Vegas Baby! Vegas!!

On March 10 I left Provo, UT to attend a family trip to Las Vegas. It was a trip centered around seeing my dad, two of my three brothers, my wife's grandparents, and the BYU men's basketball team make an attempt at the MWC tournament title. This was my second trip to Las Vegas and the first since getting married. The last time that I went was to meet my sister's husband (though we were also able to sneak in a BYU-UNLV football game). Since there were no new people meet this weekend I was forced to pretend to meet one. While waiting in the airport for the rest of my family to show up I became familiar with Chaun. Chaun is from Texas and owns a small fluffy dog. He also happens to be a Chippendale's dancer.Chaun is identified by the arrow and circle. I didn't get familiar enough with the rest of the crew to provide you with there names, but Chaun became an important part of the remainder of our trip.

Often when the family gets together something happens early on which becomes a running joke for the rest of the time that we are together. This means that if you know you are going to be around each other for any amount of time longer than a few days than it is important not to allow yourself to become the target of said joke. As may be imagined by the inclusion of the picture above, I failed. So, Chaun became a constantly referred to part of our group. We joked about cropping him in to family photos, saving space for him at restaurants, and, of course, not taking my wife (the only non-male member of our party) to the Rio for fear that Chaun would steal her away. However, as with all jokes of this nature, Chaun will be forgotten soon enough, so consider this a farewell. "Chaun, we will surely miss you."

Most of our non-Chaun morning time was spent at the Original Pancake House. I don't have pictures of the goods, but you can rest assured that the plain and chocolate chip pancakes, ham n' eggs, bacon, sausage, crepes, orange juice, and dutch oven pancakes were delicious... all three times that we got them. Big time thanks go out here to Pay-Pay and Grandfather Smith for their kindness in filling my belly and the belly of my wife and siblings.

We spent much of our non-Chaun down time playing cards, watching the old Mission Impossible TV show, and stuffing our faces with Jack in the Box. There are no JitB's in Utah Valley (where I reside) or in the greater Denver area. In fact, the only known JitB in all of Utah is in St. George (a four hour drive from Provo). This wouldn't be a big deal except that it is easily my favorite fast food burger place. So, during our trip, I ate a marvelous Bacon Ultimate Cheeseburgers and found time to squeeze in another trip to get milkshakes after a BYU game. Which leads me back to whole point of the trip.
The first round of the MWC tournament featured a rematch of BYU-TCU (a match-up that had happened only a week earlier in Provo) that was far closer than it needed to be. The other first round games were close as well, though the second game we attended, UNLV-Utah, was the most one sided of them all. The next day we got to see UNM play SDSU (SDSU won) and BYU-UNLV. The BYU game was exciting, but in the end the home town Rebels took the victory. UNLV then lost to SDSU in the title game, but we didn't buy tickets for that game. Instead, we went to dinner at the Texas Station Gambling Hall and Hotel. Naturally I ate until I couldn't imagine eating ever again, and could not have been happier about it.

The trip was great and I must say thanks to everyone who came and who helped make it possible (mostly that means our uncle, but dad and brothers get some consideration in their help planning). Also, thanks to my wife for coming and thanks to her grandparents and sister for making it fun for her as well. I can't wait until next year to see if we can't do it again, though maybe next year BYU makes it to the title game.

However, it really won't be the same without Chaun...