We actually took a VACATION!!!!

now that most of our birthdays have come and gone and most of us are at least older minus the bit wiser, Nate and I decided that we needed a vacation from life, so in celebration of our oldest being 5 we went and saw some dancers in Vegas! WOW we're some crazy parents! who in their right mind takes their family of small children to Vegas for their birthdays! well I guess we do. *blush!*
Thankfully we had our Gaggie and Ba(grandma and grandpa) along with us, so they were able to help keep us "Adults" grounded.
Joe's had this fascination with VeggieTales and the Duke stories that we read and watch, which are great for kids BTW, well in this movie they have some jousting between the Duke and his foe who's name I can't recall, but he's played by Mr. Lunt, the smiling short "guy" in the hat in front of the horse. So at the end of this faboulus movie they have this amazing invention called "special features" and while watching them Joe was captivated by the stunts the knights were doing. they're real people doing the stunts not vegetables. well I got the great idea to go to the Excalibur show "Tournament of Kings" Now I've seen this show before when I was in high school, and it was fun screaming and cheering for the knights, but it was even better to see MY family cheering, screaming, and in my case loosing my voice cheering for MY knight!isn't he AWESOME!!! thank goodness we've read some "jack and annie" stories so Joey knew King Arthur and Merlin. At the beginning of the show Merlin comes out and mingles with the crowd, before he teaches them how to cheer and such, and lucky for us he came out to mingle with the crowd on our side and once I pointed him out to Joe, Joey stood up in his knight gear(cuz we couldn't go to a knight show and not wear it) and yelled "Hi, Merlin!!" so Merlin stops talking to who he was talking to and almost bounces over to Joe and the rest of us, on the front row, now I know he might get in trouble for me saying this, but he spent the rest of his "mingling" time with us! isn't that great! and he loved Joe's outfit, even the serving wenches commented on his armor, congratulating him on his birthday, and asking him if he would help our king fight the evil Dragon King! of course Joe was ready to fight the evil king himself if he was needed, but at the same time was a little apprehensive when Mordrid finally showed himself. thanks to our cheering(and maybe the cheering of the other people in our section) our knight won the tournament and was just about to be honored by the king when the Dragon King reared his mean and nasty face. not to give too much away cuz I think EvErYoNe would enjoy this show I won't go much more into detail, but at the end when the cast is taking their bows and the horses are running around the stadium all the knights ride by all the sections and wave their good-byes, but what was the coolest! was that when they saw Joe in his outfit and I'm guessing little Ben by his side, they gave them and extra-special wave, mostly it was their fist to their heart, with their arm straight across their chest, their salute to Joe the Great. Here's Nate and Ben cheering and Huzzah-ing each other before the show started Here's Joe and the King of Russia, and then the Kings... I'll call him weight lifter and one of the dancing maidens.