Weekend-o-Fun

This last week was the annual Pioneer Legacy ballet at the
Covey Center. The owner of the girls dance studio wrote
the ballet about a true story of a family of Mormon pioneers
that came across the ocean and then crossed the country in
handcarts and the trials they faced.  It is such a moving story
and even thinking about it, I tear up (children die!).  The
owners husband arranged and composed all of the music too
which is pretty good. Evey and Paris have performed in it
every year they have danced. This was Evey's 6th year, I think.
And, she got to be the "lead" little girl, Desdemona, on a few
nights. A professional dance company is hired to play the adult
parts and then the studio dancers fill in the children's dances.
This year, also they decided to only have somewhat more upper
level ballet classes perform, so that meant that Paris' class would
not be in it. But on the day of the show, at dress rehearsal they
were one girl short and so had Paris learn the dance.  She picked
it up super quick and did an awesome job!! Lex also got to be in
the show. He also learned his part on the day of the show and
even though it wasn't dancing he learned very fast and was soooo
cute on stage. He was really excited too, because this was his first
time ever on stage, and just like the girls, he was a natural ( I guess
it's pretty strong in their genes!!!)  I couldn't however take pictures
or video, because of copyright laws. SO SAD!!

So they performed at the Covey Center in Provo, Mon-Wed and
then they took the show to Herritage Theater in Cedar City Friday
and Saturday. The other little girl who was Desdemona went down
on Friday, her Dad was in the show also and so their family took a
little vacation and so spent the whole weekend. We decided that it
would be super helpful to me if we only traveled down for the
Saturday Mattinee and then turned around and came back home,
that way I didn't have to get a hotel.

So, we took the kids to see Megamind in 3-D on opening day,
since the girls have early out on Fridays. It was dang funny.
We all loved it!!

Then, Saturday I loaded up the kids and drove to Cedar City.
My mom came along to keep me company. It was only a 2 1/2
hour trip. The theater was really beautiful.
And, the kids did amazing.


























You'd think that our story ends there....we drove home.
THE END

BUT NO.....

Mom and I tend to be a little bit spontaneous. Jon and
I are pretty spontaneous too, and so he would have been
on board if he would have been with us, And he was all
for it when I called him to tell him our plan, but....

We decided that since we were half way there, we might
as well just go to Vegas, drive the strip and then come home.

So , we did.

We told the kids we had to be in the car longer, but that they
would love all the stuff we were going to see.  They are such
great travelers anyway, and it helps the van is equipped with
a dvd player. We travel quite a bit so we measure distances
by movies and mountains so that they know we have to finish
5 movies and go over 4 mountains to get to Colorado. It only
took 1 and a half movies for the trip to Vegas from Cedar City.

We got off 15 at the Excalibur and happened to find an awesome
parking spot. We started to get everyone out to go in and take a
peak at the inside of it, and that's when Evey tells me she didn't
 bring any normal clothes or shoes!!!!  I had told her before we
left the house to put those things in her bag incase we stopped for
dinner or something, and she said okay so I just assumed...oops.
I'm generally pretty prepared too, I had just taken the extra pair of
Lex flip flops out of the stow and go, because he is known to jump
in the car without shoes. And, mom had even run into a Walmart in
Cedar City for a few things and could have grabbed something, sigh.
Anyway, long story short...er, we decided to just drive the strip as
planned. The kids loved seeing all of the lights and crazy buildings.
Even Winter was yelling and reaching toward the lights, having a ball!

They spied the Roller coaster at NY, NY

All of these pictures of the strip were taken as I was driving down Las Vegas Blvd.
Most through the windshield.
Don't worry I only looked through the view finder when we were stopped at a light.

I'll give you 3 guesses what Paris' favorite thing was....

Volcano the Mirage.

So, we noticed that there was the Paris and the Wynn and the LUX, close....
 but no Evey. Maybe a room in the Excalibur has a room called Guinevere.

We turned around at the Sahara and then drove back up again.
We didn't get to see the fountains at the Bellagio,
but the crowds were lining up, so I'm sure we missed it by just a few minutes.

On Sunday, the kids had a blast telling everyone at church that they went to
 Las Vegas and that everything was fake there!!
A fake Eiffle Tower a fake Statue of Liberty....We had a great time. I love to be crazy!!