So you know how the old saying goes: “what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas”. Well, you guys know me, I don’t abide by those rules, my life is an open book for you, the reader, and Vegas is no exception. So I’m getting ready to give you all the nitty gritty, down & dirty details of my recent Vegas trip! And I do mean everything. Prostitutes, check! Vegas scams, check! Staying up until the wee hours of the night, check!!! This trip was one to be remembered, unfortunately not for the typical reasons that you may think.

Now that I’ve got your attention, & you’ve popped the popcorn & settled in to read this graphic “tell all” post about our wild and crazy Vegas adventure, I have to let you know that it was anything but wild & crazy. It was more like tame & lazy. I said this trip was one to remember & it was, because it truly showed me how much I’ve changed in these short few years since children have become a part of my life.

I listed a few crazy activities at the beginning of this post, followed by a check to signify that they occurred. But now with the revelation that this trip was anything but hot & steamy, you may be feeling cheated, like I lied to you. Well rest assured, your resident Daddy blogger has the utmost respect for you guys & continues to keep his dignity intact. There were prostitutes involved in this trip; I grabbed several calling cards from the street vendors for inclusion in Fefe’s upcoming scrapbook. So we did have somewhat of an encounter with the ladies of the night. Also, there was definitely a Vegas scam being run. Unfortunately, I was the recipient & not the conductor (more on this later).

This all feeds into my realization of how much I’ve changed (in my mind for the better). During my only other Vegas trip, I was essentially a vampire; sleeping during the day, partying all night & then scurrying back to the hotel as the sun came up. This time around, I was a full blown tourist, waking up at the crack of dawn to go see the sights, & barely staying awake past midnight. During my last trip, I got hustled by a tag team of strippers (a story for another time that I’ll never tell). This time, I got hustled by street vendors while I was attempting to get my son a great souvenir (See Vids Below). This trip, I went to see a few of the shows Vegas has to offer. Cirque du Soleil’s “O” & The Price is Right were both awesome & I highly recommend them, even though the Price is Right gets added to the long list of Vegas scams in my book. But the point is, this time around, I did old people stuff (sorry old people) and went to view some of the shows Vegas is famous for, while during my last visit, we basically created our own show which could have made Vegas famous had it not already been a world renown city.

Video #1 – Street Vendors Performance: So as we were walking the strip, we ran across this ultra cool demonstration of a “magical” pet. As you can see from the vid, it follows you everywhere.  I immediately thought how cool it would be for Ty and purchased it after a quick “tutorial”.

Video #2 – Ty’s Performance: Boy oh boy was I disappointed when we got it home and found out the stupid thing was just attached to a string, did you see a string in that damn video? I sure didn’t!  Suprisingly, Ty still loved it and is convinced that he’s a master magician now, although after watching his performance you may choose to disagree, lol. Enjoy.

All in all, this was a great way to celebrate the wife’s birthday. We had a great time seeing the sights and hanging out with friends.  It was also damn nice to get away from the kids for a bit, but to be honest, I really missed them.  As much as I tried not to admit it, those little buggers were on my mind constantly, as witnessed by my FaceTime calls every time I got around some free wifi.  Vegas showed me many things this time around, but most importantly, it showed me that I’m a Dad and being a Dad is what I love to do. Things that used to excite me, just don’t anymore. At first I was saddened by this fact, but when I really think about it, there’s nothing to be sad about. I have an entire new catalog of things that excite me now and they all stem from Ty & Tre.  When you compare those two little guys to clubs, gambling, and strippers, I say Ah, Vegas, you can keep that stuff, I’ve got all the excitement I need.

This weekend we did the unthinkable, we ditched our kids and hit the road for a weekend of fun and excitement.  We were childless parents and it felt great!  No diapers to change, no monster trucks to play with, no responsibility what so ever.  There lies the problem, its been so long since we’ve had the opportunity to look after only ourselves that when it came, we didn’t know how to act.  That’s why I have come to the conclusion that parents need kids, it keeps balance in our lives.  We regulate their actions and in return regulate our own because we know in the morning, they’ll be there and they’ll be ready for action.

