CA Family Road Trip: Las Vegas

Better late than never, right?

We left for California about a month ago on September 13th! We were so excited for our first vacation as a family of three!

First stop: LAS VEGAS! This is how Charlie looked about a third of the time during our car rides. It was heavenly:

When we got into town, we visited the Aquarium at Mandalay Bay casino and had a lot of fun looking at fish, jellyfish, and most importantly SHARKS! :) We are pretty scary, huh? Almost as scary as the real thing!

 Look Dada! A fish! (Bad quality photo courtesy of poor lighting and an iPhone haha):

Afterwards we cruised the Strip to see all the lights. Charlie was fascinated :)

The next morning we ate breakfast at the Peppermill, a delicious restaurant about a block from the Las Vegas Hotel that we stayed in. It was SO good! Trev knew about this place from back in the days when he used to own part of a parking enforcement company in Vegas and they patrolled this lot. I took a picture of our souvenir picture. :)

After breakfast we had some extra time so we toured some of the big casinos on the Strip. This was a huge sports room inside Caesar's Palace where there were TONS of men (and about 2 women) gathered to eat, drink, and place bets on the day's sports games. I thought it was pretty entertaining. The things that men do with sports... it cracks me up :)

The Bellagio. We were there too early for the fountain shows.

My two good looking men walking down the streets of... Paris? Nope. Fooled you. Still Las Vegas ;)

Strolling along. Oddly enough, this picture makes downtown Las Vegas look like a nice place. But it was hot, smelly, and dirty... As you would expect.

Inside the Cosmopolitan. I hadn't ever seen this hotel before since it's really new.

Within minutes of getting on the highway to continue on to Los Angeles/Anaheim, Charlie looked like this again:

More of our adventures to come!! :) Stay tuned.

Picking Pumpkins

This past Saturday our little family took a short drive to a local pumpkin patch in Eagle Mountain. I had heard about it through the community newsletter and since it was close, we decided to give it a try. Upon arrival, we were a little surprised at how few pumpkins they had... but then we realized that the pumpkins were FREE and they were asking for donations to a charity. Score!! So we walked around a bit, snapped some photos, and found our perfect pumpkins despite the slim pickings!

Charlie's trying to make the perfect pumpkin selection:

I called this one a zombie pumpkin because it was all deformed... or it looked like a zombie was chewing on it last night! ;) (Oh, and this is a straight out of camera picture! It was too pretty on its own to edit!):

He also made friends with a scarecrow, and definitely gave Trev a hard time when it was time to leave. He was having too much fun!

Until next year, little buddy!

Family Fall Drive

This year's drive was taken on the last Sunday in September (the 29th). We always try to time it perfectly, but this year it was tricky. We had recently seen trees on the mountains turn red, but hadn't seen many changes in the valley yet. We couldn't decide if we were too early or too late. It turns out that we were a little of both. The reds in the mountains, for the most part, had already turned and fallen... but many of the yellows, including the aspens, hadn't even started turning yet! Apparently the less-than-ideal conditions this year were caused by a drier summer and also a sudden, early snow in the mountains. Regardless, I took some pictures of the most colorful areas as well as the aspens, even though they are still green! :)

The aspens (my favorite!):

Charlie thoroughly enjoyed the twisty ride through the Alpine Loop! He decided to serenade us the whole time with his rendition of the ABC Song as well as other made up songs. I just love his little singing voice! Video to come :)