Viva Las Vegas!!

We spent a whole week in Las Vegas over Fall break and we had such a blast! We drove down over the weekend and Chris flew out of Vegas on Tuesday to attend a Holocaust and Genocide Studies conference in Memphis, TN for four days. While he was gone the kids and I took in some sights and enjoyed staying with Danny and BreighAn for the week and having all the playtime we wanted!

One of the really cool places we went was the Shark Reef in the Mandalay Bay Hotel. I think Arthur's favorite part of the day at the Reef was watching the scuba divers cleaning in the big shark tank. He was mesmerized! We got to watch them for quite a while and Arthur had lots of questions about what they were doing and the scuba gear they were wearing. I talked to him for several minutes about the divers and the masks they had on and what the oxygen tanks were for. After a whole line of questions about the divers Arthur asked me, "Where do they live?" I hesitated for a second wondering what had prompted that question, then I tried to explain that they live in houses just like normal people, that they were just men doing a job wearing special equipment and when they were done working they just went home. Arthur thought about that for a minute and then after examining the flippers on their feet asked me, "But....how do they walk?" It took a lot of explaining but I could still not quite convince him that scuba divers are people! I think he came away from the tank totally certain that they were some kind of funny ocean animal, or at the very least- people that live underwater!

Arthur's other favorite spot was the sting ray pool where you can actually pet the sting rays as they glide by!

Although he felt confident enough to dip his fingers in the water he wasn't quite up for petting the rays!

On another day we went out to dinner and got to ride a carousel in the park. It was free so Arthur chose three different animals and we went around on each of them one time!

The zebra was his first pick and evidently the only photogenic animal he chose because apparently I didn't take any pictures of him on the other two...oops!

The day before Chris left for his conference we took the opportunity to walk the 'Strip' and see the sights. Every time we visit Las Vegas we always go down to the strip at least once and take it all in (or at least everything that is G rated!), and every time we come away from there I think "I never want to come to the Strip again!" It is always so hot and crowded, sweaty and smelly, you feel like you walk for miles and yet don't ever really seem to get very far. Not to mention the annoyance of averting your eyes every which way you look! But in spite of it all, the sweat, the people, the filth, the tired feet- we always go back. Maybe it is like labor pain that is too easily forgotten...

We did see something new this time on the Strip. We went to the MGM to see the Lion Habitat and it was by far the coolest thing we did that day! The lions were enormous and you could stand so close it was quite amazing to watch them. They had these huge plastic balls that they were playing with- rolling them back and forth to their trainers like giant frisky kittens!

In the Belagio taking in the gorgeous gardens!

Arthur loved seeing this fire fighter boat in the Little New York's 9/11 tribute.

All in all it was a great and exhausting day!! We loved our week with friends and getting to feel like we were on a mini vacation!