En Route to Vegas!

Once upon a time, I loved to write a good passage.  I crafted some blog posts that pleased me in their polished-ness.  Now I can't even string a sentence together without making up words like "polished-ness."  I miss writing, but I can't get it back right now.  There are just too many people with too many demands around me.  Of course, I'd rather have the people, but it's one or the other.  Scott and I clearly didn't think through the idea of having seven kids.  We had no idea that diapers and midnight feedings were the tip of the iceberg.  We pictured ourselves wiping our brows at some point when the last kid was capable of wiping her own bum and saying, "Phew!  We're home free."  Ha ha ha ha!

Obviously, we didn't have in mind the missionary letters or the college move-ins or the individual dates each kid craves or the endless lessons or the mountains of stuff each kid scatters all over the house.  And we certainly didn't dream they'd have the chutzpah to go to Europe and bring home enough kids to double the size of our family, kids whom we love like our own.  When this summer is over, we'll have had 12 kids, one of whom will stay the school year.  Ok, 7 of whom will stay the school year, counting Chu Qi and our 6 who aren't going to Honk Kong.

The thing about having had 12 great kids in the house is that then six or seven doesn't seem like enough.  It's not about the numbers.  It's about the personalities that came, unpacked, and made themselves indispensable to our happiness.  Yet another part of parenting that was invisible to us:  that not only would our children leave someday, but before they did, they would bring us friends we'd love who would also leave.

What was my point?  Oh yeah, that I don't have the time or brain power to write a paragraph.  All I have are all these beautiful memories:

Cove Fort.  When Scott and I started regularly road tripping to California, I always wanted to stop at Cove Fort, the Mormon monument to the early settlers.  It became a joke that we weren't stopping there, until one time we did, and it was great.  It's fun to see, and there are clean bathrooms.  This trip, we'd left home at 6 am, so Cove Fort was an early morning stop.  The sun was shining, and so were our eyes, from the tears of sleepiness.

Next stop, Littlefield, Arizona.  We had an adventurous journey down I-15!  Friends (Nikki and Angela) had told us about this little oasis and we thought, why not?  It's off Arizona Exit 9 as you're cutting across that little corner of Arizona between St. George and Vegas.  You won't see it from the freeway, but it's right under the road.  You'll have to hike down to it through some trash and weeds, a tricky hike, but it's a fun place to stop.  It's a man-made pool with a natural waterfall.

 

I'm so glad Freestone came on this trip with us.  He was going to stay home and babysit, so it complicated things when we convinced him to go with, but it was worth it.  He's fun!

The pool and waterfall were the perfect refreshment to get us through the desert, because man, it was hot! 

 

And finally, we were at our final destination!  Las Vegas!  I lucked out and booked the perfect lodging, the Jockey Club.  It's adjacent to The Cosmopolitan, so the location is perfect, and it's a time-share type deal, so the price is perfect; probably half of what the Cosmopolitan is, and we had a one-bedroom apartment with a kitchen and a fold-out couch.  

And this was the view from our room.  Can't beat it!  Upon arrival, I turned the six young'uns loose to do whatever they wanted.  Let's face it: The Strip is one of the safest places on the planet, what with the crowds of tourists, the security cameras and the police presence.  As long as they didn't get drunk and arrested, they'd be fine.  Meanwhile, I put my feet up and opened my book.  It was disorienting not to have any little kids to entertain, but I used the time to hone my rusty relaxation skills while Ruby, Araceli, Freestone, Olympe, Victor and Sofia roamed Sin City late into the night.  Scott was home with the other 45 kids...I mean 4 kids, so I got to miss him a little.  Or a lot!  That's always fun; adds a little variety to the daily mix. :)  Not that variety is hard to come by when you have 12 kids!