Don’t get me wrong, we’ve had the opportunity to go out without the kids every now and then.  It would usually only be for a few hours, to go catch a movie or grab some dinner.  But at the end of the day, we both knew that we were going home to the kids and playtime would start bright and early.  But this weekend was different, they were GONE and we were free for the entire weekend.  Free to go where we wanted.  Free to sleep in.  Free to do anything that our little hearts desired.  Oh we both were looking forward to this freedom, if only for a weekend, but no one told us that freedom came with a price.

My buddy just bought a condo out in Maryland and we decided to use this opportunity to take a road trip and go visit.  We haven’t been able to get out there without the kids in quite a while, so this was the perfect time to celebrate.  Our first night we went out to the bar, while the drinks were plentiful (sake bombs, cape cods, margaritas) and ever lasting, I was still able to hold my composure.  My other half, not so much!  We’ve all seen the little measuring cups that accompany liquid medicine right?  Well fill one of those up with some alcohol and that’s all it takes to get Fefe drunk.  She knows this, I know this, and because of this and the fact of the kids, she doesn’t drink to often.  But wait, the kids are gone right, we’re on vacation right, oh what the hell, just let loose.  Letting loose would be an understatement, after a few drinks she was on a roll and there was no stopping her.  Fefe is a friendly and talkative drunk, so the night was filled with meeting & greeting strangers, very loud incoherent conversations, a foot race, and getting stuck in a revolving door.  At one point, Fefe walks up to a complete stranger and says “Hi, I’m Fefe, that guy there is my husband and he’s very jealous, hopefully he won’t come over here and kick your butt”.  As you can see, these are antics that wouldn’t normally surround our lives had the kids been around.  Where is the regulation when you need it?  Oh yeah, I forgot, we ditched our regulators.

Now I haven’t forgotten about myself, I too acted a fool during this weekend.  I just decided to put my behavior at the end of the post so that maybe you’ve gotten tired of reading by now and have already stopped.  If not, and you’re still with me, here we go. 

If a medicine measuring cup gets Fefe drunk, it’d take the whole bottle for me.  Seeing that the kids weren’t around, the whole bottle is what I took the next night.  After waking up at around 11am on Saturday, I felt great.  I watched some recording of Fefe last night and had a good laugh.  We eventually started our day around 3pm.  First thing we do is hit up a wine bar, yup 3 in the afternoon and we don’t have any kids so what shall we do? Oh I know, let’s go drink.  The wine bar was cool, we had a good time and no harm was done.  Next we decide to check out a movie, we saw “A Perfect Getaway” I’d avoid it if I were you.  But we couldn’t just go watch a movie like normal adults, nope; the kids were gone so this has to be a super movie event.  Let’s sneak in water bottles filled with alcohol and drink during the movie.  Again, no real harm done, maybe we were a tad bit talkative, but nothing major.  I told you I drink like a fish, so this was cake!  I was so wrong.  Fefe’s a friendly, talkative drunk; me on the other hand I’m a mean and angry drunk.  After the movie we went to grab some food and that’s where the trouble started.  Our waiter at “Pelican Pete’s” was a total butt hole!  Not to be outdone in the butt hole hall of fame, it was up to my drunken self to match wits with this guy.  He refused to break our checks up separately so I refused to calculate how much I needed to pay.  This became a big ordeal, and to add insult to injury I smeared marinara sauce all over the table before we left.  Actions like this make me question if we got rid of the kids or did they ditch us?  We get back to my buddies house and I’m still upset, solution, let’s open another bottle of liquor.  Heavy drinking ensues for the next few hrs, and the night ends in a stupid argument caused by me.

The next morning, I wake up after about 4 hrs of sleep and its time to head back.  I still felt and apparently acted drunk so Fefe drove back.  I can usually hold my liquor pretty well & since the kids are always around, hangovers don’t come to visit me too often anymore.  But the kids weren’t around and the hangover must have known because on our way home it hit, and it hit hard.  6 hours in a car and being hungover is not a good combination.  After vomiting 3 times (once in a plastic grocery bag, inside the car) I came to the realization that my kids keep me grounded, and without them we’re like caged animals who have just been released into our natural habitat, chances of survival are very low!!!

