Vacation

Hi there, Happy New year. We just returned from an after Christmas vacation. We needed a little down time after Grandma's funeral. We chose Las Vegas with a swing through Los Angeles to visit USC, hit a couple of Missions and go home. The girls and Victor wanted to experience Circus Circus Vegas style and I not so secretly wanted to go to the Coca Cola store and get a CSI T-shirt.

Our adventure was off with a bang the day after Christmas. We headed out at 8:30 am and everything was going well. Regular stops for bathroom, food and gas with minimal fighting in the back seats of our nine passenger Suburban. All was well as we stopped in Bakersfield to get a Cherry Lime Coke from Sonic. Momma Bear hadn't had one of these in a very long time. It was fabulous!

This is where things took a turn. Highway 58 was closed due to poor visibility and high winds. We were not deterred. We had LUCY our GPS (shortened from Lucinda meaning light bearer)! We re set it to go through LA and checked our hotel reservations. Onward Ho! Stuck in mega traffic most of the rest of the day we arrived in Vegas at about 11:30. We had arranged for two rooms with an adjoining door. We were led to two rooms on different floors. This was not going to work for us. With some yelling we received a better room but had to help get it ready. I helped make the beds and put the kids to bed, then put Victor to bed and then lay down with Vadim. Just as I was drifting off they brought up the crib. It was 3:30 am Lights out!

Next day Circus Circus buffet was a big hit and we were off. We went shopping and bought the girls new clothes as a belated Christmas gift and then headed to the Rain forest Cafe for dinner. This for me was the highlight. It was very kid friendly and great food. After dinner we headed to the Coca Cola store and had lots of fun looking at everything.

We headed back to Circus Circus and hit the game arcade. I had some strange need to win one of those large basketballs, but after many attempts could not get one. The girls won a pink guitar. The man at the game was so sweet. He kept giving Zara all these chances, but it was Laryssa who got the dart in the star and won the neon pink guitar. It was midnight and we went to bed. Victor got up early while we all slept and won $200 Yippee! We had some god awful Krispe Cream doughnuts and headed off to the Adventure dome also in Circus Circus. I was determined to get over my fear of roller coasters and go on one. I did and it wasn't bad as long as I kept my eyes closed and screamed a lot. It was very liberating. Victor one me the basketball and we had had enough of Vegas.

Can anyone say MORE TRAFFIC! It took forever to get to LA and we finally settled into a lovely suite with a loft in Long beach. We had pizza,fire and a movie and Sasha was the only one who stayed awake for the entire movie. We forged on the next morning and headed for USC to go souvenir shopping. It was a little overwhelming but we walked away with a few cheerleader outfits, several pom poms and well you name it we bought it. We were able to hear the band practice and peek at the football practice for a second. It was a lot of fun.

We were now homeward bound planning to stop at Sasha's Mission from last year and then Laryssa's from this year. Sasha's mission was Santa Barbara. It was beautiful, we got there just as evening Mass was ending and they had a lovely Nativity scene in the front with live animals. Laryssa's mission was very nice too but it was too dark to really get to appreciate it but we had fun running around anyway. We arrived home at 11:30 pm. Grateful to have arrived safely after seeing a bad accident on the PCH. We realized it was fun to get away but there is no place like home.