Hotel Tour

It felt good to sleep in this morning...but that meant that we got a late start on our site seeing. I don't think any of us cared! We grabbed breakfast at Jack-n-the-Box and then started our tour of hotels. The MGM Grand was first on the list.

The first thing we saw when we walked in (well...after the slot machines that line every entrance) was the Lion Habitat.

The King of the Jungle was just settling in for his morning nap.

Staci in Africa. Someday I will post a picture of me and Mike really in Africa (not just standing in front of a painting of Africa).

Next stop in MGM was Television City. CBS has a test studio where they show episodes (some are already on air while others are just hoping to make it to prime time) to a studio audience and get the opinions of the viewers. We were "lucky" enough to get to see a show that hasn't made it to TV yet. It was called "Bridge". If this show ever makes it to air...RUN, don't walk, away from your TV. We were all in agreement that it was awful!!! We were glad that we hadn't paid for this hour long experience! It was still a unique experience...and I was happy that we got to rate a ton of other shows during the survey at the end. Who knows. Maybe our votes will make a difference.

Next hotel stop was the Excalibur. Caleb read about a Scarborough Fair type gaming area at the Excalibur. Turns out it's just an arcade like at a typical state fair.

From the Excalibur we walked over to the Luxor. This hotel's theme is ancient Egypt.

It's amazing how realistic all of their sculptures look! If the hotel wasn't in the background, you might think we were really in Egypt!

The inside was pretty dark and the pictures didn't turn out very well.

Next we walked to Mandalay Bay.

They had a beautiful atrium full of plants, waterfalls, and fountains.

Because of the intense heat outside, we enjoyed viewing the outdoor gardens thru the windows in the atrium!

Before long we couldn't ignore the grumbling from our tummies anymore. We made our way to a food court that was on the strip to refill our tanks.

Fireworks on Fremont

We waited in our hotel room for a little while after dinner hoping to see a big fireworks show on the strip. All we saw were fireworks going off over homes in the city of Las Vegas. We finally decided to get in the car and drive down to Fremont Street. As soon as we started driving away from our hotel the fireworks began. They were being shot from Caesar's Palace...just 2 hotels down from our hotel! We would've had a perfect view from our room! Oh well. Audria and I still got a view of the fireworks as we drove away with the top down on the Mustang.

Casino lined Fremont Street has been topped with a 427m long canopy which is home to (borrowed from the website) "Viva Vision, the biggest big screen on the planet. More than 12 million lights in the Viva Vision canopy and 550,000 watts of concert quality sound pumped to speakers throughout the venue produce an incredible array of eye-popping imagery and heart pounding music." (Hmmm. I thought the biggest screen is at Cowboys Stadium?!? Wonder if they need to update their site?) They have a bunch of the old, famous Las Vegas neon signs and the street is supposed to give you the feel of walking down the strip in the 1960's.

Tonight they showed a concert and then displayed some patriotic scenes (however they were still playing music by Queen...just a little strange for July 4th).

They even had a virtual fireworks show! We didn't miss out on fireworks after all!

By the time we got home we were all tired and headed straight to bed. What a great Independence Day!

Food on the Fourth

For lunch we stopped in Boulder City and ate at the Boulder Dam Brewing Co. The food was pretty good and the air conditioning felt great!
Even though we were stuffed when we left the restaurant, we decided to stop at the Ethel M Chocolate Factory. Surely they’d have some free samples!

They had a pretty big cactus garden in front of the factory that we explored before going inside.

Mike got a little too close to one of the cacti (proof in the picture below).

To our disappointment, the chocolate factory wasn't in production. I guess it's a good thing that they gave their employees the day off for Independence Day. The gift shop was open, so we were still able to get some free samples along with buying a little chocolate. Whew! Disaster avoided!

We spent the hottest part of the afternoon resting in our hotel room planning the activities for the rest of our vacation.

Believe it or not, around dinner time we were hungry again! Audria was craving pasta, so Caleb found an Italian restaurant that was within walking distance. It was in the Palazzo hotel, so we got to walk thru the Palazzo and see their unique decor.

One of the nice things about the strip in Vegas is the enormous amount of restaurants at your finger tips. I think this is the reason that we never had to wait for a table. We picked Dal Toro to satisfy our pasta craving.

