fathers day surprise

i had this plan brewing around in my head for a couple weeks prior to fathers day. i knew quin wasn't really a father yet but that it would be fun to do something for him anyways. i was thinking more of things along the lines of breakfast in bed, afternoon picnic, or a big homemade dinner. but of course, i get these dang e-mails from travelzoo that tempt me every week with fun trips for cheap. well, one day as i was looking down through the top 20 list, one caught my eye. i started looking more into it and started to get really excited. it was close to home so it would be a fun little vacation but almost "stay"cation. i already had the week off of work because i was planning on going to lake tahoe with my fam but decided to stay home since quin couldn't go because of his school. so i found the perfect alternative to that one. a fun trip we could both go on! and use fathers day as a perfect excuse to go and celebrate.

so to the trip. i booked the hotel and then told quin i had a fun surprise for him. i'm really bad at holding surprises in so it took all my power to not tell him where we were going. i had this planned for a couple weeks so i'm pretty proud of myself for not snitching on myself! i even packed for him, drove, and made him close his eyes until we got there. surprises are so much fun! i may have to do them more often since i'm getting better of holding them in and all, haha.

anyways, so we went to church sunday, packed up the car, then headed on our merry way. i was so dang excited! quin was too...i think. he just didn't know what to be excited about just yet. when we finally got there, i told him to open his eyes. he still had no idea where the heck we were at! i finally told him we were at lake las vegas!!! it is a man made lake about twenty minutes outside of vegas and soooooo beautiful! i had only been there once before but i just remember it being such a cute area. the streets are made of cobblestone, there are a bunch of little shops and lights that run up and down the little streets. it reminds me of a place you'd find in italy or something. it really is such a fun atmosphere.

when we pulled up to our hotel, we were seriously in awe. it was so nice! (so glad we got a deal on it). it sat right on the lake and even had a little beach area you could swim in. it was even better than i had hoped. after we checked in, we walked around to all the shops and around our hotel. we were loving it. quin was all giddy and excited that it was his surprise. i was just loving his reaction to everything. he had never been out there or even seen pictures.

here is a picture of the street when we went walking around

the beautiful lake 

this was our hotel that went over the water 

a waterfall next to the beach 

us at the pool 



after we walked around a bit and laid by the pool we went back to our room to get ready for a nice fathers day meal. we ate at this awesome mexican food restaurant. we love mexican food! it was so delicious. we even had some delicious fried ice cream. so good! we were a bit beat from our day of such looong travels, (we had also gotten back from lake powell late the night before) so we called it a night. we slept like rocks! the bed was so comfortable. i don't know who had down feather mattress pads on their beds but they are heavenly. when we got home we ordered one so we could put it on our bed, that is how glorious those things are to sleep on.

the next day we spent the whole thing basically out in the sun, on the lake, by the pool, biking around. it was just fun to relax and do whatever we wanted. when i booked our rooms we were able to get free breakfast as well. it was a dang good thing because the breakfast there was super expensive! for one measly waffle it was 12 bucks! and that was all you got. anyways, after breakfast we rented a paddle boat and took it out on the lake for a little bit. it was so nice a relaxing just to hang out in the middle of the lake! so peaceful. we also laid by the pool for a little bit and soaked in some more sunshine. 

there is a big yacht in the background!

paddle boating 

we took a little break in a cove area 

don't judge. i had to piddle really bad. so i squatted. 

we also enjoyed some yummy gelato after our bike ride. (i didn't get any pictures of our bikes. dang it)



after we spent all day in the sun, very much crispy, i had another awesome surprise for quin. when i was looking on travelzoo for our discounted room prices, i also decided to try and look for discounted show prices too. and guess which one was on sale?! the lion king!!! we have been wanting to see this show for forever so you can imagine my excitement when i saw that it was on sale the same time we were going to be there. fifty percent off...travelzoo is pretty much the greatest thing ever. anyways, so we got all ready for our night out and enjoyed an awesome show. it really was so fun. it was longer than we expected though. it was like two in a half hours. we definitely got our moneys worth. i highly recommend it to anyone. to end the night we ate dinner at one of our favorite restaurants...cheesecake factory. seriously the best. it was a perfect day!



our last day we definitely did not want to leave! we tried to squeeze every last bit of fun in as we could. that morning we ate our really expensive breakfast...for free of course. and then enjoyed some more time in the sun. we spent most of it on the little beach area before we had to pack up.  

at breakfast

our resort. it was called ravella 

quin eating a mini banana 

more of our hotel 

beach lagoon area 



we highly enjoyed ourselves all weekend. it was definitely a very relaxing and fun time! we can hopefully go back another time.

quin also had another surprise for fathers day...this time it wasn't from me though. i told him this was going to be his best fathers day ever and he isn't even a father yet! he got a little spoiled thats for sure. his parents got every father in their family a video camera!! it's pretty nice and we were so excited for it. definitely didn't expect that. we got a little video of our trip but i have no idea how to download it on here. we had fun with it though!

fathers day was a memorable one. i'm so thankful for my father and quin's as well. we are lucky to have such great fathers in our lives and quin will be a great one as well!