Family Trip to Las Vegas

Our good friends from London flew into Las Vegas last week.  We decided to visit them there when they arrived.  This would be our first family trip to Vegas!  It's a 6-hr trips so as usual, both Graham and Charlie have DVD time and tablet time:

I don't think the road to Vegas could get any straighter!

A little bit of rain as well:

Boys are getting used to taking their backpacks along on every road trip now.  But yikes... an alarm clock and stuffed animals??!

Graham brought his alarm clock/night-lite too!

We have NO IDEA what this is... some sort of stacked colorful rocks???!   I am just looking this up online and it's called the Seven Magic Mountains and it cost $3.5 million to make.  WOAH!!! It was created by a Swiss artist named Ugo Rondinone:

Okay, back to civilization.  Laaaaaas Vegas!

We had to find a drugstore as I had forgotten to pack Graham's allergy medicine, so we went cruising along the Las Vegas Strip.  We will be staying here tonight - the Luxor:

Definitely lots to see along this street:

There is actually an elevator in that Coca-cola bottle:

Eiffel tower!  No, honey - this does not count for the real thing in Paris!

We didn't get a chance to walk to the Bellagio so this was as close as we got to the water fountain.  Charlie was definitely impressed!

On the way back after the drug store, we found Bobby's Burger Place - just beneath the Waldorf Astoria!  Must be a fancy burger joint :-)

When we finally get to the Luxor, we were astounded by the check-in line.  Are you kidding me??!!

Thankfully the line went by pretty quickly.  We met the Punchers for dinner at their side of the hotel.  The boys haven't missed a beat with Izzy even after all this time!

Graham is keeping busy with his new "roulette" fidget spinner.  Only in Vegas!

Food was yummy!  And looked pretty too.  I had risotto with shrimp. Delish!  Did you know the plural for shrimp is also shrimp?  Similarly to fish... and sheep...!

Like I said, the boys haven't missed a beat since the Puncher's visit last summer:

After dinner, we were debating about going back to the room or heading over to the next hotel (The Excalibur) to catch the 4D movies.  We had purchased a package of 3 attractions for $57 and with only 2 nights in Vegas, we figured we might as well take the opportunity:

There were four short 4D clips.  We started off with San Adreas, then Superman, and then Lego Movie and finally, our favorite was Journey 2.  The people sitting behind us had quite the scare when a huge centipede appeared in the movie and at the same time, a piece of cable went twirling beneath our seat, hitting our feet.  LOL!

It's past 9:30pm and we wander back to our hotel.  The Titanic exhibit is here so we will do that before we leave as well:

The next morning, Daddy is taking care of some business.  He is starting a new job! His 3rd company in less than 2 years... always looking for the next best thing :-)

Unfortunately, this hallway to the elevator is not helping for those afraid of heights.  Let's not mention any names:

We head over to meet the Punchers again over by Mandalay bay.  Pretty wall art:

And check out this cute poodle, which is all made up with crayons!

The pool by Mandalay hotel is PACKED!!! 

Graham and Charlie were not allowed to go to the wave pool without an adult, so they decided to just float along the swallow side and waited for the wave to come.  Too cute!

After lunch by the pool, we head up to the Puncher's room at the Four Seasons.  The view from up here is spectacular!

And here is the storm that is heading out way, hence the shorter pool time:

We clean up and head over to Shark Reef Aquarium at Mandalay:

Graham and Charlie love this stuff! And Daddy too!  Check out how big this fish is.  YIKES!

And yes, I still love taking photos of jelly fish :-)

We always have to spend time at the touch tank:

The shark tank was quite neat:

Sharks just look so mean!

The Saw-shark has got to be the most interesting looking one!

Speaking of interesting... this is a 4-storey wine elevator located in a restaurant (between Luxor and Mandalay hotel).  I just saw a video on YouTube where the wine stewards or "wine angels" as they are called - are dangled from wire cables to fetch the bottles of wine.  Very interesting...

In the meantime, we keep it pretty civil on the ground level:

Okay, so to be fair, I told Charlie to stick his finger up the Pharaoh's nose :-P

As if we haven't had enough for the day, Daddy decides to take the boys back to the pool:

Pool by Luxor is so busy too!

After an hour, it's time to head back to the room.  It's tub time!!!

We did get the slightly bigger room and who knew it actually came with this huge bath tub in the bedroom.  Graham and Charlie definitely enjoyed it!

Not sure if you can see it, but there is a rainbow in the distance:

We are off to dinner at the Chinese restaurant.  Charlie made sure he combed his hair really nicely and oh look, Ben introduced him to deep fried soft shell crab:

Thankfully Graham keeps it simple with just sliced avocados.  Looks how pretty it the avocado flower is:

I can't remember what the dessert is now... some sort of cheesecake.  But the boys are more interested in pouring water into the dry ice and watching the gas rise.  This kept Graham and Charlie busy for a few more minutes while the adults continued to chit chat and digest:

Of course, once the dry ice was done, the boys started becoming more like monkeys again:

And Graham even escaped out of the restaurant and kept asking to buy a set of ear-phones from the Best Buy kiosk:

If you are wondering, Graham did not get his way.  The next day... it's our last day in Vegas.  We splurge on crepe fore breakfast.  PS, food is super expensive in the hotel!

We head over to our last exhibit of the trip - the Titanic.  What a great exhibit!  We were not allowed to take any photos but definitely came away with lasting visions.  We did purchase this one photo from the Gift Shop.  There was a real piece of the Titanic that was recovered and it was amazing to see how this tiny piece was just so massive in real person!

It is finally time to leave.  While we are waiting for our minivan, we take one last photo.  It is HOT outside!!! And I realized then that we had not even stepped out of the hotel at all within the last few days.  We have been going in between hotels via indoor hallways.  Talk about trapping the gamblers in the casinos. LOL!!!

These solar-powered plants during the drive is quite the sight to see.  Sun-tracking mirrors are all aligned to the 3 towers, which you can see shining brightly in the distance:

I can't imagine how hot that tower is!  And unfortunately, it seems that many birds and bats have been killed or injured either by colliding into the mirrors or burning in the solar flux.  Ouch!!!

The Punchers actually rented a car and drove into LA for a few days.  Ben was in charge of dinner and BBQ one night:

And PS,... look how much the market price for softshell crabs are... $49.99 per lb!!!

We were so house-proud to be able to host dinner.  Thank you to the Punchers for coming to visit!  We miss you all already :-)