This past weekend marked a very special time in our lives. Angela and I celebrated our 10 year wedding anniversary. Every year on our anniversary we have a very nice dinner and we talk about our year; a year in review, if you will. We reflect back and talk about our highlights and lowlights, our goals and if we met them and then we look in to the future and talk about things that we want to do and accomplish in the year to come. As you might imagine, some of the conversation revolves around the kids, but some of it revolves around the two of us individually and as a couple.
This year we took a trip and got away from everything. My parents took a day or two off to help and stayed at our house with the kids so that we could leave for a few days. We left on Thursday morning and returned on Sunday. We rented a lake home on the shores of Lake Superior that overlooked the Apostle Islands in northwestern Wisconsin.
The Apostle Islands are a beautiful place to visit. If you like the outdoors at all, you should really visit sometime. Just Google Apostle Islands sometime and take a look at the photos or just click this link.
Angela and I were talking during our dinner and mentioned that trips like these are very import to us so that we can recharge our batteries. Thanks mom and dad for letting us get away for the weekend.
Now that I think of it as I’m writing and it feels like the years are starting to fly by. I guess we need to make sure that we stop from time to time and smell the roses.
Until next time…
Posted 4 months, 2 weeks ago at 3:01 pm. 2 comments
I don’t have a story to tell about this, but we don’t really get tons of photos of the kids all sitting together very often. I managed to get this the other afternoon when they were all playing outside. Four of them were just sitting on the steps to our deck so I threw the other two up there and took the shot. I took one picture right away and tried for a few more minutes to get a better one, but couldn’t get them to cooperate. Someone was always walking away, crying, hitting, or not looking at me. Ironic that the first picture that I took was the only one that even semi worked out.
Hope you’re having an enjoyable fall.
Until next time…
Posted 4 months, 2 weeks ago at 11:39 am. Add a comment
Work has had me on the road the past couple weeks and that’s a little more often than normal. The week before last in particular, I was on the road to attend and play an important role in a nursing conference in the Minneapolis area. The conference was a huge success. Many key players at my work were very happy with how everything went and the event opened a variety of doors for me. Needless to say, things didn’t go quite as well for Angela at home during my absence. At one point during the end of the week, I called home to check on how things were going. The conversation went something like this.
“Hi Honey, how’s it going at home?”
She went on to tell me that it was horrible.
I told her, “I’m sorry honey that I can’t be there to help out. This conference is really important and I’m sorry. You know I’ll be home soon as I can.”
She replied with, “Since you don’t seem to care what’s so horrible, I’m gonna tell you anyway.” (I didn’t ask for specifics early in the conversation about the details of how bad it was because I knew that I’d get them anyway if they were really that bad.) “There’s poop everywhere. Naptime went horrible. The kids took their diapers off again and all of them are covered in it. They used it as finger paints. It’s in Alex’s hair! It was just horrible.”
I tried, I really did, but it slipped and I actually laughed out loud a little. I’m giggling a little as I write this and think back to it. I know, I’m an ass, but my time would come.
I got home late on Saturday, spent most of the day on Sunday with the kids on my own and then took a PTO day on Monday so that I could get away from work for a little while and get to know my family again, if just for that one day.
Let’s fast forward to naptime on Monday afternoon. At naptime, we just send the quints to their room and tell them to lie down. Whatever happens happens. Most of the time, they all eventually sleep a little. After a couple hours, they had spent enough time in their room and they were letting us know. I went in and found my son, sitting naked on a mattress, with his penis in his hand. He was covered in poop. All 4 of the girls were sitting next to him on the mattresses and were also covered from head to toe in poo. Lauren had it spread across her face and she resembled a professional athlete wearing eye black under her eyes. Brooklyn was crewing on her fingers that were covered in it. I did everything in my body to not beat them all senseless. When I walked in a saw what had happened, I have to imagine that I resembled my father from 30 years ago with a blood vessel sticking out of his forehead and neck after I had done something incredible stupid. Sometimes, I really need to stop and laugh. It would be healthier. It was smeared all over the walls like earlier in the week when I was gone, but this time it was different. Poop was smeared all over the carpet. It looked as if Alex wiped his ass on the carpet, almost like a dog would drag its butt across the carpet. It was really smeared in there. Thank goodness Angela was home. She gave them all a very quick and aggressive dunk in the bath. Bath time is normally a fun and enjoyable time for kids, but there was nothing fun about that bath.
