Vegas Vacation 2010

I'm gonna go out on a limb and say that this year's road trip vacation was the best one ever. (Now next year's will be an unmitigated disaster, I've jinxed it for sure.) After last year I swore I was never taking my demon-spawn on another vacation. Ever. They bickered constantly, talked back, and were generally awful. It was WAY worse than the year before when Thing 1 had a broken leg! I don't know if it's the year's worth of maturing or just all the valium I snuck into their food but this year they were WONDERFUL!

They goofed around with each other instead of fighting, were attentive and helpful to their Great-Grandmother, were polite to Grandpa, Grandmonster and all their friends, and followed the house rules beautifully. (Except Daughter who was caught EATING UPSTAIRS and made to perform penance at the feet of her Grandmonster or else face certain and utter doom.)

I took the Things to Gameworks on the strip where they happily made faces for my iPhone camera. It was lovely - they ran around like loons playing video games while I sat in the restaurant with a succession of $2 beers and made out with my new Kindle.

Then we went to the M&M's store next door. Have you ever been to Toys 'R Us on Christmas Eve? Neither have I but the M&M's store was a pretty close approximation to what I would image such an experience would be. It was INSANE! I wanted to yell at everyone "They're M&M's! You can buy them at the damn drugstore down the street for a tiny fraction of the cost here! Why are you losing your minds?"

This is totally out of chronological order due to Blogger's weird picture rearranging habits.

When we arrived in Vegas, Dad had just arrived home from work and turned on the waterfall and lights in the pool. It took the Things approximately four nanoseconds to change into their swimsuits and jump in. They spent hours in it every day and are cleaner than they have ever been in their entire lives.

This was taken at a rest stop in Eastern Washington. Grandmother did amazingly well for a 94 year old on a 1200 mile road trip. She's absolutely NO company for me in the car - she slept almost the whole way - but she had a great time. The kids took really good care of her - opening doors, getting her cane, making sure she drank enough water - and I am so glad they have the memories of this trip with her. As much as I complain about the old fossil, I love her dearly and was happy to have her join us!

And I spent a large amount of my time like this...

Amazingly I didn't get super sunburned. There was one day that I turned pretty pink but compared to Sunburns I Have Had it was not even in the top twenty-five. The weather was perfect. For me that is. 100+ degrees every day. Vegas does have a weird habit of getting very very windy in the evenings. Dad explained it to me - something about cooling air, rising warm air, weather patterns, zzzz - but I didn't quite get it. Of course my non-understanding had NOTHING to do with the margaritas Stepmonster and I were imbibing. Ahem.

I have a few more pics so will follow up soon. But right now I have to unpack, do my laundry, and re-pack for a road trip to Berkeley with Marvelous Mom. We leave tomorrow.

Yikes!