That's right - we went to Vegas. With a baby.
We had a great time in sin city and I have to say, my impression of Vegas (this was my first time to go) was definitely learning exactly where it gets its name: Sin City.
But let me back up and share the exciting day of departure....
We were up and running and actually about 1 hour ahead of schedule, just passing time at the house before leaving to meet a friend who was taking us to the airport. About 10 minutes from our meeting spot, Gabbie threw up everywhere in the car. I'm not talking spit up - I'm talking throw up. She lost everything she'd had for breakfast. We pulled over to call the pediatrician's office to find out if there was something we could give her. It was during that phone call that we realized something was definitely going on with Gabbie. Her skin color changed completely - almost to a complete pale, pukey color and her lips lost all of their pink. They weren't blue, but definitely not the color they should be. I hopped in the backseat of the car and we decided to head to her pediatrician's office since we were just a few minutes away. During that 5 minute ride, I watched her change pretty drastically and act as though she was extremely lethargic, having a hard time holding up her head, she wasn't sucking her thumb and her skin color still looked off. I am a pretty laid back mom when it comes to emergencies (or so I thought) until I had to sit pretty helpless while Brent drove safely to the office. We walked in and they immediately took us to the back, starting doing tests on her to make sure her oxygen levels were ok, etc. It was definitely the scariest moments in her little life. They did some blood work which came back with extremely high white blood count. As in 32,000 when it should just be about 10,000. They tested it again and when it came back the same number, they sent us to Vanderbilt Children's hospital.
By now, however she was definitely starting to look and act more like herself. She was hungry again which was a good sign. We were so disappointed to find out we were actually heading to the ER not just to a clinic for additional blood work (minor breakdown in communication with our pediatrician...ugh). So VERY long story short, after 4 hours in the ER and missing our flight, they did a urine analysis that came back "perfect" and another round of blood work. This time, they let us leave to make our rescheduled flight and called us with the results - her white count had gone down and they felt comfortable that nothing serious was wrong. whew.
But why did she get so sick?? Our pediatrician sent the original blood work off for allergy testing as I had given her eggs the morning she got so sick. We got the results back on Wednesday and thankfully she is not allergic to eggs. Whew. We went in for another round of blood work and her white counts were back to normal. They can't explain exactly what happened other than you aren't supposed to give a baby under 1 year eggs...oops.

Soooo we finally make it to Vegas on Friday night late after everyone else had arrived. We checked into the beautiful Venetian hotel and started a great trip. Here are a few pictures from the weekend along with commentary. Hopefully you won't get bored...

We did quite a bit of walking, but it was great. And while people complain about 110 degrees in Vegas, they have nothing on our humidity. The heat there was fabulous. Sounds crazy, I know, but it was just different. You don't realize how hot it is - it's as if you've stepped into a heater. Fabulous hair and all. ha ha One good part is that Gabbie finally mastered drinking from a sippy cup - I guess she finally got thirsty enough she had to figure it out. Yay

We stayed at the Venetian hotel which was fabulous to say the least. The hotel was built to resemble Italy, complete with paintings on the ceilings reminiscent of the Sistine Chapel, a river complete with gondola rides and singing gondoliers.






There are sooooooooo many hotels on the strip, so we spent a lot of our time exploring those...
The beautiful Bellaggio
This is all glass hanging from the ceiling the lobby. Hard to tell what it is in this pic...but it was gorgeous in person!
There was a beautiful giant garden display inside the Bellaggio. It reminded us of Bug's Life
This picture would be a little more realistic if Gabbie didn't have this "What's going on?" look on her face

This is outside the newest hotel - Aria. It was beautiful! (notice the little people in the background....cute)
I had to get a picture of our Walgreens - it was right outside the hotel which was so convenient. The first night, Brent hauled back 2 cases of water and snacks for our visit. It turned out to be the best $15 we spent the entire time and we downed that water in less than 3 days.


Along the way, there are a LOT of things/people to entertain you -

M&M's world - SOOO neat! Four levels of M&M's and any promotional item you could ever dream of with M&Ms on it...



not just the street performers, but the other people walking, the buildings, and sadly - the people handing out porn...I mean, invitations to have girls to your room in 20 minutes. This was by far the craziest thing I've ever seen! Not only do males do this job, but I saw plenty of little old hispanic grandmas dressed in long denim skirts and "Girls Girls Girls" t-shirts. One day, I left Brent, Grandma and Ed at a bus stop and decided Gabbie and I would just hoof it to the hotel. As I walked by him overhead, I said "Girls in your room in 20 minutes" it was funny and all those passerby laughed along with us too.

