August 12, 2010 –
What a roller coaster day, both literally and figuratively. We all had a lot of fun, even Katie, but she had a hard time too. It’s very difficult for her to accept that she is younger than her siblings, and her four-year old brain just can’t understand why she can’t do everything they can do. This issue reared its ugly head, not once, but twice today.
The day started out really great. After breakfast we headed into Downtown Las Vegas and found the pawnshop from the show Pawn Stars. If you haven’t seen it, I’ll give you a quick (by my standards) rundown. Most anyone reading this blog probably knows that I am a history teacher, and I do keep an eye on what is coming on the History Channel both because I enjoy a lot of the shows and I’m always looking for something I can use in my class.
A little over a year ago, I started watching a new show on the History Channel called Pawn Stars about a three-generation family who runs a pawnshop in Vegas. Becky describes the show as Dog the Bounty Hunter meets the Antiques Road Show. Because it’s Vegas, they get some pretty interesting things that come into the shop. They never show the run of the mill stuff like jewelry and iPods because they’ve had in historical artifacts like documents with George Washington and Andrew Jackson’s signatures, treasure from a shipwreck, etc. They also get in antique collectibles of Americana such as old Coke machines, jukeboxes, etc. They always give some historical background for the piece and sometimes bring in experts to help evaluate some items. With some of the things they buy, like the old Coke machines, they show the transformation once the item has been restored.
Within the show, they also always have some kind of contrived (or maybe sometimes they’re real) storyline that creates some drama. They use the characters of the grouchy grandpa, lovingly called the Old Man, the son Rick, who is trying to run the business efficiently, the grandson Corey, who will have to take over the family business but still has some things to learn according to the other two, and the son’s friend Chumlee (not making that up), the village idiot who somehow manages to come through on occasion.
Anyway, it’s a pretty entertaining show, and they actually do have some really cool historical pieces that come in along with pretty good background info. After Becky and I stared watching the show, eventually Alex and then even Zac got hooked as well. Okay, so that was not a quick rundown, even by my standards, but now that I’ve written it, I’m not going back to change it.
Back to the point – We went to the Pawn Shop, and it really has become more of a tourist attraction (I’m sure a big chunk of their profits now come from signed t-shirt sales), but they are still a working pawnshop. The kids really wanted “to try to get on the show”, so Grandma let us bring in a few of her more interesting antiques although we didn’t intend to sell them. The problem is that the store was packed with tourists (us included), and none of the stars of the show were even working the counter, and they probably don’t very often in tourist season anymore. Wait, when is it not tourist season in Vegas?
The kids did get to see the Old Man behind a window in the back while we were waiting in a line to get into the shop (see what I mean about tourist attraction). After we had been there for a while, spoke with pawnbroker about our Nazi helmet and Japanese wood-block print that we really had no intention of selling, and bought a couple souvenirs (like I said, we admittedly were among the tourists), the kids were disappointed that we hadn’t met any of the stars of the show. As we were getting ready to leave though, Chumlee came through the store from the back and gave Aex and Zac knuckle high fives and stopped so they could get a quick picture with him. It was the highlight of their day.
So that is not all we did today (in fact, it probably took me longer to write about than the whole experience actually took). The kids decided to go to Circus Circus because there would be rides that Katie could do, and I think that even fearless Alex was a bit nervous about the Stratosphere rides. This is when the problems began though. While there were plenty of rides that Katie could do, she was not tall enough for most of the ones she wanted to do. We were all able to go on the Sponge Bob 4D Adventure and a Dino Island simulation ride together, but when the older two and Becky wanted to go on the roller coaster, Katie became distraught. After crying through a “baby ride” with me, we met up with Becky again a found a swinging pirate ship that Katie could go on. The problem there was that it made both Becky and I sick. Our salvation came when we found a frog hop ride that Katie loved and could go on by herself. She probably went on it 20 times, and Becky was able to sneak off and do some of the bigger rides with Alex and Zac while I watched Katie.
We eventually went back to the Stratosphere and caught a short rest in our room before going to dinner. We tried the buffet at our hotel because we had coupons, and it was okay but not great. We probably should have gone over to the Rio, but we didn’t know if we’d have time before our show. They did have some good brownies though.
Tonight we went to see a smaller, family-friendly magic show called Superstars of Magic starring Chris Best and Cassandra in Downtown Vegas. We got there early and the crowd was small on a Thursday night so we got to sit in the front row. With us up front and Zac being the perfect age, he got called up to assist on one of the tricks. This did not sit well with Katie who was heartbroken that she never got to go up on stage. She liked the show, but it put a cloud over her whole evening. Zac was really cute, but a little shy up on the stage. He was embarrassed because the pretty assistant kept flirting with him, but he enjoyed the attention too. The show was great, and I would recommend it to anyone, especially if you go to Vegas with kids. We really liked the smaller venue with more interaction compared to the huge theaters for some of the big shows.
After the show we decided to drive down the strip to show the kids some of the different themed hotels. Katie was overtired and not in a good mood, but she fell asleep before too long. The rest of us enjoyed the lights and being able to see Paris, Rome, New York, Egypt and Camelot all in a twenty-minute ride. We had a fun-packed, action-filled day, but if anyone is looking to adopt, we have a blond-haired, blue-eyed four year old that we might be willing to take offers for.
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