The Wedding
10-29-2001,

The Wedding...

October 29, 2001

Stephen's parents had left a note for us saying that we should wait for them, that they were going to take a cab with us over to the Mandalay Bay for the Wedding. Delores had left to spend the day with her friends who were staying at the Paris, and Stephen's aunt and cousin were going to go over with his other aunt who was also staying at Harrah's. We were all ready to go a few minutes early, so we thought, why not, then we could check out the hotel there. The cab ride over was fun. Stephen's mom was pointing out lots of stuff to us, and we got to see quite a few of the hotels. When we got to the Mandalay Bay, I was impressed. It really is a beautiful hotel, and we had no troubles finding the Chapel by the Bay. Great location for the Wedding. We were the first one's there, but Kevin and little Kev got there shortly after us. They were ushered into a room as not to see Nicole and the girls when they got there, which was shortly after that. Nicole asked me to come into the bride's room with them to fix Karolyn's dress and to help her get dressed, so that was nice. Wow, the girls looked so beautiful. They all had their hair done that morning, and they really were just beautiful. Kimberly was so cute, and just wanted to be with me. Gosh, I love those kids. I took a lot of pictures and helped them get ready and then went to go sit in the chapel with the rest of the family. The wedding started shortly after, and was very beautiful. I am so glad that we went. It really meant a lot to us to be there for Kevin on his special day. I really do wish them the best of everything.

After the Wedding, we took pictures and all that sort, but then there was still a few hours to go before the dinner. Stephen's mom wanted to go back to the hotel for a bit to change, and really so did I. Stephen would have rather hung out with his cousin's but decided to go back with us anyway. We went back, and changed and hung out for a bit, and then headed back to Mandalay Bay for the dinner. They had it at Wolfgang Puck's restaurant, talk about fancy, hehe. There were about 23 people there, which was a nice number considering they went all the way to Vegas to get married. There were 2 tables of 10, and then the kids were at a separate table. Kimberly and Karolyn were begging me to sit with them, and I figured why not, so Stephen and I sat with them for a while, and then Stephen went to sit with his sister and cousins, and I stayed with the kids. I had so much fun with them, and I am so glad that I decided to do that. They were cracking me up the whole time. It was all very trendy food, and Kimberly kept asking, what's thissss??? Who eat's this kind of food? I laughed and told her rich people, to which she decided she never wants to be rich, LOL. When the salad came, it was field greens, and I about died laughing when the kids were saying that these looked like the weeds that grow in their yard. It was so funny. We had fun though. OHHH, when they were doing the champagne toast� I poured a little tiny bit of my wine into the girls glasses (we had filled their wine glasses with ginger ale, hehe). They were so excited, and Kimmy started getting silly� she said, uh oh, I think I am getting drunk!!! LMAO, um, there was hardly a sip mixed in with a whole glass of ginger ale, but what the heck, if she wanted to think she was drunk, why not let her, giggle.

After dinner, the kids were going to go on a Limo ride up and down the strip with Kevin and Nicole, and then they were going to drop the kids off by our hotel to hang out with us for the night. However, during dinner, Kevin came over and asked me if we would be interested in doing the Limo ride with the kids, since we were taking them that night anyway� Um, Hello??? A limo ride up and down the strip, and you think I am not interested??? Where do we go, lol. So when it was time to meet the limo, Kevin walked down with us and told him that we were going in their place� and we were off on another adventure.

I am so glad that we got the chance to do this, it was just so cool. The kids loved it too, expect for when they got yelled at for standing up, by the driver. It was okay though, we were still able to see everything from the limo and we had a great time doing it. We stopped at the MGM Grand to get some clothes for the kids, and then we rode around the city some, and the strip.. finally ending up at our hotel. We went up to the room to change into more comfy clothes, and then decided to walk around with the kids.

We went over to the Mirage to see the Volcano erupt, and it was just so beautiful. I took a ton of pictures of the kids and Stephen and the volcano. How pretty it really was. Actually, you could see that from Stephen's mom's room, and we had watched it a few times� but being down there and hearing it, and feeling the smoke, it was just too cool. After that, we walked down to Treasure Island for the Pirate show. We had an hour's wait for the next show, so we decided to check out the hotel and get some ice cream for the kids. It was awesome. Ben and Jerry's was right across from this club, and they were out dancing in the hallways, and doing these shows that were right out of the movie Cocktails. We stood and watched that for a while, and it was cool. If we didn't have the kids with us, we probably would have hung out there for a bit (we had hung out the night before at this other club where they had live bands and people doing skits of sorts), but we really didn't mind having Kevin, Karolyn and Kimberly either. We had a great time with them. We made it back outside a few minutes before the pirate show, and stopped to get our pictures taken with some of the pirates (that is the picture I posted here the other day), and then found a place to stand for the show. That was really cute, and we all enjoyed it a lot� especially when one of the ships sunk.. how cool. It was sooooo crowded though and took us a while to get out of there and back to our hotel room. It was late by then, so we took the kids up to the room to hang out and get ready for bed. Kevin had brought this card game with him, so I played with him for a while, while the girls hung out with Stephen. Then we all got decided to lay down and watch and movie and I think we were all out pretty quickly. It had been a long day and we had done so much.