Vegas Baby!

Well I just got back from a pretty awesome vacation to Vegas! It was stinking hot all weekend but it was sure nice to get away and just have some fun!
We left Thursday morning and our first stop was to check out the St. George Temple.


None of us (Levi's brother Blake came with us) were smart enough to bring any church clothes with us so we just walked around the grounds for a little bit....well a really short little bit ...cuz again it was really hot! I love these "old" temples. The "newer" ones are absolutely beautiful of course...but they kindof have this cookie-cutter feel to them...you know. The older ones just seem to have so much work, and love, and dedication or something in them.
Well...the day got hotter so we figure we better get down to Vegas before we all over heat!
It's kinda funny when you first make it out of the bend and can see the the Strip. Your in this vastly empty desert forever it seems and then....BAM....there is this oasis of life. It's really quit neat....that is until you get a little bit closer and have to start closing your eyes for fear of what horrible image may be burned into your brain. The canyon in Arizona that you drive through is probably my favorite. It's is so magnificent. It reminded me of this quote I read @ a cemetery years ago by Abraham Lincoln...goes something like "I cannot conceive how anyone can look into the night sky....and say there is not a God." I have never forgotten that quote. Driving through that beautiful canyon with the Virgin River (I think) and the huge canyon walls just feet away from you that are sky high.....how can you not believe that there is a God who created all of this?

Now Vegas is awesome like I just told you all and don't worry I'll tell you all how cool it is here in a minute...but when you compare the incredible grandeur of the AZ canyon and the beautiful red rock in Southern Utah to the man made superficial life in Vegas....is there really a question on which one is better? What is real and what is fake? What will last and what won't? Get what I mean? Is this making any sense?

Anyways-

Thank heavens for Levi's handy-dandy GPS we pulled of I-15 right to our hotel. We stayed at the Excalibur, which is the hotel that looks like a castle. I mostly picked that one cuz it was cheaper (way cheaper) than the Luxor and the main shows we wanted to see were at the Luxor. Well we found a place to park, check in, got something to eat and decided to check out the town. We were all pretty tired and it was well past 9PM their time (so 10PM our time) but we thought "Hey, Vegas doesn't sleep let's go check it out." We decided to head down to the Bellagio and watch the Fountain Show. Now I went to Vegas when I was about 18 years old and I must have been young and dumb or just plain oblivious or I completely forgot everything...cuz holy cow...the night life in Vegas.....filthy, filthy, filthy! It wasn't just the scary homeless people shoving call-girl porn junk in your face, or the flashing billboards telling you where the coolest strip tease/nude bar was, or the posters and signs everywhere of the next to naked (and very young) girls begging for your attention...but just the regular people you saw walking next to you on the strip. There were the hip cool college guys who had drank way too much and not afraid to tell the whole world of all the cheap action the were so excited to get, or the young skinny little girls in there skin tight, low cut, tube top mini skirt and hooker heels just asking to be taken advantage of.....yet what really blew my mind was the children...who brings children to Vegas? Who brings children to Vegas and brings them out and this horrid hour to witness all of this? And I'm not talking about teenagers or something....I'm talking like 3 yr olds...kids in strollers. I just couldn't believe it. Call me old fashion...but seriously...what are these parent's thinking? Well...I held fast to Levi and we eventually got to the Bellagio and the water show was super cool and then we headed into the Bellagio and went and saw the Bellagio Conservatory (all free of course) and then said we have had enough of this night life and headed back to the hotel and went to bed. I was kinda hoping to show Levi the "Fremont Street Experience" but we all unanimously decided to avoid Vegas at night....just wasn't worth it.

