Vegas....I will tell you everything I did there, I am not ashamed :)

On Friday August 20.  Mckay, and I rode down to Vegas with Ann and her family to go to our cousin, Brian's wedding.  (Brian wants everyone to know he got married in the Vegas Temple, not on the strip.)  Brian's now wife, Erin is from Henderson, Nevada.  So I was super excited for the opportunity to go to their wedding, and to also get to go see Las Vegas (which is right next to Henderson.)  So when James offered to drive down to the wedding, I was all for it.

I started off the trip by taking UTA up to Ann's house, because I wanted to leave my car in Provo.  It was a fun trip, it took twice as long as driving would, but I could read the whole time, and I was able to ride every form of public transportation Utah has to offer: Bus, Traxs, and Frontrunner, (their new commuter train) It was fun, but I think I will still drive to Ann's house, from now on.

Friday afternoon we all piled into Ann and James van, and set off on our 6 hour trip.  This was our test run for driving out to NC, everyone seemed to fit into the car pretty well, I will let you know in December what it is like traveling with the whole crew for 36 hrs.  They did amazingly well for this trip.

We got to Vegas pretty late, but it was amazing. We were just driving through dark desert when suddenly a city of lights just shows up.   Vegas is really really bright.  We were looking for our hotel in Henderson, but it was fun looking at the Strip from a distance.

The next morning Thomas woke up pretty early and wanted to know when we could go swimming.  So we went down and ate breakfast then went for a long swim in the pool.

After the pool we had 2nd breakfast, because it is Vegas and they still serve breakfast at 10:00 am, then got dressed and went to the temple for the wedding.

The Vegas temple is beautiful with lovely grounds, but it was sooooooo hot.  Luckily the Vegas temple was aware of how hot it was and they had a large waiting area inside the air conditioned temple, where those who were not going to the ceremony could wait.

The ceremony was wonderful.  I know Brian and Erin did not catch very much of it, I just encourage them to go to other people's weddings so they can learn from the wise sealers that always share wonderful insights about the temple.

Here is the happy couple.

As I said, Vegas was soooo hot,  hotter than NC even.   Thomas did not like all of the heat.

So he refused to participate in any picture taking.  While we took the traditional pictures Thomas announced he was going to sit down and wait for us.  Which he did.

After the fun times at the temple all of the Barrows went out to Olive Garden and had lunch.  It was a fun treat, Thanks Uncle Joel and Aunt Elana for a great lunch!

We then all went back to the hotel took a small rest then went to the reception.  Where Erin's brother's Skaw band played.  They were really good.   After they cut the cake, we slipped out of the reception to go down to the Strip!   I really just wanted to drive the strip and go see the Bellagio.

James was a great tour guide and took us down the whole strip.  It was kind of funny trying to explain Vegas to the kids, we would say look there is the Statue of Liberty , but not really,   Look there is the Effel tower, but not really,  look there is the Sphinx, but not really.  I am sure it was really confusing to them.   Here is a picture of the fake Statue of Liberty among other things

We then parked at the Bellagio and tried to get through the hotel with out taking the kids to the Casino, we managed to do it!  I have successfully been to Vegas and never been on the floor of a casino!

We then watched two fountain shows.  It was nice, but my favorite fountain shows are still the ones at Longwood Gardens in PA.   If you ever get a chance to go see their fireworks and fountain's show go, it is amazing.

Thomas was pretty sure he would not like the show so he sat down with his ears covered.  We convinced him to actually watch the show, and he surprisingly did like it.

Here is video of the show.  It is on Mckay's facebook page, so I don't know if the link will work, but we will try. Hmmm it is not working.  I will  work on this.

We went back to the hotel.  Went to sleep, then after church in the morning left to go back home.  It was a nice trip.   And it was nice to see Vegas; if I do go back it will be in October or February.  August is way too hot!