Vegas, puzzins, and hothothot.

Man, Vegas in August is hot.

McCarran is the worst place on the planet, with its hideously designed "train to shuttle to another shuttle to a rental car facility in the middle of nowhere" system. There are insane lines everywhere, and slot machines have sprung up to occupy every inch of available space. The strip is crowded with the most awful, drunk, crass, rude people on earth. The billboards city-wide match the general theme. The parking situation is appalling, as is the fact that you can somehow, inexplicably, still smoke inside everywhere. The whole damn town smells like stale smoke and cheap perfume and vomit and excess and vulgarity and sadness. (Pictures below needed a home and do not match this theme.)

I swore off Vegas six years after college, a USC grad who had for a decade been obligated to spend every sorority sister's birthday, bachelorette weekend, divorce party, and- no kidding- more than a few baby showers, in Sin City. I hate it there with a passion.

But we never get to see Ben, and Lisa and the kids were flying halfway around the world (literally) to visit him for the few seconds he could get away from the prestigious weapons school at Nellis AFB. So we bought awful tickets on a budget airline and decamped to North Vegas smack dab in the middle of God's annual fury- evidenced by the weather- that such a place exists. 

And it was, of course, idyllic.

Ben took more time off than he had to hang out with the crew.

No rookie, I had insisted on an airbnb with a pool; and the cousins (and Ana & Ata!) lived in the water, careening around wildly on the dreadful pool floats Finley & Ford had brought their cousins

which took hours to inflate.

The kids got to nap with Ata,

 hit a splash pad,

crack up with Missy,

workout with me,

grill dinner (with prosecco, duh),

and fall wildly in love with their "puzzins."

The adults even got in a break or two

before we hit Circus Circus (obligatory), and all the glitz and awfulness that the strip has to offer.

To be fair, we also relived a fair number of childhood memories, hiking with kids in 110 degree heat.

Red Rock is awesome, but

Finley's face says it all. 

We took the redeye home. After a classic goodbye-Vegas sunset-in-bed while chowing down on Baja Fresh.

Worked/ school-ed the next day. Gutted out the rest of the week, which included TDY (+ facetime) for Mom,

and catching up with Fordy's geese.

Today, totally beat, we did nothing.
Minus Finley's first crazy southern "dance moms" ballet (she already got promoted to tap, killmenow),

plus "we" cleaned the house, picked up groceries, and snuck into the hot tub when the lifeguard left.

And we revived the alligator. Viva Las Vegas!

Photo of the week is this one, of our wildy dangerous rockclimbing expedition at Red Rock. Complete with snacks. (Plus that one at top with us all.) Missing the Walters crew madly!

Duck days of summer.

Labor Day and the symbolic end of summer may have started showing up on our calendars, but we're not ready to let go just yet. (As illustrated, for some reason that made sense when I was sifting through photos, by this Friday night "date night" photo of Finley squeezing Ford's head off.) Having had my summer vacation usurped by moving madness and re-registration for all things kids, I've been determined to get in summering wherever we can.

Luckily, we're back in the land of the random four day weekend- Bragg has one pretty much every month, holiday or not. Seth doesn't necessarily, since he's stuck with a training schedule, but we still got our money's worth out of this month's. Jayne and I got the kids up early and beat the weekend beach traffic on Friday, making it to Carolina beach icon Wake n Bake donuts for breakfast,

before hitting the beach which, to my delight, F+F were finally big enough to love.

Even if the foot showers might have been their favorite thing.

Then we hit the Fort Fisher aquarium, where we somehow missed the famous albino aquarium but got to stare down this one,

stalked butterflies to no avail,

 stumbled upon a spitting dinosaur,

and got to touch horseshoe crabs and baby sharks.

Oh, and Finley did this pose when I asked her to say cheese. (Help me.)

The kids wrapped their last day with Grandma thumping watermelons at Wal Mart,

making cupcakes,

and snuggling.

On Sunday, I convinced Seth to check out the extraordinary Museum of Life & Science, where Ford's "greams" came true with a train ride (no one else was wildly impressed by this) and a farmyard that included baby "pacas,"

not to mention a spectacular treehouse complex

and this terrible duck feet exhibit.

Finley and Seth, the real science nerds, could mostly be found inside laboring over "i'ventions."

When we were approaching heatstroke at the outdoor exhibits, we pushed the envelope on naptime with a hilarious visit to Bull City Burger & Brewing, which reminded us that 1) breweries are terrific places for cranky kids, and 2) the food in the RTP is way better than in the Hudson Valley. (Also, the PBSKids pads were not a bad buy.)

We wrapped our long weekend with the start of the pre-command course (Seth) and a long day of kid physicals for me (here's Handsome Ford being measured like a big guy with shirt open like an extra on "Miami Vice")

and pretending that pushing a jogging stroller to the pool counted as a workout.

The kids made dinner.

 Ford found a new favorite toy,

 and Finley got new shoes.

All in all, not a bad summer long weekend. Plus (photo of the week) we got to feed the seriously aggressive ducks. And no one lost a finger.