Vegas, Baby!

What's wrong with this picture? (Might have to click on it to make it bigger to see.)

The first thing I said to Nick when he and the girls were done bumping cars was, "Cayenne's never getting her driver's license." But this was Vegas, so even though the signs say One Way, it's really whichever one way you want to go...

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Acacia was barely four years old when she reached her little arm into the air one evening and pointed at the brightest light in the sky.

"A star!"

"Actually, that's a planet. Do you know its name?"

She thought about that, furrowing the gorgeous eyebrows she inherited from her Daddy, and then exclaimed, "I know! I know! That's Las Vegas!"

That memory kept popping into my head as we walked up and down Las Vegas Blvd. I kept thinking, "She was absolutely right. This place is another planet."

And, it turns out, it is where everybody goes for Thanksgiving. ha! Well, not everyone, but a couple of kids in Acacia's class were there, we had a fun Thanksgiving dinner with my boss/friend Kelly and her family, and we would have shared time with Barr as well if we'd known he was there. Although Barr, you wouldn't have wanted to spend Wednesday with us. Nick and Acacia got shaken and stirred by the rides at Circus Circus until Dad was about to puke. Cayenne and I went shopping. Smart girls that we are.

These rides are in a hotel. This place is nuts. (Nick and Acacia are on the roller coaster in this pic.)

But the best part of our vacation wasn't man-made. Those red rocks really were the perfect balance to the glitz. Every other day we drove the short twenty minutes from downtown to a gorgeous spot in the desert, just waiting to be climbed.

Here's Acacia SpiderGirl:

   

See Las Vegas in the background? Love the dichotomy.

He wore his Red Rocks camouflage.

  

Cayenne's built just like me. Ha! Not.

I have to admit getting the girls away from the hotel's swimming pool and television to go rock climbing involved a not-so-cheery conversation, but once we were on those sun-warmed rocks, seems everyone forgot about being plugged-in. I guess that's one of our roles as parents: Teaching them that getting out is worth the effort. 

While waiting her turn Cayenne went exploring, ending up on top of the rock Acacia was climbing. 

"Don't lean over!" 

"I'm not suicidal, Mom." (Ahh... the first twinges of teen-hood...)

And Acacia decided she wanted to climb one more time, after she'd taken off her shoes.

I'm not sure what part of this is more like her father: That her toes are long enough to grip like fingers, or that she's climbing barefooted at all!

This is where cameras are a good thing. The next time we head out to have an amazing day and they throw themselves onto the sofa - backs of their hands to their foreheads - lamenting their fates of being born Cofmans... I'll have photographic evidence that they enjoyed themselves the last time, and even went back for more!