Home from Vegas....

I didn't get my camera out until we were leaving. We snapped these shots in the condo just before checkout.

Vegas was a lot of fun mostly because of the company of family and friends. Visiting the strip was interesting, but being with kids really accentuated the SIN of Sin City. There were times we had to tell the kids not to look down because the streets were littered with nasty "girly" cards and my nephew said, "all of the buses here have girls on them." That part of Vegas has gotten worse from when I was there last (about nine years ago). While the buildings and sites are impressive, I miss the old Vegas of my youth. The strip of neon and flashing lights when you entered town was magical. We drove down the old part of the strip near Fremont Street and while it was fun to see the old glitz, the area has gotten pretty trashy. If I was wealthy enough to go see all of the great shows, Vegas might seem a little more appealing, but as for now I don't really care to go back again.

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Hanging out at the condo was fun though. We swam everyday and Jamie and Waylon got great tans and other than a few pink shoulders, the rest of us avoided sunburn. Hooray! One of my great accomplishments as a mother is that my kids have never been badly sunburned. Marlee often asks me if I think she will look like me when she gets older. I tell her that she will look much better than I do because she has never been sunburned. They say most sun damage happens before we reach 20 and Marlee will be 15 in Oct. so she's on a great road to avoiding that nasty sun induced premature aging, lucky girl! Paige will be 13 next month and her shoulders just recently peeled for the first time. She said, "mom something really weird is happening to my skin." She didn't even know what it was to peel. I sluffed off my entire body of skin like a snake several times a year when I was growing up. Rick and I both have one foot in the grave from all of the sun exposure we've had in our lives. I'm so glad that my kids have been protected from that. It really does make me proud.

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Speaking of swimming~ I had a funny conversation with Waylon at the pool one day. He was sitting on my lap facing me and he said, "Mom if you eat all of your food your boobs will get bigger." (we always tell him that his muscles will get big if he eats all of his food. I guess he figured the same applies for boobs. Don't I wish!) I told him that no my boobs are just small and they are going to stay that way. He said, "Well Aunt so and so (name left out to protect the innocent) has really giant boobs." I said yes she does and he said, "Yah, they go boom botta, boom botta, boom botta."

What?!! Where does he get this stuff? I told Rick not to be surprised if when Waylon starts dating he brings home girls with a lot of "boom botta".

The only gambling we did in Vegas is when we bought this circus ticket a day in advance for my sister. We gambled on whether or not she would still be there the next night to go with us. We lost. She went home a day early and we were out the $19.50 we spent on the ticket. Oh well I guess a twenty dollar loss in Vegas isn't too bad. The circus was fun though. We went with our good friends the Crabtrees. They live in Nevada and it was so great to see them.

All in all it was a wonderful trip. Oh how I love summer break!