The Golden Ticket and Cash Money

I know it sounds like we've won the lottery, but I assure you, that's not the case:)

I've been thinking about how well our family vacations went this summer, and I think I've figured out "the golden ticket."  I think the reason things went smoothly is honestly because we took everything in stride.  In fact, things didn't go smoothly at all, but we didn't expect them to go smoothly from the get-go.

That might initially sound bad - the whole lower-your-expectations-bit.  But it's somewhat true.  Vacationing with little kids is very different than vacationing without kids, and if you accept that and understand that hiccups will happen, it seems easier to handle them when they inevitably do.

There were plenty of hiccups between our two excursions, and I'm not even going to lie and say I can't remember them because we had so much fun.  Because I do remember them.  But I also remember that Brad and I would just look at each other and laugh and make jokes about how "perfectly" events were going...  A "Yep, that sounds about right..." attitude!

Some of our hiccups, just for laughs (because you know you want to know...):

• Hannah threw up 40 minutes into our drive to the airport.  And again 10 minutes after we got her all cleaned up and back in the car.  And again right before we got to the airport.
• While watching the Fountains at Bellagio, Hannah dropped her binky over the wall.  It was out of sight and not within reach ~ she wasn't happy.  Thankfully, Grandma brought an extra in her purse!
• While in Vegas, we looked for Jack's sunglasses, but decided they must have been left behind in the car at the airport.  We never found them on the trip.  I did find them when I unpacked his backpack of toys - which we'd had with us the entire time.
• Our kids fell out of bed in the middle of the night a total of four times...twice in Vegas, once at the Grand Canyon, and once at Great Wolf Lodge.  Despite blockades and pillow walls.  Causing my eye to re-injure itself only once!
• We didn't bring the strollers on the day we had to take the longest walk of the entire trip - through the MGM Grand to get to The Rainforest Cafe.
• On the way to the Children's Museum, we happened to see Elmo on the side of the street.  Hannah wouldn't stop asking to "see Elmo!" so we had to go down a few blocks, turn around, pull over to the curb, and wave money out the window so we could get a picture of Elmo.  She then spent the rest of the trip asking to see Elmo's picture - it was seriously her highlight of the trip!

• We survived a total of 183 (I'm exaggerating!) temper tantrums/meltdowns, from Jack and Hannah combined.
• It rained every day we were at the beach.
• On the night we decided to get dressed up and go to a nice dinner at the beach, the following occurred:
• our original destination had an hour and a half wait
• it started raining as we walked to a restaurant nearby
• Jack randomly threw up moments before we were heading to the dessert table (we didn't stay for dessert!)
• After driving to the Golden Corral, Hannah asked for her binky and lovey.  We realized they were still in the hotel room.  She cried.  And cried.  And cried.  We went back to the hotel, and then drove (for the second time) to dinner.

See?  Not perfect vacations at all...but they were so much fun!  The good, the bad, and the ugly, they all count!

*****

On our beach vacation, we realized that when it sounds like Hannah is saying, "Cash money," she's actually saying, "That's Mommy!"  It took awhile for us to figure it out, and it became so funny, and sounds so similar that we really just got a major kick out of it.  We all say it now, in Hannah's little voice, and it makes us smile.

This is maybe not quite as funny, but she also asks, "What's that?" a lot.  Except it sounds like she's saying, "Oh, s*!%!"  Brad's still not convinced she's not actually saying that, but I'm pretty sure.  We don't walk around saying that, and it also coincides with when a "What's that?" would make sense.  But still...  When I'm in public, I make a big production saying, "Oh, that's a ____..." to clear up any confusion!

She makes us laugh!

...and that's a wrap!

I've decided that since we're in Virginia Beach making new memories, I better wrap up our posts in regards to Las Vegas.  Only a couple of more days left, and then I can't wait to share some of our beach stories with you!  Let's just say that no one is afraid of the sand (or the waves) this time around:)

Wednesday

I think I mentioned that on our Vegas trip we spent the night next to the Grand Canyon - so when we woke up the next morning, we took a few more pictures, visited the guest shop, and then got back in the car to drive to the Hoover Dam.  We passed it on the way, and it helped to break up our ride on the way back to our original hotel.

I have to say, I wasn't that thrilled about visiting the Hoover Dam, but probably because I didn't know that much about it.  I figured I'd want to get out of the car, take a few pictures, and I'd be good to go - but I happened to be traveling with at least two passengers (Brad and his dad!) who love engineering marvels such as this one, so we found ourselves on a Power Plant tour.  And we actually enjoyed ourselves:)

We had a lot of fun, and when we were done sight-seeing in the high heat, we headed back to Vegas.  We had a low-key evening and took the kids to the rooftop pool that night.  I would say that Jack had the most fun, but Hannah seemed to enjoy herself too.  Mostly she hung out with Daddy in the hot tub for small bits, but she also spent a fair amount of time trying to be a "naked baby," which she loves to do:)

{Video: Hannah in the Hot Tub}

Thursday

We decided to do kid-friendly things on our last day in Vegas - the kids had done so well through-out the week with all that we'd gone to and seen, and I wanted them to have a really fun, last day before we had to fly home.

