Jonny's Spooktacular Band Concert

Jonny did a great job at his band concert!  The bands all sounded really good.  The dance number at the end of the last song was fun to watch.  

Dark Ride

Grim Grinning Ghosts

Fright Night

Great job, Jonny!

Homecoming Dance

Andrew and Daniel had a fun time at the Homecoming dance!  

Andrew's and his date, Ryann, had a fun time with their group.  They met for pictures and went to dinner at Oregano's.  Earlier in the week, they had gone on a group date to go bowling.  

Daniel went with a group of friends from swim.  They went to get some dinner at Cane's and then went to the dance.

While the boys were at their dance, Michael and I went to a Halloween party at a friend's house in the neighborhood.  We wore our typical costumes.

It was a fun, busy weekend!

Jonathan's Halftime Performance at Homecoming

The 8th grade band had the opportunity to perform with the high school marching band during the halftime performance at the homecoming game.  It was fun to watch Jonathan perform!

Paint it Black

Night Fight

Great job, Jonny!

Daniel's High School Swim Team Season

We are so proud of Daniel for making the Varsity swim team this year!  He has had a fantastic season!

First meet, September 1, at home

200 M IM, Daniel is in the far left lane

100 M Backstroke, Daniel is in lane 2, second from right

400 M Freestyle relay, lane 2, far right, Daniel is first

September 8, home meet

200 M Medley relay, lane 1, far right, Daniel is third on butterfly

200 M IM, lane 7, far left, center of video

400 M Freestyle relay, lane 7, far left and center, Daniel is third

September 15, home meet

200 M Medley relay, lane 7 far left, Daniel is third on butterfly

200 M IM, lane 7 second from left, center of video

200 M Freestyle relay, lane 7 second from left, Daniel is first

October 11, away meet

200 M IM, lane 6, second swimmer from left

I got confused on which lane he was in, so in the first part of the video I'm not focused on his lane

200 M Freestyle relay, lane 2, Daniel is second to last, video starts with Daniel

400 M Freestyle relay, lane 2, I only recorded Daniel

October 13, home meet

200 M IM, lane 1

100 M Butterfly, lane 1

400 M Freestyle relay, lane 1, Daniel is first

October 20, away swim invite in Tempe

200 M IM, lane 7, furthest from camera

100 M Breaststroke, lane 7

We are so proud of Daniel, especially for making it to the varsity team as a sophomore!  Way to go, son!

Family Trip to Las Vegas

We had such a fun time in Las Vegas!  We drove there on Thursday.  We left a little before 11 AM and made pretty good time. We stopped in Wickenburg at Arby’s and made it to the hotel by about 4:45 PM. Michael drove the whole time so that was awesome. We checked in and got settled a little bit. We got ready and went to our reservation at Bonefish Grill at 6 PM. It was so delicious! The corn chowder and lump crab soup was amazing, as always. 

I told the boys they should go on the zip line at the LINQ and they all agreed that sounded like a cool idea. Jonathan wasn’t thrilled about going right after he ate and didn’t end up going. It took us a while to figure out where to park and how to get to the zip line, but we figured it out eventually. I bought the tickets online to save a little money. I thought I couldn’t do it because I was wearing flip-flops, but the lady said I could take them off and put them in the bag and it would be fine. The boys had seemed disappointed that I wasn’t going to do it so when she said that I decided I better do it. It was so fun! I thought it was going to be scary but it kind of felt like I was flying. It certainly didn’t feel like I was going 35 mph. I was one of the last ones to land and I didn’t make it all the way to the stopping point. The guy had to grab my leg and pull me to finish the ride. I’m glad they told me not to cross my legs because I would’ve broken my foot at the end. 

Waiting for the zipline

In our gear and ready to go

We met up with Michael and Jonathan and went back to the car. I was so proud of Andrew and Daniel because they knew exactly where to go. It was quite the maze to get back to the car. Jonathan shared his huge bag of gummy candies with us. Apparently, Michael spent $23 on gummy candy, haha. And he didn’t even realize there was chocolate for sale on the second floor.

LINQ promenade

On Friday, we went to the Adventuredome. It wasn’t too hard to find it. Of course, they had to take our picture before we went in and of course I had to pay for it. 

