Las Vegas vacation: first night and M&M factory

Just before we moved to Alaska we decided we needed to get a last minute vacation and a little last minute sunshine. So the day after Benji sold his dental practice we headed to Las Vegas. Here's a fun little fact: the distance between Salt Lake City and Las Vegas is about the same as the distance between Anchorage and Fairbanks. Alaska is a huge state!

Here we are ready to start our awesome Vegas adventure.

Stretching our legs at a gas station on the way.

I decided to book our stay at Circus Circus because we were staying with our kids and I thought it would be fun and because it was Valentine's Day weekend every other hotel was way expensive. Good thing we like to celebrate Valentine's Day with our kids. Here we are waiting to get on the elevator to get to our room!

After a long 6 1/2 hour drive we were so happy to finally be in our hotel room. Before we could do anything else the kids had to test out the beds and jump for a minute.

It was late when we checked in so we only had time to eat dinner the first night. We ate the buffet in our hotel. We discovered that Sam loves oysters. I think the main reason he liked them was because they came with a seashell, but he insists he thought they tasted good....even if he struggled knowing how to eat them....

Hannah loved having all the ice cream she could eat!

The kids slept well that night.

In the morning we woke up and ate at Denny's and then our plan was to spend the day at an indoor amusement park that was in our hotel, but we got there and found out our kids were an inch too short for any of the rides. They were pretty devastated. Since our plan was to spend the day there we didn't have much of a plan. So we decided to head to the M&M store.

Along the way we met the creepiest Hello Kitty and Buzz Lightyear.

I don't know if any of you have been to Las Vegas. If you have you will know why I was relieved to see this Chinese Buffet coupon when Jordan said, "mom! Look at this card I found on the ground!"

In front of New York, New York.

Once we made it to the M&M store we had fun looking at all the colors of M&M and then we let each kid pick out their favorite colors to buy. I knew it would be expensive, but was a little blown away by how much money. I think we spent more on M&Ms than we did on breakfast and lunch combined. It was a lot. BUT it was fun.

The kids loved picking out their favorite colors. Jordan chose red, white, blue, and black.

Sam picked green.

Hannah picked pink and purple. It was fun to watch her jump around with excitement because of her "girl M&Ms."

Here we are ready to watch the 3D M&M movie.

They were not happy about this picture.

This is actually at the Hershey store across the street, but they were so excited about this statue of liberty made out of chocolate.

More exciting Las Vegas pictures to come!