Our trip

I don't even know where to begin....

It was a busy few days but our trip was a lot of fun. We flew in and out of Las Vegas but spent a few days down in Needles, CA at a house my parents have rented for six weeks.

Friday night we boarded our flight to Las Vegas. The flight left about 35 minutes late due to some wind delays encountered by the incoming flight. It was super windy on Friday evening and the flight was coming from JFK airport in NYC so I don't know if the wind issues were on the New York end or our end but since they turned the plane around and got us out pretty quickly I think it was a delay on the NYC end of the flight.

Despite some issues with our seating reservations earlier in the week Lincoln and I really lucked out and managed to have two complete rows for the four of us. Lincoln and Jake had three seats to themselves on one side of the aisle and Hannah and I had three seats on the other side of the aisle. The plane was pretty full and there were less than 5 empty seats on the entire plane so how we managed to get two full rows to ourselves was a little JetBlue miracle. Our flight left about 7:45 p.m. and the kids sat and watched TV in their seats for a little while and then Hannah went to sleep around 9 p.m. and Jake a little while later. The flight was fairly smooth and even though Lincoln and I didn't get much sleep it was an okay flight. We actually were both dozing off about halfway through the flight when all of a sudden a man who was walking down the aisle passed out and hit the floor right between our seats. Apparently he was overly dehydrated and got light headed and fainted. He was a big guy though and they were afraid he had hit his head on the way down. Luckily there was both a doctor and a nurse on the flight and they took good care of him. Even though he was fine they had medics take him off the plane to check him out before they let everyone else get off the plane in Las Vegas.

Our flight got into Las Vegas somewhere around 11:00/11:15 p.m. local time. By the time we got all of us off the plane, did a potty break for everyone, and took the tram to baggage claim our bags were waiting for us. They were actually being collected off the belt by the airline since they were the only bags left by the time we got down there. After we collected our bags we tried to find the hotel shuttle stop but couldn't find it. I called the hotel and they said that the next shuttle wouldn't leave the airport until midnight. Since it was only 11:35 p.m. (which was 2:35 a.m. for our bodies) we decided we'd take a taxi instead since it was so late. By the time we got through the taxi line at the airport it was about 11:55 p.m. so we didn't save much time but at least we felt productive. The kids were doing great and pulling their own bags. Despite being young kids they are great travelers and despite long flights and crazy hours they always hang in there with us and very rarely complain. Considering how much they complain at other times I find this to be a miracle every time we travel.

The first night we stayed at the Doubletree out by the airport. It wasn't anything fancy but it certainly served its purpose. By the time we got to the hotel, got the kids in fresh pajamas, and everybody in bed it was about 1 a.m. Unfortunately that doesn't mean the kids (or the adults) got to sleep in late on Saturday and we were all up by about 5:30 a.m.

My sister Debbie and her husband Mark were flying in on Saturday morning around 10:30 a.m. and we were going to meet up with them and head down to Needles together in order to save on the rental car situation. Since we were all awake so early, and we had so much time to kill, we decided to head out to the Strip to get breakfast with the kids. We took a taxi to the Paris hotel ($25) to eat at their breakfast buffet ($59) and then walked down the Strip before ending at the Venetian and taking a gondola ride ($74) and heading back via taxi to the hotel to meet Debbie and Mark ($25). Basically breakfast in Vegas cost us $183 so it was a good thing we were heading down to Mom and Dad's for the rest of the weekend. At that point we'd pretty much spent our entire vacation budget.

After heading back to the hotel to meet up with Debbie and Mark we headed down to Needles which is about an hour and a half away. It's a pretty rundown little town but the house that Mom and Dad rented was very nice. Grandma B is staying down there with them and the kids haven't seen her in quite awhile so I was really glad they got to spend time with her. It's great that they're going to be old enough (especially Hannah) to remember spending time with their great-grandmother. She's 95 years old and hopefully she'll hang in there for a few more years. She has already selected where we're going on vacation if she reaches 100 years old.

Saturday afternoon we didn't do too much but we went out to dinner at a Mexican restaurant in Bullhead City, AZ. The really freaky thing about the area that Mom and Dad are in is the fact that they're across the river (about a mile or so from their rental house) from Arizona and the time is an hour later in Arizona than it is in California because Arizona doesn't change with Daylight Savings. It definitely can make things a little confusing.

Saturday night Mom and Dad took the kids to a local hotel since the rental house isn't big enough to sleep all 9 of us and to take the kids swimming but unfortunately the hotel pool had been drained for repairs. Lincoln, Debbie, Mark, and I all crashed pretty early that night (well before 8:30 p.m.) and it sounds like the kids outlasted us by hanging with Grandma and Grandpa at the hotel.

