Stairmasters
Well, we just made it back from a whirlwind trip to Las Vegas. I had a gazillion things that needed to be taken care of before we left too, so the blogging got shelved for a week. But now I've somewhat got things under control (unpacking done and the kids' end of quarter projects finished) so I can take a moment to share a couple of funny moments from the trip.
We were invited to Vegas to see my dad presented with a lifetime achievement award for his industry. It was a pretty big deal, and my dad was so honored, and he wanted to have us all there to join him for it. We were happy to take him up on the offer! So when the kids got out of school on Wednesday, we loaded everyone up and headed out for that more glittery desert city.
Now, there were a couple of things about this trip that were stressing me out a bit. First, our whole family was invited to the general meeting but there weren't likely to be any other children there. The meeting was supposed to be two hours long, and our reserved seats were going to be right in front. I just survived stake conference a couple weeks back, which is two hours long, and I knew that K and S would not be able to last through it. Second, it seemed unlikely I would get through this trip without having to get on an elevator. (I have a horrific phobia of elevators. Claustrophobia, you know.) My elevator fears got even worse when I heard from my sister that the parking garage elevators at Caesers Palace were a nightmare.
The first worry toned down a bit because we decided to leave M in charge of S and K in my parents' suite. As part of his award my dad had been given a MASSIVE suite inside Caesers Palace (it had three bathrooms and two walk-in closets, to give you an idea). The meeting was in one of the Caesers Palace ballrooms, so we would be close by if she had any problems. The second, well, I figured I'd take the stairs as much as humanly possible (although sometimes I get freaked out in the closed-in emergency stairwells also).
When we arrived at Caesers on Thursday afternoon, I was relieved to find the parking garage stairs to be a decent alternative to the elevators. They were open air stairwells, and we didn't have any trouble getting down from our sixth floor parking spot. Inside though, I had to grit my teeth and brave the elevator. My parents' suite was on the 8th floor. I would have been willing to walk up eight flights of stairs, but we had S in a stroller, and anyway, I didn't see any stairs anywhere. Fortunately, the elevator was empty except for our family and it was a fast moving one so it was over quickly.
The meeting went great! The magician who emceed the event was amazing, and my dad's acceptance speech was moving. J and B were well-behaved the whole time (though J had his eyes glued to a Nintendo DS-- whatever it took to keep him quiet and seated!). Things took an interesting turn though right after the meeting. On the way back up to pick up M we mistakenly went to the wrong elevator bank. It wasn't until we were already on the elevator and the doors were shut that we figured out that this elevator didn't stop on the 8th floor. It was only for the higher floors! When we stopped at the 18th floor to let a passenger off, I hurried our family off onto the landing. Then after some minor debating between Terence and I, we decided to try the stairs back down to the 8th floor. It sounded much better (especially to me) than riding the elevator back down and then finding another elevator to ride back up.
Well, we found a stairwell and it really wasn't so bad. I mean, other than the stairwell being the creepiest kind of closed-in unfinished stairwell that just screams zombie attacks or poor lost souls dying trapped and forgotten by the world. But Terence started to race with J and we literally flew down ten flights of stairs. I was a bit dizzy and sick to my stomach by the time we stumbled onto the eighth floor, but it was much faster than the elevator would have been. So after we picked up the younger two and M, Terence suggested that we take the stairwell again. Eager to avoid elevators as much as possible, I agreed.
Perhaps I should have remembered that I had not seen any stairs on the ground floor earlier?
This trip was only down eight floors but it took longer. K moved slower and Terence was carrying S still in her stroller. (Being Mr. Muscles he just picked the whole thing up in his arms.) But I started to get worried when on floor 4 the stairs changed direction. We had to follow a hallway down and around, and it was clear we were being routed to a whole new area of the building. There was no exit on the 3rd floor. By this point I was starting to get panicky and I was racing as quickly down the stairs as I could with J and B just ahead of me. When we got to the final stretch, I made the kids stop. The door was propped open just a little, and I wanted to check where we were before I let the kids rush out into the middle of a casino or something.
Good thing I checked! The door opened right into the middle of the Wedding Chapel Garden-- where a wedding was currently in progress.
Oops!
So much for that. We turned around and headed back up the stairs. At the second floor I peeped out the door only to find that it opened into the back area of a kitchen, for one of the restaurants I assumed. Yikes!!
In the end, we had to hike back up to the fourth floor, with Terence carrying the stroller and me carrying K. And then we had to take the elevator back down to the ground floor. Yep.
