February 16, 2008

 

Saturday, February 16, 2008 8:45:34 PM

Friday was a really good school day for the kids.  They got their math worksheets done in the morning.  Then they were able to go to two museums the first was a history of atomic testing museum which included a room which simulated a bomb blast.  The other museum was a collection of replicas of Leonardo Divinci’s work.  They heard at the museum that as of two weeks ago there was official documentation uncovered which revealed the secret of the Mona Lisa.  She was a silk merchants wife and her secret was that she was pregnant.

I didn’t get very much done.  I mostly just laid around the trailer with my cold.  I did cook dinner and lunch for the family which took a bit of time.  After the museums the whole family went to M&M World.  I knew it wasn’t the best thing to do on a cold but I really wanted to go and Lexie really didn’t want to drive down town.  We parked at the MGM Casino because the brochure said it was right by it which it was however the MGM Casino is huge.  There is a lion exhibit in the MGM Casino which we wanted to see so we walked through to see that.  I was a bit under whelmed with the lion exhibit in that it only contained a couple of lions however something that was unique was that it allowed a person to walk under the lions and look at them through clear glass from their underside.  I am pretty confident yesterday was the first time I saw the underside of a lion.

M&M world was a lot of fun it is a four story store dedicated to M&M memorabilia.  My favorite part was their bin candy which allows people to buy M&M’s one color at a time to create their own color mixes.  We let all of the kids pick out a few colors.

I imagine heaven will have a room something like this.

Hanging out on the strip.

I thought this motel 6 sign was pretty cool. Vegas wouldn't be Vegas without lights.

Today we went to the Hoover Dam and took the power plant tour.  It was a very nice tour. 

The Hoover Dam

On the way to the tour we saw $29 dollar helicopter rides advertised.  The kids were very excited by the prospect of a helicopter ride.  I spent some time stewing over how to justify the expense.  I really wanted to do the $59 version of the tour which would go over the dam.  In the end it was decided that we could go if the kids paid their own way.  Davey was too small to go.  Lexie volunteered to stay at the car with him.  I felt guilty going because I had been on more helicopter rides than Lexie but I was also confident that I would get better pictures so I decided to not put up much resistance to her offer of sending me.  As one would guess from the price the ride lasted all of two minutes however that was plenty to excite the kids and enough to check “ride in a helicopter” off their list.  I think Dallin was the only one who felt the wallet flattening effect of the $29.  He was brainstorming on the way home about how to make some money.  He said “I know one thing mom won’t let us do.”  “What is that?” We asked.  “Let someone pay us money to sleep in one of the extra beds in our trailer”.  He was very right that is something mom wouldn’t let us do.  He sort of missed the point that there isn’t an extra bed in our trailer however I was very pleased with the range of his thinking.

Several of the roads gave great views of the city of Las Vegas.  Las Vegas is an intereting city because there is so much of nothing and then all of a sudden a relatively large city.