Kyle Visits (!!!) and Mandalay Bay Aquarium

This is our 4th time seeing Kyle in 4 months. It's crazy. Before moving out here in August, I don't think we had seen Kyle 4 times in 6 years. He came to visit in August and we saw him again in November for a camping Thanksgiving (or Friends-giving) and then we saw him on New Years Day when he and his new fiancee drove from California back to Colorado. And then 2 weeks ago, he came to visit again!! We love that he can fly here on Allegiant Air for less than 100 bucks roundtrip. AMAZING. SO amazing, in fact, that our family of 3 is flying to visit him and Rosa in March!

I only documented one of the days that he was here though. He flew in late on a thursday and his first stop was dinner at In-N-Out burger. He smelled the bag the whole way home chanting "it smells like college."

On friday, we got up and headed down to the strip to have lunch and go to the Shark Reef at Mandalay Bay.

We decided to make it easy and satisfy everyone's cravings by hitting up the buffet at the casino.

Avery was excited. She had a ton of fruit and some noodles. She ate WAAAY too much dessert. She ate 2 cookies and when we were ready to walk over to the reef, the guys decided that they were taking ice cream cones for the walk over there (it was probably a quarter of a mile from the buffet to the reef).

Here's Avery with her cookie:

She walked the whole way to the reef while Troy and Kyle bribed her with their ice cream cones. We kept joking that we could get her to run forever if we could hang it on a rope in front of her face attached to her back while she ran.

But here she is, taking an ice cream break from her sugar high running.

We got a discount for being "locals" now that I have a Nevada drivers license, so that was nice. Avery didn't want to sit in her stroller, so all through the aquarium, she got chased or we carried her.

Here's Troy teaching her about the piranhas. They actually had a guide standing there to guard the tank because I guess people have been dumb enough to try and stick their hands in...

The beginning part was all "exotic" water animals. Like komodo dragons, snakes, etc. So it was very rainforest-y in there. And humid. Poor Troy started sweating immediately. And if you know him, that means it's serious.

Here's Kyle, Avery, and Troy. They're precious!

There were 2 parts in the reef where you walked into a giant tube and the fish surrounded you. Avery liked that. Here is us looking at the fish. I think she signed "fish" about 500 times while we were in there.

This fish will FOREVER remind me of "Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigalo." This is the fish that was so expensive that he accidentally put in the blender after he broke the huge aquarium. I started laughing when I saw all of them in the exhibit.

There was a whole cylinder of jellyfish. Eeeek. Very pretty though. I love this picture:

This is Troy and Avery looking in the giant shark tank at the end. It's super dark in there and there are parts where the floor is plexiglass so you can see down. Another eeeek! But I love their silhouettes. Look at her little curls. Haha. SO sweet. And more baby sign of "fish."

And then we went to the gift shop at the end. It's amazing what we will do to get Avery to laugh:

His sideways grin makes me smile.

Avery was super wiped out on the way home from all the fish signing. And running for some motivational ice cream. Her normal nap time is at 1pm, but we didn't get home until about 3. Oooops. That's okay. It was all in the name of science! Her Aunt Betty would be proud of her science day!