Monkey Pants

On our way home from Vegas we passed through some chilly weather. We had fun watching the temp drop lower and lower!

We seriously had so much fun in Vegas on our way up that I really wanted to go again since on our way home we would have more time to walk around and see stuff. We couldn't score another great deal on a hotel room in the Stratosphere again but we did find a decent rate at the Imperial Palace!  While Scott checks us in, Mitch looks at the Best Buy vending machine drooling over all the iPods and video games.  Pretty cool vending machine!! We got the most groovy room!  It was huge with mirrors all over the place!  The kids used this huge bathtub as a small pool which was nice since the hotel pool was outside in the cold...and closed for repair.   Yes...there were mirrors on the ceilings too! Carson and I had fun with those! Our room was in the corner...one window on the north wall and another on the west wall.  Scott is taking this picture of the kids from the west window. This time we were able to go watch the water fountain show at the Belagio. VE...

Of course any time we go to Utah, we MUST stop in Provo and hang out at BYU! It's been 17 years since I left that place and it's sooooo different!  All in good ways...the students there now should be so grateful to have the campus they do.  Very nice! There's some snow on the mountains but if you look real close, you can see the Y I wonder how many of my kids will be BYU Cougars? Scott and I under the Y Rylee is our only girl but she has wonderful girl cousins to love her!  She loved sitting next to Andrea at dinner. After Provo, we headed up to SLC again and met everyone at Buca de Bepo for dinner Thanks again to Greg We always have fun all together.  Mitch, Chase and Carson...you can see Allie's arm forcing Mitch to at least pretend he likes his brothers Allie and Mitch After dinner we went to see the lights on Temple Square. It was soooooooo cold!  We stayed in the Visitor's Center as long as we could! We got to see the replica of the Salt ...

The main reason for traveling up to Salt Lake for Thanksgiving was to join Greg and Cheryl and their family at the Grand America Hotel's Thanksgiving Buffet!  They have come up for this for a few years and talk all about how much food there is and how good it is!  When they invited us to join them this year, we were so excited!  Let me tell you...with all their talk about it, it was even better! Our family by one of the many hotel Christmas trees Carson loved this Candy Cane tree so much we wanted our picture taken by it. It was funny to see that 10 out of the 16 of us showed up in grays and black! Very monochrome Here are the coloful people See my Thanksgiving dinner? Bacon, berries, crab, oysters, salmon, prime rib, crab cake and under the bacon is sweet potatoes! Brooke and Mitch Chase and Carson Greg, Chase, Scott and Mitch all pose with Carson, imitating his cheesy smile Rylee Jean ate all the jello Carson did eat healthy food before he atta...

Although we know many, many people in Utah and would love to have visited them ALL, alas, there was no time.  There are a few people you make time for though... Very pregnant nieces about to have your sisters first grandchild and your father's first great-grandchild are a must visit!!  Whitney is a very cute prego lady! Just in cast you couldn't tell where the baby is... The baby bump pic taken for my sister Oh, and brothers that live in Salt Lake are a must visit too!  So nice to have Whitney meet us at Paul's house to make it a very efficient visit!

We haven't traveled for Thanksgiving in a really long time.  Family is just too far away for the short weekend holiday so we have opted to stay home. This year, we were invited by Greg and his family to join them up in Salt Lake for the festivities.  We packed our bags and every bit of warm clothing that we own (which is not much since moving to AZ) and drove on up. On our way we stopped in Las Vegas!  We had found an AMAZING deal on hotel rooms.  We got 2 rooms in the Stratosphere for only $50...that's $25 per room!  We could not pass that up!  We took the kids out of school early on Tuesday (missed school all together on Wednesday) and headed for VEGAS BABY! One of our favorite shows on TV is called Pawn Stars.  It's about a pawn shop in Vegas and how they either buy authentic things or tell the person selling they have worthless crap!  Our favorite guy on the show is Chumlee...awesome.  Since finding out we will be stopping in Vegas,...