I got out our large carpet shampooing cleaner/vacuum and got to work. We penned the kids in Meredith’s room. No one was happy. Angela was really mad to be dealing with this for the second time in three days. I was pissed because I took a day off from work to enjoy my kids and I really didn’t like my kids at the time. A few hours later of scrubbing on our hands and knees, countless Clorox wipes, a bottle of carpet shampoo and only God knows how much elbow grease; we put the kids to bed for the night in Meredith’s room on the floor. I happily went back to work on Tuesday and God bless my wife for dealing with our little monsters (that is a term of endearment at our house) on a daily basis. No one can do what she does every day.
That was just another day in paradise at the Tille house. Hope you enjoyed it.
Until next time…
Posted 4 months, 2 weeks ago at 10:42 am. 1 comment
Today is a very important day for our family. Nearly every Sunday, I send out an email to our list of volunteers. Two weeks ago, I sent out our last. At that time, I told everyone that yesterday would be our final day with regular scheduled volunteer help. It’s been a little over two years now where we’ve had help almost every day. At one point we had as many as 24 different people in our home in any particular day. Now it’s been quite a while since we’ve had that many people here. Most recently, we normally had 2-3 people daily for a couple hours each. However, today is the first day since the kids came home from the hospital that we will no longer have regular volunteers.
It’s bitter sweet. Angela and I talked just a little bit about it last night. She quickly got emotional and cried a little. She reflected about how she cried the night before all this started a couple years ago. At the time, we were having a tough time coming to accept the help that we needed. People were gonna be in our house…all the time. Almost everyone was a stranger to us. The unknown of everyone’s different personalities and how’d we’d handle everyone was tough to accept. The most challenging thing was just accepting the help that we so desperately needed. We’re very prideful and asking for help was hard. I’ve said this before: my pride is a huge pill to swallow; a really big pill.
There are so many memories from over the past two years that I could reflect back on. Nearly every one of them involves a volunteer. Those strangers have come to be our best friends in this wonderful community, which is what really struck a chord with Angela last night. Now we have another adjustment to make; living our lives without our extended “family” in our living room with us. The complete opposite of what drew her to tears two years ago. Meredith has come to ask us nearly every morning “who’s coming today.” I told her today for the first time, “No one Honey. You’re gonna have to play with your mommy and me and your brother and sisters.” She had a confused look on her face and asked, “Why?” She doesn’t remember life before the quints. I wonder how its going to affect her in the short and long term.
Angela and I will be taking a trip this month to celebrate our ten year wedding anniversary. Every year, we have dinner to celebrate. During our dinner we talk about our “year in review.” We look back over the past year and talk about what happened. What was good and bad? What happened with the kids? Work? Personal lives? What’s planned for the next year, and so on and so on. During this year’s dinner, I imagine that one of the things that we’ll discuss is the changes that we just made. We’ll likely reflect on what we learned. I’ve learned so much, but the single greatest thing that I took away from the past two years is power of charity. I’m looking forward to our dinner.
Now with that said, this is a new chapter in our lives. I no longer have an email to send out every Sunday night, but I know that many people still want to hear what’s going on in our lives. I’m going to do a much better job of writing. I’ll do it while watching Sunday night football, just like tonight. In the coming weeks, I’ll be getting some new photos of the kids up on the site and some stories from the course of the summer. There are some things that I want to write about, but haven’t found the time with all that goes on during the summer.
And by the way…we made it through “day one” without too much trouble. I wasn’t too concerned, but thought I’d give a quick recap. The morning was pretty rough, but that’s just because the kids were so crabby; a lot of crying and whining. After lunch all of the kids went down for their naps, including Meredith, AND Angela. I watched the Chicago Bears beat up on Atlanta. GO BEARS!!! The kids woke up near the end of the game and all of them were in a good mood. Angela gave them a snack as I went out to mow the yard. I got done just in time to help with dinner. Angela handled baths as I handled the cleanup of the evening meal. Tonight was bath night. All six of the kids got a bath, ears cleaned, nails clipped and teeth brushed. By that time, it was bed time. I made dinner for the two of us (it was awesome) while she grabbed a shower. Meredith was shortly off to bed and now here I am writing. We’re gonna have our trouble and our bad days, but we’re also gonna have great moments and happy, wonderful days.
