Las Vegas!

We had some major family bonding time with the Welsh's and Gammons this break on our trip to Vegas. We went with Denise while John was in Costa Rica and had a blast! The kids are in LOVE with the Welsh kids and Karen and Bob (their parents:) We were so lucky to get to stay with them for five whole days and get to know them better! Thanks for such a great stay Vegas Gammons!!!Johnny is now into "big giant video games". He's only had a Leapster (small video game).

Can you tell Johnny hadn't had a nap in about 10 days?


The beautiful Welsh girls Karen, Maddie and Chloe

We went to the Magical forest with the Welsh fam, Grams, and Denise. It is the cutest little place set up just for Christmas.
Jake and Johnny were best buds by this point!
Johnny, Beka, Livy, Jake, Maddie, and Chloe
Some of the decorations. These were my favorites.



Probably won't eat one of these ever again. I felt like I was scraping lard off my teeth for days.



Somewhere in Livy's short life she decided to be obsessed with carousels. But I was not willing to wait in line so I let her throw her monster fit and then we left.
Loves from aunt Karen


We spent one afternoon watching Beka in her element at her SPARK class. She works for the city of Las Vegas and works with these sweet handicapped kids on Saturdays. The kids had a blast and I loved being able to see how great Beka is at what she does!






Saturday was the "Annual Gammon Baking Bonanza". All of the women in the family get together and make their favorite Christmas goodies. This year the menu included: fudge, caramel corn, sugar cookies, bird's nests, Mexican wedding cookies, peanut butter crispies, aka, dog barf, chocolate dipped pretzels and rice crispy treats. These three women and Debbie were in the kitchen for TWELVE hours!

Probably why it all tastes so good, look at all that butter.

I got to hold Kyan (pronounced like Ryan) most of the time. We took a little nap together on the couch.

Chloe was so sweet with Livy



Johnny was deathly afraid of the dogs for the first three days and would hide out in the bedroom until we all promised they were outside.
Livy girl all dressed up on Sunday
Talking to Daddy!
Aunt Karen was so sweet to cut Johnny's hair, I'm sure she a billion other things to do but she dropped everything to help me out. Thanks Karen!
Johnny started to get itchy and freak out but she was only 1/2 way done so good ol' Grandma Betty stepped in with a GREAT story about slimy goblins and ghosts!

Bob took us on a tour of the Bellagio and the new City Center hotel/mall/casino. The Bellagio is so beautiful, totally my favorite!

City Center has a new high end mall called Crystals that is filled with stores that real people can't afford. But my kids loved these tubes filled with water whirl pool thinger-ma-bobbers.

All of the Gammon family girls had a fun night out to California Pizza Kitchen and the Lion King at Mandalay Bay.

This is a wax model of "Scar" in the play, so cool!
The play was incredible!! My only regret is not bringing Johnny. He would have LOVED it!

We got home at 11:00 and Bob, the best dad/uncle and soon to be grandpa, said Livy would NOT go to sleep and insisted he push her around the house in this stroller all night. And she had just fallen asleep ten minutes ago. Thank you Bob!!!

She had fun with Jake and the big doggies!

We had our Christmas dinner early since we wanted to do it as one big happy family. This is only half the spread. I missed a picture half the food that was on the counters and stove, there was a LOT! It was beyond delicious and I'm sad we had to leave the next day and didn't get to eat left overs!


Beka and Michael. Won't they make pretty babies!?

After dinner we had our white elephant exchange. We all left with silly gifts but the best ones were Grandpa getting the maxi pad slippers and Matt getting the turkey stuffing basket that HE brought to last year's party!





After the gift exchange we played the Gammon's favorite "What if...I would" game. We always end up in tears. How cute is Gramma Betty! She is one of the happiest people I know.