Road Trip!

This weekend Ashlee and I went on another road trip! It was another short one, we went from Friday night until Sunday but it felt much longer! We had so much fun!

One of her students parents offered to let Ashlee use their property in St. George for a weekend & she took them up on it! We actually stayed in Leeds which is about 15 minutes from St. George.

If you notice the sign, it says "Harrisburg Estates." Now when I think of the word estate, I either think of something really fancy, or a sale where they are pawning dead people's stuff. This wasn't exactly either one of those. It was a Mobile home park for adults... as-in old, retired people. It was different than we were expeciting but it really was nice & we were so glad we had somewhere to stay!

On Friday we went to St. George to surprise Ashlee's sister & her family. They didn't know we were coming & especially didn't expect to see us since we were just there 2 weekends ago. Her sisters reaction was definitely priceless! We actually showed up when she was in the middle of throwing a party for all of her yearbook students which was pretty funny.

Ashlee and I went to dinner at the Pasta Factory & it was soooo good! After that we went back to her sisters house to have some of the goodies from the party (Mainly a chocolate fountain!) and then went back to our "estate" to get some rest for the next day.

Saturday morning was fantastic because I got to sleeep in! That never happens, but I was so grateful to be able to get some much needed rest! After we got ready we went to Jill's (Ashlee's sister) for a late breakfast & then headed off to Vegas!

A lot of people don't know this, but this was actually my first time ever going to Vegas, well that is if you don't count the one time I rode down the strip when I was about 8 & the time that I was stuck in the Vegas Airport for about 4 hours on the way back from Cali. I was so excited to go & see something new!

We got to Las Vegas about 1 P.M. & went to meet up with our friends Mitch & Shawn who happened to be vacationing in Vegas the same time that we would be down there. When we first got there we decided to go to the Stratosphere Tower & go on all the insane rides there!

This is the a view looking straight down from one of the "lower" levels of the Stratosphere hotel. When we went to the tower during the day only Ashlee, Mitch & I went up the tower and rode the rides. The first time we went on Insanity Ashlee was freaking out and was screaming bloody murder the whole time. I'll admit that I had a few butterflies in my stomach, but she had everyone else on the ride laughing because she was so scared. The funniest thing I think I heard her say all day was "who even invented a contraption like this?!?!?!" Good times! Insanity, the Ride - A massive mechanical arm extends 64 feet over the edge of the Tower and spins you at a force of 3 Gs for a truly mind-bending experience. It's so awesome! At some points while you're on the ride it feels like you are almost parallel with the ground. We were joking about all of the swimming pools we could see from the ride & said that if anything went awry we could aim to land in the water! Next we went on Xscream A giant teeter-totter that propels you 27 feet over the edge of the Tower, 866 feet above the ground. This was soooo much fun the first time we went on it! Ashlee and I sat on the front row. I think we were holding hands the whole time, along with screaming our heads off!! I'll be honest though, it was pretty scary sitting on the front row, but later we went and it wasn't super scary becuase it was the second time around, and because I sat towards the back. When you don't sit on the front row all you can really see is the seat in front of you, which kinda takes the thrill out of it.

Finally we went on the Big Shot - Shoots passengers straight up 160 feet at 45 mph (over 4 Gs) until they are 1,081 feet above the Strip. This ride is AWESOME!! It's like the Re-Entry Rocket at Lagoon, however this one is much bigger. This shoots you up towards the sky and then it bounces back down to earth, but on each bounce your butt totally comes out of the seat and you catch air! You can't help but scream on it. It's pretty much uncontrollable - even Mitch was screaming which he hadn't done on any of the other rides.

After the Stratosphere we went for a drive down the Strip & went to the M&M Factory & Coke World. After all those rides Ashlee and I were pretty hungry so we went to Fatburger. We both got turkey bugers. They were so delicious!

Haha I totally dig this T-Shirt! I thought about buying it for a minute, but I really don't like wearing T-Shirts so I put the kibash on that.

This menu is so funny! I couldn't resist taking a picture of it. That Triple Kingburger..... Ugh... there's no words.

We stopped in at the Rock Shop where Ashlee tried on this hot "Michael Jackson" hat. Rawr Ashlee!

We went back to the Sahara Hotel where Mitch & Shawn were staying & just relaxed. The hotel had this pool that looked so inviting! All I've wanted to do for the last few months is go swimming, especially somewhere hot like Vegas. So we decide to start getting ready to go to the pool, so we looked outside and not a soul was out there. We were wondering what was going on so we called the hotel (which took like 40 minutes to get through) and the pool & deck were closed for a private party!! I was not very thrilled about that!

Instead of swimming Ashlee and I took a nap at the hotel while Mitch & Shawn went to a friends house for dinner.

Oh yeah... and we rode Speed the Nascar roller coaster at their hotel. It was short but really fast and fun!

After the guys got back from dinner we went back up to the Stratosphere & Shawn joined us this time. Above is a really cool view from the bottom of the Big Shot at night!

So here we have 2 pics of the group... in the top one everyone is smiling, except the random guy in the background... we gave him a name, but I can't remember it now.... however the view in the background isn't that great.

In the second pic the view is amazing, but not everyone is smiling... so just pretend that I know how to use photo shop to combine them & imagine that the pic has a fantastic view, with everyone smiling and no random guy. :)