It's Vegas Baby!

On Monday Alan and I left, by ourselves, for a little getaway.  Alan is now a seed adviser for Syngenta.  The company had a conference in Las Vegas and paid for Alan and I to go! 

Livi was pretty sad when we left Monday morning :(  Our babysitter Meaghan said she moped around most of the morning saying she wanted  her "real" mommy (not the picture I drew for her)!  Luckily, Livi perked up-spending most of the time with her cousins while we were gone helped a lot!  I'm not sure Colson even realized what was going on.  I'm sure he knew he wasn't at home, but everyone said he was super happy and slept well, so that makes me happy :)

Alan and I were supposed to fly out of Peoria at 9:30 Monday morning and connect in Chicago to Las Vegas.  Our flight was over an hour late in Peoria and we thought we would miss our flight out of Ohare.  We were "lucky" the Chicago flight was delayed too so we got on the plane and thought we would only be about an hour behind our expected arrival in Vegas.  Well, after sitting on the plane for over an hour, we had to taxi back to the gate so a mechanic could fix somebody's seat back-Aaargh!  After fueling up (again), we finally made it out to the runway and left over 2 hours late.   We thought flying over the mountains was super cool (we're dorks, I know)

We finally arrived in sunny Las Vegas, albeit a little later than expected....

We stayed at The Mirage-super nice. 

We upgraded to a suite, because that's how we roll :)

The living area

2 bathrooms and an entry way!

 Monday night we went to the welcome dinner and then walked the strip a little bit.  Tuesday, Alan had meetings from 8:30 to 2 p.m.  I relaxed in the room until about 10 and then did some shopping!

After lunch, I went and laid by the pool, read my Kindle and just relaxed-it was great!!! That afternoon we went to Seigfried and Roy's Secret Garden at The Mirage.  It had dolphins, tigers, white lions and leopards-it was really neat.

You could get so close to the dolphin pool!

My phone battery died so I didn't get any other pictures of the animals :(  That night Syngenta had a dinner at The Hard Rock Cafe.  They had an Elvis impersonator for entertainment-ha!  We did a little more gambling that night, but we're not very good at it.  I wanted to play craps, but neither of us have any idea how!  The next morning Alan had a short meeting and I headed back to the pool for some more sun and relaxation :)  We flew back home that afternoon, all of our flights were on time and we got home around 10:30 that night.  It was a really quick trip, but it was worth it for sure!  Alan and I don't do a whole lot without the kids and it was nice for just us to go somewhere together.  This seed adviser thing might have more perks than I thought!! 

Mama's new toy!

Today we said "good bye" to our trusty old friend the Envoy.  It was 9, almost 10, years old and was with us for the last 7 years.  Alan and I brought 2 babies home from the hospital safely strapped in to this car.  It was a good car and I was a little sad to part

 

BUT, we said "hello" to our new and much prettier friend, the Traverse!  And a pretty things always make a sad day a little (or much) better!

I'm loving having a nice, new (to me) vehicle.  Alyvia thinks that it's a 'ban' (van) so she is super happy too!  So farewell, Enny Envoy-we wish you safe travels!  Happy belated birthday to me!

Warriors!!

Today Anne and I completed the "Warrior Dash".  To quote the website "Warrior Dash is a mud-crawling, fire-leaping, extreme run from hell"!!  It was 3.25 miles of crazy running in mud, up hills, through creeks and completing crazy obstacles (most which involved lots of climbing up walls).  It was so much fun to do with Anne!  She got me to sign up in January and I started training (for the running part) in March.  I'm proud to say I've lost 10 lbs since I've started running, a feat I've never done before.  I can normally run 3 miles in just over 30 minutes now and I feel so much better about myself.  I don't love the running, but I do love how I feel after!  Back to the race...Anne, Alan, my mom, Alyvia and I left our house in the afternoon for a farm in Channahon, where the race was (Colson stayed home with Mamaw).  There were waves of participants that started every 30 minutes from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m.  So many people!

Gas station off the Interstate exit welcoming us!

Livi and I before the race-she spent the whole week telling me she didn't want me to race, I still don't know why!

Before

Coming out of the woods where we just climbed up a really steep, muddy hill

The last climbing obstacle-there were so many!

Fire-jumping!

Mud crawling (me on left in front, Anne on right in pink tank top)

After

Warriors!!  Helmets and all!

The littlest warrior :)

I had so much fun!  I plan to continue running and need to find my next race to motivate me!

Cinco de Mayo

Happy Cinco de Mayo-no margaritas to celebrate here, but plently of "excitement".  Colson is sick-AGAIN!  He was up a lot of the night last night, just fussy.  Alan thought that maybe his ear infection was back, so I called and got him into the pediatrician.  Sure enough, he's got ear infections, again.  He stopped his antibiotics Monday and had 3 good days before he got sick again.  I wish we could just figure out what is wrong with him and fix it, I'm so sick of this "virus".  After we picked up his antibiotic we dropped him off with Aunt Anne to hang out while Livi and I went to Mommy's Day at her preschool.  Alyvia had to change into her fancy dress before we went :)

She had made me a card for Mother's day, we painted a vase together (purple and pink) and then we played a version of BINGO (MOMMY).  We also had a yummy cookie and punch snack. 

It was a lot of fun, but ended on a bit of a sour note.  A lot of the kids were running around and playing at the end of the evening and she wanted to play too.  Everytime she went up to a "friend" though, she got quiet and then the "friend" sort of ignored her.  She got her feelings hurt and that made me sad :(   She was being a little difficult too about what the kids were playing.  She wanted to play princess, but the other kids were playing freeze tag and she had NO interest in that and it made her mad that she wasn't in charge.  I want her to have friends and to play nice and it's so hard to watch her struggle at times.  She's only 3, what will it be like at 13?!   Hopefully she can learn to assert herself a little more when needed and be a little more open to play what other kids want to play too.  She's so much more outgoing than I ever was as a child and probably more so than I am now.  I want so badly for her not to be painfully shy and awkward like me.  Hopefully I will learn how to teach her to be a good friend.