MWC time...Las Vegas

We headed to the Mountain West Conference this last weekend in Las Vegas. We met Adam's dad there and very much enjoyed our weekend together seeing the sights and watching the Cougars play (okay the Finals, not so much). I haven't been back since I was cheering for BYU at the MWC in 2004, so it was fun to be back in the energy of the arena.


We drove over late Wednesday night, met up with Adam's dad at the Palace Station, and finally got the kids to fall asleep at midnight (which you'll very much see the results in our Thursday pics).

THURSDAY, MARCH 10TH
We woke up that morning and took the kids to the pool. They LOVE the water!


BYU first played on Thursday at noon. Adam and his dad had tickets to the first game and if they could find cheap tickets for us when they got to the game then I'd come over with the kids. Luckily they found some and we all got to enjoy the game together. Kenedee & Lincoln thought Cosmo was pretty cool to watch (especially Lincoln). BYU pulled out a WIN, sweet!


After the game we took the kids over to the M&M World on the Strip. This is when their sleep-deprivation kicked in...

On one of the four floors you can fill up a bag with your favorite M&M color. We let the kids each pick out a color and I filled their bags about a quarter of the way, thinking it shouldn't be too much money...this might have been the dumbest souvenir decisions we've ever made. Their two bags of M&Ms combined came to $17.00...soooooo overpriced. And what made it worse was that this is when their meltdowns kicked in and they were being such stinkers after we just spent all this money on candy, not cool!

I found my favorite color of M&M...



After the M&M World we walked down the Strip a bit showing the kids the different Hotels, the crazy dressed up people, and pushing away handfuls of Porn that are shoved in front of you...ugggh the Strip is sooo dirty! So after we had enough sight-seeing we came back to our Hotel to enjoy a yummy buffet and put the kids down early to catch up on some sleep...they crashed. When I went to move them into their sleeping bags I found them like this...holding each others hands!

FRIDAY, MARCH 11TH
We got ready that morning and headed to the Omelet House for breakfast (recommended by our friend, Vaughn, who lives in Vegas). It was delicious and probably the biggest omelets I've ever seen (6 egg omelets)!!! Here are our two cute kids sporting their gear that day.


After breakfast, we headed over to the Mandalay Bay to experience the Shark Reef Aquarium. Kenedee found this giant statue of Lenin and wanted her picture by it :)

On the way to the Aquarium Kenedee ran up to this projection on the wall. She started running back and forth and the water would ripple out wherever her body was, it was pretty cool to watch.

Family pic inside...

We came across this awesome statue, perfect for my almost 9 month pregnant belly!

We all very much enjoyed the Shark Reef Aquarium...




After the Mandalay Bay we took the kids over to the MGM Grand to see their Lion Exhibit. We then headed to Vaughn & Amber's to watch the game on their big screen TV. (We tried to get tickets to BYU's Friday night game but the tickets were sold out and ticket scalpers were wanting $150 and up for each ticket. So we opted out of this game and watched it with our friends.) This ended up being their best game, with Jimmer scoring 52 POINTS!!!!! Crazy!!!

Here are all of the kids with Vaughn and modern technology...

(Thanks Stewarts for hosting us that night! After the game ended we drove over to the Thomas & Mack Center to try and get tickets for the Finals Game on Saturday. Adam & his Dad were able to get us great seats for face value from ticket scalpers, sweet!)

SATURDAY, MARCH 12TH
On Saturday we checked out of our Hotel and headed over to Vaughn's dad's house to ride some horses. I've never been on a horse but in my current condition, there was no way I was chancing going into labor while out of town. With under a month left, here's what my giant belly looks like these days, it is HUGE and sticks straight out!


Lincoln & Kenedee watching the horses get their saddles on...

Kenedee thought this might have been the coolest thing she's ever done...she was beaming the entire time! It made my day just to see her love it so much. Vaughn took them around the track a ton of times and still she didn't want to get off, she LOVED it! Here she is riding solo on 'Junkyard'...

Kenedee & Lincoln together...


Lincoln riding 'Dude'...

Vaughn let them have a turn riding solo on 'Junkyard' and 'Dude'. I can't tell you how happy these two were riding horses, it was awesome! (Adam told Kenedee that she was an amazing cowgirl and she looked at him in all seriousness and said 'dad, I should have brought my hat!' (we have many cowboy hats at home) She now considers herself a true cowgirl!)

Vaughn's dad taught Lincoln how to rope a bucket. Lincoln is such a little guy...that rope was so much bigger than him :)

After a morning of riding horses, we grabbed some Cafe Rio for lunch, and then headed to the Finals Game to watch BYU play San Diego State. The only downside about being their at the Thomas and Mack Center is the fans. Everyone in the Mountain West hates BYU so people can be real jerks, especially when they're drunk. I remember it being bad when we cheered there and it hadn't changed (that's a definite bonus of leaving the MWC for sure!) Here we are outside the Thomas and Mack Center...

Watching the Finals game...


It was one tough game to watch...Jimmer was getting hammered and the refs weren't calling it, we couldn't get the ball to go in under the basket, San Diego was huge and scored on about every possession, our shots weren't on, non-BYU fans were crazy, and we lost by a lot! But nonetheless, it was fun to see BYU play live; we had a great weekend!!! It was an exciting trip for us because for one: it was our last weekend getaway before the baby comes, and two: we knew that once we came home it was go-time. Now we're just waiting on little man to make his appearance (3 weeks to go!!!!!!) It is now GO-TIME.