Miss Denali turns 9 -- Just Dance!

For Miss Denali's 9th birthday, she had a very specific vision of what she wanted her party to be.  She wanted a "Just Dance" party.  She wanted Daddy-J to cook hamburgers and hotdogs.  She wanted a dance competition.

So, since her Mama is not the most creative person, I hired a great party planner and she came up with this fabulous vision for Denali's party!

First, the girls came and enjoyed their hamburgers and hotdogs (seriously, most of them had two hotdogs or two hamburgers, and they actually ate them!).

Then they moved downstairs and played Just Dance on the Wii for about an hour or so.

Luckily, Daddy-J can organize a mean bracket, so the girls got sorted into teams and every team played every other team, and then they scrambled the teams and did it again!  There were minimal tears, really!

After about an hour, we drew names out of a hat and split the girls into two teams.  They each choreographed a dance to F.U.N.'s "Some Nights."  It was fascinating watching the different dynamics of the two teams.  G'Ma Libby jumped in an helped one of the teams negotiate the strong personalities they had going on!

Both teams came up with great dances.  One team won a medal for "Most Original" and the other won for "Best Teamwork."

Then we moved upstairs for cake and presents.

It was a great group of girls, and I know Denali had a blast celebrating with her friends!

 Katya and Kate

Ava and Marlee

Keegan and Lauren

Amber and Isabel 

Hazel

Denali and McKinley

Spring break in Las Vegas

Took the girls on a little trip to Las Vegas this week. It was snowing when we left on Monday, and it was 90 degrees as we pulled into the Cancun Resort Las Vegas.

We hit the pool, then had dinner at IHOP. Next day we visited the Las Vegas Springs Preserve, which was beautiful and really interesting.

That evening, our friends who live in Vegas joined us for swimming and then dinner.

The next day we hit The Strip, starting at Mandalay Bay, where we visited the Shark Reef. From there we took the tram to Luxor, then to Excalibur. Then we crossed to MGM Grand and up to the M&M shop. We watched a cool 3D movie there.

Then we had lunch at Cafe Bellagio and hung around to watch the fountains and explore the gardens.

By then we were done, so we headed back to our hotel, swam, ate dinner, and collapsed into bed.

This morning, we made the drive home where it has warmed up to the mid-50's.

All in all, it was a fun quick trip, and the weather was truly gorgeous!

Jamaica, mon!

So we took the kids to Jamaica last week.  Before kids, we would never have gone to an "all-inclusive" Hilton in Jamaica.  Just not our kind of vacation.  But Daddy-J had a conference at this hotel, so we booked a few extra days to stay after and decided to take the kids for a beach vacation in January.

Daddy-J had to fly there by himself from Phoenix (another conference).  So I had the kids all by myself.  Turns out, the only way to get there from here is to take a red-eye from here to Atlanta.

Here are the kids in Atlanta, waiting for our flight to Jamaica. We got into Atlanta at 6:00 a.m. or so, and left at about 9:50 a.m., so we had some waiting to do!

It was all worth it when we got to the hotel in Jamaica and saw that this was our beach!  Wowza!

Of course the kids wanted nothing more than to hit the water park as soon as it opened after breakfast and stay until it closed at 5:00 p.m.  So that's what we did!

The water park had a really fun tube slide that we all enjoyed over and over and over...

Miss D's friend, Miss C, and her family were also there.  The girls spent many, many hours playing together.

We all enjoyed the swim-up bar.  Seriously.  The girls ordered dozens of strawberry daiquiris and mango daiquiris. I may or may not have had a few margaritas.  Daddy-J may have enjoyed a few of the "drinks of the day."

With the all-you-can-eat buffet open just about all hours of the day and night, the pool-side food service, swim-up bar and a couple of nice restaurants thrown in for good measure (oh, and don't forget the Kidz Klub that the girls enjoyed a few times while Mama went to the adults-only beach with her book!), we would definitely do this vacation again!