Vegas!

Will I ever get caught up here? Maybe, maybe not. :)

Thursday, June 11, Jack's last day of school, was also the kick-off of my Vegas vacation with the girls. Everyone's flights were delayed in some way shape or form, but the first group of four met up at the airport and headed to our hotel - the Flamingo - Thursday evening.

This is all of us together on Day 2 - Friday (my birthday!) - at the Bellagio gardens. On top (left to right) is Carrielyn and Robin, and on the bottom (left to right) is me, Shawn, Kristi, and teeny tiny Amy in the front. :) (Side note - the girls in the back aren't that much TALLER than the rest... they are on a step).

Long story short. When pregnant with Jack, Rob and I had moved to Idaho and were there all by ourselves with no family, friends, or support system. And unfortunately, I had a TERRIBLE pregnancy and was just sick 24/7 for nine straight months. So getting out and meeting new people wasn't really an option. For support, I ended up finding an internet message board for women pregnant and expecting babies in April 2004. Mostly it was just a good source for me to find answers to those questions I might have asked my friends who had been through this before... but I didn't have any friends who had been through this before because I was the first of my close friends to get pregnant.

Well Jack was born on April 6, 2004, and after nine months of terrible pregnancy, we switched gears... I had my health back (so to speak - I did end up getting very sick and having my gall bladder removed - another long story)... but that misery was just replaced with that of a fussy baby who did NOT want to sleep. Again I found myself looking for support from this internet message board. A group of ladies (from all over the country - plus Canada!) on this message board kind of banded together and bonded over sleeplessness and our struggles to "teach" these little ones to sleep. We called ourselves the "Sleep Warriors" and would chat daily about the progress and regression our kids made in the sleep department. Days turned into weeks and months and ultimately years, and we have all kept in touch and gotten to know each other quite well and talk daily... about everything from family, to friends, to diet, to exercise, to recipes, to pet peeves, to discipline... everything under the sun. We've been through a 2nd round of children (and sleep problems) together. Some of us have met at various times over the years when in each others' neck of the woods. I met Amy in New Hampshire two and a half years ago when I was out east for my brother's wedding. We had never all been together though.

Thus was born the Vegas trip. Shawn thought it up, proposed it, we tossed around dates, the husbands all got on board, and next thing you know, six out of seven of us (Zoe in England could not make the trek) had our trips booked.

There you have it! Six ladies together in Vegas! Within an hour I'd say, it didn't feel like we'd never actually met in person before. We ate, walked, shopped, laughed, gambled (some more than others!), drank, laid out by the pool, and had an all around great time. What a cool birthday gift for me! (Or, according to Rob, my graduation present for surviving his schooling!)

Like my SHORT version of the story? Kind of a novel! Just imagine if I told you the LONG version! :)

So Vegas. June 11-14. Since I'm not a gambler, nor did I have the money available to shop, my big plan was to hang out by the pool. We made sure to pick a hotel with a decent pool area. On the cheap end of the hotel spectrum, that's the Flamingo. Which suited our needs perfectly! Of course lots of people had the same "plan" as us to the pool was packed (unless you got up at 6am and threw towels on some chairs then went back to bed). The first day we ended up just sitting on the edge of the pool with no chairs, and that worked out just fine. The second day only Shawn and I hit the pool, and it was even more crowded than the day before. At first we couldn't find a spot to sit AT ALL. Finally we found a tiny little peice of pavement on the edge of the pool, so we set up camp. No sooner did we sit down than some people across the pool from us started packing up to leave, so Shawn ran over and took over their spot - which just happened to be our spot the day before. Again, just as soon as we set up, some people sitting near us IN CHAIRS got my attention and asked if we wanted their chairs, they were leaving. Heck yes! So once again we moved, but we scored great seats and thus spent a lot more time at the pool that day than we originally planned! We were under a perfect shady tree, right on the edge of the water, not too hot of a day... bliss. (Shawn's feet are on the left, mine on the right). :)

There are a ton more stories I could tell from Vegas, but I'll leave it at that for now. I will post the REST of the pictures on Facebook. So if you want to see more, and we're not facebook friends, we should be. :)