We bought passes for Michael and the boys. That worked out great because then I could hold everybody’s phones while they went on the rides. They went straight for the roller coasters. For the second roller coaster, the yellow one, they had to come back and find me and give me their phones because they couldn’t keep those in their pockets. I sat at a table and relaxed while they went on their rides. When they got off, we were right by the Frog Hopper and they tried going on it but realized that they were all too tall. They went on that ride that goes around in a circle and then goes backwards in a circle. Daniel looked miserable. 

Then they went on the big drop ride. It just goes all the way up and drops all the way back down and that’s it. 

By then it was after noon, and I figured they would be getting hungry for lunch. They decided to go on the Disk-o ride and the Inverter ride and then we went to lunch. 

I didn’t really want to go to the buffet, but I also didn’t want to split up so we all went to the buffet. Daniel was willing to go with me somewhere else, but it was just easier this way. The bummer was, after we paid the money, we realized they didn’t have the pasta bar that Andrew had so been looking forward to. He was a good sport about it. I guess they just don’t have it at all anymore, not even for dinner. The buffet was expensive and not great, but I loved their waffles and bacon and cheesecake and everyone found plenty to eat. The boys wanted to do something different because they didn’t want to go on rides on a full stomach. It took us a while to figure out what to do. Andrew really wanted to go on the monorail, but nobody else did except for me. We were going to take an Uber over to the Sahara monorail station but that didn’t work out so we just drove over there and Michael dropped off me and Andrew and then met us at MGM Grand, which is the last stop. 

Andrew and Mom on the monorail

Michael had to circle around twice to get us. It took forever. It was hard to find the spot where he needed to turn in and then as he went around the hotel, there were policeman and things were blocked off and it was a mess. Once he got us, we drove over to the Luxor and walked around in there for a little bit. We offered to let Andrew go on the Titanic exhibit but nobody else wanted to, and he didn’t care that much so we just walked around a little more and left. 

Then we came back to the hotel to rest for a while. I got Nathaniel and Audrey checked in. We rested for a while and then I think it was about 7 PM that we left and went to Circus Circus. We went to the Adventuredome and the boys rode a few more things. They did the bumper cars and the roller coaster. Michael did the Disk-o ride right when we got there and then again right before we left. He really liked that one. When everyone had had all their fun, we went to the food court and everybody got something to eat. Daniel had Popeyes and everyone else went to the Chinese place that was like Panda but not Panda. I was proud of Jonathan for ordering a meal all to himself and he ate all of it. I was getting worried about when the college kids would make it and I didn’t have any service so I went outside at about 9 PM and called Emily. They were only half an hour away, so I went inside and got everybody and we came out and called them again and asked if they wanted to meet us at the hotel or go do something fun. We met at the hotel, and then we went and did something fun. Nathaniel wanted to ride together instead of trying to navigate Las Vegas by himself. We greeted everybody and they took the luggage upstairs and then we all left in the minivan and headed to the LINQ to go to the High Roller.

All the kids in the car

We found a much better way to get out of the parking garage by going down the stairs and it took us right to the promenade. We went on the High Roller and everyone had a great time. We had a whole pod to ourselves and everyone loved it. 

Then we walked to the I Love Sugar candy store and spent a fortune on chocolate, fudge, and gummy candies. 

Andrew wanted this $40 gummy worm, lol.  We said no.

It was so late. By the time we got back to the hotel, it was almost 1:30 AM. We couldn’t go back to the car the same way we came out so we had to walk all the way around and that was frustrating. We were so tired, but glad to have had the time together. 

We all slept in on Saturday. Michael and all the kids went down to breakfast. He stayed and talked to Nathaniel for a while. Everyone met up in our hotel room. We gave Audrey her birthday card and she really liked the Lovepop card. 

All dressed for BYU football!

We drove to the Pinball Hall of Fame. Everyone had a great time! 

We stayed for about an hour, and then we left and headed to Caesar’s Palace to go to lunch. It took a long time to get there, park, and walk to the Planet Hollywood restaurant. Thankfully, as soon as we walked into the casino, I knew exactly where we were because of where I was with Betsy when we were there a couple weeks ago so I knew exactly how to get to the restaurant. 

Quick stop at the Fountain of the Gods

We got there almost exactly on time. The restaurant was just OK. It wasn’t as cool as I thought it was going to be. The food was pretty good. It was nice to enjoy a meal together. I wanted to do this to celebrate Audrey‘s birthday. 

