Vegas Tourney

Liza had her first traveling volleyball tournament a few weeks ago! The tournament was in Vegas, and we decided to make a little weekend of it. Ben had been working in Vegas that week, so he was there before the rest of us. I drove the kids down on Friday morning and we all had lunch together. Then Ben and Luke headed to the AirBnb and Ben did some work while Luke watched a movie. I took the older kids to the Las Vegas Temple to do baptisms and it was wonderful to be at the temple with all three of them.

After that we met up with some friends who live in Vegas and explored Omega Mart. Omega Mart is hard to describe. The first section is a grocery store with all kinds of weird/funny/ironic products. The other part is just a ton of trippy experiential exhibits that included strobe lights, sound lasers, mazes, a conspiracy theory, and more. It was interesting.

The kids definitely didn't climb on the giant robot on the ground that had a sign nobody saw that said "NO CLIMBING."

We had some yummy food at the cool international street food-ish food court at Resorts World, finished off with an enormous strawberry shortcake shave ice.

We watched 3 volleyball games the next day, and Suz, Ben, and Whit drove down to join the fun! The tournament was set up in the Mandalay Bay convention center, with about 140 courts set up in one room.

Jack wasn't super into the volleyball games.

During one of the breaks between games we went through the Mandalay Bay Sharks Reef Aquarium, which was actually pretty cool. But don't let the name fool you - they had more than just sharks there.

We all had a fun and delicious late lunch at a cool Korean Barbecue restaurant. I could definitely eat there again...

Liza went back to the volleyball team house where she was staying while the rest of us walked around the shops at the Venetian for a bit. Then Suz's family headed back to St. George and the rest of us went to see David Copperfield at the MGM Grand. He did some awesome illusions! (But the show could use some work - he definitely seemed to be bored of his own act a few times, and the filler stuff really felt like filler.)

On Sunday we said bye to Liza, picked up Liza's friend's sister who needed to go home earlier than the rest of the family (who were bringing Liza home after the tournament ended on Monday), and we went to church together. Then we dropped Ben off at the airport since he was heading to Colorado for work that night and I drove 4 kids home.

We played Two Truths and a Lie at dinner that night, and I was proud of myself for coming up with statements that completely split the group - everyone guessed a different truth. Cat got it correct. Here's what I said: (1) I was once mistaken for a drag queen. (2) I got in trouble for singing at a funeral. (3) I only had 3 wisdom teeth.

Number three was the lie.

We happened to see Ben at the house again when we got home because his flight from Vegas was delayed and he missed his flight to Colorado and left much later than planned.