Sunday we got up and took the kids to Oatman, AZ. Oatman is a ghost town where there are burros walking up and down the street and you can feed them carrots. There are also staged shoot-outs in the street which are pretty interesting. The kids had a good time and we spent a few hours hanging out in Oatman before hitting Route 66 and heading down towards Lake Havasu, AZ. Lake Havasu is where Grandma and Grandpa B used to live during the winter before Grandpa started to go WAY downhill health-wise and needed to be moved into a home back in Minnesota. I really like Lake Havasu and I would love it if Mom and Dad decided to move down there themselves. It's a great little town that isn't too big but also not too small. We got there just in time for dinner (the only lunch we had was ice cream in Oatman) and went to the Mudshark Brewery for dinner. The food was delicious and the beer was too. It was also Debbie's birthday that day (she's 29....again) so they brought out a dessert for us to share as well. After dinner we headed over to a small traveling carnival and the kids got to go on a few rides before we walked down to London Bridge and then headed back to Needles. Mom and Dad were going to switch hotels and stay down in Lake Havasu at the only hotel with an indoor pool but it turns out it wasn't heated for some reason. It was too cold so Mom and Dad took the kids back to the hotel in Needles and Debbie, Lincoln, Mark, and I headed back to the house to watch the Amazing Race (my favorite show) and have a few beers. Debbie and Lincoln went to bed fairly early but Mark and I stayed up playing cards. We started our playing a drinking game called Drunk Driver but quickly decided we'd end up dead if we continued so we switched to Blackjack instead. I've never really played Blackjack before so Mark was teaching me. We started playing with honey roasted peanuts and I'm happy to say that I started with 30 peanuts but walked away with 64. Woohoo! It was my most successful gambling of the weekend. The only other gambling I did was putting $8 in slot machines and losing it all in less than 2 minutes on the last day. Needless to say....I'm not a gambler. I suck at it. Even at the slot machines.

Monday morning Mom, and later Lincoln, took the kids down to the Colorado River to play on the beach. After Lincoln took over kid duty at the beach Mom, Debbie, Mark, and Dad headed into Bullhead City to do some shopping and I sat out on the deck overlooking the golf course and read my book. It was 80+ degrees and it felt wonderful to be out in the sun - especially since I knew Boston was getting 15+ inches of snow that day.

Monday afternoon we all headed into Las Vegas and checked in at the Golden Nugget down on Fremont Street. The hotel has been renovated in the past few years and was very nice. I like being down on Fremont Street as it's not quite as chaotic as being on the Strip and is much easier to walk around. After a fairly lackluster dinner at the buffet at the Golden Nugget Dad headed out to gamble, Mom and the kids went back to the hotel room, and Debbie, Mark, Lincoln, and I headed out to Fremont Street to see the light show. We walked around a bit, watched some cool artists paint really neat pictures of Las Vegas, and then I crapped out and headed back to the room. The other three went on to drink and gamble but I was still worn out from the night before and my wild night of gambling with peanuts and a 12-pack of Corona.

Tuesday was a beautiful day and we finally got to take the kids to a pool. The Golden Nugget has a fantastic little pool area which has a large shark tank in the middle and a water slide that goes right through it. It also has a bar which made the grown-ups happy. Even though the air was a bit cool when the breeze kicked up it was a pretty nice day and the pool was heated. Mom, Lincoln and Mark got in with the kids and played for quite awhile. Mark was in the pool with the kids for almost the entire three hours and they had a great time climbing all over him and splashing around. Mark took some awesome pictures with his underwater camera and I can't wait to post some of them up here on the website. After three hours and a little bit of sunburn on some of us we headed back to change for lunch. After a light lunch of Subway the kids headed back to the room with Grandma and Grandpa for a nap, the boys (Lincoln and Mark) went to gamble and the girls (me and Deb) headed to the spa. That was just what I needed! After the spa we all went for a very nice dinner at the Grotto inside the Golden Nugget. After dinner we all headed out to Fremont Street for awhile to show the kids the light show and do a little shopping. After that we headed up to the room to finish packing and headed out to the airport. Lincoln and the kids and I were flying out on Tuesday night and Mom, Dad, Debbie and Mark were all heading out on Wednesday.

Tuesday night we took the red-eye flight home and left Las Vegas on an 11:15 p.m. flight. It was a fast flight (4 hours and 15 minutes) and we touched down in Boston at about 6:40 a.m. local time the next morning. The kids slept through the entire flight and both Lincoln and I got a little bit of sleep as well. Luckily there were no medical dramas this time to keep us awake. Jake and Hannah headed over to Grandma and Grandpa Snow's for the day and Lincoln actually headed to work but I went home and crashed. I took a 6 hour nap and still felt groggy. Today we're all back at work and school and all I can say is thank God tomorrow is Friday. I must be getting old because these trips are getting harder and harder to recover from.