Vegas Vacation

Smiles at the Bellagio fountain show

 The week after Christmas we took a fabulous trip to Las Vegas, to visit my family. I'd been dying to visit, and we had an awesome time! With my brother John and Jaime home for Christmas and my sister Katie and her cute family already living in Vegas -- we had a full house and lots of fun. My parents really spoiled us, too! We went skiing at Brianhead, saw an awesome magic show on the strip (Mac King- family appropriate!), shot off model rockets at the dry lake bed, cheered on our knight at the Excalibur Tournament of Kings, and toasted the New Year a little early (Norwegian time). Oh, and of course we went hot-tubbing every day (Danny J's favorite thing in the world!).

Thanks, Mom and Dad, for a fabulous family vacation! We love you and miss you already!

MODEL ROCKETS

With all of the fun activities we enjoyed, I wondered what the kids favorite activity was. ALL of the kids picked shooting model rockets with Grampy! It was tons of fun -- and brought back lots of memories from my childhood, when I used to shoot off rockets with my dad. Thanks for treating us to four new model rockets and lots of fun launches!

Macie's rocket was the tallest, by far. She and Grampy put it together, and it looked pretty cool!

Reid had Dad help him create his rocket, and it was a fabulous one! This baby shot so high into the sky we would lose track of it until the parachute deployed!

Davis's special rocket had a compartment so that you could "send things into space." He put some worms and bugs and berries inside to send up -- they sacrificed their lives for science...

Grams tiny rocket was called "Scrappy" -- and it was! This little baby flew high!

Danny wasn't posing for the camera -- but he was PUMPED to shoot a real rocket into the sky!

The boys get all the rockets ready for take-off. Grampy had quite the professional set-up!

John and Danny race for the catch

Danny J fires his rocket away! Blast-off!

The race was on -- everyone ran to try and recover the rockets as they parachuted down!

Mud happens. Poor Danny was chasing after a rocket and parachute when he discovered the only mud puddle in the whole dry lake bed. Being up to his ankles in the sticky stuff did not make him a happy camper... :)

TOURNAMENT OF KINGS

No utensils, no manners, fighting knights and an awesome bad-guy who had a flame-thrower. This was the perfect show for the little boys of the Gunnell family!

Spain! Spain! Spain! The kids are still chanting this at home. Our knight was the best!

The knights were actually quite talented, and we had lots of fun cheering loudly and getting rowdy! The boys were especially enthralled with the show!