If you’ve ever helped us out and you’re reading this post, please know that Angela and I thank you so much. You have all shaped us in to the people that we are. Thank you for being part of our lives.
Until next time…
Posted 5 months, 1 week ago at 10:07 pm. 2 comments
By reading the title only, I could imagine how this post could be confused to be related to my prior post titled Emma’s Short Straw. It’s not, but I find the play on words a little bit ironic.
If you’re new to following our site, one of the things that helped us through the first two years was our table for the kids. The Derks family had one and Brenda recommended it so we bought one through a company that provides supplies to preschools and day care facilities. Brenda Derks has never given us a recommendation about raising quints that hasn’t been great. It was SOOO worth it. The table can handle kids up to 55 pounds, so we could include Meredith in our meal plans for the quints. The side benefit to the table was that when the quints went down for their nap, Angela and Meredith could do activities like drawing, coloring, painting, crafts, and all that jazz.
However, after the Christmas holidays, we started to introduce plates and plastic forks and spoons to the quints. Managing Meredith at meal time along with the quints became a challenge as she really didn’t have enough space. They quints would continuously grab at her plate and food and really caused a lot of havoc. Several of our volunteers that helped during meal time could vouch for her (and the quints) behavior on some evenings. Also during the Christmas holidays, as we traveled from one set of grandparents to the other, we really had a good chance to evaluate how the kids did in booster chairs that can strap down to any chair as opposed to their normal table.
So as a result, one of the changes that’s taken place at our home this spring is the transition to a normal kitchen table. Angela and I are trying to take our house back this spring and summer and it’s coming along nicely. This was one of the first steps. Early this spring, we got rid of the old quint table and replaced it with a normal kitchen/dining room table. Back in the day, Angela and I used to sit this very table (as opposed to the couch, living room chair, or floor) and have a nice meal once in a while. It’s so nice to have it back. She and I were just talking about it tonight at our little dinner for two which spurred the idea for this post.
The table is just sitting in our garage and we’re looking to get rid of it. I’d like to keep it for crafting projects with the kids in the years to come, but space is at a premium these days and we’re gonna make do with the kitchen table. If anyone is interested in the table, please let me know. You can contact me by clicking here.
As you can see from the photo below, the kids are transitioning nicely. They’re doing great. During a recent lunch Angela thought that they deserved some pudding. You can see each of them by clicking here. They sure do like chocolate.
Until next time…
Posted 7 months, 4 weeks ago at 9:09 pm. Add a comment
As promised, I would write about Father’s Day. Here you go.
Father’s Day this year happened to fall on the quints birthday this year. I know. Its special and I do everything that I can to not under value it. It will be a trend as long as I live. Last year, all six of our children were baptized on Father’s Day, just one day after their first birthday. It was very special day for us as a family. I will remember it forever. This year was great. Not just because it was the quints birthday, but because my wonderful (I really mean top of the line!!!) bride is so thoughtful and creative. She’s so fantastic and I can’t underscore that enough.
The quints woke up around 7. Angela was the first out of bed and when I arrived upstairs, she was already changing the kids in to fresh diapers. All of them seemed happy and she had very meticulously wrapped gifts the night prior and they were waiting for me on the table. Coffee was already brewing. She also had egg bake in the oven. She stayed up late the night before cutting up vegetables, and wrapping gifts.
Have you ever met a person who gets every greeting card right, almost as if the card was written specifically for the person receiving it? That person is my wife. I received two cards on Father’s Day. The one she picked out from the kids was funny. I have the one that I received from her on my desk and I’ll never take it down. Perfect. I only wish that I could return the favor. I try, I really do, but I just don’t have the gift that she has for picking out great greeting cards. Must be genetic (sorry mom and dad). Needless to say, she did so awesome that I actually felt bad.
