep so peacefully!

While Trent and I packed things up the girls colored and played nicely.

 Such goofy girls!! Love them so much!

Once we got ready we headed to Hoover Dam. We had never been and I have always wanted to see it since seeing it on the movie Fools Rush In and its only 30 miles away from Vegas so we had to check it out!

Before going to the dam we drove over the new suspension bridge you can see in the background...its crazy high and so massive! Kind of scary seeing how high up it is and how it is just stuck in the side of the mountain!! We parked and headed out so we could walk across the dam.  We checked out all the random gifts in the gift shop...sorry Lexi we will not be getting you the miners helmet!

 We of course snapped some pictures!

 Love my family!

Here we are touching the feet of the statue. It was said that if you touch the feet it would bring you prosperity and safety throughout the upcoming year.

The girls had fun bending down to look out the gates at the water.

 Our attempt at a picture failed! There was like this 4 foot high railing and that was all that was that was standing between us and safety and falling down the side of the Hoover Dam....CRAZYNESS! It was kind of freaky.

 Seriously that bridge is amazing!

After we got our fill of the dam we headed to St. George to spend that night with Trent's grandparents. We showed up at the perfect time for a huge home cooked Sunday dinner meal it was so good! We had fun chatting and catching up with them! Monday morning we headed out early but it was so much fun! What a great weekend getaway!!