Today is our second day in Vegas. It's Nick's birthday but he has been at the trade show since the morning. Before he went though he had to go buy Rosie a pair of flip flops since hers broke yesterday (I think when I tried them on at the market I must have stretched them out, oops!). After he did that he went off to the trade show and we went off to our excursion.
I looked on the Internet to see how far the strip was from our hotel the Tuscany, which by the way is very nice. I would rate it amongst our top 5 places we've ever stayed. It's a suite with a kitchenette and a king bed plus a sofa bed. The room smells like a new house and the property looks like an Italian villa. So pretty!
Anyways, the yahoo.com map said that the strip was less than a mile walk from here so the kiddos and I dared to walk down E. Flamingo Blvd. toward the strip. The area might seem shady but in reality there were many people walking along with us including several people dressed in business attire. When we were almost at the strip Rosie saw the MGM Hotel at what seemed to be a short distance. We decided to walk to to it since there is a free lion habitat exhibit. Well, I figured the walk would not be that easy but I decided to keep my opinion to myself because I wanted the kids to experience walking down a city street. At first Rosie was nervous, but the rest of the kids were excited at all the things they saw as we walked along. Soon Rosie relaxed and she began to enjoy herself too. We stopped at various places along the way and back including a big fountain at the Bally's, walked across one of the many bridges along the strip, the M&M store, the Coke store where we took a picture with a 7 foot polar bear (a guy in a costume), went up and down various escalators and people movers, saw the monorail and they all wished we could ride it, saw the faux Eiffel Tower and Champs-Elysées and I discussed with them about where the real ones are and many other things. They also loved seeing the 2 story buses and people watching all the people here from all over the world of course.
Finally we saw the lion habitat at the MGM and the kids had fun watching those huge animals doing the "cat" things they do (mostly napping, lol). Unfortunately there were also many ads for filth on truck billboards and along the street and that bothered Rosie and me. It was the first time I noticed so much of that. Perhaps because it's the first time I walk so far in Vegas with children (no lectures please!).
At the end of our hike we ended up, not surprisingly, exhausted and sore! But over all it was a very fun time and I'm glad we did it. When we got home I made sandwiches for the kids and now we are just relaxing and waiting for my love Nick to come home. I assume we will celebrate his birthday somehow when he gets here.