Anyway, breakfast was awesome and afterwards, the kids helped me open my gifts: a new fishing tackle box, a gift card to Gander Mountain plus a special gift from Meredith (representing the whole crew). I’m not a big fisherman. Frankly, I rarely go, but I do enjoy it. However, Meredith has been watching all these animated DreamWorks films recently and at the beginning of the movies, there’s a little boy fishing while sitting on the edge of a crescent moon. She has been bugging the holy heck out of Angela and me to go fishing like that little boy so that she can catch a BIG fish. She’s even seen fishing on TV and been screaming to go.
After I got cleaned up, I packed Meredith in the car and she and I made a road trip to Gander Mountain (that’s a local outdoor sports store). She and I picked out a new Dora The Explorer Fishing Pole. There’s a lot to pick from these days; I seem to recall that my pole as a little boy was Snoopy. After the trip to stock daddy’s new tackle box with fishing gear, we stopped at Burger King. It was her choice. I think that she likes the food at McDonalds better, but she knows that BK has the play land. She’s not dumb.
After lunch, we went home. The quints were napping so Meredith and I showed Angela our spoils. After nap time, Angela and I took all of the kids out for a walk around the neighborhood. Following the walk, we spent and hour or so in the back yard and then enjoyed a DQ Ice Cream Cake for snack time (thank you Hilary for the gift).
We had dinner as a family followed by bath time. Everyone went to bed without a fuss. Key note from the day: I never raised my voice. I almost always have to raise my voice at least once, but I never did on Father’s Day. I leave you with this picture from earlier in the morning right after opening my “special gift” from Meredith and the crew, my new hat. She made it with mom during her activity time earlier in the week. I wore it almost the entire day and its setting on my desk right next to the card from my bride.
I am truly blessed.
Until next time…
Posted 7 months, 4 weeks ago at 8:53 pm. 1 comment
Just another day in paradise at the Tille House. A fear of mine came to fruition this morning. As you may have read in an earlier post, the kids are no longer in cribs. They’re kind of free to do whatever they want during their “nap time” and/or “bed time.” They’re actually in there right now (sleeping, I think) and I hope in better condition than how we found them this morning.
Going back over the previous months, Alex has felt the need to be a little more “free” when he sleeps. We’ve found him progressively less and less dressed as we get the kids up from their naps and in the morning, but over the past couple weeks we’ve found him sleeping completely naked on the floor. No blanket, no socks, no diaper; just naked.
This morning, Angela and I woke to the sound of a thud on the floor to their room above us. Crying quickly ensued as they woke each other up. 6 am. We let the crying go a for a while hoping that they would eventually calm down and play for a while, but the crying got more intense and started to sound like someone was hurt so we came upstairs. Angela beat me out of bed and when I made it to the top of the steps; I found her in the kitchen wiping off Alex’s hands with a washcloth. He was completely naked and crying which isn’t uncommon any more. Madeline was screaming for some reason and was a bit out of control which also isn’t uncommon right after getting up. Lauren and Emma (already wiped down) were quietly playing on the floor. Brooklyn was giggling and eventually ran from around the island in the kitchen, but was naked from waist down. That was a complete surprise. I asked Angela what the hell was going on. She told me that someone had an accident, but this time it was a little more serious.
I feared the worst, but we got lucky this morning. Angela told me that when she opened the door to the kids’ room, Emma (not one of the diaperless kids) met her at the door with a turd in each hand. Wrong day to draw the short straw Emma…
If anyone has any ideas on how to get kids to keep their clothes/diapers ON, I am open to any and all reasonable suggestions. My fear is that one day we’ll walk in and poop will be smeared on the walls, kids will be covered in it on their hands and faces. Anyone with an idea, please help!
My next post will be about my Father’s Day; hopefully very soon.
Shortly following the day where Alex destroyed the wall next to his crib, he decided that he had had enough of being penned up in his crib at nap time. He climbed out of his crib and ran around the room and handed out toys to each of the girls in their cribs. Angela heard the chaos and went to investigate. She chuckled a little, put him back in bed, took the toys away and told them all to go to sleep. Minutes later, she heard a thud followed by more giggling and laughing. Alex was out again.
