Chaperones

We probably won't be taking Noah to see Beiber or Owl City anytime soon, but when Imagine Dragons are playing we'll all be there. This was Noah's first concert which he went to with his cousins...

and his parents. 

Good thing he has awesome parents who are totally hip to cool music, right? I tried not to feel too old and/or embarrass him too much. I am proud that at least I wasn't wearing mom jeans or drinking excessively like some of the other moms I saw. 

We had a great time. I think it was a perfect first concert. Especially since he was lucky that both opening acts (Nico Vega & Atlas Genius) were good. 

 Imagine Dragons are from Vegas so they did some extra cool things. And our arms might be seen on their video for the song Demons. 

When we were leaving the Hard Rock casino I wasn't aware the boys were acting like drunks. At the elevator, I was stopped by a lady who was concerned about my ability to take care of the boys. She was really worried for me. It was an odd moment. Hopefully a lesson was learned. And then we waited for nearly two hours just to get out the the parking garage. Another lesson learned: next time I park valet. 

We left Ben, Aidan, Henry and Zack home to fend for themselves. This is what awaited me the next morning. Fun times all around!

January

We had some visitors from colder climates this month. First Grandma & Grandpa stopped by for the weekend. I didn't get pictures but we went to see Nathan Burton. We are on a little bit of a magic kick. The pre-show featured Alejandro and his up close magic. He was really fun to watch. He can make money come out of oranges and  little foam balls appear in childrens' hands. 

Nathan Burton was entertaining, except that his assistants were too sexy for a family show. You would think that would be the issue with Criss Angel. If you don't believe me you can Google his name and look at the images. Shocking! Anyway, the show also features some acts from America's Got Talent that we watched on TV and then got to see live. 

A week or so later, Logan & Whitney stopped by. I took them for a drive in Red Rock Canyon. We saw a whole bunch of burros. I have never seen a burro there before, so it was extra cool. Fun game: how many burros can you see in this picture?

Matt convinced Logan to do the big shot at the Stratosphere. That is definitely not for me! Somewhere there's a picture that I will try to remember to add later. 

We took a break from the magic shows and saw the Blue Man Group. 

The giant eyes start the show. 

Giant balls during the show. 

A dance sequence to end the show. 

In other news-Vegas got really cold.

And the best part of January--Noah started soccer again. He has really missed playing so we finally signed him up for an indoor rec league. It has been fun to watch him back in his element.

Snapshots from Universal Studios

Universal Studios

It is fun to try new things. What better way to kick of the new year than a trip to Universal Studios? We've never been and didn't know what to expect. We woke up early on Thursday and drove straight to our hotel which was a short walk away. 

You can see where Ben wanted to go first. This candy store sells Peeps in bulk for $30. No thank you! 

I thought our early morning departure went pretty well until Ben realized he put on two different shoes. At least they mostly look the same. 

The majority of rides are virtual. Our first was Shrek and I thought it was cool. After you do the other rides though, it's kind of lame. 

We waited a long time for this ride--just like a roller coaster without the actual roller coaster. Unfortunately, these virtual rides make me sick. 

It takes four escalators to get down to the lower park area with the really fun rides. At least we didn't have to walk it. 

The Mummy ride is an actual roller coaster and was my favorite. Ben was not a fan. I didn't take any pictures of it, although I thought I did. FYI we are standing right by it in this picture. 

We waited FOREVER (90 minutes) to ride Transformers. They wind you around a whole bunch of rooms so the wait isn't as bad as it could be. You can see the AllSpark and mess with all the knobs you can reach. 

It was worth the wait. You feel like you are in one of the movies. But it also made me nauseous. Our second day, we were a little more park savvy and went straight to the lower levels. We walked right on the ride. Our motion sick-less kids rode it twice.

The Jurassic Park ride is good too, when I rode it the first day I didn't get too wet.  I made the best decision of my life not to ride the next day. 

Matt and Henry got completely soaked. 

Somehow Zack came out nearly dry. 

These boys got their own raft. Lucky!

There aren't many rides at Universal Studios but they have some interesting shows. None of us will look at movies the same after watching the special effects show. And the animal actors show was fun too. 

We didn't see any celebrities while we were on the studio tour. But they are currently filming Go On (love that show!), Guys with Kids and several more that I can't think of. The studio tour was fun to see some of the city sets.

We also drove through Wisteria Lane from Desperate Housewives (never watched that show) and saw sets from Jaws,

 War of the Worlds, Psycho, Spiderman, Pirates of the Caribbean and more. There is a super cool King Kong 3-D ride created by Peter Jackson. 

Some of the Christmas decorations were still up. I liked this little London-esque street...

...complete with a double decker bus.

We were all really impressed with Universal Studios. We had two great days  and we would definitely go back to the "entertainment capital of LA" again. 

This is a view of the park from our hotel room. One night we picked up pizza and re-watched most of the Waterworld show from a room. It's pretty equal parts cheesy and amazing--they do crash an airplane. 

The Universal City Walk is really great too. We didn't go to the Hard Rock, but Matt loved the Eddie Van Halen (EVH) guitar.

Before we left California we stopped at this Chik-fil-A on Sunset St. in Hollywood--just down the road from Hollywood High and the Chinese theater. Yum!