Away from Ellie

Our trip to Las Vegas went very well. We really enjoyed seeing O and Stomp. We also saw Zoomanity, but was highly disappointed in it.

I was constantly surprised by how many kids (and construction) there were in Vegas. I don't think it ever occurred to me that Vegas might be a fun vacation destination for families. Weird. Anyway, the one the surprised me the most was a set of parents who brought their young daughter (I'd guess 6 years old) into the Bodies exhibit. For those of you who have not heard of it, it's an exhibit of real human bodies that have been preserved in a way that you can still see all the muscles and nerves. It was really quite fascinating, but this poor little girl was obviously terrified of the bodies. I don't really blame her. I'm sure they are quite scary for someone her age. Now maybe she was interested in seeing the bodies before coming in, who knows, but I really felt like it was the parents' responsibility to remove her when they realized she was scared. Then they could take turns seeing the exhibit themselves. What they ended up doing, though, was carrying her though, and as they got closer to each body she would cry and try to hide her head in their shoulders. Am I the only one who sees this as sad? Sure, take your kids to such an educating experience, but when they're older. And if you do see your child break down then stop and try some other time.

Ok... enough of that. Let's move on to the more important things. How did we fare without the little one?

It came as a surprise to us, really. It was quite a relaxing weekend. However, we did think we would worry about Ellie the whole time. The surprise was that we ended up not worrying at all. Instead, we just missed her. Lots. I don't know how to explain the difference. We expected to miss her in terms of "I wonder if she's ok" but instead we missed her in terms of "I miss her hugs!"

I don't know why this came as such a surprise to us, but it did.

Stay tuned for how Ellie did without her parents around!