Serious Protection

These were some of the Uniform Division that were in from DC. We saw them waiting for their shift down in front of the elevators to our room. They asked if the kids wanted a picture with them. I knew Bill would be "funny" about it.

President Obama was FINALLY coming to town after saying he would come to see Vegas' new City Center since it's opening in December. Well, Bill was able to do some great stuff and we, in turn were able to benefit immensely. Bill was lead for the motorcade and so needed to be available at any time and thus

was given a room at the City Center's Aria. Very nice, very modern, very cool. I picked the kids up from school, packed our overnight bag, picked up a pizza and headed down to the strip. The room was really neat with a lot of new age features. At one point we were

watching TV with all the lights on and EVERYTHING went black! The curtains even started to close. Aaron started chanting in his nervousness, "Uh-oh, uh-oh" while Livi started screaming, "Aaron hit the 'Goodnight' button!" Too funny. Aaron especially loved the phone in the bathroom. Actually, to the kids both phones were amazing... they had cords?!

The Aria is connected by tram to the Belagio and so of course we rode it, a lot! (It would've actually been faster to walk, but where's the fun in that?!) We went to

the conservatorium, watched the water show, and ordered gelato, yum! One of the agent's Bill works with, his family was also staying the night, so we hung out and saw the sights with them Thursday night. Crystals is an upscale mall with a

lot of neat architectural design. People kept walking down these stairs not even knowing what they were walking on and why everyone seemed to be looking at them until they got to the bottom and turned around. SOOO PRETTY! Bill met up with us that night in the room. It was interesting sleeping with the 4 of us in a king size bed, but oooh, those pillows and that mattress... heaven.

Friday morning, I had decided to keep the kids out of school and enjoy the day together seeing the sights and exploring. We found the more artistic side of the strip in two museums in City

Center. The Chihuly museum was AMAZING! I'm not too interested in glass sculptures, usually, but I could not stare at these long enough. Livi was just as amazed. Aaron kept wanting to go. The next museum brought tears to our eyes. Rodney Lough Jr. is a nature photographer and does incredible work. Once again Aaron was anxious to be on our way as I ooohed and aaahed over every print. Admittedly I was hoping to see a photograph of the California coastal redwoods. What we found was even better:

A picture of the DEL NORTE coastal redwoods... that is where my family has been camping since I was 2 years old and where we continue to camp now every year. It's where my children were introduced to camping, it's where they've been with my mom! I explained to Livi and

Aaron that the picture was of the place where we go camping with Granma. The name of the photo was perfect, "God's Garden". Olivia started to cry, so did I. We stared at it for quite some time and then Livi found a book that was for sale. We used the index and found "God's Garden" in the book. Livi stood over it for quite some time sobbing. I had to keep wiping her tears away so they wouldn't splash on the pages.

We made our way back to our hotel room, got our bags and headed home. It was strange leaving the strip. I really felt that I was leaving a vacation behind. What a great mini vacation. (The first thing Olivia did when we got home was to recreate "God's Garden" for herself. I love that she loves art, very much like my mom.