That's What We Get For Waking Up In Vegas....

(Photos to come when I get over being too lazy to walk to the garage to get my camera.)

We went to Las Vegas last weekend for Hal's birthday.

We took the kids.

That was our first mistake.

Austin over-used his three favorite phrases, "souvenir", "gift shop" and "hot tub". I hope I never hear any of those words again.

Let me just say this right now, Las Vegas is not really a family friendly environment right now. Not that it was ever going to be mistaken for Disneyland or anything, but it has gotten progressively worse in the last year or two.

Exhibit A: the exotic dancers that now grace the lobby areas of many of the casinos. Even the "nice" ones (meaning casinos, not dancers). Not much is left to the imagination there, let me tell you. I clapped a hand over Austin's eyes as we walked past each one. I think people were more entertained by that than the dancers. It didn't occur to me until later that maybe I should have shielded Hal's eyes from the floor show instead of Austin's.

Exhibit B: The stupid cards they pass out. If you've ever been to Vegas, you know what I mean. Now the women on them are totally topless. The reason I know this is from looking down whenever we'd get to an escalator to make sure Austin's shoelaces were tied so they wouldn't get caught in the escalator and pull him in and mangle his tiny little feet. There always seemed to be a pile of the cards lying on the ground at the top and/or bottom of every single escalator.

We went to Las Vegas on a whim for Hal's birthday. We (meaning I) booked the hotel Thursday night at 10:30 and we left for Vegas on Friday after school.

I don't really fly by the seat of my pants well. I like to know at least two weeks ahead what I will be doing on any given day. I decided to just act spontaneous like other people and all-in-all I think I did okay. I only forgot a few important items, the worst one being eye makeup remover. I tried to take off my mascara with my cleansing gel and OUCH. My eyes immediately turned as red as my lipstick and they burned like the devil. The next morning they were still as red and had some funky stuff coming out of them. My eye doctor brother-in-law would call this "chemical conjunctivitis", I think.

So, the next night I thought I was so smart and tried to use my lip gloss to take off the mascara. It was petroleum based and I swear I used to use Vaseline to take off my mascara back in junior high. Well, maybe they don't make mascara like they used to because the stuff wouldn't budge. It's strange too because this was not waterproof mascara. I mixed a little of the cleansing gel (which, by the way worked very quickly) in with the lip gloss and tried to keep it only at the ends of my eyelashes, away from my eyes but I didn't do as well as I would have liked. Ouch again.

The next morning my eyes didn't look as bad, but they didn't clear up during the day like they had the day before. They were red all day. This was also Sunday and Hal's birthday.

This was the day that we made the biggest semi-impulse purchase of our lives.

First of all, we do not usually buy things on Sunday. We just really try to avoid it. We were not planning on buying anything or even looking. All we wanted was to sit in Brookstone and get a free massage to rest our weary bones. The next thing we knew, I was signing on the dotted line. I really didn't believe the sales kid when I told him we were planning on buying one "someday" and he said, "I'm going to give you all the reasons that "someday" is today." Darn, he was good. We got almost 1/2 price off because it was a refurbished model, but with the same warranty, and it looks like a normal leather chair AND free shipping. Honestly, we had talked about getting one someday. So, that was pretty much Hal's birthday present but I'm sure I'll enjoy it too. Come to think of it, I don't think I got anything for my birthday last year, so this can be for my birthday too.

I was a little spooked about the idea of buying it on Sunday so, without Hal's approval, I also sprang for the extended warranty when he took the kids to get something to eat.

I had also really wanted to go to Sephora on this trip but we didn't make it there on Saturday. I didn't even consider it after that because it was Sunday and then Monday we were heading home. Well, after the major purchase I figured one more little thing wasn't going to make things any worse. Ally had to use the bathroom so Hal took her and Austin the the bathroom and Morgan and I went to Sephora at the Venetian. I browsed a little and found what I was looking for and then got a bright idea. I asked them to show me the eye makeup remover. Of course they had a tester out, so I shamelessly took off my mascara there. Ahhhhh, problem solved.

Much later Hal showed up in a panic and asked if Ally was there. They had gotten separated. He left Austin with me and then left.

Austin said "I have good news and bad news. Which do you want first?" Well, I always take the bad news first so I have something to look forward to.

The bad news? "I wet my pants." We never did get to the good news so I have no idea what it was.

Hal finally did show up with Ally, which is good because I was starting to panic too.

That night Austin crawled in bed with us and I let him stay since I knew he had used the bathroom right before he went to bed at 10:00. I woke up feeling an awful sensation. He had wet the bed. I figured it was almost morning so I was just going to stay up but I looked at the clock and it was only 12:30. It was going to be a long night. We got the extra hand towels to put down and slept on top of them. I'm so glad they have mattress protectors on the beds. I left an extra good tip when we left because even though it looked like there was no permanent damage, cleaning hotel rooms would not be a fun job. I cleaned college dorms one summer and that was enough for me to know the value of a good education.

We were all pretty much ready to go home on Monday. Austin insisted on using the hot tub since we hadn't had time yet. Hal and I gamely went with him, which was miserable since it was pouring rain. The hot tub was covered, which was something but it was not fun getting out. Brrrrr.

Right then it was time to check out so we packed up with all Austin's and our wet clothes and headed home. It was a long 7 hours. We got home around 8:30.

When we walked in we could immediately tell there was something wrong. We had been having trouble with our heater all winter (we still are) and it had gone out while we were gone. The lowest reading on our thermostat is 45, so our whole house was at least that cold.

Darn. I knew we shouldn't have bought that chair on Sunday!

Well, that's not all. Hal noticed the light on our extra freezer was off. Something had popped the breaker. The good news was that since it was colder than 45 degrees, the food was still frozen.

When he went downstairs to light the pilot light he found that there was a leak from the kids' bathroom that had dripped down to the furnace room below. It had also soaked a bag of wreaths and baskets that I had stored there. The particle board on the bottom of the kids' vanity was soaked and ruined and boy did it stink! I hope it dries out ok. We'll see. I think it's time to call in a professional for this one.

Oh, I almost forgot the funny coincidence. As we were leaving our room, I had Ally check under all the beds to make sure we hadn't left anything. She did find one thing that she handed to me.

A brand new bottle of eye make up remover.

And it wasn't mine. (Which also leads me to wonder how well they really clean those rooms.)

Seriously though, what are the odds? Oh yeah, we were in Vegas after all. Too bad it was a couple of days too late. (Once again, story of my life.)