her Vegas Vacation was splendid!

Yet again I've abandoned my blog for a little too long. My few followers may just have a heart attack to see that I've posted again, but The Mister and I just returned from a trip I just have to share. We've had this trip planned for quite some time now and as the days, weeks, even months slinked by our trip plans came together and we were SO excited to get away with one of our favorite couples to be with, Brett and Ali. Last Thursday once we were done with school for the day and had packed up the car we drove down to Vegas with Ali in tow. We met Brett down there as he was coming from California. That evening we had a lovely dinner at an Italian restaurant and I couldn't help but think of what Anziano Green would think of this place. We returned to our hotel for the evening and prepared for the following day. The boys would go golfing and the girls would have a morning/afternoon by the pool. It was a million degrees that day and the whole weekend had me wondering how I ever lived in Palm Springs during the summers. Later that afternoon we went to the Las Vegas Temple and got to perform some beautiful ordinances together as a family. 

That evening we had a fun dinner at Dick's Last Resort which, if any of you know, is quite the experience. We walked around the strip that evening admiring the lights and the interesting people. The sun had worn us out and our poor feet were already quite tired so we retired to our hotel knowing the next day full of adventures would need all the energy we could muster.

Brett found these awesome passes that we paid $172 per couple for and enabled us to do all kinds of fun things! It was going to be a marathon of fun and savings. The day began and we were up and at em' and at the Zoo by 9am. We saw birds, snakes, lions, an ape, ostriches, peacocks, and alligators. 

From there we went to the Mini Grand Prix track and raced Go-Karts, had a snack, and played in the arcade. I ended up hitting jackpot two times in a row on this little game and we decided to give all our tickets to these two little boys. They were SOOO excited. 

From there we went to the Las Vegas Springs Preserve and saw some pretty awesome bathrooms, a flash flood simulation, and ways cities in the desert save energy and survive. It would have been a pretty cool place to go on a field trip back in the day. 

We were excited to get indoors and got to then play some indoor mini golf. I got a hole in one on the first hole and was pretty darn excited about it! 

After that we headed for Fremont Street and went to the Mob Museum. Learning about organized crime and the police's struggle taking back Vegas in particular was pretty interesting. We even had our pictures taken in a line up. Who did it? We'll never really know ;) 

Once we finished there we went right over to go zip lining down Fremont. We had all been before in various places but it was fun to go down all at the same time! 

Next, we headed back over to the main strip and went to the Mirage to the Secret Gardens to see the dolphins and the White Tigers. I fell a little more in love with dolphins and hope to swim with them someday soon. 

From there we went across the road to Madame Tussauds Wax Museum and got to see some incredible wax figurines that looked SOO real! 

Once we had our wax fix, we made our way to the MGM Grand for the CSI Experience. We totally solved a crime and it was super cool to go through the process and be completely hands on. 

We then went to the Monet Exhibit at the Bellagio and felt very cultured after going around and learning more about his technique, influences, and even picking our own favorites of his work. No picture for this one, sorry, but It was pretty interesting. 

We headed to New York, New York for the roller coaster and were moving quite a bit slower than we had been earlier in the day. It was fun to ride it at night and see all the lights of the city. Again no picture of this one, but we had a blast. We went back to the Planet Hollywood restaurant in the Ceasar's Palace Forum Shops. There we filled our empty belly's with yummy food and even got $40 off our total dinner for the four of us thanks to our passes. 

To finish off the day we went over to Paris and made our way up the Eiffel Tower. It was a gorgeous view of the city and the breeze at the top felt good on our sun kissed skin. 

We stumbled our way back to our hotel and pretty much crashed right away. Seeing how it was one in the morning by this point! Throughout the day we had done $425 worth of activities per couple and only paid $172. It was incredible and I know we'll never forget it. The next morning we checked out, had a nice breakfast, and took a few more pictures at the Welcome to Vegas sign before bidding both Brett and Vegas adieu and making our way back to Provo. We'll be planning many more trips with Brett and Ali FOR SURE! Back to real life for a little while, but this trips memories will be lingering for quite some time! :)