They're the ones in the orange shirts..not a great pic - sorry
Here's another one - most of the time they stand in "teams"


We headed to MGM Grand where they actually have REAL LIVE lions inside on display! It is an incredible site (obviously since Gabbie won't turn to face the camera)...




On Saturday night, Ti Ti offered to watch all the grandkids while we went to a show. Brent and I chose to see Mystere, which was a Cirque de Soleil show and was phenomenal to say the least! Of course the storyline was a little bizarre, but honestly the talent is unbelievable! Here's a pic from our night out - sorry for the crazy lighting, it was taken inside Ti Ti and Pop Pop's hotel room...



We stayed out pretty late on date night and got to explore several of the hotels and their casinos all by ourselves which was so fun. This is the part that we would have been to do more of if we didn't have Gabinator with us. However, we made the best of the trip!

The next day, we met up for breakfast with most of the family then headed to a really really great outlet mall. The biggest challenge in navigating Vegas is that the traffic was horrendous! We decided to purchase bus/shuttle tickets which allowed us to hop on and off the bus that ran the length of the strip. Given that it was 110 degrees most days, it was a really nice break from the heat, but it did provide quite a bit of entertainment for us as we hopped on and off, literally rubbing shoulders with the many interesting people who were vacationing beside us in Vegas. One night, this lady went on a rant to Brent and I regarding her 1 hour trip - she had spent 1 hour on the bus and still wasn't to her hotel, then proceeded to ask me, "Why in the world would you EVER travel with a stroller like that? How terrible! You really should have brought an umbrella stroller..." I was so taken aback that it took me a second to know what to say to her other than my child can lay down in this stroller and it really wasn't that bad. It wasn't until we exited the bus that I discovered that she had the exact same conversation with Brent while I had been on the upper level riding. Wow. Can we say bitter old woman? But how can you be mean with a cutie pie face like this? (Not mine, Gabbie's)


Once we arrived in Vegas, we found out there was a HUGE UFC fight on Saturday night. We thought there were so many people just because it was the 4th of July, then we found out not only was it a holiday it was also one of the biggest fights in UFC world. Ugh. That meant the sidewalks were PACKED. JAMMED PACKED. Crazy.

The night of the 4th ended up being one of our most comical evenings. When you have 11 people trying to walk together, stay together and decide on a restaurant it typically does not end well. Our night was no different. We set out to find a place for dinner ending up at the farthest point of the strip: the Stratosphere, which has a fabulous restaurant 800 feet above the strip. Of course by the time we arrived, it was full and only taking reservations (which of course, we did not have). So we finally settled on a buffet. Definitely one of the worst any of us had ever eaten (is there really ever a time you've left a fine dining experience at a buffet and thought, "that was a good decision"?) At this point, however it's almost 10:00 at night, we've missed all of the fireworks, people are getting tired (Gabbie actually slept through dinner) and all we can do is just laugh. The night wrapped up by JJ, Joel and Brent riding this crazy ride on top of the Stratosphere. It's a rough picture, but you can see what this is all about - this picture is actually the guys....
The above picture is from the observation deck (where I took the picture of the guys' ride). The pole is holding the cords for the bungee jumpers that jumped off the stratosphere. It's also a really neat view of the Vegas strip.

Here's a picture of us waiting at a bus stop, but also of the Stratosphere so you can see just how ENORMOUS it is


We did find out that the monorail was free and while we had bus tickets, it typically would take almost 30 minutes to go less than 3 blocks because of the number of stops to pick up and drop off passengers. The monorail was great - literally 10 minutes and we were at our destination! woo hoo

Hanging out at the food court chowing down on some black beans...she spent more time in the stroller than she has in her entire life! Loved this thing (even if we did get grief for taking it on the bus)

Pasta Pirate - doesn't that name just scream pasta? Yep, but surprisingly it wasn't all pasta and was in fact the best meal we had on our entire trip. It was delicious-o.



On our last night, we visited the downtown part of Vegas (who knew?) on Fremont Street and had a great time. This is an older part of Vegas, which we discovered also meant more affordable. Finally! We were sad that we couldn't have spent more time in this little gem of a find, but we made the most of our time nonetheless.

It was a great trip and we thoroughly enjoyed spending the days with the Whitaker family! We especially loved so much great time with Brent's grandmother and Ed. His grandmother made the trip possible for all of us and of course we greatly appreciated her generosity.
Vegas Baby = Vegas, with a baby.