For Christmas, Lisa and I got Jim and Joe hockey tickets, so we were finally able to cash them in this weekend.
When I say we "got" hockey tickets, I mean Lisa's brother hooked us up with some free seats two rows up, right behind the glass.
So Thursday when we showed up at the airport, I knew that Joe and Lisa would be on our flight, but the kids didn't know. I watched Evan's face when he saw J and L walk into the airport. He went from recognition, to confusion, to excitement in one second. It was such a clashing of worlds that took him a minute to register what he was seeing. ha.
Then we made ourselves comfortable in the crew area. Jim went and talked to a fellow pilot, so we set up camp there, and soon we were just in a sea of crew folk.
On the flight, Evan badly wanted to see Mt Rainier, so I said "keep an eye out",
and then about a half hour later, she floated by in a sea of clouds. It's such an amazing sight.
Meanwhile, all the people around us have their windows shut, staring at their stupid devices.
We drove half way to St. George and handed the children to G and G Larsen, trying to fit in an explanation of how I will never be able to thank them enough for this three day kid free vacation, but it was windy and cold so the hand off was quick.
Then we were back in Vegas hanging out until 2am every night with our best friends.
So much good food was consumed. So many morning hours were slept in.
We ate at Bobby Flay's burger palace - my personal favorite meal of all.
Every night we had a shake at Shake Shack - including a post hockey game meet up with the Kelvingtons.
Midnight Pizza.
Late night Outback.
Steak digesting in our stomachs all night as we try to sleep.
That is the summary, but there are a few things I'd like to itemize:
First things first: go put your luggage away and check out the room.
At the elevators, that thing happened where an elevator door was about to shut, but since we pushed the "up" button, it reopened. We hurried in to elevator #5, and I felt bad for holding up the elevator patron. He was a weathered Mexican looking man. We avoided eye contact like you do on an elevator, etc etc...
Then we went out and ate food and talked and made our initiatory stop at Shake Shack and talked some more until about 1am when we headed back to the elevators to head up to our room.
And that same awkward elevator thing happened: we pushed the button, elevator #5 doors that were almost closing opened back up...and again I felt bad that we were holding up the elevator patron....and we got inside the elevator...and THE SAME WEATHERED MEXICAN was riding the same elevator up! It happened twice in a few hours! Isn't that kind of insane? I thought it was insane.
The next day we slept in and in and in because the blackout curtains made it so that morning was whenever I wanted it to be morning.
We ate the best Bobby Flay burgers, then wandered around...literally just wandered around.
Talked to the Omega watch guy, sat around in the Sarah Jessica Parker shoe store, argued about whether she is pretty or not (I say she is beautiful! Actually I have a crush on her...),
guessed the locations of the landscapes in an art store...
Wandering around is a luxury you can't afford with children.
Then before the game started, the boys went and gambled and us gals went up to my room so I could brush my teeth. Then we talked and talked while staring out my window.
We watched the sun go down and the sky go pink and the crowd get bigger and pre-game excitement grow.
It was almost game time, so we went to find the boys...
and found them losing?winning? at blackjack.
photo bomb
So, the hockey game...was so fun.
The beginning warm up was my favorite. So loud and exciting watching them all out there hitting all the pucks - so close you could see their facial hair.
After the first period, Jamie and Andy came down and visited us.
PS Jamie by complete coincidence got these exact same hockey tickets as a Christmas present for Andy!
Awesome right? Right.
Joe pointed out how much my sister looks like Jim's sister (Sharley) and I was like, "yeah! they do!". I had never noticed before.
As she was walking down the stairs, he said, "wait, is that your sister or Jim's sister?" ha.
So much fun. We met up for some Shake Shack, of course, then talked and Andy told stories of his nights on the strip, and then they had to go because their cop friend slash uber ride was there to take them to their car at the police station.
We continued on into the night and got pizza at midnight from a "secret" pizza restaurant.
We were standing in line, trying to keep our eyes open, and Lisa said "I think this may have been a bad idea."
That cracked me up because we are just not used to feeding our bodies this kind of crap at this kind of hour.
The weird thing is...no one else around us seems to even notice how late it is. So many people OLDER than us were acting like this is not hard to stay up late and eat massive amounts of unhealthy food.
Vegas is poco loco.
The next day me and Jim drove Red Rock Loop. It was packed with people, so you can't drive it like a race course.
That night Joe and Lisa flew home, and we got hooked up with free tickets to Mystere.
That show blew my mind. How are these people so freakishly strong?
This is a small sample of the acrobatics. I loved it.
We didn't eat hardly all day long, so we went to Outback after the show and ate steak and digested steak all night long.
PS can anyone explain the M&M store to me?
It is 4 floor of merchandise.
A 4 floor gift shop.
I don't get it.
One last night of midnight Shake Shack.
Just because it's tradition. That is really the only reason.
By the third night, I was missing my kids. That's a good feeling.
We went to St. George to retrieve them and go to church and visit with G and G. We got to meet the Funk's new puppy Murphy.
Andrew pronounces it "Nurpy".
And then we were on our way back home.
For some reason my kids took pictures of me in the airport.
This blog post is 80% nonsense.
