What happens in Vegas....gets flushed down the toilet

We always come away with some priceless gems when we stay with our fabulous friends in Vegas.
This trip was no exception.
Including the amazing twist on the infamous Vegas slogan.  Brilliant.  And applicable in so many more ways that the context in which it was said on a Sunday night.  I'll get to that.

We had this trip planned months ago.  Then life happened.  Between school and medical bills and car repair and that whole new laundry machines because the other ones bit the dust, everything was just stretched too tight.  So we bagged everything but the long weekend in St George that we had prepaid back when I originally got into the marathon.

One week before the original departure plans some serious generosity was bestowed upon us by some of our amazing family and then with some last minute scrambling, everything was back on.  Still blown away by that!  We had 3 full days to get all our loose ends tied up, school absences worked out (which I only kind of got done till two days into the school week-whoops), work back off and travel plans arranged.  It was fabulously last minute crazy in the middle of an already crazy week.  This good crazy is crazy I can handle though!

We planned to take off on Saturday, but we just didn't get our act together enough to do so.  I did manage to pack 9 of our 10 family members (I made Aaron fend for himself.  I'm a bad wife.) for a week in less than three hours.  As well as plan food and make sure I had all of my marathon things set and ready to go.  I do believe I made that list, checked it a dozen times, laid everything out, rechecked that a dozen times and then still checked the bag more than once after I packed it.  I was so worried I'd get there without something like my shoes.

We did get everything completely ready on Saturday so as to allow Sunday morning to involve getting up, eating breakfast, getting dressed and hitting the road.

The whole crew was slightly excited to be headed out.

(if you click on the video and it says 'unavailable', just click again and it should come up.  If you really want to see it)

No, that was not a stretch of road somewhere in central Utah, that is driving out of my neighborhood.  Love it.  (you can see the paved path along the side of the road where I head out to do most of my running)

And then 6ish hours later, off in the distance......Las Vegas.

We spent the afternoon hanging out and catching up with some of our favorite people in the world.  John and Gina have been there from the very beginning, meeting Aaron and I about a week after we got married.  They are some of the most wonderful people we have ever met in our entire lives.  Love them to death!  Not to mention how incredibly accommodating they are to allow us to crash with our entire herd at their place any time we roll through Vegas.

By the end of the evening, after chasing all the littles to the sleeping quarters

we got to the fun part of our visits where we talk about anything and everything late into the night.  Love those chats!  This time around involved something a little new.  Scorpions!

They were telling us that scorpions glow in the dark.  We had never heard of that, so we grabbed a black light and headed into the backyard.  I guess having a black light around the house is a normal thing in Vegas because you can pick them up at any Home Depot.

We headed outside and pulled up the rug where their oldest daughter had mentioned she saw one scurry a little earlier.  Sure enough, a florescent glowing little scorpion took off from where the rug had been.  Craziest thing!  It looked like a little glow in the dark plastic toy scurrying around.  So cool!
Check it out:
Regular flashlight:

Black light:

Isn't that insane?!

We'd shine the light up across their rock wall and see little glowing creatures hiding out in there.

So funky!
(our inner geek required a little research-they glow because of phosphorus in their skin)
They were pretty little, which was both a relief and a little unnerving.  Nice that they weren't those huge fist-sized suckers that you think of, but also a little unnerving because you can't see them unless you are up close are looking for them.  I was so afraid I was going to step on one!
This picture gives a better idea on their size:

The bigger one was about two inches long.
And since you don't want these roaming around you get rid of them.  But they are nearly impossible to squish.  So what do you do with a backyard scorpion?  Flush it.
What happens in Vegas, gets flushed down the toilet.