A relaxing day of putt-putt.

Las Vegas family Christmas.
Wow what a weekend! For the blog narrative I’ll start with the most recent day and work back through time. First a little about the weekend in general; this year’s Christmas has been years in the making. The grandparents have been planning on having a family Christmas at their home in Las Vegas for at least the last five years. This was a special event and I’m sure it took lots of hard work, hours of planning, and a chunk of change to pull it all together. I have to say the trip when flawlessly! It was very relaxing and fun! I was only out there for three days and it seems like I had a week.
Day 3 (Monday): My last day in Las Vegas was a day of leisure. I stayed at the Sahara Hotel and Casino during my visit. After sleeping in till 10:00am at the hotel I headed down to the Casino and grabbed a cup of coffee and an English muffin at their grind café before heading to the grandparent’s house to meet up with the rest of the family for an early lunch. We were treated to lunch at the Angel Park golf course club house. We had a private room with buffet style eats. On the menu were some of my favorites, burgers and/or chicken sandwiches with house made potato chips, potato salad and cookies for desert. After lunch we played 18 holes of putt-putt golf on their real grass course. It was just like playing on a real course just at 1/10^th scale. It was a sunny 70 degrees with a slight breeze. We had lots of laughs as we made and afternoon of it. I shot a 68, which put me in second place of our foursome.

This is a tough bunker on hole 14…and yes, I’m on the beach!

A Quiet Christmas Morning.

Day 2 (Sunday): Christmas Day would be a day of hourly massages, goofing off with the cousins playing touch football in the park, eating like every few minutes, enjoying the hot tub and pool capped off with a family Texas-holdem poker tournament.
I started off the day at the house. Arriving early, I helped cook breakfast for the masses. Some family members were already there getting their massages. The grandparents hired a masseuse to give hourly massages throughout the day. I didn’t sign up but I guess they felt really great! We had California style eggs benedict, which is an English muffins topped with a slice of cheddar, some Canadian bacon, a pouched egg, a fresh tomato slice and last but not least a good slathering of hollandaise sauce. They were great, I ate three! After breakfast the family walked to the near by park and played touch football, ultimate freesbee, and did some calk drawings on the sidewalk.
We spent a few hours there in the sun shine before heading back to the house for some pool time and snacking before our early dinner. For dinner we had Turkey, Ham, mashed potatoes, broccoli, fruit soup and dinner rolls. Pumpkin, Apple and cherry pies with vanilla ice cream followed for dessert! I was stuffed and went into a food comma for an hour before the holdem tournament.

The tournament was a ten dollar buy in. We had 18 people playing on two tables. Not really knowing the skill level of the other family members I was knocked out early by a younger cousin…much younger. (I don’t want to say how much younger.)
Later that evening I learned that he had been groomed from birth to be a poker player in the family poker mill! Much like a Chinese gymnast is taught to be a gymnast at a very young age, he was taught the gambling craft of Texas holdem…the protege ended up taking second, his dad took first, and if it were not for my little brother Will taking third, the Mendozas would have been out of the money completely. It was a awesome day with many gut breaking laughs...so many my face hurt.

Saturday(12/24)-Christmas Eve in Vegas!

Day 1 (Saturday): Saturday night we partied our asses Vegas style!
need I say more?

Friday(12/23)- A Basin Day!

My vacation actually started on Friday. I took it off to relax at my favorite mountain before heading to Vegas. We got about 5 inches over night on top of the snow from the week. It was soft and sunny!
Another awesome day Baskin in the Basin!
Here’s Shred Santa!