Friday was a super fun day. The big event of the day was the Bodies Exhibit. This is the whole reason I planned this trip to Vegas ....was to see this. (check it out here http://www.bodiestheexhibition.com/). So so so neat!! Also the fact that Blake is a med student...he was able to explain alot of cool stuff to us. We couldn't take any pics inside but it was fascinating to see what our bodies really look like and to see how intricately it is all placed together. Being pregnant and all...it was really neat to see all the "baby" stuff. They had a fetus for every week starting @ 4 weeks to 14 weeks. It was amazing to really see what the baby looks like at those early stages and watch how it grows. They had a baby skull and some baby hips...some baby organs....a set of conjoined twins that died at birth and were never separated. It was all done very respectfully and in good taste and was really amazing to see. All the full size bodies weren't in glass cases so you could really get close to them and see all through them. See all the muscles and bones. The placement of the organs and the all the nerves, veins, and tendons everywhere. Every room was for a different function of the body. Skeletal, Muscular, Respiratory, Reproductive, Digestive, Cardiovascular..... All in all...super super neat!

After that we decided we wanted to head out of Vegas...we firsts went to the Las Vegas outlets. It was huge mall....zillions of stores. For outlets tho.....didn't find any great deals.....so I only hit up the Hanes Outlet and got me a couple of "personal items" while Blake and Levi waited outside. :) After that we still weren't ready to head back to the strip so we went to go see the Las Vegas Temple. It was of course....beautiful. Way up on the hill....far away from the strip. It was almost like we weren't in Vegas anymore. We also noticed that this was about the first time we had seen real grass....most of the casino's had that fake "mini-golf" grass around. It was relaxing to be up there. It was quiet and peaceful...so so different from the hasty hustle-bustle of the city. We stayed there for a while just sitting in the shade of the palm trees...just soaking it all in. And guess what? They had a drinking fountain outside! And it was nice cool refreshing water!

After that we headed back to the strip and decided before it got too dark and crazy to go see M&M World and Coca-Cola World. They were pretty much just gift shops but still it was pretty cool. I really wanted to get something from M&M World (the Peanut Butter ones are pretty much the best candy in the whole world!)...but call me crazy...I had a really difficult time picking out something...cuz gosh dangit there is not a pink M&M!! There is red, blue, green, yellow and orange...but no PINK!! I honestly don't care about any other color. Therefore I settled for a decorative deck of cards. (I have a HUGE collection of playing cards.....I love them!)

We then headed over to Coca-Cola world where I got a couple of Coca-Cola glasses for Levi and me. By then...it was getting late and starting to get dark (definitely not cooling down though) and we knew the devil was about to be let loose again...so we decided to head back to the hotel and get catch some Zzzz's.

Our final day in Vegas was Saturday. We got all our stuff together and checked out and then headed out of the city to get breakfast. (We realized it was much cheaper to eat outside the strip then on the strip.) We then came back, parked @ the Mandalay Bay (which is a beautiful hotel) and saw the Shark Reef Exhibit. It was crazy kid-friendly and really cute. It reminded me alot of the Aquarium out in Sandy. Lots of interesting water animals.

After that we took the Tram over to the Luxor Hotel and saw the Titanic Exhibit...which was alot more interesting than I thought it would be. When I bought the ticket I was little worried that it would be really boring. Instead it was really neat. You were given a name of one of the passengers and told a little about your person....age, reason for sailing, what class, etc and then at the end you got look over a list and see if your character lived or not. Blake and I both lived....but poor Levi didn't make it. They had lots of pretty china and jewelry and just random artifacts. Plaques told you who the items may have belonged to when and where they were found. They had rooms that were designed to really make you feel like you were on the boat and what the rooms and such looked like. They did a pretty good job cuz I seriously thought I was getting a little sea-sick sometimes.

That last thing we saw before leaving was the Lion Habitat @ the MGM Grand. We had gone the day before but we got there too late. It was this one large room where they kept two lions. Of course as you can tell....they were being lazy and laid there the whole time.

Well.....it was a pretty awesome trip....was nice to get out, see some cool things....but definitely made me appreciate my neighborhood, my home and my own comfortable bed!