Vegas, Baby!

It was that time again... time for our annual family Vegas trip! We went from July 8th-13th. This was the longest one so far; 5 nights & 6 days at our home away from home. It probably would've been more enjoyable for everyone if 1) it wasn't 100+ degrees every day and 2) there wasn't a hormonal pregnant woman on the trip! Haha, whoops! Regardless, it was an enjoyable vacation and Riley had fun being able to be out and about all the time.

Day 1
We left Lakewood at 6am to start our 4 hour drive to Sin City. If we didn't make any stops on the way, we would've made it there around 10:30am. However, we stopped at the Fashion Outlets (I think that's what they're called?) at state line and did some shopping! It's not a Vegas trip if we don't do some outlet shopping, right!? ;) We stayed at the Luxor the 1st night; mine & Riley's 1st time staying there! I think it might have also been Ruben's 1st time, but I'm not positive. We stayed inside the pyramid on the 12th floor (I think) and the way it looks from that high up is CRAZY! If you've ever stayed there, I'm sure you know what I'm talking about. That night we went downtown to the Freemont Street Experience and just walked around for a while. Even though it was 8pm, it was still really hot/humid outside! I was really disappointed to not be able to go zip lining due to being pregnant, but relieved at the same time because the line was super long!

Angry baby watching Yo Gabba Gabba

Ruben & Joey playing NBA in the car!?

Joey getting the "Aqua Massage"

Luxor pool!

Nap time before going downtown

What a treat! McDonald's for lunch!

Ready for a night out :P

New shirt from the Old Navy outlet :)

Inside the Luxor pyramid

The Freemont Street Experience

So intrigued!

LOVE!

That's right, Tupac lives!

I was forced to take a picture with this Village person, and I dragged Christina in with me!

Day 2
The rest of our stay would be at Elara: A Hilton Grand Vacations Hotel, or formerly known as the Planet Hollywood Westgate Towers. 2 words- TIME SHARE! And we love it there :) We were also glad to be going to the time share on this day because that meant we could unpack and settle in without having to worry about packing up again until we left to go back home. We made a trip to the grocery store before getting to Elara to get some snacks, drinks and food for a few meals in the room. I don't know if anyone of you have gone grocery shopping with 5 boys, 1 pregnant woman and a toddler... but it was quite an experience! After we got all of our stuff to the room, we were all itching to go to the pool to cool off. I wish the pool was colder than it felt, but it was still satisfying. You couldn't be out of it for longer than 5 minutes though, without wanting to go right back in. We ate dinner at La Salsa Cantina inside the Miracle Mile Shops and walked around for a bit after as well.

She loved the pool!

Baby Ramirez, trying to get some color! (24 weeks)

Day 3
In the morning, Ruben played in a poker tournament at the Planet Hollywood Casino and came in 1st! His first big win in Vegas, so exciting! :D It was a $60 buy in and he came back to the room with a little over $800. Another exciting part of the day, my sister April & my niecey Amelia came to Vegas to hang out with us for 3 days! Riley and I were so excited to have our partners in crime with us during our 6 day stay. Oh the trouble we could get in to! We picked them up from the airport around 2pm and once they got settled in to the room, we went down to the pool and did a little swimming. We only stayed at the pool for an hour and then headed to the Miracle Mile Shops to do some (more) shopping! We ate dinner that night at Blondie's inside the Miracle Mile Shops and watched the All Star baseball game. After dinner, we went back to the room and put the little munchkins to sleep and then Ruben, April & I went down to the PH Casino together and gambled.

Ruben bought Riley this "surprise" while she was napping and wanted her to wake up to it like this

watching Ruben play poker!

Video poker! only 1 away from a Royal Flush

Day 4
This might've been the most relaxing day of the trip. I can't remember now exactly what we all did, but I'm pretty sure it consisted of walking around the Miracle Mile Shops (no one wanted to be out in the Vegas heat that often) and lounging in the room. We also ALL went down to the pool for a couple hours. We ate dinner that night at Cheeseburger inside the Miracle Mile Shops- it was the last night with April & Amelia before they left the next day! :(

Mila!

happy little princesses :)

crazy how different Riley will grow up from us with all the new technology  in the world..

family pool time!

Day 5
Today my sister and Amelia were flying back home around 2 :( We made our last walk to Starbucks and hung out til it was time for them to leave. That night Ruben & I decided to go walk to Caesar's Palace to check out the Forum Shops while everyone else went to the All Star basketball game at UNLV. We did A LOT of shopping and ate dinner at the food court inside Caesar's. Riley was really excited to finally get out of Planet Hollywood and go do something different. Once we got back to the hotel, we packed up all of our stuff and prepared for the trip back home the next day.

one of my favorite parts of the MMS, they had these everywhere with different words

watching the Bellagio fountain show

ready for some family fun!?

the biggest H&M Ruben has seen, haha!

all of the shopping we did in Vegas

 

Day 6

We left the hotel at 9am and headed back to Lakewood- HOME SWEET HOME! I don't know how many of you have driven to Vegas and passed by the Alien Beef Jerky place, curious to see if it was any good or not, because we definitely have been wondering about it and finally decided to stop and check it out! (per Ruben's request) Inside they had some really interesting alien decorations and stories about sightings and what not. They also had some really crazy jerky flavors, and a sampling area to try most of them.

sampling station

 

Ruben's choices- of course he went for the hottest ones they had

my choice- it was really sweet and soft, so yummy!

 So as you can tell from all the pictures, we had an eventful Vegas trip! It was a lot of fun and we all enjoyed ourselves, but were also very happy to be home after being away for almost a week. Until our 2013 trip!