An Easter Weekend

It's hard to believe that just last weekend we were vacationing it up in Lake Las Vegas with the family.

Especially when it's all gloom and doom this weekend with April showers doing their duty... but I guess that's okay. Ollie had man-surgery yesterday so I'm doing homework and feeding him pain pills today in between redbox movies and packing. I've yet to blog about Easter at all, so I guess there's no better time than this rainy and relaxing Saturday to do it.

So after I blogged about our anniversary trip to LLV my mom was determined to go too. My dad has always been the man in charge when it comes to vacations, but this time around he let me take the reigns. (Which btw is a total first and a huge compliment to me as my dad is a...how do I say this? Vacation control freak like myself)

Since LLV has become my latest area of expertise you'd better believe we stayed at the same resort America's Sweethearts was filmed at. Yeah I pretty much partied with Catherine Zeta Jones, Billy Crystal, John Cusack and Julia Roberts. I vacation hardcore. ;)

No actually I thought my dad would like the Italian style of Ravella- where we stayed on our anniversary, but the only thing my dad required as far as planning goes was that Ollie had to be able to come. So when I compared the two best resorts on the lake it was a no-brainer. A $150 non-refundable pet fee at Ravella or a $25 pet fee at Lowe's. Hmm. Plus Lowes is a pretty bad-A Moroccan-style resort and I didn't mind checking out another version of the LLV experience.

Anyway, upon check-in I learned that since I'd made our reservation Lowe's was bought out by Westin, just like Ritz-Carlton was bought out by Ravella when they were having hard times a couple years ago. Lucky for me Westin has no pet fee, and Ollie was completely free to this five-star resort! How's that for effective travel planning?!

We were greeted on site by a fantastic view of the lake from the open bay windows of the lobby. I kept telling Jace I felt like I was on a cruise in the middle of the desert, especially with the grand piano, fancy drink bar and plush lounge. As I took care of business at the front desk I guess my dad scolded Joel for bringing his extra large fountain drink into the hotel. "You never see James Bond show up to poker night with a Big Gulp," he said. Pretty sure Joel got the picture after that. :)

We immediately got to work exploring the golf courses and hidden trails throughout the grounds- Ollie leading the way with his nose. 

 

 I especially loved the cactus garden. There were so many unique and gigantic cactus plants!

Preston thought the putting green and basketball court were pretty awesome!

 

I'd told dad all about The Village- the Italian-style shopping and dining village cozied up next to the lake, so we stopped by to check it out.

And to get gelato of course. He never passes by good gelato. Especially this amazing raspberry and pineapple creation of my own. Mmm!

That night the fireplaces were all fired up, leaving the outdoor patio glowing under the full moon.

Believe it or not the atmosphere was even better in the morning when we took our cinnamon rolls, croissants and bagels outside for breakfast in the sun.

This picture doesn't show it well, but the view behind Jace is incredible. I love LLV! I could hang out there for weeks, just taking in the peace of this place it's so quiet and relaxing.

Oh man speaking of relaxing, or the opposite of so, on our first night there we were woken to the loudest airhorn of a fire alarm I have ever heard! I can't remember for the life of me what the speaker said because we were all so confused at what was going on at 2 am, but we stumbled out of bed to get dressed and make sense of the noise. I remember taking a full 30 seconds to decide if I should take my phone with me, totally forgetting about my shoes, contacts or bra before I went next door to the rest of my family. I'd be in big trouble if there was a real fire without my contacts in! So it obviously wasn't a real fire, Jason called down to the front desk to learn that there was a false alarm on our wing of the resort. Everyone was pretty grumpy as they climbed back into bed, everyone except me. I giggled for a good 20 minutes about the confusion on our faces at the sound of the alarm. I don't know why, but it was so funny at the time!

The morning after our lovely fire-alarm experience we took the Lake Mead route to see the reconstruction of the Hoover Dam. Jason and I did that last time too, but we had only been on top of the bridge, not beneath it, so it was fun to see the entire thing this time with the fam.

Ollie was very picky about who got to hold him near the dam. Course if I were a small animal susceptible to heights I'd feel pretty uneasy too!

The sibs!

The Ollie-dog in two places at once.

Joel and Riss couldn't be separated the entire time. Seriously Joel misses her so much when she's away at school. They relate to each other better than anyone else.

Back at the ranch we took full advantage of the two gorgeous pools. It was probably the fanciest pool I've been to, with $100 cabanas for rent complete with mini fridges and flat screens.

I was all about the pool-side service because there's nothing better than a cold Caesar salad and diet coke on a hot day!

Joel won the handstand contest of course. :)

We definitely got some sun in the beautiful 80 degrees, but I had to check out Westin's signature white-sand beach before we ended our day.

I got more of the beach then I thought though, because that night was their weekend smore's roasting and I was greatly anticipating it. However, after a good amount of Buffalo Wild Wings for dinner we found the beach empty and dark. Jason called down to the front desk about it and they said they'd send engineering out to start a fire for us and we could pick up roasting sticks at the bar. That's some good customer service!

 It sounds like they usually have a turnout to the bonfire, but this weekend Westin was hosting a Passover retreat and so we quickly became the minority around the resort. I learned a lot about Jewish culture in the few days we were around them. The halls were scattered with coffee makers outside of rooms and the elevators were programmed to stop at every floor because it is important that you not push elevator buttons or drink coffee? on the Sabbath. I don't completely understand their traditions, but I recently learned in Ethics to view differences as "interesting" not "weird." I know people view my own religion as weird, but I'd rather them not say that. "Everything is foolishness when taken out of context," Elder Bednar recently said in a DSC fireside. I don't understand or simply know enough about Jewish tradition to make judgements, so until I research (which I plan to do) what it's all about, their tradition is merely "interesting" in my mind. Ha. How's that for textbook application??

So thanks to Jewish Passover tradition, we had a private bonfire and s'more roasting party while everyone else was praying/worshipping/meeting/I'mnotexactlysurewhat.

 A duck joined our party and wouldn't leave! It was pretty funny to see him and Ollie face-off a little bit, but the duck got pretty vicious pretty fast so we kept him away after that.

Jason sure messed with him though. It started pecking at his jeans and he couldn't get him off for a while! Stinkin' duck doesn't like people on his beach apparently!

After three days it was time to say goodbye to the beautiful Westin at Lake Las Vegas. The Westin definitely won the better award when compared to Ravella, but that's a post for another time.

We'll definitely be back!