One of the fun days in Vegas

In addition to Circus Circus, Ellie loved going to the M&M store and to Gameworks, which is a video arcade for Sega video games. You can buy a card that will give you a certain number of minutes to play any video game you want or a card that will give you a certain number of points that you can use on any video game OR carnival-type game you want. Each game will take a certain number of points off your card and then when you've used all the points you can add more money or just be done.

So the point card was best for us, because it worked for this game that Ellie loved loved loved. It was a dress-up video game. It gives you a card to start off with, and the card has a certain part of an ensemble on it--either an outfit or a hairdo or shoes or some accessories. You use each card to dress up a girl and then you get rated on how she looks. So it pays to have more cards so you can choose from more styles. By the time Ellie was done, she had about 35 cards. Practically a deck. She played this game over and over and over.

In fact, she played it so much that she started getting duplicate cards. So she decided to give the duplicates away to another little girl. But there were no other girls playing the game--only a mom with boys who were playing a similar boy-oriented game. She tried to give the duplicates to the mom, but she wouldn't take them. So Ellie sent me off in one direction and she ran off in another to find a girl to give the cards to. I, of course, played video games while I was supposed to be looking for girls.

At one point I was looking at a video game when Ellie came bolting toward me with something in her hands. As she got closer, I could see it was a Curious George doll! She was so excited as she told me that she had won the Curious George in one of those games where you move a claw and send it down to pick up an item and drop it in a chute. I have tried to get a stuffed animal out of those claw things for 30 years and I have never once done it. I had tried just the day before at least 10 times to get a Curious George from that very same machine and I couldn't do it. And she did it! She was sooooooooooo happy. She said at least 15 times that day how happy she was that she had won a Curious George. I told her later in the day that she couldn't have a slushie and she said, "I'm sad because I can't have a slushie but I'm still happy because I won that Curious George!"