It was delicious! It wasn't quite as cheap as the traveler's guide led us to believe, but it was worth it. By this point in our trip Audria and I had learned that we should split our meals (there's no way either of us could finish a plate all by ourselves) so that helps keep the tab a little lower.

I was really surprised with Caleb's order. He ordered a pizza with crab meat, tomatoes (big slices that you can see), and asparagus! There is NO WAY he would've taken ONE bite of this when we were growing up...but he loved it!

Lake Mead Overlook

After we left the dam, we stopped at an overlook for Lake Mead. It is an enormous lake! I couldn't believe how blue it looked! (Most of the lakes I've been in are more brown than blue!)

We decided it was a good spot to take a few pictures of the Mustang.

We're having a lot of fun driving around with the top down, however, tomorrow Audria and I will bring a hairbrush with us!

(Don't worry, Mom, when we drove around we sat in the seats with our seat belts. This was just for a picture!)

Hoover Dam

We woke up early this morning to try to beat the crowd and the heat to Hoover Dam. We stopped for breakfast at an IHOP along the way. While I was enjoying a nice cup of hot chocolate (while it may be HOT outside...people here love to spend money on air conditioning and Audria and I are freezing every time we're inside a building!)...
Caleb and Mike tried to stack the coffee creamers in the most dangerous way possible.

We drove to the dam with the top down and enjoyed the "cool" of the day. Keep in mind that "cool" here means it's only in the 90's rather than 113 degrees! Since we got to the dam early, we didn't have to deal with the back ups in traffic that is typical with the road that goes over the Hoover Dam.

If you have been to the Hoover Dam before, you know that pictures can't do it justice! It is HUGE! It's impossible to get a picture of the entire thing when you're standing close to the dam.

Caleb, Audria, Staci, & Mike standing on Hoover Dam. Notice the "under construction" bridge in the background? This will be a new highway that will bypass the dam. It should help alleviate some of the traffic backups by diverting thru traffic around the dam leaving the road to the dam open for tourists. It was supposed to be finished in 2008 and they're skeptical that it will even be finished in 2010! Did you know that the Hoover Dam was finished 2 years AHEAD of schedule?!?

After viewing the dam from the outside, we took a tour of the power plant to see the inner workings of the dam. It is amazing how much water rushes thru the generators every second.

As we stepped back outside into the 110 degree heat and saw the line of cars that stretched back up the highway as far as your eyes could see, we were very glad that we made the Hoover Dam our first stop of the day.

We Have Arrived

We arrived at our hotel (another one of the surprises), Treasure Island, around 3:00 pm. Audria and I were ecstatic to get the suitcases out of our laps and stretch out. They guys worked their magic and got us a free upgrade of rooms overlooking the strip. After unpacking our rooms, we headed downstairs to get some lunch (we were starving). We ate lunch at Kahunaville and had some of the best French fries any of us had ever had (either that or we were just really hungry)!

After our late lunch (or maybe it was dinner?) we took off on foot. We walked thru several of the big hotels including the Venetian and Cesar's Palace. The architecture and design of the buildings is amazing!

When you're inside the Venetian, you don't feel like you're inside. You feel like you're outside walking the streets of Venice!

On the way back to our hotel we noticed that there was a crowed gathering in front of the Mirage, so we stopped to see what the fuss was about.

They were waiting for the volcano to erupt.

It was worth waiting for. It was pretty cool to see the eruption!

We stopped at Walgreens to pick up a few snacks and then enjoyed the lights of the strip as we walked over a bridge back to our hotel.

Our hotel, Treasure Island, also has a free show out front. I think we'll catch it some other night this week.

It was neat to look out our hotel window and have a view of the strip. I can't believe how busy it is all night long!

We were all really tired, but we decided to play a few games of Uno before we hit the sack.

Vegas Vacation!!!

