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.
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!
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.
