I was a pretty spontaneous person when I was younger: road trips to Arizona, moving to California for school, weekend trips to New York, etc. I never had anything that would really hold me back (not that having a family does that, but let me explain). I am truly grateful for all those experiences, but I didn’t think that I would have one of those fun, exciting and spontaneous moments in my life after becoming a parent. Well, I did and it was fantastic.
Being a parent has been the greatest moment of my life, next to that moment I got married, duh. Once you become a parent though you lose the chance really to just get up and do something wild. You grow up and gain a large amount of responsibility. Sometimes though, you need to have those moments where you live on the edge and enjoy every second.
Recently I went to St. George, Utah with my in-laws. One night grandma and grandpa decided to watch all of the grandkids so the adults (older brother-in-law, his wife and three SINGLE brothers-in-law) could go to dinner and have a fun night with no kids.
With not much to do there, and no real places to eat that made us excited. We were shopping when one of the brother-in-law’s came over to us. The grandparents had just driven away when he said, “We’re going to Vegas!” What? Did he just say that we were going to Vegas? Sure did.
I had a constant smile on my face the entire night. What would we do? Where would we eat? We had to do something crazy. Granted we’re all mormon, so our crazy is drinking Shirley Temples and staying up past midnight.
Since we had an hour and a half drive ahead of us we had time to plan our adventure. We all quickly jumped on our phones looking for where to eat. Being such a last minute trip reservations weren’t happening, but we heard about a Thai restaurant that was supposed to be the best in the country. Well then, why not hit it up.
We were starving and ready to eat something good but as we pulled up we were nervous. This place couldn’t have been in a more sketchy part of town, but yet the parking lot was packed and everyone was trying to get in. We walked in and got our names on the list. Twenty minutes passed and we were sitting at a table surrounded by pictures of all the celebrities that had eaten there before us. So many different types of people were packing the place you knew you were in for a treat.
Family style was the way we decided to order and it was exactly what we were told it would be, amazing! I love Thai food and this was for sure the best I had ever had. But now what were we going to do?
Well, we didn’t tell the grandparents what we were doing. All they knew was that we were at dinner and we thought, wouldn’t it be fun if we were to take a picture by the Las Vegas sign to send to them?
That was when we drove to New York, New York hotel because even though we ate amazing food, we didn’t eat enough and wanted more. Craving Shake Shack we knew we wouldn’t be disappointed, plus as they say, “You Only Live Once!”
We walked out to the strip so that we could walk to the Vegas sign. I had just been to Vegas in January and knew that the sign was just at the end of the strip. I thought it was closer, but was much further than we expected. Everyone else thought maybe we could just do a picture in front of the Bellagio fountains, but I was adamant on getting the Vegas sign picture.
Walking in the Vegas heat with two pregnant woman and everyone else that knew Bellagio was a better choice wasn’t very pleasant, but the people watching was hilarious. We had almost gotten to the sign when we decided to walk back and we could just drive to the sign after eating again.
You can’t go to Vegas though and not doing something super spontaneous right? Since we were parked at New York, New York why not ride the fun roller coaster? That is just what we did. The pregnant moms got to people watch, while the rest of us rode the ride.
We had worked up quite the appetite and headed to Shake Shack for burgers, fries and shakes. Sitting around the table we talked, laughed and just enjoyed the time we got to spend together. I honestly kept smiling the entire time from how this spontaneity kept going all night.
What did I learn from the weekend? Maybe it’s time to do more spontaneous things with family. Spending the time we did together was so fun and we all became closer as we talked, laughed and ate. Life gets crazy, but if you can just get up once in awhile and try something out of your normal routine you might be surprised by who will join in on the fun.