The Kids on the Luggage Cart

This past weekend we took our first “real” family vacation together.  We went to Wrightsville Beach in Wilmington, NC and stayed at the Marriott in continuation of Fefe’s birthday celebration.  Don’t get me wrong, we’ve gone on family vacations before but it’s always been to visit friends or family.  This is the first time we’ve gone to a destination specifically for the purpose of visiting an event or attraction at that location.  With that being said, this trip was absolutely wonderful, we enjoyed many different activities and in general had a great time.  I’m not going to go into detail regarding all aspects of the trip in this post, maybe at a later date.  Rather, I’ll share with you the experiences during our time spent in the hotel.

If you’ve ever stayed in a hotel as a kid, then you already know of the fun to be had.  If not, then I would suggest you finish reading this post, go book a room at your local hotel, and follow the information below as an apology to your inner child.  Somehow it is engrained in children’s minds that when you’re at a hotel you get to do certain things that you’re not allowed to do at home.  My theory on how they know this: at birth when the baby is taken away for screenings and such, they are actually injecting a kid version bucket list – “Things To Do Before You Grow Up”.  Now that Dr. Keith has offered his expert opinion, we’ll get back to the story.

Nighty Nite

There are certain Rules of Engagement that are outlined in the Hotel Geneva Convention that should be followed once the battle for fun begins.  First up is staying up late, during our stay Ty was a valiant warrior.  He outlasted Tre every night, but still fell victim to the sleepies before midnight each day, he tried but score 1 for the hotel.  The next rule: Bed Jumping, whenever there are two beds in the hotel room you are obligated to jump back and forth between them (see video below).  The hotel put up a good fight, even going as far as bouncing Ty into the wall after one of his super jumps.  But in the end, the kids were victorious, as a little bump on the head wasn’t enough to slow Ty down, score 1 for the kids.  A personal favorite of mines is riding the luggage cart.  This event didn’t go over too well as Tre wouldn’t stay on the cart long enough to get it moving.  You could see Ty’s growing frustration with his teammates lackluster performance, score 1 for the hotel.  Lastly, is the coveted pillow fight, in which the only way to win is to cause feathers to fly.  Although a 15 min pillow fight ensued, no feathers were observed, score 1 for the hotel. 

Sensing that his team was loosing the battle, Tre decided it was about time to break the Rules of Engagement and fight dirty.  While I was sleeping, someone who shall remain nameless gave Tre Cheetos.  Tre took those Cheeto commercials to a whole new level.  When I woke up, the white bed sheets and pillow cases were covered in orange.  I mean it was everywhere, had it been red you would have thought someone had been murdered in that bed.  Score 1 for the kids.  After his Cheeto fiasco, he decided to take it one step further and unleash one of the stinkiest diapers known to man.  This dirty diaper was so ferocious and humongous that it seeped out of his diaper and got smeared all over the chair that he was sitting in.  I tried to get it all up, but decided just flipping the seat cushion over was a better idea; again score 1 for the kids.  When we went to the pool, Tre decided to bring an apple empanada along with him.  He must have been hiding it in his diaper or something, like the babies on that show Rugrats.  Anyways, so we’re at the pool and the next thing you know Tre has a mouth full of empanada and the pool is full of floating pieces of apple and pie crust.  Fefe attempted to retrieve the pieces of food to no avail; hopefully none of the other guests swallowed any pool water tainted with Tre’s undigested snack.  Score 1 for the kids.

When it was all said and done, that hotel room & surrounding areas took a beating.  The kids enjoyed themselves and Ty even went as far to suggest that we stay in a hotel every weekend when we’re bored.  This trip brought back many memories of my own childhood and I’m glad we were able to take it.  One word of advice: if you plan on visiting Wrightsville beach in Wilmington and stay at the Marriott, avoid room 204 at all costs.