I wanted to do something special for my daughter, Kelly's, sixteenth birthday. So I decided to plan a weekend trip to Las Vegas. Since her birthday celebration would not be complete with out her friends I called the parents of Kelly's friends and told them about Kelly's Sweet Sixteen Las Vegas party. At first some of them were a little skeptical, but I reasured them there was a lot more to do in Las Vegas than gambling. It was only a few hours away and the kids would be under the supervision of four adults the whole time.

Four girls and two boys were given the green light by their parents. The adults were myself and my husband, Dan and another couple who are good friends of ours, Theresa and Jim. We reserved two adjoining suites and a large room at a fancy hotel right on the Strip. Each suite had two bedrooms and a common area. The girls had one suite, the boys were in another, and the adults took turns in pairs supervising the kids while the other couple stayed in the large room.

A bus picked everyone up from their homes on Friday and drove to the hotel. We discussed plans for the weekend on the way. The adults wanted to just relax at the hotel for the rest of the evening and on Saturday, everyone would go on a bus tour of the older section of the Strip. After that we decided to split into two groups because all the kids couldn't agree on what attractions to see next. Each large hotel had its own amusement area with rides, games and shows so there was so much more to do than hanging around the pool. In the evening we planned to meet up for dinner at a nice restaurant. After that, we would all go watch the circus show and see some more attractions.

After we checked into our suites we visited the hotel buffet and took some group photos of the kids sitting around the tables we pushed together. The kids wanted to see a magic show so they kind of hurried though dinner. The show was really fantastic.

After the show some of the kids wanted to go down to the jacuzzi. Dan could see how tired we were so he volunteered to supervise them.

He brought them back up to their rooms when the pool area closed at 11:00 PM. My husband and I took the first watch and didn't allow the kids to leave the room for any reason after 12:00 A.M. The kids didn't go to bed until 2:00 AM and even when they did I don't think they slept much. I could hear the girls giggling for hours after they had closed the door. Of course the kids were up and ready to go when the adults finally woke up.

We took a bus tour of some of the oldest and most famous hotels and casinos. On the tour the kids learned about Las Vegas' mob influence. I found it amazing that during the day Las Vegas was much like a regular town, but at night, the lights on the Strip lit it up like day.

After the tour my husband and I took one group of kids to tour some of the newer hotels that had shows and even amusement park rides. Since Kelly loves tigers, so we went to see them first.

That evening, we met at a nice restaurant for dinner. The kids were so excited about riding the rollercoaster at the top of the tallest hotel after seeing the circus show they could hardly contain themselves.

The circus was really entertaining and Theresa watched the kids play carnival games while Dan, Jim and I lost a few dollars playing nickle slots. After an hour we took a shuttle to the tallest hotel on the Strip and went all the way to the tippy top so the kids could ride the roller coaster. They were so excited when they got back Jim and Dan decided to go with them when took a second ride on the coaster. Theresa and I thought it looked way too scary.

It was midnight by the time we returned to the hotel, and the kids were exhausted. All of them went right to bed and Theresa and Jim didn't hear a peep out of them all night. Dan and I shared some quiet time and some champagne in the large room.

In the morning we all visited the hotel we heard had the best breakfast buffet on the Strip. After that we watched another free show and bought some souveniers before we checked out of the hotel and boarded the bus for home. Just before we left Kelly thanked everyone for giving her such a fantastic birthday.

A week later we received several envelopes of pictures Kelly's friends had taken of the trip. My husband and I organized them into a scrap book for her to have as a memento of her awesome Sweet Sixteen Las Vegas party!