Final Day in Vegas

And what a beautiful day it was!  I took Charley to the Nevada Southern Railway to ride their Halloween Express train.  She loved it!

And she got to wear her THIRD costume - a ballerina!

While waiting for the ride, we got to take a short jaunt on this engine

Getting off this train...

...and onto the real one!

Then we picked Dada up from his conference.  The Embassy Suites had swans inside (very sad for the birds).

And Charley LOVED this Elvis!

 That was it!  We drove home that night, fortunately this time was uneventful (except for battling sleepiness).  Charley decided to pee on a toilet in a gas station, so for her usual candy reward, I bought her this ring pop. She quickly fell asleep with it.  So - she got to finish it at home the next morning!

Vegas - Day 3

Today was kind of a mish-mash kind of day, with kind of a random assortment of unplanned activities.

We started the day by going to a place called Kids' Club - think McDonald's playland on a huge scale, and paid admittance.  Problem is, you had to have SOCKS to go into the play areas, which I did not.  So I had to usher her in and sit out in the lobby.  Sometimes she'd disappear for what seemed like an eternity, and just as I was about to break all the rules and go in barefoot to find her, there she'd reappear!

 I'd found a Halloween website that listed everything going on in Vegas, so I thought I had another cool event planned like the one the previous night.  We spent an hour in a traffic jam (that was due to Harry Reid's motorcade's accident), then another hour searching around for two places I'd jotted down, and never found either.  With a cranky kid and a cranky husband, I finally redeemed myself by remembering the Silverton Hotel - the "best free entertainment in Vegas" for kids.  So we went - and it was cool.  They have mermaids!

 And lo and behold - there was a Bass Pro attached.  Lucky for me (phew, off the hook), lucky for Charley (She LOVED the mermaid) and lucky for Rod!  And, they happened to be having a little Halloween event for kids that night.

Vegas - Day 2

Once again Rod slipped out, we had a leisurely breakfast, then headed to the Springs Preserve to spend the day.  The reality is, each day by the time we got up, got ready, had breakfast, got packed up and to our destination - Charley was about two hours away from naptime!  So, we had a good two hours before I had to get Ms. Crankypants back to the hotel for her nap!  We made the most of it.

Unfortunately, we arrived at 9 but they didn't open until 10.  Fortunately, we could access the grounds, just not the buildings, and they had a fantastic playground!

Whoa, look at that lizard!

I LOVE this turtle!

Cool train!

Kissing a snake for Dada

Yeay, kids to play with!

I couldn't get her to come on for looking at this stream!

And THEN I couldn't get her to leave this table of puzzles - PUZZLES!  She NEVER wants to play with her puzzles at home, and it's ALL she wanted to do here - for about 45 minutes!!!

My little explorer

 They were having a tots' Halloween party too - we went to storytime and they had games - too bad I didn't know to dress Charley!  Good thing that that night we found a Halloween event in nearby Henderson.  It was GREAT!  Charley had so much fun trick or treating from trunk to trunk.

 We played some games...

Posing for a pic

 Enough of this, Charley says - "Dance!"

 So we headed over to the stage where the DJ was rocking out, and she danced!  That's what she most wanted to do!

 THEN she discovered the alien.  Scared of the dinos, but oh no - not the alien.  Go figure.  Forgive me for the millions of alien pics that follow, but - seriously - she did NOT want to leave him.  The pictures reflect the amount of time we spent with this little guy that night!

"Booking" his nose

Cuddling the alien - passersby were stopping to watch and giggle

Seriously?  Now we're slow dancing with the alien!

By now she had a small crowd!

It was traumatic saying her goodbyes...

Enjoying the spoils of the night