FUN IN THE SUN

We had some BEAUTIFUL weather today (tying the record in Seattle hitting 87 degrees) and we spent the afternoon in the backyard playing and swimming. As you can see the kids had a lot of fun in the little pool. I had fun watching them also.........as long as I had a little bit of shade! :)

VISITING GRANDMA AND GRANDPA

We took a trip over to Moses Lake this weekend and spent a night with Jim, Gail and Katie. We all had a great time -- especially the kids..........Grandma loves to spoil them! :)

As soon as Katie walked into the yard she was "tagged" and "it"!

"Grandpa, let me down!"

RENA & MALEAH LOVE THEIR ANIMALS AND DOLLS

Usually I don't even try to get the kids to wear a bib anymore, but right after Rena got dressed this morning she announced that she would like some oatmeal for breakfast. So I thought that rather than having to try to clean clothes or change clothes after breakfast that I would try to get her to wear a bib. As you can see, she had no problem wearing the bib as long as all of her care bears got bibs too! I think it would have been faster for me to clean a dirty shirt!

Then here's Maleah this morning taking care of her doll. She decided it needed a diaper change.......with cream and all. Luckily I caught her before she got anything out of the bottle!

CAMERON'S BIRTHDAY???

Cameron got to celebrate his birthday early today in his preschool class. Each of the kids in his class that has a summer birthday gets to pick one day in May to be their special day. I really wasn't sure that he would even care about it, but he had a great day and had a lot of fun being the center of attention. He got to choose the snack too......we took pizza with ham and pineapple, cheese, carrots and (of course) cupcakes.....all of Cameron's favorite foods.

I got to spend most of the morning with Cameron in his classroom while my friend Jill watched the girls. This was the project that I helped with -- life size pictures painted by the kids. It was really a lot of fun!!

OUR TRIP TO LAS VEGAS

We just returned home from a fun week in Las Vegas. We all had a great time visiting with Dad and Bonnie, swimming at the condo, eating at MANY buffets, and just acting like tourists........taking LOTS of pictures (as you can see below!).

The Silverton Casino has a really large aquarium where they do daily feeding shows and have Mermaid shows. Rena LOVED the Mermaid. Every time the mermaid put her hands on the glass Rena was right there putting her hand against the glass also.

We took a drive out to the Hoover Dam one day. Cameron thought it was pretty cool how the rocks were different colors showing where the water level had previously been. (He told dad all about it that night.) We didn't stay for long, though, since when we got out there the temp hit 101 degrees.....we got back in the the car with the a/c FAST!

Rena and Maleah are sitting here taking a little break with the crocodiles at the Shark Reef exhibit at The Mandalay Bay Casino.

Here's Jeff outside of The Luxor Casino -- without kids!! Dad & Bonnie watched the kids a couple of different nights so that Jeff & I could get out by ourselves. We had a good time and got to go to a show at The New York New York Casino and we got to ride on a couple of adult rides at The Luxor and The New York New York.

Maleah's first BMW!! She spotted this while shopping at Caesar's Palace. It may be the only BMW she ever gets to drive!! :)

We took a walk through The Flamingo Hotel and Casino and got to see a lot of Flamingos and other birds.

Dad & Maleah outside of The Bellagio Casino while the water show was going.

This is a Chocolate Fountain inside The Bellagio Hotel.

A MORNING AT BONNIE SPRINGS

Bonnie Springs Old Nevada is an Old Western Town that's only about 15 minutes away from where dad & Bonnie live. We spent one morning there touring the town, walking through the petting zoo and feeding the ducks.

WE ALL LOVE TO SWIM

I think the kids would have been happy if we would have spent our entire vacation only swimming. The condo that we stayed at had 4 different pools (we only swam in 3 of them). They were all great for the kids. One entire pool was only 3 feet deep so Cameron could touch the bottom through the whole pool. One of our other favorites was a "Lazy River" pool. All we had to do was lay on our noodles and float around. Of course there were a few hot tubs also..........which I definitely enjoyed!

Here's Rena "in action" jumping!

Here's Rena and Cameron on their noodles. Rena thought the noodles were pretty cool because she could "swim" all by herself!

Maleah is NOT afraid of the water at all! She loved floating on the noodles and boards and LOVED jumping in to the water.

SPENDING TIME AT DAD AND BONNIE'S

The kids had fun on dad's golf cart touring the neighborhood.

Even though we didn't stay at Dad & Bonnie's house we got to see them daily. We had fun hanging out at their place, swimming with them at our place, and eating many meals with them!

TIME TO GO HOME

Cameron was a big helper at the airport. We must have looked very out of place in Las Vegas with all of our luggage, 3 car seats, the double stroller........and 3 kids! Luckily, we only got a few "looks" during our trip. Most people were very nice!

ALL of us were definitely tired by the time we got on the airplane to head home. Maleah only slept for the first 45 minutes of the flight and then woke up because her ears were hurting (I think). All in all it was a great trip -- the kids were fantastic travelers, the weather was beautiful and the company was great. Now we just have to decide where to go next year...........