Daddy Steve picked us up this morning at 5 am to take us to the airport. "Us" includes Mike, Staci, Caleb, & Audria. That's right...we're going on a vacation sans kids! In a little over a month Mike and I will be celebrating our 10th wedding anniversary and Caleb & Audria just celebrated their 5th...so we decided it'd be fun to take an anniversary vacation together. Mike and I were bright eyed and bushy tailed...ready to board the plane to Las Vegas at 7:30 am!
We got to the airport around 6 am for our 7:30 flight to Vegas. When we checked in, we were informed that there was a mechanical problem with the plan and we needed to wait in a line to get booked on a different flight. Arg! When we finally got to the front of the line, the ticket agent tried to put us on a flight that didn’t leave DFW until 5:30 pm! She finally found a flight with a layover in Salt Lake City that would get us to Vegas by 3:30 pm (7 ½ hours later than our original flight). We had her hold seats for us on the Salt Lake flight and checked our bags for our original flights. When we got to the United Airways gate, they told us that our plane’s emergency door sensor was malfunctioning. It was telling the cockpit that the door was open when it wasn’t. They said the part was coming in on a 9:00 flight and they should know by 10 or 10:30 if the flight will be cancelled.

Since we had a few hours to kill, we got some breakfast (with the meal vouchers the ticket agent gave us) and then relaxed with our books, Zune’s, and laptops. I called Dad & Mom and found out that Barrett woke up without a fever (Praise the Lord!), drank 5 ounces, and had a wet diaper! Hopefully he’ll keep feeling better and better today.

Waiting for our original flight paid off. They were able to fix the sensor and we were boarding the plane by 10:45 am.

A view out the window during our flight.

As we were coming in for a landing we could see the Las Vegas Strip out our window.

We arrived in Las Vegas (or as the pilot called it “Lost Wages”) a little after 12:30 Vegas time. The lines at the rental car agency were longer than we would’ve liked, but just like at DFW airport this morning, we enjoyed talking and laughing while we waited. The guys kept secret several of the things about our trip and the rental car was one of those secrets. I was excited when the rental car guy pulled up a red, convertible Mustang for us to drive for the week!

Then we opened the trunk.

Let’s just say that suitcases for 4 people do not fit in the trunk of a Mustang. Audria and I rode to the hotel with the suitcases in our laps…with the top down…in 105 degree Las Vegas heat!!! After baking in stop and go traffic on the strip, the guys put the top on the car during one of the red lights and Audria and I were finally able to reap the benefits of the air conditioning system!

Not so quick...

Turns out it wasn't an ear infection!

This morning Barrett's temperature was 105.2! I put him in a cool bath and gave him more Tylenol. Then I called the dr's office (the office of our normal pediatrician). I told them that Care Now had diagnosed Barrett with an ear infection and that I was concerned that his temps were still so high. They gave me a 2:15 pm appointment.

The first thing the dr said when she looked in his ears was, "His ears are perfectly clear!" What?!? She said that sometimes the ears look red when you have a high fever and that his did...but there wasn't fluid in there and he didn't have an ear infection. This caused her some concern because that meant we didn't know the cause of the fever. She ended up sending him to get his blood drawn and asked for a urine sample.

Both of those are tall orders for a 12 month old! To get a urine sample you have to attach a bag around their privates and wait! They stuck the bag to him at the dr's office and by the time we got to the lab he'd peed...but the bag had come off a little and most of it when into his diaper. Arg! So they attached another bag and it wasn't until almost 8 pm that we finally got another sample. The blood work wasn't for the faint of heart. If you don't like needles...don't ever take your baby to get blood drawn. Thankfully, they don't bother me. We're not talking about a finger prick here...they went for the vein in his arm! I had to hold him while two nurses tried to put a needle in a vein so small I could barely see it! That's probably why they couldn't get it in the first arm and messed up (telling me in the process that he'll have a good bruise on that arm). Thankfully they got it on the first try on the 2nd arm. (I'll go ahead and say it for my Temple family..."Bless his sweet little heart!")

The dr called around 9 pm with the results. His white count is pretty high, but it was pretty evenly split between viral and bacterial infection. She said the fact that he's been on amoxy since Tues could've decreased the bacteria if it's a bacterial infection. We're supposed to watch him really close for the next few days. Right now we can get his fever down with meds, but if it gets to the point where it's not getting under 101 for 6 hrs straight (or if he doesn't have a wet diaper for 6 hrs) we're supposed to take him to the ER. She said there's also a chance he could wake up in the morning and feel just fine...and that'd be the end of it!

Please pray that he will heal quickly and that the fevers he's been having won't damage his body. I hate seeing my little boy is so much agony!