Family protection

We are on a Vegas trip for Lauren's 18th birthday. With us is Kirt, Lauren, Tasha, Cooper, me, Tyson, and Kiley. Between bathroom breaks, food stops, diaper change stops, etc. It took us till 5:00 to get here, but it was alright. Kirt upgraded our van to a Mercedes Benz SUV... ya we are totally rolling in style... except that when we got to Vegas we all rolled out with our sweats and messy hair, but whatever :)

When we arrived Lauren, Dad, Tyson and I all went on the New York, New York roller coaster. Kiley is pregnant and she and Tasha don't like roller coasters anyway. It was way fun/scary! I loved it! Then we walked across the street on the strip to buy cheap tickets to The Variety Show and for dinner. The Variety show was great. It was a family-friendly (well, besides the immodesty) acrobat, comedian, juggler, magic, dancing show. We all really did enjoy it except for the parts that made us uncomfortable because of their clothing... or lack thereof. 

The trip has been fun and all, but the details of the trip are not what I wanted to focus on tonight. It is family protection. With poor, innocent little Tyson with us, the strip in Las Vegas is not the safest place. Well, it's not for anyone, but especially for a 12 year old boy who is (hopefully) just learning about the dangers of pornography. I guess when McKay was little sometime they were in Vegas and he thought the pornography cards that people were passing out were Pokeman cards. He excitedly grabbed one and said, "Pokeman cards!" So since then it has been a family joke that that's what they are. So tonight as we first started walking on the strip Kirt joked, "No one pick up the Pokeman cards!" So of course Tyson's reaction was, "These are Pokeman cards?" As he bent down to pick one up, we all screamed, "No!" We put our arms around him and explained what they really are as we giggled at him. Throughout the rest of the night we served as Tyson's personal bouncers. Tasha, Kiley, Lauren and I all surrounded him (while dad pushed the stroller with Cooper in it--as long as he was pushing the stroller no one tried to hand him the cards) and warned him to not look down, to look left, look right, wherever it was that pornography wasn't. He is amazing how many people are just handing it out! You can't go 20 feet without someone else trying to shove it in your hands! By the end of the night Tyson was joking about how he had been smacked in the face by each of us throwing our hands at his face to cover his eyes, and how he had been shoved between each of us like he had his own body bubble of protectors around him. He thought it was funny, perhaps kind of annoying, but I kept thinking about how wonderful it was to have a family who surrounded you to protect you from danger. It made me appreciate how family really should be that for each other. How we should point out the dangers in our lives and surround one another to form a defense against the adversary or any other dangers. I know it sounds silly to say that on the strip in Las Vegas I was feeling a spiritual lesson being taught in real life, but that is how I felt. I love my Bailey family and how we are always there for each other. If something tries to break in to one of us, we all jump on board to protect that person. I have been on the protection side and sometimes it feels a little annoying to always have people up in your business, but what a sad life it would be if I didn't have that.

That is my ramblings/testimony for the day. Goodnight.