Fully Alive…Ready to Smile

I love the first big snow fall of the year. This is the first time Aidan has ever really played in the snow. It was kind of funny, this morning around 10, Ella says “Mommy, it’s snowing, should we go play in the snow?” and I replied “There isn’t really any snow on the ground yet, we’ll wait till there’s more.” Well here they are, 6 hours later, there’s LOTS of snow.

What a wonderful trip. The city is a sight to behold, with not enough time in the day to see all you want to see. Maybe this is why it’s the city that never sleeps. Although I have to admit, we were in bed at 10:20 the first night and by 12:30 the last 2 nights. When you cram every minute with sightseeing, shopping, shows, tours, there is no energy left at the end of the day. It was put profoundly by a friend…”you will be refreshed, but not rested!” Below is my sweet travelling buddy, Janice. She was so wonderful to travel with and we had a great time.


We spent the first day walking down the strip and in and out of every hotel (they are so big that we probably walked 9 miles in the 3 that it took to walk up and back). The second day we were at the Grand Canyon, but more on that later. Wednesday we spent by the pool for an hour (our only down time minus sleeping) and more sight-seeing and shopping. Then in the evening we went to Cirque du Soleil’s “O” at the Bellagio. It was so fabulous, that I recommend everyone to go and see it. I can’t even explain how thrilling it was, but Las Vegas is truly all about the shock factor. Thursday we went to an outlet mall and had planned a bit more sight-seeing, but alas it was Thanksgiving and the traffic was bad. So instead of it taking 10 minutes to get to the mall and 10 minutes back, it took 1 1/2 hours to get there and 1 hour to get back (this time included waiting for the bus). Then in the evening we went to the Tournament of Kings at the Excalibur. This was a really neat show! Jousting, horses, men in tights (who needs the Thunder from Down Under?), pyrotechnics, eating a whole pheasant with our hands…it was fun. Another recommendation by Erin.


So hopefully you’ll enjoy my small repertoire of pictures I’ve posted (I took 170!).

We stayed in a huge pyramid, The Luxor and let me tell you, it was quite the experience. I know everything in Vegas is huge, but this was monstrous.

This is what you first see when you walk into the Luxor’s lobby. There were beautiful statues everywhere in the hotel and it felt so grand. In fact, below are 3 friends I made: )



I think there is a line in a U2 song that says “welcome to a place called vertigo…” and that’s exactly how I felt every time we opened our hotel room door. The pictures above and below were taken from the 22nd floor in the hallway outside our hotel room. Astounding! I’ve never felt so dizzy. To get a feel for how big it really is, look on the upper picture, there is a big black box structure on the left…that’s an imax theatre! To get to our room we had to take what was called an “inclinator. In the four corners of the hotel there are elevators that go up at a 39 degree incline. Thank goodness you can’t see out of them.

There are no words to discribe how I felt standing on the edge of the Grand Canyon…

it was bigger and more amazing than I ever imagined…

I truly felt the wonder of God’s spectacular creation and all I wanted to do was sit and look at it…

I know the experts say that it took millions of years to form from natural forces, but I would love to just believe that God placed it here on Earth for us to be able to see how big he is…

how big his love for us is that He would place such amazing things for us to enjoy!

We spent 16 hours on a journey to and from the Grand Canyon. We were only there for a mere 2 hours out of the 16 hours, but it was worth every minute.

The hugest M&M store ever!!! 5 stories of M&M stuff (and every color of M&M in the rainbow)

The horse is in the entrance to F.A.O. Schwartz, a huge toy store in the Forum Shops in Ceaser’s Palace. The head moves and blows smoke out it’s nostrils. Pretty cool.

The ceiling in the forum shops is so beautiful!

Oh, yes! It was that warm! What a wonderful feeling!!!

Even Christmas in Vegas is on a large scale!

That is chocolate!!! All chocolate!!! Oh, what a wonderful place…

It’s so funny walking down the street and suddenly you wonder where you are…”hmmm, I thought I was in Nevada…” It’s so neat and for those of us who haven’t been to those wonderful places, this is a close second. And you get to see it all in one night. My daughter was in complete awe that I got to see and go inside a castle that for the next hour after I showed her the pictures all we heard was, “Daddy, please can we go to the castle and see all the statues on a trip?”.

I’m sitting in the living room and all of a sudden the lights are going on, off, on, off, on, off… my first instinct is to yell “Ella, stop it!”. So I turn around and the little culprit is standing on the stairs grinning from ear to ear. Not Ella!

They are both my princesses, but isn’t Aidan soooo cute with her little clown face? She had no costume 5 minutes before a costume party and then I remembered the shirt my mom had made her. So I ran and got paint and we made her into a clown. The shirt isn’t actually a clown costume, but it worked. Ella was very proud of her new cinderella dress. she’s been wearing it nonstop since I bought it last week.