A real vacation?

I've been meaning to write about my valentines day experience this year, but it's taken me a while to process it all. Here's the best I can do.

We had a "vacation". Yes, it is once again soccer season. This tournament was in St. George/Mesquite, and I was feeling saucy so I decided to pack up my girls (have you ever packed for a baby? You basically have to take everything. I finally stopped myself at the 6th recieving blanket and after packing every burpcloth in the city of Spanish Fork. Oh, and water, who knows what kind of water they have in Mesquite, how can I feel good about feeding my baby Mesquite water?) and headed out to the fields with my husband in his cute little referee shorts. (Yes, they have to be that short, otherwise the socks would look ridiculous.)

So St. George was the same as usual, dry, forsaken looking palm trees, people who wish they were in California, yada yada. And Mesquite...not so much. Apparently if you don't golf there is no reason at all to go there. And to make things even more adventurous we got to stay in a hotel that was actually closed...and perhaps haunted. I decided it was haunted because then the disgusting, dirty decor was ambience, not a health code violation. It seems our hotel was used as an "overflow" hotel when the real hotels just didn't have room. It was kind of fun, in a life risking sort of way. The up side is that none of us got bit by mystery bugs, unlike our poor soccer-referee neighbor. He looked like a bedbug buffet.

BUT! It weasn't all bad. Here's the awesome part. All the soccer games got cancelled for the last two days so Charlie actually had to SPEND TIME WITH HIS FAMILY ON FAMILY VACATION. Sorry, it still gets me a little excited that he was finally able to experience that. Because he is an over achiever, and it was Valentines weekend, he even came up with a plan all on his own for family fun. Vegas was only an hour away, and he had 48 hours to spare, so instead of packing up and heading home like everyone else we headed south to Las Vegas for a romantic Valentine's get away...with two kids in tow...Brilliant!!

I don't want you all to get the wrong idea. I was impressed by his gumption. He even got us a big fancy suite at the Luxor so we had panoramic views from our in-room hot tub of the glittering city lights. We went walking around the various casino's trying to see everything we could (I had Eliza in her Moby wrap. You get some good comments when you take a 3 month old into a casino.)

Mia's favorite thing was the volcano in front of the Mirage. She made us stand and watch it at least 3 times before we were allowed to go back to our room and crash. My favorite thing, and possibly the most romantic thing Charlie has ever done for me, was that we got to spend an hour at Sephora. I frantically searched for my favorite eyelash curler (refer to my previous entry about my love affair with the Shu Umera eye lash curler). Alas, it was no where. And I gave up in a wave of self defeat and sat down next to one of those people pretending to be a statue outside on the side walk. Charlie quietly got up, and went in the store with Mia happily trailing after him (although he previously made it clear that he would rather eat lint than step inside a Sephora...boys are weird). Ten minutes later he came out holding a large bag and Mia came out smelling like she tried all the perfume samples. He handed the bag over and said "They don't carry them anymore, but I got the lady to give me all the ones they had left in the stock room". Man, I really love my husband.

Later that night, as we were in our romantic hot tub, watching the view of the strip through our slanted, pyramid-corner windows, I glanced over my two children, splashing around and giggling in the tub like it was their own private pool, to my adoring husband and was completely content and happy. Best Valentines day EVER.