Girl's Vegas Trip 2013

I got to spend this last weekend with 3 of my 4 sisters and 4 cousins for a girls weekend in Vegas.  We figured we should do something while so many of us are out west, before everyone graduates college and goes their separate ways.  We were talking though and may try to still have some kind of annual trip :)

Jen and I drove up from Arizona and met up with Jill, Amy, Bryn, Tori, Jordan, and Melissa driving in from Provo.  We really wish the rest of the girls in our age group (Dayna, Tiersha, Megan, and Shelby) could have made it as well.

The Provo girls made it into Vegas before Jen and I, so they stopped to do some shopping at the outlets before meeting up with us at the hotel.  We had a minor setback though when trying to check-in to our hotel - we were not terribly impressed with our service at the Tropicana.  Our check-in time was 3, but we got to the counter and they said they wouldn't be ready for us for another 2 hours.  After a little while we found out the reason for the wait was b/c we wanted adjoining rooms, so we decided to forgo that idea and just got 2 rooms on different floors, which was kind of a bummer.

Then the fun finally began!  We spruced up a little bit after all of our traveling and headed down to Serendipity for their famous frozen hot chocolate.  We opted for 2 separate tables so the wait wouldn't be so long.

Table 1 - Myself, Jordan, Melissa, and Jennifer

 

Table 2 - Amy, Jill, Bryn, and Tori

Sisters, before our food came out

After dinner

The whole group :)

We continued on down to the Venetian and paid a whopping 20 bucks each for the gondola ride.  So not worth it!!  It made for a good laugh though and memories for sure!

We made the long trek back to our hotel (the Venetian is at one end of the strip and our hotel was at the other), stopping at Walgreen's to pick up something for breakfast in the morning, and basically called it a night around 10:30..haha.  I think we were all feeling tired from traveling.

The next morning, Saturday, we spent a few hours down at the pool.  It was weird for me to be able to just lay out because I can't do that when I'm at the pool with Aiden (I think everyone got a little sick of me talking about Aiden, but he's my whole life!).

Me, Jen, Tori, Melissa, Jill

Jordan, Amy, Bryn

A few of us grabbed lunch at a food court (which took us like 2 hours since we walked!) and then we got showered and ready for our evening out.

The MGM was pretty much next door so we headed there to check out the lions first, only to find out they don't have the lions there anymore!  Darn!

The 3 of us happened to be matching so we thought we'd at least get a picture with the golden lion in the wrestling ring..ha

Had to get Jen in on the sisters picture :)

Then we were off to the Bellagio for dinner at their cafe.

Beautiful girls.

One side of the table.

The other side of the table.

We watched the fountain show on our way out (no pictures) and walked through some ritzy hotels on our way back down the strip. Before heading in, 6 of the 8 of us decided to whop out the 14 bucks to ride the New York New York roller coaster, and we were glad we did!  It was a fun way to wrap up the evening - a little bumpy, but worth it!

Amy was very nervous ;)

After the roller coaster, heading back to our hotel.

We all got comfy and joined up to watch Bridesmaids (edited) together.

It was such a fun trip and I am so grateful to consider each of these girls my very best friends.  A big thank you to each of our mom's for covering our rooms for us!  And to Amy and Jordan who did most of the planning :)  Let's do it again for sure!

Oh and this was only my second time being away from Aiden (HERE's the first) and, once again, I cried when I saw him last night.  I never think I will b/c I don't realize how much I miss him until I get to see him again!  He just seemed so much older to me, like he was talking more and had more teeth.  It must be that I don't realize these things b/c I'm with him so much.  Trent is convinced I love Aiden more than him ;)  

For Amy, who told me to get a video of Aiden when I got home.  2 whole minutes ;)

Aiden-stein

At 17 months, Aiden has officially had his first Urgent Care experience :(

Let me just quickly start from the beginning.  Last week I won a baker's dozen cupcakes from The Sweet Tooth Fairy (I was so excited!).  They are way up in Scottsdale though so Trent and I decided to make a whole date out of picking them up (including lunch and shopping).  We finished up family pictures at the temple with the Knuckles' Saturday morning, and had them take Aiden home with them, and then we were off.  It was a beautiful day and the weather was perfect.  We found a great parking spot and we were feeling good!  It was only 11 so we decided we'd do our shopping first, then have lunch, pick up our cupcakes, and head home after that.  First stop, H&M.  

Not half an hour later we got a call from Tanis saying Aiden had cut his head pretty bad and we probably needed to meet them at Urgent Care.  I'm still not exactly sure what happened.  Something about Aiden was in Kent's car in the driveway playing with the steering wheel (he loves steering wheels!) and a neighbor kid came to join him. I guess Aiden was trying to make room in the driver's seat and was climbing onto the middle part (median?) and slipped and fell down.  I'm still trying to figure out what is so sharp in the car that it cut him on the way down.   

