11.30.2015: Early Birthday Celebraton

Vince was flying out tomorrow morning to Boston for work for the week, so we celebrated his birthday tonight.  I had gotten him tickets to see Christopher Cross in Las Vegas in Feb.  And a great bottle of champagne.  And made Chicken & Dumplings - one of his favorites & perfect for this freezing cold night!

 

11.28.2015: LA-Barstow-LV Riders Arrive

Brent and I headed over to the Orleans to welcome in the guys from the ride.  Chris was in communication with Scott and was is roadie carrying all his gear in the truck.  So we met up with Chris, Gina and Mike in the parking lot waiting for the guys.  It was literally FREEZING out there.  Scott said it was the coldest ride ever!  He could barely move when he got in!

 

It was good seeing them come in.  We hung out with them a bit and had a few drinks with them at the bar inside.  It was close to dinner so Brent & I headed back to the strip to meet up with the rest of the crew.



 

 

 

We went to dinner at the Paris café.  Brent, Alisa, Vince and I ordered a bottle of wine.  Yes, Brent drank red wine...see the pic to prove it!  We had a great dinner then hit the streets for a bit before calling it a night.  Some of us stayed up gambling for a while & hanging out.  Nice mellow night to end a busy, crazy weekend!

11.28.2015: Spa Day!!

Today, Alisa and I spent the morning at the spa.  Mom paid for us to get facials done while they took the kids on a shopping spree.  We didn't complain at all!!

We thoroughly enjoyed our day relaxing and getting pampered.  After we were done, we were going to get some breakfast and coffee (even though it was past noon by now!)  We got our goodies and found some seats near the sports book.  We called Brent to see what he was up to...and he was sitting in the sports book watching the USC game.  Haha! Literally a few feet from us. So we joined him and hung out there enjoying some football. 

As we were sitting there, Wendi and her boyfriend walked by.  So funny that in all of Vegas, we run into them there!  Later in the afternoon, Mom, Dad, Vince and the kids tracked us down - after a full day of draining Mom & Dad's bank account. 

We headed back to the rooms for afternoon naps!  Naps in Vegas are essential!!

11.27.2015: Dinner After the Show



After the show we headed back to Ballys, where we were all staying.  We were hungry & ready for dinner since we caught the early show.  We met with Mike & Gina who joined us for dinner at Ballys.  We went to the Italian place in there and most of us just did the buffett.  It was just ok...nothing special.  The best part of the entire meal was watching Avery stand up against the glass window that overlooked the escalator going down to the floor below.  She stood there and waved at EVERYONE.  Making eye contact, smiling and waving her sweet little wave.  Almost everyone waved back, and she definitely made a ton of people smile!  It was hard not to once you caught her eye.  It was amazing watching this...and she did it forever.  She did not get tired of it and we had to drag her out of there!  I swear she made a bunch of peoples day.  It was truly the sweetest thing!

 

After dinner, some of us went to bed, and others of us hit the slots for a while.  I was on the slot team!  We made the rounds to some of the nearby usuals that we like.  Didn't go too far though! Don't think we had too many big wins, but it wasn't a bad night either!

 

 

11.27.2015: Jabbawockeez Me to Vegas

This morning we woke up early and packed up and headed out to Vegas.  Brent ended up not riding with Scott in the Bartsow to Vegas dirt bike ride because he was still pretty queasy from the flu bug he had.  Everyone was a little under the weather and not quite 100% this week!  So, we all headed to Vegas anyways, hoping to shake the bug and have a great time!

 

Mom & Dad had bought us all tickets to go see the Jabbawockeez show at the MGM.  Before the show, we hung out at the Starbucks next to the theater in the casino.  Not too many places the kids can go, so Sbucks was perfect.  They all got their special little bended drinks. Sitting back watching them all chat and sit together strangely reminded me of us all hanging out in the bar before a concert....as we normally do when we see shows in Vegas.  Hmmm...I see a future in these kiddos!!

 

Anyways, the show was awesome.  I was shocked at how good it was...the music was phenomenal...lots of old school songs...but it lasted just a bit too long.  I would still recommend it.  The kids thought it was amazing.  It started a little scary-ish, but evened out and was pretty entertaining.

 

 



 

11.26.2015: Thankful for Family!

We truly had a full house today!  I love our tradition of family meals at Mom & Dad's.  Although it is seeming like they need to get a bigger house soon!!   We had a group of  about 20 today...all fitting around the (modified) dining table!  It was so nice having everyone there.  We really missed Ken & Kelsea though :(  They are always working on these holidays!!

 

After an AMAZING dinner, we played charades.  Everyone really gets into it...and it got REALLY loud in the living room!  Probably the loudest it has ever been in there!!  So much fun though!!

 

 

Nana in training

 

The turkeys

11.26.2015: Pre-Party Turkey Day Prep

The morning was spent cooking and cleaning and doing cool turkey pinecone crafts.  Mom had the kids making turkey pinecones to use as namecard placeholders for the table.  They all got into it, with Alisa's supervision!!  We cooked, the kids got to go shoot the BB guns in the back, and we actually got to relax a little before the party started!!

 



Brent had a stummy ache - he got hit with the flu bug last night

Sees better when you hold it like binoculars

11.22.2015: Let the Sickness Begin

This morning Andrew woke up not feeling well.  He ended up in the bathroom throwing up all morning!  It was awful, poor guy!  At first we figured it was from all the food from the night before and the giant bowl of ice cream he ate...but it wasn't.  Half of the Cambridge boys were all sick too. 

He finally emptied his stomach enough to ride back to Mesa.  We had to go pick up Nana from her friends house.  Rest of the day was uneventful.  Brent & Alisa came back later in the afternoon.

For the rest of the week, the flu bug took its turn through the rest of the family.  I got it on Tues.  Pretty miserable.  Horrible bug!!!

11.21.2015: Fall Fun in AZ

This morning we woke up and went to drop Nana at dance.  She was spending the night at her friends' house for a bday party tonight so Andrew and Avery were gonna come with me back to our house and stay in Scottsdale.  After we dropped Nana, the 3 of us headed over to Bashas to get some much needed Starbucks!  I think the kids are addicted to them :)  The non-coffee drinks of course!!

 

We headed up to Scottsdale and when we got there Vince and Drake had just gotten home.  The kids couldn't wait to go swim, and the day was PERFECT for it!  Avery is still a fearless fish and the boys had a great time playing catch with the football in the pool.  Avery was even diving for rings this time.  Crazy how this one has absolutely no fear.

 

After swimming, we went inside for some lunch and to rest for a minute.  Literally a minute.  The kids wanted to go play tennis, so I took them out there for some lessons.  Never too early to learn!  The boys preferred to see how hard & far they could hit it.  Avery was interested in a real lesson though.  Lesson #1 - what is your racket called?  Avery:  a wrecker.  Pass. Game over.  So funny!

 

We spent some time on the whole eye-hand coordination thing....until she got comfortable with hitting my hand :)  Then I quit.  It was a LOT of fun though! They seemed to have a good time.  They all could actually be pretty good, with more lessons, and wanting to learn.

 

After tennis we went back inside and made some dinner.  Then went down the street to Sweet Republic.  YUMMO!!!  Kids couldn't wait to go there!!!

 

What an amazing beautiful day today!