Dancing Queen Leaving Las Vegas

Vacations are always looked forward to.  And when you're a mom, well, vacations without the kids are dreamed of, longed for, and relished.  Waiting at the airport--sitting, with absolutely nothing to do--is a luxury.  Room service--someone else preparing your food and bringing it to you--is decadence.  And sleeping--without stealthy ninjas slipping into your room in the middle of the night and staring at you until you startle awake--until you want to get up--without someone saying, "Get up, Mama, get up!"--is the ultimate vacation. 

But Sunday morning, just two days into our vacation, I woke up with an aching emptiness that went deep into my core.  To say I missed my babies is an understatement.  I longed for them, to hear their laughter, to smell their distinct smells, to see each unique set of eyes and freckles.  I wanted them to physically tug on my hand as they were emotionally tugging on my heart.

It was the day of the big event, the ACMs, and I was incapacitated.  Instead of sitting out by the pool, relaxing before the ultimate primp session, I was lying in bed sobbing. 

I flipped through pictures on my phone, trying to console myself. 

But their smiling faces only made me feel that much further away from them.

Ron tried to console me by saying it was only 48 more hours before I'd see them again, but that seemed an interminable amount of time. The only thing I could do was to get up and busy myself with something, to keep the sadness at bay. I did what was natural to me:  I straightened up the room.  

While tidying the desk, I came across a letter Trey had slipped into our luggage before we left:

Surprisingly, it made me feel better.  

So I started getting dressed.  

There's just something about a warm shower; it's so therapeutic in many ways, and in this case it seemed to wash away another tinge of the sadness.  Before I knew it, I was ready to put on my dress.  

My mind slipped back to a couple of days before leaving for Vegas, when I had tried on the dress with all its accessories one last time before packing it all up.  James David and Jacob had burst through the bathroom doors (as they are so apt to do) while I was twirling around getting a 360 degree view.  They stopped abruptly and both breathed, "wow, look at Mama!"  Jacob said, "Mama a princess!"  James David concurred, "she a princess...with dancing shoes!"

My eyes brimmed with tears as I thought about that moment...but my heart warmed too.  My boys thought I was a princess.  And so I was a princess--and I did dance--that night.

I'm back home now, and I'm far from that princess in dancing shoes.  I'm surrounded by dirty laundry, toys and clutter, and mounds of papers to grade, and my comfy pants, t-shirt, and flip-flops are far from the glitz and glamor I left just two short weeks ago.  I'm back to solving disputes over toys, wiping noses and rears, and waking up at ungodly hours to fulfill large demands from tiny people.  And my blogs will revert to the ho-hum everyday themes of potty-training, crock-pot freezer meals, and what to do with your children over the summer.  

But that's okay.  I had a blast being a Dancing Queen in Las Vegas.  But I'm much happier being Princess Mommy to my little princes at home.

Viva Las Vegas!

Finally, the time had arrived...to step on the plane.  Let me be frank:  I HATE flying.  It's not the delays (though those are annoying), the baggage fees (which are excessive and unfair), or the security checks (which make me feel like a criminal even though I'm far from one!).  It's the sensation of flying, of powering up into the air and being 25,000 + FEET ABOVE THE GROUND.  If the plane falls, chances are, I'm not going to make it.  It's the most helpless feeling in the world to me--even worse than being pinned down and tickled, and it causes me extreme anxiety. I've been told repeatedly by Ron and others that my fears are irrational; irrational or not, it's how I feel, and feelings are rarely rational.

So it's got to be a really good reason for me to get on a plane.  And Merle's two nominations were two good reasons.  And the glitz and excess of Vegas with friends was another good reason.  Fortunately, these reasons lived up to their promise.

It's not often--at least any more--that I get to dress up in flashy clothing (fondly dubbed hootchie clothes by my friends and me) and go play hard with my husband and friends.  So I took advantage of that in Vegas.

We opted not to stay on the strip this time and to instead stay at the Palms.  It's seen as a hip casino/resort with trendy nightclubs such as Moon--which I didn't get to go to--and Ghostbar, and the spring breakers from USC obviously agreed.  My "hootchie" clothes looked like they were from the Victorian era in comparison to these girls.  The proverbial "less is more" definitely didn't apply in this case.   The only thing we had in common was our dislike (to put it mildly) of Lane Kiffin.


But who stays where they're staying while in Vegas?  We ventured out to Freemont Street, where there were several live concerts, and saw the light show.  We explored the Golden Nugget, made popular once more due to a 2004 reality show based around it and its new owners.  We walked the "streets" of Caesar's Palace Forum Shops and attempted to witness the fountains of Bellagio, though they were canceled due to extreme winds (it was actually cold and rainy--IN VEGAS--that day).  And we gambled, of course. 

The main attraction, the ACM Awards Show, came Sunday night.  Of all the awards shows Ron and I have gone to in the past, this one was, as a whole, the most entertaining and memorable.  And it wasn't because we had the best seats we've ever had before, only 10 rows away from the stage, three rows behind the likes of Kelly Clarkson (love her!) and Kaley Cuoco (my husband loves her), and within lunging distance of Taylor Swift, Keith Urban, and Brad Paisley and Blake Shelton at certain performance points in the show.  And ACM Performer of the Year Luke Bryan's parents sat behind us.

I will be honest:  I'm awed by celebrities, and though my interactions have been limited, I have had a couple of "moments" in the past--like when I made Sisco spin on the red carpet of the CMT Awards Show and when Blake Shelton looked me in the eye and nodded at me after shouting at him that his "choir rocked!" (in reference to his participation in Clash of the Choirs, a reality show in 2007, before The Voice).  I even had my picture made with Gary Allan the night before at the ACM Radio Awards Reception.  So to be literally in the midst of celebrities, I was star-struck.