After stopping by ATM, the company from the show "Tanked," we decided to go to a children's museum and then planned to eat dinner at the Rainforest Cafe - one of my favorite restaurants, and it was our first time to take the kids.  They had so much fun at the museum - I wish we had one like it at home.  They also loved the Rainforest Cafe - while they got a little scared during the first "thunder storm," they were also really excited to see all of the moving animals:)

They were sleepy that night:)

Friday

We woke up early the next morning to fly home.  We are so lucky that our kids like to fly and didn't seem to be too affected by the change in air pressure.  For the most part, Jack watched movies on my iPad while Hannah slept.  Our travel went much smoother than we anticipated, and we also figured out that if we keep Hannah busy in the car and focused on things inside our vehicle, she is far less likely to get sick:)

It felt so good to be back home and to be with our sweet puppy dogs who missed us so much!  (Many thanks to Aunt Ryan, Uncle John, and Dylan for watching our sweet puppies for us!)

And a very special thank you goes to Grandma and Grandpa for inviting us along on this very special, once-in-a-lifetime trip to Las Vegas.  We had such a wonderful time, and it's a trip we'll never forget!  

isn't it grand?

Tuesday

On Tuesday, we headed out for a five-hour car ride to see the Grand Canyon.  We kept Hannah's tummy pretty empty, so she didn't make quite a mess in the car, but she still wasn't loving the travel.  Poor thing...

We stayed overnight at a hotel called El Tovar, directly on the South Rim of the canyon.  What a breath-taking view!

These pictures don't even remotely do it justice.  You have to see it for yourself.

what happens in vegas...

...is probably very different when two people who don't go out and don't drink travel with in-laws and two little lovelies.

Scratch that.  It isn't probably very different, it is different.

I can say that based on the tons of people-watching I did in a city that doesn't seem to sleep and where people walk the streets in all kinds of attire with alcoholic drinks in hand.  Las Vegas is a great place to people-watch.

We were so busy while we were there, that I literally didn't have time to blog after that first morning.  We went from one activity to the next, only to return to our hotel room late at night to get a little bit of sleep before waking up the littles and starting all over again the next day.  It was a jam-packed vacation, but we had so much family fun!

Our babies were troopers - they napped in the car and in the strollers, and slept (adorably together) as hard as rocks at night.  They did very well in a place that wasn't designed specifically for them, and I was thrilled with their behavior.  We have found that they both love to fly, thankgoodness.  We have also found that Hannah definitely gets car-sick, and it's something we hope she grows out of...we'll see.

Take a sneak peek at our comings and goings, day-by-day:

Sunday

The first thing we did was to head to Comic Con - the convention happened to be having its last day, and Brad wanted to take Jack to see the super heroes.  Comic Con was different than we expected - while we did see a few people in costumes, there weren't nearly as many as we'd hoped, and we didn't see any t-shirt vendors for Jack's favorite super heroes.

Small side story - while walking through the hotel to get to the Comic Con Convention, Jack announced, "I think I smell animal feces."  We thought this was rather hilarious, and also spot on because it definitely smelled like horse manure.  I think there was actually a barn exhibit going on as well...

This also prompted Jack to say, "We're looking for super heroes, not cowboys!"

After the convention, we grabbed a buffet lunch at the hotel, and then traveled to The Shark Reef exhibit at Mandalay Bay.  It was a beautiful aquarium, and we got lucky because it wasn't crowded at all.  Jack and Hannah loved the touch and feel manta ray tank the best, but I was too busy making sure nobody went swimming to take any pictures.  I did grab this picture of the jellies:

Sunday night we walked on the strip and got to see the Fountains at Bellagio.  Jack also had his picture taken with some show girls - he thought they were so pretty!

Monday

On Monday, we headed to The Venetian in the morning and then went to Siegfried and Roy's Secret Garden exhibit at The Mirage that afternoon.  Those were probably my favorites from the trip - The Venetian is just amazing inside and the animals at the exhibit were beautiful (and awake and walking around, despite the heat)!

 {Hannah was mesmerized as our Gondola driver sang "You Are My Sunshine" to her, at our request}

{We were so close for the dolphin training exhibit}

Monday night, Grandma and Grandpa kept the littles at the hotel so Brad and I could go out for a little bit.  We went to see the Las Vegas sign, drove by ATM, the company from the show "Tanked," went to buy cowboy boots, and went to the pawn shop from "Pawn Stars."  We finally had dinner at The Bellagio before heading back to find the little lovelies all tucked in together:)

The next day, we traveled to the Grand Canyon, and that my friends, deserves its own post.