Vegas California Vegas (+ appendicitis)

We made a last minute decision to drive to Las Vegas for the weekend, and an even more last minute decision to continue driving to San Diego to see our familias. 

We stopped for the night in Vegas and saw Mystere. I LOVED it. It was the first Cirque du Soleil show I had seen there and now I want to see all the others. Yes, I cried tears of joy in the first five minutes of the show.

We got to Poway just in time to have some pre-BBQ fun with the fam. 

With my cute nieces.

Seriously... Jason's BBQ is ridiculous. I would drive 11 hours right now for some more of those ribs and brats.

Lori made this YUMMMYYY and beautifully festive trifle. 

 Father-son ping pong match.

 Fireworks.

The next day Matt went and played with my dad's ultimate frisbee gang.

Nice jump-catch!

After, the three of us went to get some of that good cheap mexican food that I miss so much here.

On Saturday, we drove up to San Pedro to see the grand opening of the USS Iowa battleship, which has now been decommissioned and turned into a museum. 

Matt's Grandpa Morris served on this ship when he was 17, back in 1947! I was really glad we could be there with him and hear some of his stories from back in the day.

Grandpa Morris being interviewed for the LA Times. He got a little blurb in the paper! You can read the article here.

Nice guns.

We left from there to start our journey back home. Matt wasn't feeling so good. He was really uncomfortable for most of the drive, and even though we stayed in Vegas again on the way back and tried to have a good time, he took a turn for the worse.

But, you wouldn't know it from this picture because he was so happy to be in the sports betting room surrounded by so many screens full of sports.

Didn't gamble, but was seriously tempted by slot machine names like "Stinkin' Rich"

We made it home on Sunday afternoon, when we discovered that Matt had a fever and his stomach pain didn't seem to be getting any better. He said he had been kind of hurting for a week, but didn't really say anything until it got bad on Saturday. The next day, he actually went to work, but called me around 2 pm and said he would need me to drive him to the doctor. From there, we were sent straight to the ER. This was great reverse-role play practice as I drove him to the hospital we'll be delivering at in a few months. Matt was clutching his stomach in pain and I was holding his hand saying "breathe! breathe!" 

Once there, a ct scan confirmed that he did indeed have appendicitis and would need surgery that night. Turns out, his appendix had already ruptured, so he had been walking around (and playing frisbee and golf that week) with a burst appendix for who knows how many days. Thank heavens the surgery was successful, and he was able to leave the hospital on Wednesday. He's been such a champ, but surgery recovery is no picnic. I'm glad he's back at home now, recovering well and doing better every day.