Weekend of Fun!

Lesson learned. Painkillers and blogging do not go together. After duking it out in the blog-o-sphere I am happy to report that Matt and I are still on speaking terms. But enough of all that, I have more exciting things to blog about. Like my awesome weekend in St. George and Las Vegas. So here's a play-by-play:

Thursday we had a nice drive down. I listened to my new iPod which rocked!! We ate at Paula's Mexican Restaurant when we arrived in St. George. It was fun to see how much Matt loved it. He loved it so much that if they had stock on wall street he would buy it all up! We played Phase Ten which I lost, no surprise here!

Friday was a day of relaxing for me. Matt went golfing. The kids played at the park. Later in the afternoon the kids went swimming while Matt and I went "sight-seeing". We had In-N-Out Burger for lunch which was nasty. I had looked forward to this all month and it was a let down. Next time we will eat at the restaurant instead of take-out, I've been hearing that was the problem. Friday evening we played Mexi-Train with his Aunt Jennie. That was a hoot! She played by the non-rules which absolutely drives Matt crazy, but one by one we all turned to the dark side and used the non-rules way of playing to save ourselves. All of us except for Matt. Then the best part of the night - we played Phase Ten again and guess what??!! I actually won!! I even took a picture of the score sheet to record this monumental moment. I never win with his family - this is a HUGE deal to me. As much as I enjoy playing games it was becoming a joke that I could never win, but now I am a WINNER!

Sadly, that was all the time with the Roblyer's. We had a blast with everyone but it was time for us to move on to Las Vegas. My brother, Mikey, moved there about a year ago and this was our first time visiting him. Here's his house.

I really like the neighborhood, even if his car was stolen the night before....He had a Honda Civic and it was broken into twice in Salt Lake and then twice down in Las Vegas before it was finally stolen. I think it was more of a car issue than a location issue. Despite the stolen car, he still showed us a good ol' time in Vegas.

We started at The Mirage where we went to The Secret Garden. At first I was disappointed with this exhibit, then we got to the baby tigers and it made up for the lack of animals. There were five baby tigers all from the same litter in Florida. Four female and one male. The male tiger was a golden one the other four were snow white and white striped. SO adorable! Especially when they fed them with baby bottles. My favorite part is when I called "kitty kitty" and one came my direction. I could have stayed there all day and watched them play! I wish I had better pictures, but Matt is obsessed with his blackberry camera and refuses to tug along an actual camera that takes decent pictures. So if you'd like to see pictures head over to his blog.

After The Mirage we went to Caesar's Palace. Which I hated. I am not a window shopper. I don't like to be places where I can't buy things and this is one of them. They had many gorgeous purses and handbags. Many sparkly diamonds. But it was all about window shopping and personally I think a big waste of our time. We also had lunch at Planet Hollywood at the kid's request and that also sucked. Next time we know to skip Caesar's Palace altogether!

Next was the New York, New York where Matt, Jordan, and Mikey went on the roller coaster. Then we headed over to M&M World. That was a cool experience. I am not a huge fan of M&M's, because I am not a huge fan of chocolate. But the kids love M&M's and my grandma has given Jordan collectible M&M dispensers since he was a tot, so it was cute to see him so excited to be surrounded by M&M stuff.

Probably my favorite part of the night came next when we went to the Mandalay Bay Hotel (where my brother works) to see the Shark Reef. It was amazing. They had all kinds of sea life and it was displayed beautifully. I also liked this hotel the best. It seemed the cleanest and prettiest by far. We spent a long time going through the whole exhibit, and the kids seemed to like it a lot. My brother's wife even joined us for this adventure. I was beginning to get a complex that she doesn't care for us much, so I was happy when she showed up! We also went for ice cream at the Luxor. Best pina colada smoothie and best praline pecan ice cream I've ever had. The waffle cone was nasty though. Chloe agrees about the waffle cone (hers was even dipped in chocolate and she still didn't like it). But we all agree it was the best ice cream!

Finally after a full day of adventures, it was time to hit the sack by the time we got back to Mikey's it was about one in the morning. The next day was time for us to say good-bye. The kids were really sad to say good-bye to my brothers dogs (Sophie and Lucas). We had a fun time and look forward to visiting again. Even though Vegas is not our kind of town, we still manage to find some good, wholesome fun! Thanks to my little brother for showing us around - we had a blast!