Vegas Vacation

Pictures of our Vegas Vacation are in the four posts below. A special thanks to Melinda and Kelli for letting us stay at your house and for helping out with the kiddos!

The girls are usually pretty afraid of dogs, but after a few days with Kelli's dogs, I think they got used to them a little. Here they are petting Tinker:

Mystere Show at Treasure Island

The highlight of our vacation is when Kelli babysat the girls so Lee and I could go see a Cirque Du Soleil show. I actually saw the same show last year when my sister and I went to Vegas, but I wanted Lee to see it and it was well worth seeing again. I don't have any pictures because photography is strictly forbidden during the performances (and I mean strictly...we watched them confiscate a couple of cameras that they returned after the show was over!) but here are some I found on their website:

The show was again, totally amazing. There is always so much going on! I look forward to another Vegas trip someday and hope to catch some of the other equally amazing shows!

Las Vegas Boulevard

Next on our Vegas Vacation was a visit to The Strip on Las Vegas Boulevard. We started out at the Forum Shops at Caesar's Palace hoping to visit the three-story toy store, but learned that it was no longer there. We took our journey outside and watched the water show outside the Bellagio. The girls absolutely loved watching the water and we watched it twice! We would have even watched it a third time but Kadie announced she had to go potty and so we had to move on.

From the Bellagio, we walked all the way down to M&M world. It was a lot farther than it looked! We got burned out on that walk, but then had to walk all the way back to the car parked at Caesar's Palace.

Lied Discovery Children's Museum

Our second stop on our Vegas Vacation was the Lied Discovery Children's Museum. The girls loved the hands-on activities and had a blast. There were all different kinds of learning areas and Lee and I had our hands full trying to keep up with the girls as they jumped from station to station.
Here are pictures of a construction station that had simple
machines and ways to manipulate objects with air:

There was also a large water area with bubbles and a water table. I think the girls spent the most time here. Lee had fun with the water tables and spent most of his time here too!

They had a tornado simulator that I thought was pretty cool!

And a hurricane simulator that let you experience what 80 mile-an-hour winds feel like:

I didn't even get pictures of half of all the neat things there were to do here:

Shark Reef Aquarium at Mandalay Bay

After Lee's crazy thesis week, we wanted to do something fun as a family so we decided to go to Las Vegas for a family vacation. My childhood best friend, Melinda, has a house there so we were able to stay with her and it was close enough to drive. (However, the drive ended up being a lot longer than we anticipated!) I know many of you don't think that Vegas is a good place to take kids but there are actually lots of family things to do!

One of the first places we went to was the Shark Reef Aquarium at Mandalay Bay. It was fun to show girls some of the fish and other animals that they haven't seen in real life before.

The glass had a curve to it and Kadie wanted to be strapped in her stroller
because she was afraid of falling in...

There was a petting tank where they got to touch a manta rays.

My camera didn't really like the dark OR the glass, so this Tiger Fish was the only good picture I got of any of the fish that were in tanks! They had quite a variety including an octopus, starfish piranhas, jellyfish, sharks, huge turtles, and more!

I AM [here]

For anyone who missed the opening night of Lee's Thesis Show, I tried to take pictures of everything so you could still see all his art. I am so proud of Lee and how far he has come. The show turned out amazing and I'm not sure the camera did his pieces justice.

The gallery all Lee's artwork was displayed in:
Lee's Title and abbreviated Thesis Statement:
(I think you can read it if you click on the image to get a larger size)
Inception of Self:
Flight of the Elk:
Find the Dirt:

Axis Mundi:

Starting on the left-
Naive, Robust, Faint, & Decrepit:

Redemption in Layers:

The Weary Steward:

Four and One:

To Whom Do I Look For Rain:

Load and Stress:

Conflict in the Order of Years:

Famous Words:

External Failure:

Projection of Self:

These were all Mixed Media pieces. Congratulations to Lee for being done with such an important step in getting his Master's Degree! He has grown a lot in the past few years of schooling and I am excited to see where his art will take him in the future!