Late Monday April 25th. We got back today early this afternoon. We were up at 4:30 and on the road by 5 AM. I drove the first two hours and my eyes were at half mast most of the time and I finally pulled over outside of Barstow and Darla took the wheel. I was soon fast asleep. I woke up just outside of Bakersfield and we stopped and got some breakfast and gassed up. We stopped again in Livingston for a potty stop for Darla and then on to Roseville. We got home about 2:30, so it was a 9.5 hour drive with stops for food and nature. Not bad.
I had chores to do today, so got my hair cut, the lawn mowed, Darla's car washed, the deck hosed down and the pool cleaned. I also drained the pool down near the bottom of the tile in preparation for the etching of the river rock surrounding the pool and cleaning the tile, followed by a wet look sealer. The time got away from me, so this will be an abbreviated blog entry and I will get caught up next week.
Our weekend with Sam, Jennifer and McKenny was great. We left Friday morning at 4 AM and arrived in Las Vegas at 1:30 after a stop for breakfast and gas. We got checked into the hotel (Santa Fe Station) and then headed over to Jennifer's to see her and McKenny and then go over to Sam's school and pick her up before going back to the hotel to swim. I was very impressed with how Sam made a point to stop and tell each of her friends to have a good weekend and gave the girls a hug. Jennifer and McKenny came over to the hotel a bit later and we met them at the pool. We ended up having dinner that night at a restaurant in the casino, Cabo's, a Mexican cantina. We had a ball laughing and talking and Jennifer had a huge Coronarita, a Margarita with a Corona beer turned upside down and sitting in the drink. You can see it in the picture above. She managed to spill it on her self at one point when it slipped and she caught it, but got drenched. We took a number of pictures that night and you can see Sam with her dessert and her and McKenny and her and Jennifer.
Sam went home with Mom that night as she had soccer at 9 AM. Darla and I played some cards and lost about $15 in two hours. We were up early the next morning and off to the park near the Aliente Casino where we wanted to stay, but couldn't get in. We got there right after the game started and Sam was on the bench. She was playing forward and got a lot of action. She was one of the smallest on the field, but is a pretty good dribbler. They ended up losing 1-0 and are now 3-4. They didn't win a game last year, so they are dong much better and soccer is now her favorite sport. We took Sam after the game, stopped and picked up lunch and then headed back to the hotel. We ate lunch and then headed to the on site Century movie theater to see The Jungle Book. It was a great movie with incredible special effects. The movie is completely live action, but the Bear, Cheetah, and other animals are all animatronic and incredible. The effects are quite impressive and Sam said she loved the movie. I made the mistake of letting her buy some bulk candy to take into the theater and didn't watch her. She ended up with three pounds of Skittles, Reeses pieces and Grunts and it set me back $16 for her candy. Darla wanted to put it back, but we saved most of it and she was able to take it home. We also had popcorn and soda.
We went over to Jennifer's for dinner and she prepared salmon and asparagus for dinner. I brought a bottle of wine and some flowers for our hostess.Darla is on her diet and had some chicken that she ate. We took Sam afterward and got ice cream at Dairy Queen. Darla was a trooper and sat and watched Sam and I eat our ice cream. We then headed to the hotel where Sam spent the night. We had an incident at the hotel where the neighbors got into a verbal altercation and were screaming at the top of their lungs. It scared Sam and she wanted to go home. We called security and they put a stop to the incident, but it tarnished our stay. That was actually the second issue we had as the shower wasn't working properly the first morning and only a trickle made it from the faucet to the shower head. We got that fixed the next morning. Sam finally got to sleep, but wanted to sleep with us in a queen sized bed. Darla was soon forced to the other bed and Sam rolled over by me and pushed me to the edge to the point that I moved to the other bed with Darla. She woke u in the morning with us in the other bed and we told her she was a "Bed Hog". When we told Jennifer the story the next day, she laughed and said that is Sam's thing. She is a Bed Hog and forces everyone to the very edge of the bed.
Sunday, we got up and had breakfast with Sam at the hotel. Jennifer and McKenny had headed in to Vegas to see the Fremont Street video lights that were doing a montage on Prince, who died earlier in the week. They slept in on Sunday. We relaxed in the room and Darla gave Sam her old jewelry making kit and she made several earrings for her Mom. Sam and I went down to get some Panda Express for dinner and Jennifer and McKenny met us a the food court and had a 99 cent margarita while we ate our lunch. We then went to the pool after Sam showed them her fort she built in the room. It was windy all weekend in Vegas and Sunday was no exception. Deck chairs were blowing over and several towels flew into the pool. Darla and I lasted about an hour and then headed to the room to relax. The kids headed back home and we met them later for dinner. We used the leftover salmon and chicken and had build-your-own salads. Sam had taquitos. We played a game and Sam worked on another necklace for her Mom. We soon had to say our goodbyes and gave everyone a big hug and kiss and were back to the hotel about 9. We played some video poker. I lost and Darla won and we broke even over about 90 minutes and headed to bed.
We were able to get our resort fees waived because of our problems, but no discount on our room as we had a deal through Expedia. We will work with them to see if they can credit us a free night, especially for the bad shower.
That's it for this time. I hope you are all well. I will download pictures from the Canon digital camera and add those to the blog next week. We will check in with all of you soon. Ciao.
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