Jenson’s 3rd trip to Vegas
It occurred to me that Jenson has never been to the beach, but has been to Vegas 3 times now (4th if you count in utero). No, we are not gambling addicts, and neither is he. My sister’s family lives there, and Max is 4 months younger than Jenson. Considering the next closest-in-age nephew/niece on my side is 13, we hope that these two (and their upcoming siblings) will be close, despite living across the country. Going to Vegas is a pretty easy trip for us because my sister has all of the “stuff” we need for a toddler. She’s due in November, and I’m due 4 weeks later, so it’s going to be a little while before we get to visit again. We wanted to get another trip in while the boys are still only-children (and thus still get to rule the show). Plus, we went before Jenson turned 2, so he still flew for free.
The biggest decisions we had to make was what to do with Boof. There were a couple of people who would normally been able to watch Boof, but they all were going out of town that weekend. We didn’t want to board her because she has abandonment issues (from being abandoned twice before we got her). It just made me sad to think of taking her to a boarding place and her thinking that she was being returned to the pound (again). I’m not saying we’ll never board her, but because of our flight timing, it was going to have to be 5 nights and that was just too many. I contacted the rescue group where we adopted her from and asked if they had any foster families who pet sit. One of the members of the board messaged back and said they could keep her from us. Even though we didn’t know them at all, I felt very comfortable leaving her with them, considering they are so involved in the agency and have fostered tons of dogs – I knew they would treat her well. She returned perfectly happy, and they said she got along with the other dogs really well, thought she was timid at first.
Our flight out went well. When we got to the airport, one of the gates was decorated with a Luau theme and they were giving out snacks and stuff, and he had lots of fun playing with the grass skirt fringe and the balloons while we waited for Lo to park the car.
We took Jenson’s seat with us, hoping that there would be an extra seat on the plane (if there is, they’ll let you take a carseat on for a lap baby). We were told that the flight was completely full though, so we had to gate-check the seat. Of course, once we got on the flight, the attendant told us it shouldn’t be full, and that she’d make sure we got an extra seat (assuming it really wasn’t full). He did really well sitting in the real seat with his seatbelt on for most of the flight. He watched some shows, read books, played with some new toys I picked up, and was pretty great. We let him out of his seat a few times to stretch his legs and look around, which he loves to do.
It had been hot in Columbus and I was SO over summer and my limited maternity wardrobe…and of course it was 100 degrees out there, but it was fine. You kind of just have to stay inside during the hottest part of the day, which works out with lunch and naptime anyway. The boys did great together – of course there was typical jealousy over toys, but they also did a fair amount of chasing each other around, playing together, and hanging out happily. Jenson had a lot of fun with all of the new toys, but kept asking for more puzzles, lol. He had just really gotten into puzzles and apparently one just wasn’t enough for him (even though we only had 2-3 at that point). They watched some shows, had lots of snacks, and played really well together for the most part.
Despite the heat, they kids got a lot of outdoor time with the hose, chalk, push toys, bubbles, and played in the pool a bit. The hose was a bit hit. It’s one of Max’s favorite things, and Jenson loved playing with it too. We’d crimp the hose and then let it go so it would spray far, and they would crack up.
Summer and I took them to the Shark Reef Aquarium at Mandalay Bay and they enjoyed that. It was a pretty cool exhibit. It was smaller than I expected, but really was the perfect size for them because they were pretty tired when we were done because it was close to lunch time and they’d been waking early.
They have these ridiculous little dogs who were obsessed with being next to me or on me. I didn’t mind…we missed Boof, and she doesn’t snuggle with us anyway.
I’m so glad we went to visit again before the chaos of having 2 kids each. Traveling is about to get a lot harder for us, so who knows when we’ll get out there again. Goodbyes are always hard! Jenson gave Max a kiss when we left and Max was like- what are you doing?!
There were tons of seats left on our way home – apparently arriving at 12:30 a.m. on a Wednesday isn’t a popular flight – so we were able to take his seat on. He got a little more restless/fussy on this flight, but he was tired. We assumed he’d sleep, but it didn’t work out that way (until we got to CMH). The row in front of us was open too, so when he wanted more space to stand up and play, I was able to sit there for a bit so he could move around within our row. It all worked out…we were all sleepy the next day, but it was a great trip.