Random shots from the Rib Festival

Friday we headed up the hill to Sparks Nevada, the trip took about 2 hours, the kids and I slept almost the entire trip. We met Papa, Grandma, Tio Rudy, Tia Andria, Dominic and Donovan at the hotel. Check in took forever, it seemed they only had two rooms for us instead of three and after some desperate calls, we headed to the 7th floor to unpack. We got ajoining rooms with Tia and Tio, so the kids could run back n forth between rooms and we always had good company... with the exception of a certain Tio who kept droppin bombs....

We drove the short distance to the Nugget where the Cook off is held each year. Sydney was walking, Peyton riding in the stroller and the rest of the troop pretty much left us Avila's in the dust. Sydney was attached to my hip the entire trip. She walked some, but mostly I was required to hold her... no breaks for the mama.

I can't even remember what stands we hit for ribs, they were pretty good, the first batch didn't have enough sauce.. i love me some sauce. the next batch had a lil more. the meat didn't fall off the bone like it does sometimes, but it was good. We ate corn on the cob too.... it was so juicy. We drank lots of fresh lemonades, so many I can't even count. We ate chocolate frozen banana's, and strawberries. I like the banana's the best. We had funnel cakes with strawberries and whipped cream. YUMMIE

it sprinkled a lil bit on Friday, but the weather was perfect, it was cool and overcast, and we knew that Saturday would bring the sunshine and heat.... so we enjoyed as much of Friday Night as we could.

Meanwhile back at the hotel...... the kids are busy playing and having a great time. We can't get the internet to work in our room..... Ben, Rudy and Grandma went to play craps after the kids finally konked out. Bianca and I fell asleep watching TV. The kids slept thru the night in seperate cribs..... it was a wonderful night. Ben won a couple bennies at craps and then came to bed about 3 am...

Morning always comes early and it was no exception being on vacation..... I was cranky because the hotel didn't have starbucks, hell it didn't even have a cheap coffee maker to tide me over.. and i get cranky without my starbucks..... So we all showered and got ready, Papa and Grandma went to breakfast without us, we were slow. I got an americano at the cafe downstairs in the atlantis to wake me up. We went to the buffet at the Nugget. It's my favorite Buffet. The babies ate scrambled eggs, waffles, strawberries, watermelon and bacon. It was some good eatin, even chocolate lovers cake for dessert, who knew they had dessert with breakfast. Bianca ate waffles with strawberries and chocolate cake of course.

We messed around at the rib fest, walkin around for a lil while then went to the arcade where the kids all played video games, rode rides and won tickets from the machines. The babies rode the train a million times. Peyton liked the airplane too.... I ran off to play craps for about an hour.... Then Tia Carmen, Matthew and Kalyn showed up to join the fun........ til the girls needed a nap, so we went to Tia Carmens room at the Nugget and let the lil girls sleep. When they woke up it was back to walking around at the rib fest. Bianca, Matthew and Kayln went on some of the carnival rides after we met up with Tia Carmen and Tio Martin. We ate Hawaiian Ice to keep us cool. We did a lot of resting and taking pictures at this point, then headed back to the hotel for some swimming. Well Rudy, Andria, Bianca, Dominic and Donovan went swimming while the rest of us kicked back and relaxed... and got the internet working.

I was putting the babies in the tub and Donovan came over to take a bath too, so we had the three amigos playing in the tub, everything was great til it was time to rinse hair... it seems none of the avila's like to get their hair rinsed. That night was a nightmare - the kids didn't want to go to sleep. The girls kept waking each other up.... but finally about eleven thirty they were out.

Ben and Rudy went to play downstairs, then came back up for a lil while. They went back down after midnight and I went to sleep. Ben woke me up about 4 am to show me his $100 chips he had, he'd won three playing craps. At least we didn't lose anything ~smiles~

Sunday we checked out of the hotel about 10 am and went to Circus Circus for the buffet... it's not my favorite and I don't remember much about it because I was irritated with Ben, the babies did a lot of crying because Ben sat between them and had me sit between Peyton and Bianca. Ben didn't put the bibs on the babies so they ruined their outfits and we had to change them. Luckily we had extra clothes nearby. After eating we went to the play area, the kids all won stuffed animals and played lots of games. Bianca won three bears playing darts, she made about six baskets in the basketball game, of course not back to back.... we did some fishing games that the babies could do too.... We watched some circus acts and played more games and then headed home. Everyone except me and ben slept on the way home.

It was good to be back in Sac....