Angela put him back in his bed seven different times that day during nap time before she finally gave up. This new development opens a huge can of worms. We knew this day was coming, but we were unprepared to actually make a decision on how to handle it? Do we put him in the only bed that converts to a day bed and let him run? Safety is obviously a concern. Do we put one of those netting covers over his crib and if we do that, how long do we expect all of them to stay in cribs and do we want to go through with that expense? Do we just pull his crib and put his mattress on the floor and leave the girls alone? Do we move him in with Meredith and leave the girls? Do we pull all the cribs, just throw the mattresses on the floor and let chaos ensue? What do we do?
He didn’t get out that night so we decided to let it go and we would deal with it the following day. As you might imagine, he got out again, but it was different this time. He managed to get his arm stuck. He had a pretty good welt on his arm and that was the end of the cribs. We couldn’t take the chance of someone getting seriously hurt and it was only a matter of time before the others got out so we decided to get rid of the cribs all together. By the time that I got around to disassembling them, I only had a couple hours before they went to bed so I really needed to get moving. I called up Dan Swenson, promised him beer, and got to work. He brought his daughter Savana along to help Angela out with the kids.
Naptime and bedtime are a bit of a challenge now. We don’t have any video of them with the door shut, but they seem to have one hell of a good time. Laughter and giggling last most of the afternoon when they’re in their room. All of them seem to sleep for a short period of time, but I don’t think that they’re ever all asleep at the same time. They just sleep where they land. We’ve checked in on them a couple times. Sometimes they’re on the floor, sometimes they’re on the mattresses and sometimes they’re half on the floor and half on the mattresses.
Below is a video from 15 minutes prior to bedtime the first night without cribs. You can guess how bedtime went. I hope you’re happy Alex!
Until next time…
Posted 8 months, 1 week ago at 10:24 pm. 2 comments
I was traveling for work in Sioux Falls, SD. I got a call from Angela mid afternoon. I was a little surprised to hear from her at this time of the day. We had just talked the night before and again earlier that morning about my return home and my eta for later that day. When I answered, I asked how things were going. I was hoping for a shopping list upon my way home or something trivial like that, but these were the words that came from my wife’s mouth: “When you get home, you need to have a talk with your son.”
The first thought that came to my mind was, “He’s not even two, what and the hell could he have done.” I expected to get this call when he’s 12 because “he stole his mother’s keys and accidentally drove the van through the garage door” or “I got a call from the school today…your son has been kissing girls and this is his last warning before they suspend him”…or just something to that nature.
What in the hell could he have done at such an early age to justify this phone call? So I took the hook my bride was dangling in front of me…”OK Honey, what did he do now?”
“Your son had a temper tantrum at nap time. He clearly didn’t think he was ready to lie down. He started beating on the wall next to his crib with his hands or fists so much that he knocked the “A” off the wall and in to his bed. (All of the kids have painted wooden letters spelling their names on the wall above their beds.) “He took the letter and started beating the wall like he was beating a red headed step child and now there are holes and dents in the sheetrock next to his bed. He is SOOO your son. I just want to prepare you now so that you don’t lose your mind when you get home.”
I was hoping that Angela just blew things a little out of proportion and was just overreacting a little. I was busy with work the rest of the day and really didn’t think anymore about it and I forgot all about it during my return drive home of four and a half hours.
Sure enough, I got home and Meredith told me all about it. That little S— really did beat the hell out of the wall. I couldn’t get mad, but I’m sure I’ll be grumpy when I get around to fixing it. I’m sure it won’t be the last time a hole shows up in the wall.
My next story will be about Alex in (and out of) his crib at nap time later that week.
It’s been a long while since I’ve written. I have some catching up to do. My first (very long) story takes us back to the first week of April. Angela and I got our first vacation away from the kids. We traveled to Las Vegas to meet up with the rest of my family for a very important event; the wedding of my brother Eric to his bride Jessica.
Eric and Jessica planned their wedding more than a year in advance so we’ve been looking forward to this trip for a very long time: just me and Ang with no kids. It still feels good thinking back to it and writing about it. I love my kids so much, but as all of you parent out there know, mommies and daddies need mommy and daddy time once in a while.