I took Michael to that Kush art store and showed him the Strait of Magellan painting that I love. We walked around Caesar’s Palace for a while. I took Emily and Audrey into that Altar’d State store that I liked so much. We walked down to where the Atlantis statues are. By then it was about 2:45 PM and the next show didn’t start until 3 PM so we didn’t get to see it because we needed to leave. I dropped everybody off for the game at the Luxor parking lot. 

Fun pictures from the game

Then we drove over to the MGM Grand. We parked, got out our stuff, and walked into the casino to change our clothes. We rushed back to the car to put our stuff in the trunk and rushed back to get to the theater. We were in the second row all the way to the right, which ended up being a great spot because David Copperfield kept going over there. He had some folded black washcloths on the ledge next to us that had hand sanitizer, and he kept going over there to put more hand sanitizer on his hands. The show was fantastic! Spoiler alert: there was a part where he had everybody situated a certain way, and he had two silver posts. He had two volunteers who were on their knees and hugging the post to hold it steady. He put the tarp over everything, and then when he pulled it off, there was an actual car on the stage, on the stilts! I’m still in shock about it! It was so amazing! The kids all thought it was their favorite part, as well. He sent an email at the beginning of the show that had predictions for all of the things that would happen in the show. It was crazy! 

Great seats!

Outside the David Copperfield Theater

After the show, we drove over to the Bellagio. I always wanted to see the indoor garden so we walked around that for a little bit. 

Then we went to the patisserie and saw the cool huge chocolate fountains. 

We bought a few treats there. Jonathan got sorbet and I got a strawberry mousse with a white chocolate shell and I got Andrew a raspberry macaron. Andrew says it still wasn’t as good as the one at Disneyland but I thought it was amazing. We spent less than an hour in Bellagio and finally left a parking garage where we didn’t have to pay $23. Then we headed over to Town Square because I had read that there was a cookie dough shop there. It wasn’t easy to find, but we finally drove past it and it looked like it was closed forever. Emily was tired and had a headache and the boys didn’t care so we just went back to the hotel. Emily was still in her dress and got in bed and fell asleep. The boys relaxed for a little bit. We were only there for a few minutes and I checked on the game score and it was already over. BYU lost to Notre Dame, 20 to 28. A few minutes later, Michael called me. So, I got ready and drove over to pick them up at the Luxor. It took a little time but it wasn’t too bad at all. Then we drove over to Chick-fil-A and got food for everybody and took it back to the hotel. That actually took forever. Everybody ate and then we got ready and went back to the strip. Daniel surprised me while he was eating and said, “This trip is awesome!” The boys don’t usually say things like that and it was so nice to hear after all the work I did.  He loved the magic show and all the cool things we were doing. After dinner, we went to New York, New York. As we were pulling into the parking garage, Nathaniel and Audrey said they wanted to go off and go to M&M’s World because it closed at 11 PM and it was already after 10 PM. We dropped them off and then the rest of us parked and walked into New York, New York to go on the roller coaster. I tried buying the tickets online, but that didn’t work so we had to stand in line to buy the tickets. Michael, Jonathan, Daniel, and Andrew all rode it. Emily and I went to walk around a little bit and then went to the Hershey store. I wasn’t expecting them to have a bakery counter. It was too tempting! 

We walked around for a little while and then everybody joined us there. Nathaniel and Audrey met us there, as well, but then they went to ride the roller coaster. The rest of us looked around a little bit and got some treats. I got the cookie dough, but it was disappointing. Then we all came to wait for Nathaniel and Audrey and then we all drove back to the hotel.

We slept in a little bit on Sunday morning. We all went down to breakfast together. We finished packing up, said our goodbyes, and checked out. We left the hotel by about 11:30 AM. It was a long drive home. As soon as we started the trip, we saw that 93 was closed and we had to go a completely different route. It was awful. There were so many twists and turns and dips in the road. We stopped for lunch in Parker at a place called Creekside Café. Michael drove the whole way so that was really nice. Then we had to avoid an accident near Buckeye and it took extra time. It took 7 1/2 hours to get home, including our dinner stop.  We were glad to be home, but the boys weren’t happy that fall break was over and they had to go back to school the next day.

It was a short, eventful, and wonderful trip!  I am so glad we got to go and it was so much fun!