Anyway, so we each had a pile of clothes we were planning to try on (in fact, I was already in the dressing room trying on!) and we had to just ditch them and go.  We were so bummed!  We were more bummed about our date being ruined than worried about Aiden..haha.  (We knew he was in good hands.)  We decided we were at least going to get our cupcakes since we were right there.  Luckily no one else was in there so it took all of about 3 minutes.  And we basically got one of each - so fun!

I totally forgot to get a picture of all of our cupcakes before we dug in, but here are most of them :)

The whole drive to Urgent Care we were thinking it couldn't be too bad, but we were also thinking, "Aww, his perfect little face...".  We weren't really sure where the cut was and Trent was pretty worried Aiden would have this nasty scar right across the front of his forehead.  Lucky for us, it's right under his hairline so you can hardly see it.

Right before we got there I was feeling very nervous about seeing Aiden.  I have a hard time with blood and was having to tell myself to breathe..haha.  I had to cover my eyes when we first saw him and it still makes me cringe.  But he was his happy, normal self (only b/c he hadn't been taken back yet).  I didn't think to get a picture of the before, but it was pretty gnarly and there was blood all over his shirt.

Originally the doctor was saying they'd just glue the cut shut.  I made Trent go back with Aiden to get him prepped.  I knew I'd cry if I did.  They cleaned it up and put some numbing cream on.  They came back out while the cream kicked in - about 20 minutes.

I couldn't resist getting a shot with his head wrapped up.  Such a cutie.

They had also given him some Tylenol or something which made him drowsy.

He was out, but not for long :/

Then came the hard part.  Apparently Aiden was screaming.  He did not like being held down :(  Trent said he even got a little teary-eyed b/c he felt awful.  Turns out they decided to do stitches b/c they were worried about it reopening.  So our little guy got 5 stitches.  

And then we were finally able to head home after a very unexpected morning/afternoon.

Aiden is such a little champ and was back to normal when we got home.  Busy playing around the house :)

Band-aid over the stitches 

You can hardly see them, huh?!  Right side.

I do feel like Aiden kind of looks like Frankenstein with his little stitches..ha.  I have to take him in on Wednesday to have the stitches removed - definitely dreading it :(  I know Aiden will be screaming and I will just be trying keep him down, while looking away and trying to keep from crying myself.  Wish me luck!

To Tanis and Kent - Strike one ;)  But really, we still completely trust you and love you!  And I hope I didn't embarrass you too much with this post ;)

On the Go

It is so fun for us to try to figure out what Aiden is thinking in his little head and why he does the things he does.  Like some days when he just really feels he needs to carry bags around :)

This was one Sunday while we were getting ready for Church.

For some reason Aiden always unzips the top of these jammies when he wears them :)

On this day, Aiden insisted on carrying my cosmetic travel bag all the way to the mailbox.

Once we got the mail though, he left it in the middle of the sidewalk and walked off and I ended up carrying it home..haha.

And just the other day we were out shopping for a baby gift and Aiden picked up a baby girl comforter and carried/dragged it along with us for a while.

As I always say, he sure keeps me laughing :)

P.S. Aiden is learning like crazy!  I'm working on a post with some videos of what he's been learning :)

200th post!

I didn't know if I was going to post about Easter, but I have a few pictures from it, so I thought I might as well.  Better late than never, right?

The night before Easter, Trent and I went with a group of friends to see the Mesa Temple Easter Pageant.  My cute friend Christie got to dance in it as one of the ten virgins :)

The pageant was so beautiful and was such a wonderful reminder to me of all that my Savior has done for me and each of you.  I just picture the day when I get to see Him again and run to Him with open arms to hug Him and thank Him.  I know He lives!

Easter morning we had Aiden's little Easter basket set out for him with a few surprises.

I wish I had gotten his face in these pictures.

Got him a little slinky since he loves the one at Grandma and Grandpa Knuckles'.

As of today though, it is ruined.  We had a little friend over and they were fighting over it and bent it out of shape :(  I may just have to run back over to Target.  It was just in the dollar section :)

We only hid 5 eggs since we knew we'd be having another hunt later with our families.  And I only put one mini Cadbury egg in each..haha.

We went to Church for 2 hours, but headed home because I wasn't feeling good.  It seems, more often than not, I get a headache on Sundays.  I feel like it's because I don't drink enough water and Church is so long.  Needless to say, we did not get a picture in our Easter outfits :(  That was the last thing on my mind.

After a good nap and some fluids I was feeling much better.  We headed over to my parents' for Easter dinner with Tanis and Kent too.

Got this cute family picture with our Easter baskets from Mom :)

After dinner we headed down to the park for Aiden's Easter egg hunt.

I hardly got any pictures because I was helping out Aiden.  Jen was nice enough to get these two on my camera.

My mom got eggs that were all different sports balls.  And Aiden kept saying "ball" :)  Anything semi-round is a ball to him..ha.  Although, technically, these were "balls" :)

Aiden ate way too much sugar that night.  His tummy hurt the next day.

Running around with Dad in the field.

Sadly I did not get any pictures with the rest of the family.  My sisters will attest that all of the pictures on my camera are of Aiden. He's just so cute ;)