And you know what? Even after all that, my elevator phobia is bad enough that I still opted to climb up the six flights of stairs to get to our van in the parking garage, even though I had to carry K again. I'm crazy, I know.
We were invited to Vegas to see my dad presented with a lifetime achievement award for his industry. It was a pretty big deal, and my dad was so honored, and he wanted to have us all there to join him for it. We were happy to take him up on the offer! So when the kids got out of school on Wednesday, we loaded everyone up and headed out for that more glittery desert city.
Now, there were a couple of things about this trip that were stressing me out a bit. First, our whole family was invited to the general meeting but there weren't likely to be any other children there. The meeting was supposed to be two hours long, and our reserved seats were going to be right in front. I just survived stake conference a couple weeks back, which is two hours long, and I knew that K and S would not be able to last through it. Second, it seemed unlikely I would get through this trip without having to get on an elevator. (I have a horrific phobia of elevators. Claustrophobia, you know.) My elevator fears got even worse when I heard from my sister that the parking garage elevators at Caesers Palace were a nightmare.
The first worry toned down a bit because we decided to leave M in charge of S and K in my parents' suite. As part of his award my dad had been given a MASSIVE suite inside Caesers Palace (it had three bathrooms and two walk-in closets, to give you an idea). The meeting was in one of the Caesers Palace ballrooms, so we would be close by if she had any problems. The second, well, I figured I'd take the stairs as much as humanly possible (although sometimes I get freaked out in the closed-in emergency stairwells also).
When we arrived at Caesers on Thursday afternoon, I was relieved to find the parking garage stairs to be a decent alternative to the elevators. They were open air stairwells, and we didn't have any trouble getting down from our sixth floor parking spot. Inside though, I had to grit my teeth and brave the elevator. My parents' suite was on the 8th floor. I would have been willing to walk up eight flights of stairs, but we had S in a stroller, and anyway, I didn't see any stairs anywhere. Fortunately, the elevator was empty except for our family and it was a fast moving one so it was over quickly.
The meeting went great! The magician who emceed the event was amazing, and my dad's acceptance speech was moving. J and B were well-behaved the whole time (though J had his eyes glued to a Nintendo DS-- whatever it took to keep him quiet and seated!). Things took an interesting turn though right after the meeting. On the way back up to pick up M we mistakenly went to the wrong elevator bank. It wasn't until we were already on the elevator and the doors were shut that we figured out that this elevator didn't stop on the 8th floor. It was only for the higher floors! When we stopped at the 18th floor to let a passenger off, I hurried our family off onto the landing. Then after some minor debating between Terence and I, we decided to try the stairs back down to the 8th floor. It sounded much better (especially to me) than riding the elevator back down and then finding another elevator to ride back up.
Well, we found a stairwell and it really wasn't so bad. I mean, other than the stairwell being the creepiest kind of closed-in unfinished stairwell that just screams zombie attacks or poor lost souls dying trapped and forgotten by the world. But Terence started to race with J and we literally flew down ten flights of stairs. I was a bit dizzy and sick to my stomach by the time we stumbled onto the eighth floor, but it was much faster than the elevator would have been. So after we picked up the younger two and M, Terence suggested that we take the stairwell again. Eager to avoid elevators as much as possible, I agreed.
Perhaps I should have remembered that I had not seen any stairs on the ground floor earlier?
This trip was only down eight floors but it took longer. K moved slower and Terence was carrying S still in her stroller. (Being Mr. Muscles he just picked the whole thing up in his arms.) But I started to get worried when on floor 4 the stairs changed direction. We had to follow a hallway down and around, and it was clear we were being routed to a whole new area of the building. There was no exit on the 3rd floor. By this point I was starting to get panicky and I was racing as quickly down the stairs as I could with J and B just ahead of me. When we got to the final stretch, I made the kids stop. The door was propped open just a little, and I wanted to check where we were before I let the kids rush out into the middle of a casino or something.
Good thing I checked! The door opened right into the middle of the Wedding Chapel Garden-- where a wedding was currently in progress.
Oops!
So much for that. We turned around and headed back up the stairs. At the second floor I peeped out the door only to find that it opened into the back area of a kitchen, for one of the restaurants I assumed. Yikes!!
In the end, we had to hike back up to the fourth floor, with Terence carrying the stroller and me carrying K. And then we had to take the elevator back down to the ground floor. Yep.
And you know what? Even after all that, my elevator phobia is bad enough that I still opted to climb up the six flights of stairs to get to our van in the parking garage, even though I had to carry K again. I'm crazy, I know.
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