Let's go to Vegas!

For the third weekend in a row, I went out of town. This weekend, it was Las Vegas.

Since my parents moved back, I only visit Las Vegas about once a year, usually at Christmastime. However, my youngest brother, Danny, is leaving on his mission to Anchorage, Alaska. For the first time since before my mission, the entire family gathered from Texas, Utah, and California to Las Vegas for the weekend. I think it was the first time we have all been together there since before my mission.

I arrived in Las Vegas on Saturday, Valentine's Day. and immediately met the rest of the family at the Mandalay Bay Shark Reef. For those of you visiting Vegas and trying to find things to do that don't involve legalized gambling, this is a good place to start. We saw sharks, alligators, a sea turtle, and pet rays as they swam by in a shallow pool. I got to be Sammie's buddy and make sure she didn't run away. No easy task. After seeing the jellyfish and the fish that looked like Dory from Finding Nemo, she informed me that she was done. Five times. Fortunately, playing with her is always better than looking at fish, and, by that time, everyone else was done, too.

The good thing about Las Vegas is that, unlike Lubbock, you can find great entertainment here. The bad thing is that it is inevitably connected to a casino, which means that, in order to get six adults (Mel, George, Shane, Maria, Danny, and I) and three kids (Sammie, Kevin, and Brooklyn) from the Shark Reef to our cars, we had to go through three smoky casinos, weaving in and out of rows of slot machines inhabited by people with gray skin and fanny packs, while the men in the family argued over which way we needed to go to get to the parking garage. Sammie, fortunately, was in a stroller that I was pushing. Unfortunately, it was one of those umbrella ones, and as I pushed, she was dragging her feet underneath it until her mother made her stop. We rode a monorail from Mandalay Bay to Excalibur, and almost had a group panic attack trying to maneuver our way off of it through a crush of people. Fortunately, we all made it to the cars safely, although the Parkers and I had to take stairs up one floor to the roof where their car was parked.

We had a great weekend, eating pizza, playing cards, looking at pictures, and sharing our favorite Danny moments. One of the great things about being adult siblings is that we have quite a backlog of stories to embarrass one another with, so as soon as we ran out of Danny stories, Melanee and Shane and I turned on each other. Some teasers include Shane's camping hat, pictures of Danny with every school project he made when our mother was ready to get rid of them, and the realization that Melanee and I have gotten substantially more attractive with age. Those are pictures that will never be posted on this blog. In fact, I think Mel might have thrown them away before I woke up the next morning. But here are some pictures:

Here is Brooklyn, who already has a gift for making adorable faces.

A shot of the man of the hour trying to take a nap while the rest of the family talked. Loudly.

My three favorite Valentines playing together before the Parkers went home on Sunday.

And a pre-haircut shot of Kevin. Sorry, Mel.

Monday, Shane, Maria, Brooklyn, Mom, Dad, and I all went out to Red Rock. I hadn't been there since I was much younger, and it was much farther away from the edge of the city. Now, it seems like it's practically in my parents' backyard. I didn't realize until this trip that it is actually somewhat of a tourist spot. I know there are lots of places in southern Utah where the rocks are red, but it's weird to see them in Las Vegas.

Yes, that is snow in the background. It does occasionally snow in Las Vegas, despite the fairly consistent lack of both moisture and freezing temperatures.

Danny cooked us dinner that night (it was mostly meat) and we went to this trendy yogurt place for dessert, called Tart. 

You probably can't tell this from the picture, but we got our yogurt topped with mochi. It looked like marshmallows, but it was definitely mochi. It's strange that, in this economy, people still have the courage to create a yogurt shop based on four flavors that you can add things to like mochi and cereal. Viva Las Vegas!