Back from the land of Las Vegas and a fun and enjoyable week with Miss Samantha, Jennifer and Mike. With the kids both out of work, we were able to spend days with them and get some serious pool time in. Jennifer bought Sam an inflatable boat, a beach ball and a new shirt style "ring floatie" that was perfect for her in the water. The pictures above sort of capture our trip. The picture of Darla and I with the shocked look on my face was just after I got the bill at Macaroni Grill. Actually, just kidding, I'm just a dork in pictures. The picture of her and I with the same color shirts was taken at the Town Centre Mall when we went with Jennifer to do Darla's birthday shopping. I babysat Sam while Mom and Darla shopped. She is getting much better in public and had only a couple of outbursts which were quickly extinguished. She is a real "Mommy's Girl" and always wants to be close to Mommy. I snuck her away for a couple of walks and we looked at all of the birds and plans in the condo complex.
The condo ended up being very nice and we will keep it in mind for future trips to Vegas. The one bedroom condo with a full kitchen, laundry room and master suite is only $79 on hotels.com and $119 for the two bedroom unit. The resort has a full pool, large spa, a gym, covered parking, a social area with coffee, pool table, computer room and sitting area. It appears to me that this was at one time an upscale apartment complex that has been converted to time shares. The complex has gated access that is now left open at all times. The office is 24 hours. The complex also has full enclosed garages for the full time tenants. The location near Tropicana and the 215 freeway is about 15 minutes from Jennifer and Mike and not far from the Red Rock casino and the Suncoast casino.
We arrived late Wednesday night and by the time I got the car and found the condo it was after midnight. I didn't believe that the 215 crossed Tropicana as the streets run parallel downtown, but the freeway curves back north. I got off on Rainbow about five miles from the Tropicana off ramp and drove over to Tropicana and turned the wrong way ending up back at the strip. I turned around and took Tropicana 12 miles west through umpteen traffic lights before driving over the 215 freeway on my way to the condo. It was a bonehead moment that was quickly forgotten.
We got a couple of meals out with the kids, including Chili's one night and the Macaroni Grill one night. We also had steaks at the kid's apartment one night and a tri tip at our condo the last night with Mike's parents, Michael and Linda in from Livornia, Michigan, a town coincidentally that borders that of my home office in Farmington Hills. They are very nice folks. Linda was a bank VP and Mike worked for AT&T until his retirement last year. We were warned by Jennifer that they are staunch Democrats, so I met them with the greeting, "Obama's an idiot". Well, not really, but we avoided talk of politics. I did give Jennifer a bad time that I had overheard Linda saying, "Well, I knew she had tattoos, but that's ridiculous." Jennifer fell right in and smacked me when she realized I was kidding.
We also took Samantha, Mike and Jennifer to Bonnie Springs, an old ghost town and petting zoo in the hills of southern Las Vegas. They had been there before when Sam was five months old and John bought Samantha a deputy sheriff's badge and Jennifer wanted to get one like it for Samantha. we tooled around the park arriving from the parking lot in a little train on a looped track from the parking lot. Sam loved that. We watched a reenactment of a hanging that didn't finish before Sam got fussy sitting in the sun at a rickety old picnic table. The whole resort is a little cheesy, but the actors play it up for laughs. The deputy of the town got kicked out of the Marshall's office and ended up moving into the outhouse, where he does "alot of paperwork and keeps logs of his work". It was that level of humor, but enjoyable nonetheless. Jennifer found the badges, but they didn't have one for Samantha and most were rubbed kind of blurry from too many hands touching them. She finally picked one that was pretty clear, but didn't have Samantha's name on it. The clerk, a fifteen year old ditz told Jennifer she could fix it and ended up rubbing off he name with a nickel and hand printing SAM in felt pen. It was only $2, but Jennifer complained all the way home. We laughed.
Sam enjoyed the animals, although much like the Las Vegas Zoo this place was a bit of a ghetto petting zoo with pot bellied pigs, several goats and a deer that liked to chew on your clothes. They were the only animals in the "petting " zoo save for chickens and roosters. The rest of the animals, chinchillas, guinea pigs, lynx, foxes, birds of many varieties and even llamas were kept away for the kids. they had a large pond next to the restaurant that had turned green and was full of ducks and tortoises that Samantha seemed to enjoy. It was a hot and busy afternoon, but she hung in there like a trooper.
It was hard to say goodbye and getting harder as Sam becomes more vocal. She said goodbye and gave us hugs and kisses, waving to us as she walked back to the car. I'm sure she woke up this morning asking if they were going to Gramma and Papa's to swim as they did every day we were there. The weather was very nice ranging from 78 to 92 degrees during our visit. It was very windy last night as a storm rolled through and was howling between the condos. We awoke to a calm and clear day today and had packed up and on the way to the airport by 6 AM.
We had a great trip and plan to be in Vegas every three or four months to visit, even on just a long weekend as Samantha is growing up so fast. Michael is excellent with Samantha, which was surprising and a nice surprise to his folks. Michael being 36, single and never married. Jennifer has a good relationship with Michael and is lucky to have him as a partner raising Sam. We really enjoyed ourselves and I'm tired, kind of like a man who has been visiting with a two year old for six days. I can definitely recite lines from Lilo and Stitch, Little Mermaid and Alvin and the Chipmunks as the videos were on constantly in our condo.
Darla and I stole away for some grownup time on Sunday night, her birthday. We went to Bills's Steakhouse at Bill's Casino and both ate the prime rib. We gambled afterward, winning big early and watching it whittle away before stopping for dessert about 10:30 PM. We then went back and frittered the rest of our stash away and left empty handed, but having enjoyed ourselves.
Hopefully, we will be back in August to celebrate Jennifer's 30th birthday and Randy's 50th birthday. I need to check in with Randy and Cake soon to see how plans are shaping up. It would be nice to go early and play a golf game while we are there. Hopefully, they are up for the trip. Well, that's it for this week. I will, of course, add more pictures next week. be good and count the many blessing that our Lord and Saviour grants you every day. Darla and I just enjoyed our little blessing named Samantha for the last week. Ciao.
No comments:
Post a Comment