Weekend in Vegas

We didn't really spend the weekend in Las Vegas. Just a few hours. It's one of the few times--maybe the ONLY time--I've ever been to that town and not come home with my hair smelling of cigarette smoke! We drove Mike's parent's down to a wedding. It was their great-granddaughter's wedding. It was quite the shin-dig. Me, Mike and Nick also went. Eric was off to a music competition in Salt Lake City (where he earned superior ratings in his competition). As some of you may know, Mike's dad suffered a mild stroke a few weeks ago. He is not doing too badly. The speech all returned, but his balance has been off for a while and probably will not be returning any time soon. So he falls. A lot. Usually he scrapes himself up or bonks his head or something. He's short, so doesn't have very far to fall, thankfully. Well, that Saturday morning, he really took a tumble. Doesn't know how or why, but he hit his head on the wood-burning stove in their living room. Or on the stone hearth. Either way, he ended up with a very big gash in his brow-forehead and a bunch of stitches that his grandson, Dr. Damian, came over to give him that morning. John also got taken in to have a CAT scan to make sure there was no serious interior damage. So we went to Vegas anyway, glorious stitches and all.
We left around 1 pm and were home by midnight. We visited some other family in Las Vegas that we hadn't seen in a bit, spent 3 hours at the wedding. It was at some reception center called "Rainbow Gardens." It was a nice and very fancy, but kind of Las Vegas-y production. I think the MC or DJ actually said, "Let's get ready to RUUUMMMBLE! when introducing the wedding party! ha. It was fun to visit with Vernal folks who had come down for the festivities. They fed us a nice buffet dinner with prime rib after the wedding and about 5,000 pictures, but we had to wait till 8 pm our time to get it. We just ate and left, knowing that it would be very late before we got back to Cedar.

The funniest part of the evening was when Mike was walking his Dad around. John's not very stable and not very fast. I guess Mike figures his Dad needs to exercise more, because he doesn't slow his pace a whole lot. Coming back from one of the many trips to and from the bathroom with John, Nick looked over at them walking our way. John with his dark glasses, stitches in his head, a cane, very pale and VERY old-looking, barely keeping up with Mike and Nick said to me, "Ever seen that movie 'Weekend at Bernie's'?" We about fell out of chairs laughing. The scene was so familiar. Nick tried to snap a picture discreetly with his camera phone. Then, the next morning I tried telling Mike that he needed to go look at a picture Nick took last night, but in the process of telling him, I COULD NOT stop laughing either. Kind of mean, I know. But it looked just like the movie! And Mike laughed, too, just thinking about how they must have looked. Too funny.

And John and Berenice BOTH survived the day and the night and even made it to church the next day. That's the first time John's been to church other than Nick's homecoming since his stroke the end of March. So he's very much alive. ha. NOT like Bernie.

Gail and Seth spent part of the weekend at our house, too. Seth and Caroline went camping, Gail met up with them later, and Gail got to spend some good quality time with her best friend from high school and the new fiance. The friend's wedding and reception is the day we'll be in California for Damian's graduation from Medical school. Gail and Caroline are coming with us. Seth, Gail and Caroline even came to church with us, too. Last week was Earth Day and Eric tried to convince us to walk. But it was COLD last week, I had to haul teaching materials and we drove. This week, my excuse was uncomfortable shoes. Eric, Seth, Gail and Caroline walked and were very late. I have no idea why they didn't drive when they knew how late it was!

We just had a nice fun family Sunday. After church, Damian came over with his kids. Tandy wasn't feeling well, so he just came to get them out of her hair for a while I think. So we had all our grandkids here for a while and the weather was so gorgeous. We played 'roll the ball' in the front yard, and frisbee. Pretty soon there will be irrigation water running in the gutter so we can have boat races, too! Yea!