On March 31st after the kids finished their dinner, Angela and I packed up the BAV with all of the kids, the dog, the kids’ bags and toys, and our bags. We hopped on the highway and headed south to Tama, Iowa to Angela parents’ home. We arrived late in the night and took the kids straight to their pack and plays the spare room (the scene where of our infamous holiday lasagna vomit story). Over the course of the next day and a half, we helped get the kids acclimated to grandma and grandpa’s house. Grandma is the real hero of this story. Without her commitment to take on the kids, we wouldn’t have been able to make the trip. Thank you again so much Becky!!!
On Sunday, April 3 we drove to Des Moines to hop on our flight Vegas. Ironically, we had a layover in Minneapolis. We arrived late in the evening in Vegas. The travel to Las Vegas was pretty uneventful, which is just the way it should be. Angela and I stayed at Aria, at City Center. Aria may not sound familiar to you if you haven’t been to Vegas recently. It’s a new hotel/casino on The Strip about half way between the Bellagio and New York, New York. Our first experience at the hotel was kind of rough in that the signage to help us find the front desk/registration area was non-existent. So after a long day of traveling and a long walk through the bowels of the hotel, we finally made it to our room. Everything else at Aria was fantastic. When we finally arrived to our room, the second the door opened the lights and TV turned on and the curtains automatically opened for us to see the scenery. You could control everything in the room from the temperature, to the light, wake up call, curtains, check out, dinner and theater reservations, etc. We couldn’t see The Strip from our room, but we had a fabulous view of the mountains to the west of the city. It was very nice.
Monday, April 4th was my birthday. We did a lot of the traditional sightseeing and walking around The Strip. We didn’t do a ton of playing; just lots of photos. It was a quiet day, all things considered. We eventually met up with some of my family who had arrived in the afternoon. Monday night was the NCAA Championship Basketball Game so I spent the night in the sports book losing ALL of my birthday money on that damn game. I am NOT a sports gambler, but I like to think that I know a little bit about what’s going on. Clearly I don’t. I saw some guy in the sports book wearing nothing but his robe and he swore that they were printing and giving money away. Maybe I should have listened to him because I lost every damn bet I placed that night. Oh well. I knew we were gonna be in town for a few more days and had prepared myself that I might lose some money while we were there so I got over it pretty quickly.
Tuesday was a big day for us. We were very excited and had done a lot of planning for this day. Angela really wanted to relive her childhood and do some horseback riding in Red Rock Canyon. She went to camp as a child and took care of horses there and often comments about how she would love to go riding again. She did a bunch of research leading up to the trip. She bought books and spent countless hours on-line looking stuff up. Red Rock Canyon is a beautiful state park area just a few minutes west of Vegas. We rented a car and it only took us 15-20 minutes to get out there. Angela had picked out some place where you could pay a fee and have a guided tour by horseback of the area. Let me be clear, I was never excited about this portion of the day’s plans, but Angela wanted to do it. We paid our money and went to the barn area, where they had us sign a thousand documents promising that we wouldn’t sue them for all of the things that could go wrong on a horse, including death. They brought out the horses in a line and we used a step ladder to mount the horse…yeah, a step ladder. I’ve only been on a horse once in my life and I thought the ladder seemed hokey, but I went along with it and kept my mouth shut. They had this nice guy names Juan help us get oriented and go over the rules. He was (or at least appeared to be) a real cowboy. They he told us that Britney (I can’t remember what her name was, but it doesn’t matter) would be taking us on our tour today. Jill was a good looking 20 something, blonde hair, blue eyed gal from Blaine, Minnesota. Are you fricking kidding me? I came all this way to have a traditional tour of the canyon by horse back and I got a pretty girl from the city (not to mention the Minneapolis area) giving us the tour…typical. Our ride was nice and pleasant. Angela describes the tour with a disgusted tone as a “mosey.” It was what I expected and clearly less than what Angela was looking for. I’m still not sure why she thought she’d get to gallop and run through the desert on a rented horse when they had a petting zoo out in front of the place. They had a fake shoot out at the “saloon” three times a week. I wasn’t surprised and it was basically what I expected. In traditional Angela style, the end of our mosey couldn’t have happened any other way. Instead of the ladder that we used to mount our steeds, they asked us to dismount the horse. No big deal, right? Angela was the first in our line so she went first. In typical fashion, she fell. She swung her right roof over the horse and as she tried to plant it on the ground, her left foot got stuck in the stirrup. She lost her balance and landed on her ass under the horse. It could have been serious if the horse moved and stepped on her, but it didn’t. Everything was fine except for Angela’s broken pride and all four of her finely manicured finger nails on her right hand. After a few tears, we decided to make our way to Red Rock Canyon where I wanted to do some hiking. We spent several hours in the canyon. It was absolutely beautiful.