If that wasn't enough, the performances were, for lack of a better word, outstanding:  

• The Band Perry electrified the audience.  And trust me when I say the televised version of it did  not do it justice.  Everyone in the audience was in awe.  It was like being at a country Kiss concert. 
  
• Going from one extreme to another, Eric Church's "Love Me Like Jesus Does" performance was beautiful and moving; the televised version of it was very nice with him shown in black and white and his female counterpart in red.
• Carrie Underwood and Miranda Lambert, female titans of the industry, lived up to their status.  In particular, Miranda's performance was so fun!  I love the song "Mama's Broken Heart" to begin with, and she was such a fiery spark-plug of energy on the stage. 
  
• And it will be hard to determine the best Group Performance of the Year next year because the opening act with Blake Shelton, Luke Bryan, Brad Paisley, the Pistol Annies, Miranda Lambert, and Sheryl Crow (did I forget anyone?) was the perfect start to the show.
  
• Tim McGraw, Taylor Swift, and Keith Urban later gave a fantastic performance with Keith, in my opinion, stealing the show with his unbelievable talent playing, or should I say owning, the guitar.  He and Brad Paisley simply amaze me with their skills.
  
• And, of course, there was the historic performance of two legends:  George Strait and Garth Brooks.
• To top it off, Hunter Hayes and Stevie Wonder!  What!?  Crazzzzy!  Too bad your DVRs shut off before the television audience could see this one!
  

The after party (though much larger and disappointingly less intimate than in the past) didn't disappoint either with appearances by Jason Aldean, Luke Bryan, Jewel, Little Big Town, Keith Urban, and Hunter Hayes, just to name a few.  The biggest winners for me at the After Party were Keith Urban and Hunter Hayes.  First off, Keith Urban just kept coming back out--either to sing or play his guitar with someone!  And Hunter Hayes, someone who was not even close to being on my radar before the event, has a new fan in me.  That kid is so talented!  He played bass for Keith Urban and drums for Stevie Wonder.  In fact, he can play 30 instruments!  And he's not bad to look at or listen to either!  :)

It was such a memorable experience and the enjoyment of the evening carried on after the After Party, so it was a good thing that our return trip was scheduled for Tuesday.  

Though that was a good plan strategically,  my heart was ready to leave Las Vegas.

I'm Here for the Party!

I think the last time I spent so much time working on my appearance was my wedding day.  Hair, nails, tan, accessories and such were of utmost importance. 

Fast forward nearly eleven years now, and while I do care about my appearance, everyday life with work and the kids preclude me from caring about all the fine details.  Most wives and mothers understand that everyone else gets taken care of first.  And if there's time (and money) left, then we get taken care of. 

For example, while bathing the twins is when I give myself a "pedicure," which consists mostly of a quick soak (while sudsing down two squirmy kids), a quick buff, and, if I'm feeling really fancy, a quick polish.  Manicure?  What's that?  And my hair gets done every two months, if I'm lucky.  There's no time for a tan, not even in the summer.  I mean, how and when would I really "lay out"? 

So this need or desire, call it what you will, to get all polished up for Vegas was both a luxury and a stressor.  I've had an obsession with the hair color of Cheryl Cole (seen below) for at least a year now, so the hair part wasn't that difficult, except for not knowing how I wanted to fix it.  My hairdresser kindly presented a tutorial on my hair on how to curl it with a curling iron--the right way.  That was very enlightening (as, honestly, I didn't realize how many things I had been doing "wrong").

 o

As for my fingernails, while I prefer the gel nail method, I decided that since my nails were ravaged by everyday wear and tear and the winter cold, I'd have to go with a full set of acrylics, something I haven't done since college. 
 

Before

After

I've never been a fan of my feet, and the older I get, the uglier they are.  Just so you understand the sad state of my feet (my picture is purposefully deceptive), the other day, Jacob saw the callus on the side of my big toe (which I've been told is due to the way I walk).  He said, "Mama! What happened to your toe?"  I guess it did look like a case of leprosy next to the soft newness of his not quite three year old skin.  I don't even want to think about what the pedicurist thought of my feet as she filed and buffed those suckers down.

Before (this was also my before tanning lotion too)

After  (I decided some glitter sparkles were appropriate)

But the biggest problem I had was with the tanning.  I haven't been in a tanning bed since before I was married.  And I always felt guilty and anxious about using them anyway.  We've all heard the horror stories about people's insides being cooked and have seen the pictures of women with sagging wrinkled cancer riddled skin.  Besides, I don't tan that quickly.

I'd used the tanning moisturizer in the past, so I thought I'd try that.  But the smell was so bad, and while it did darken my skin, the results were not "dramatic" enough.  I took before and after pictures, and you really couldn't tell a difference in the pictures.  I knew it was time to consult authorities in matters such as these:  my students.

Several female students advised that I should get a spray tan.  I got a spray tan once, and it was awesome.  But the downside was that when it started wearing off, it somewhat peeled or flaked off in sections, which was creepy looking.  When I expressed this concern, my students looked at me with a somewhat blank expression, which, I've come to learn, means, "what is she talking about?"  It was then that I realized the spray tan I had was nearly a DECADE ago!  Apparently, great advancements have been made in spray tan technology as they now fade rather than gruesomely shed.  (It's times like these that I sadly realize that while I continue to get older, my students are always the same age.)   

So a spray tan it was:  The process was super fast and easy, and the results, though not as long lasting as I had hoped, were outstanding!  If you've never tried a spray tan before, I highly recommend one if you need a quick "tan" within 48 hours.

So after all the shopping and preparation, 

now I can proclaim, "I'm Here for the Party!"