Halloween and Vegas, Baby!

We spent Halloween weekend in Las Vegas. Emma had an ice skating competition on Saturday. We had quite a group of travelers. Mark's parents made the long drive and my family made the short drive to see Emma compete. We stayed with Mark's cousin, Jerry and took the kids trick-or-treating in his neighborhood. Fortunately he lives in a gated community in a nice area, so we felt safe. The kids had a great time. Ellie thought it was great that all she had to do was say trick-or-treat and someone would put a handful of candy in her bag. After trick-or-treating, we watched Jerry's movie, Thor At the Bus Stop. Jerry and his brother, Mike, have made a movie and turned it in to the people at Sundance so we are keeping our fingers crossed for them. It is very funny and I hope everything works out for them. Emma did well in her two events. She won a 4th place trophy and a 1st place trophy. She skated really well and has worked very hard for this competition. We actually had to move her up about 4 levels to even compete in the lowest level of this competition. She had to learn a couple of jumps and work on her spins during this last month. I am very proud of her because she worked really, really hard and skated really well. I think she loved having a big cheering section. During the trip we also went to Shark Reef Aquarium at the Mandalay Bay Casino. The kids were able to dress up and go trick-or-treating there. We saw a lot of cool sharks and jellyfish and all sorts of different sea creatures. It was a fun trip but we are glad to be back home. I will get a video posted soon of Emma skating. I almost forgot to mention that Thursday night we were able to watch our niece, Kirsten dance in the Odyssey Dance Company's production of Thriller at Tuachan. She did an awesome job! We are proud of you too, Kirsten!