An Early Christmas Present

As part of our kids' Christmas this year, we decided to take a pre-holiday vacation. We planned on spending three nights in Las Vegas, doing some shopping and planning a very special excursion for Thursday.

However, we were totally unprepared for what greeted us upon arrival.

Yes - that's SNOW!

We were "privileged" to witness a snowfall not seen in over 30 years. Our part of the city received three inches; other sites got up to seven inches. We had to re-evaluate our plans, and ended up spending Thursday in Vegas instead of going on our special activity.

We decided to visit the Mirage. It was very fun, and we enjoyed the relaxing, tropical atmosphere:

Part of the reason we visited this hotel was to see the animals that are kept there. We were able to see dolphins up close and very personally, including a baby dolphin born only three months ago:

The Mirage also has an area where big cats like tigers, panthers, and lions are kept:


The only problem was that the animal habitats are outside, so our visit was rather chilly :) That afternoon, the older kids and DEl did some Christmas shopping while Mathison and I had a nap.

Early the next morning, we awoke the kids and prepared for our special surprise.....Disneyland! We were unable to go on Thursday as planned because I-15 was closed due to the heavy snowfall. It was so much fun; I'd never been to Disneyland during the Christmas holidays. Everything was festively decorated:


I knew Mathison would not want to spend the entire day in the stroller, yet was worried about him wandering away. We came up with a perfect solution; a monkey backpack with a leash for a tail:


We braved the chill to go on Splash Mountain. Here is a picture of the screen where the pictures taken on the ride are displayed:


As we were preparing to ride Splash Mountain, we ran into Winnie the Pooh and Tigger. Mathison was so excited to see them, especially Tigger. In fact, he starting jumping up and down, doing the Tigger bounce. It was so cute!


We had to trade off on most of the attractions as Mathison was too little to ride them. However, it meant that one or more of the older kids got to ride twice. Here are Bronson, Krissia, and Jefferson in front of Autopia:


Mathison held out pretty well for most of the day, although he finally gave in and had a small nap in the late afternoon:



Although it was a very full day, and Disneyland was pretty crowded, we were able to experience most of the things we wanted to do. I would have to say that one of my favorite rides this time was "It's a Small World". They had the entire structure decked out with Christmas lights and it made the park seem even more magical.

We left California at about 9 p.m. and drove back to Vegas. By the time we rolled in, DEl and I had been up for about 20 hours.....but it was worth it. Hopefully, this will be a Christmas the kids will always remember!