You’ve gotta see a show in Vegas when you’re there and we saw two. Both were Cirque du Soleil shows. The first one we saw was Zumanity. We went with my brother Robert and his wife Gwen. Zumanity is a mommy and daddy show. What I mean by that is: anything and everything naughty was in this show. There was nudity, music, dancing, jokes, singing, more nudity, swimming, and two nearly naked fat chicks. I thought it was a great show and Robert agreed. However, the other that we saw was the main attraction: “O” at the Bellagio. “O” is a typical Cirq show in that there’s tons of music and dancing, but “O” is water based. The stage completely submerges in to a tank of water so that the characters can appear to walk on water. There was a ton of trapeze and diving. There is no way possible for me to describe it in words. It was just fantastic! I could write an entire post just on that show. Angela LOVES the theater and has a minor in theater from college. She was blown away by this show. If you go to Vegas and you want to see a show, pay the extra few bucks and go see “O.” Awesome.
On Wednesday, we got in a couple rental cars with Robert, Gwen, my mom, dad, grandma, and grandpa and headed east to the Hoover Dam. It was really good to see it and I’m glad we went. I think it’s good to see a little history once in a while and get some perspective. All of the sudden, my “hard” days at work aren’t so tough. Again, I think this is a must see if you’ve never been to Vegas.
Thursday was the big day. The Wedding. Jess looked great and everything went smooth. We hopped in the cars again and drove to the chapel. They had a very short and sweet service. We were there for about 45 minutes. The service itself was was short and to the point, but all the important stuff was said. We’re so happy for them. After the service, we went back to our hotels, changed clothes and got together again for lunch. We spent the rest of the day and night touring The Strip on foot with beverages in hand. A spent a little shopping, playing the tables, eating and drinking. Brad and I did well at roulette, but he did much better after Angela and I left town. He learned the hard way how to play and get a free drink. We sat down at a roulette table the first time and ordered a beer. While we waited for the waitress to return, he lost about $100. Later that night, we did the same thing, but we sat down at a blackjack table and I think he lost another hundred waiting for that beer. We had a great time and it was a great day. You can see more photos by clicking here.
Friday was end of our trip. We went to the airport after sleeping in and getting a nice breakfast. Our return flight wasn’t quite as uneventful as our trip out to Vegas. We had a layover in Denver on our return and there was some turbulence on the way to Denver. I don’t fly a ton, but I take 3-4 flights a year for work so I feel confident saying that I’m a relatively experienced traveler. However, I’ll remember this flight for a very long time. It was turbulent. Angela was clearly scared, but at some point she started to lose it. At one point, the pilot came on the intercom and announced that the flight attendants would no longer be about the cabin. It was unsafe. He recommended that we take care of one another. Angela started to panic and then the plane jumped. She about tore my arm off. Many people in the cabin gasped and that continued for the remainder of the trip in to Denver. It felt like forever. I wasn’t scared, but they definitely had my attention. I decided that I would worry if the masks fell out of the ceiling. A lady one row in front of me on the opposite isle threw up in a puke bag. Angela was so “out of her mind” scared, she didn’t even notice. It was the first time ever that I’ve seen her truly scared for her life. Really. I was a little fearful that once we arrived in Denver, I was going to have a tough time getting her back on a plane for the rest of the trip home. Needless to say, we grabbed a bite to eat, I had a drink, and we regrouped and boarded our flight to Des Moines. A few hours later we pulled in the driveway back at Angela’s parents’ home.
The kids were very excited to see us and drove back home on Saturday night. Overall, I won enough at roulette and slots to pay for Angela’s losses and most of our meals so I’m pretty happy. Again, thank you Becky for watching the kids! Congrats to Eric and Jessica! Welcome to the family, Jess! You can see more photos from our trip by clicking here.
Until next time.
Posted 9 months, 1 week ago at 11:26 pm. 1 comment
