Under the Lemon Tree: Thanksgiving in Vegas

This adventure actually started Tuesday after school. While the boys were finishing up their day, Phil and I were packing up the car so that we could head out directly from school.

Moonrise on 580E.

We stayed the night in the super cute town of Tehachapi, CA. In the morning it started to snow!

It was sticking on the grass and dirt, but the roads stayed clear. The snow/rain did get pretty heavy for part of our drive, but then we arrived at Panamint Valley and it was instantly dry and barren. It wasn't even a gradual change, but very abrupt.

Instead of continuing on to our final destination, we decided to detour to Death Valley. The mountains on the way were very pretty.

And the valley itself was very flat. We were actually below sea level while in the valley.

We stopped in at the Death Valley visitor center and the kids earned a Death Valley Junior Ranger badge.

Our first glimpse of Las Vegas. So close, but still so far away.

We finally made it Vegas, checked into Luxor and met up with Aunt Leslie and Ryan. Everyone was very hungry so we headed straight to dinner. Mady really loved the ceiling to floor crystal beads surrounding this bar.

After dinner we walked around a little bit before trying to get a good night sleep before the next day's adventure.

For breakfast we headed to Cinnabon for delicious cinnamon rolls and then began to wander along the Strip. With 4 kids, we definitely had to stop at the Hershey's store!

As we were walking around one of the many fancy shopping centers and discovered a free tram service that would get us closer to the Flamingo Gardens. As we walked through the Bellagio, we came across the Conservatory, which was styled for Fall. Mady wasn't in the mood for pictures, even though Alex and Ryan were being cooperative. There was also a floor to ceiling, 3 flavor chocolate fountain!

Outside again we were just in time to watch the test show at the fountains. The mist was so thick we ended up a little bit wet! But it was fun and we saw this beautiful rainbow during the show.

Our goal was the Flamingo Wildlife Habitat. We saw the flamingoes, many ducks, huge koi fish and a beautiful black swan. Mady finally smiled for a picture too. There was a small fake grass hill that all of the kids had fun rolling down in this area too.

For Thanksgiving dinner we got to go to the Tournament of Kings Holiday Show! We weren't allowed to take pictures during the show but it was a lot of fun. Before the show Mady and Phil walked down to the edge of the arena to see the horses and dancers. One of the dancers gave Mady a pin. Because it was the holiday show, the pre-tournament entertainment included an audience participation, re-styled version of 12 Days of Christmas. And at the end, Merlin gave us the gift of snow. (Zachy, Ryan, Mady, and Alex colored their glasses this morning before we headed out for the day. They all did a fabulous job!)

We were representing Spain during the show and even though Spain didn't win the tournament, our Handsome Knight, Sir Derek posed for pictures with the kids. Sir Derek's horse was Osiris.

We spent some time at the arcade after the show. Alex and Zachy became hooked on skee-ball. Mady found her spot in the little kid arcade and tried out some of the rides. There was also a claw machine that was only $1 and you played until you won. Mady took quite a few tries, but she won a cute flower.

Friday was Hoover Dam Day!

We all drove out to Hoover Dam and then Phil, Leslie, Ryan, Alex and Zachy went on the power plant tour and since Mady was too young, she and I stayed up top and explored the outdoor exhibits.

Larger than life dam worker:

It is a long way down:

We walked across the dam and back again. Mady couldn't decide which state she wanted to be in:

Winged Statues, legend has it you need to rub their toes for luck:

Mady really enjoyed running around on the Zodiac compass:

And some pictures from the tour:

After the tour, Mady took the boys to the state line:

And we took our one and only group picture with the Arizona spillway in the background:

We learned that the day after Thanksgiving is the busiest tourist day of the year at Hoover Dam. That's crazy!

After returning to the hotel for a quick dinner, we headed out to watch the volcano at Mirage. We arrived just in time for the show, so we didn't have a great position for pictures. But, we did get this fun picture.

Saturday was our last full day and we decided to take the monorail all the way down to the Circus Circus AdventureDome. It was a pretty chaotic, and the rides were really out of the comfort zone of our kids. But Ryan was having a great time riding the roller coasters so we left him and Leslie to play and we wandered back to the hotel. Along the way we found Elvis.

One of our other stops was the Coca-Cola store where we tried sodas from around the world. Most of them were fruity, a couple were pretty good, and one was so bad it made us all wish for any other flavor. Tucked away in a corner, posing for pictures was the Coca-Cola Polar Bear. Mady didn't want a picture, but she did want lots of hugs from the polar bear. She noticed a rack of t-shirts with the bear on them and ran over to the shirts and held it out for the polar bear to see and kept yelling "It's you! See? It's you!"

We even rode on Santa's motorcycle driven sleigh!

Last stop before heading home, the gift shop for casino dice and one last photo op.

We expected there to be heavy traffic on the Sunday after Thanksgiving, but we didn't expect the traffic we encountered. We left around 10am, didn't get out of Nevada until after noon, and weren't home until nearly midnight. At one point we considered stopping for the night, but we kept at it. Even with the late night, the boys were ready for school without trouble in the morning.

In the middle of all of the traffic, we hit 100,000 miles. We had been hoping to celebrate with a quick run around the car, but with the messy driving conditions we settled for dancing in our seats.