Las Vegas

Note to self: Get a new point and shoot camera!!

This past week, Brian had a national conference for work to attend in Vegas. He left Sunday along with the other guys in his office and the wives flew in Tuesday.

When I got there Thursday, it was funny to me that not 15 feet from where I got off the plane were slots. I guess I shouldn't be surprised, but it was just weird to me. So from the airport, I decided that Vegas is a pretty sleezy place. I took a shuttle to our hotel and then Brian came out of his class and took me to the room, then he went back to finish up. The conference was at The Palazzo hotel, so we stayed there and it was super nice.




I was really hungry, so I walked across the street to the Fashion Show Mall and had lunch and looked around. Then I walked a little ways and got a pedicure. It was not very good at all. Boo hoo. The "massage" lasted about one minute and she pushed so hard with the pumice stone thing it made my heel raw. I got back to the hotel and Brian was done about that time, so we got ready for our evening. One of the wholesalers took his group to dinner. We went to a steakhouse--it was pretty good, but the meal took forever it seemed and you could smell the smoke wafting in from the casino. Yuck! I had a salad, filet mignon and mashed potatoes. Dessert sounded good, but I was way too stuffed. After dinner we went and saw the Cirque du Soleil show "Mystere". Brian and I enjoyed it--some of the rest of the group thought it was slow or weird and didn't like it. The show was kind of weird, but the tricks and acrobatics are just unbelievable. So it was entertaining to us. The show was at 9:30, so we didn't get back to our room until late. The next morning Brian got up and headed to his meetings and I was LAZY! I slept in, then turned the TV on and watched for a bit. I went downstairs and got something to eat--a muffin and the best hot chocolate you could imagine--and brought it back up to the room to eat. Then I got my exercise clothes on and then got back in bed and fell asleep for a little bit. Then I got my shoes on and watched some more TV. Haha. I just couldn't bring myself to go down and run. In the afternoon, Brian had a break, so he came running with me, then went back to classes for a while. I got ready and then went down to window shop. Our hotel is side by side with the Venetian, so the canal shops are right there and the gondola rides, too. It was fun to watch those.




Our dinner was late that night, so after Brian was done with his classes, we walked around the shops again and shared a yogurt--strawberry with mini white chocolate chips. Yum. That night another wholesaler took us to dinner at Lavo, which is a restaurant in the hotel. It was another long, drawn out dinner, where they brought appetizers, then salad, then the meal and the sides and then dessert. It was fun to visit though.

Our last full day was Thursday and we decided to rent a car and get off the strip. We drove to Henderson to check out The District--an outdoor shopping center that had some cute stores. We had breakfast at Rachel's Kitchen--I had the best oatmeal with brown sugar and strawberries. It was so filling; I couldn't eat it all.

We shopped around for a bit and then went back to the hotel to pick up Gary and Veronica and then we went to the temple to do a session. It was a very pretty temple and one of the rooms just blew us away--it was incredibly beautiful. Our session was so tiny...only 10 people! Such a difference from what we are used to here.


On our way home we just wanted some "regular" food, so we stopped at Baja Fresh. Yum!

That night was the fancy dinner--we weren't too hungry, so we just had a few bites, then we left to get different dessert than the tiramisu that they were serving. Jay Leno performed at the dinner, so we came back just in time to hear him. He was very entertaining and funny. ...a good way to end the night.


The next morning, we just had time to get ready, grab a bite to eat and head to the airport. It was fun to get away, but Vegas in not a place I would choose to go. We found all well at home--thanks to Terri who took great care of our kiddos.

Mother's Day

Today I had a great Mother's Day. First off, I got to sleep in. Yes! I hardly ever get to do that, so it was wonderful. Brian didn't have any meetings before (good thing! ha!), so it was just great to have him home--so weird, too, though--I had forgotten what it was like to have him home before church. By the time I woke up, everyone had colored or made me a Mother's day card. Brian lucked out this year and I had picked out an outfit as my gift that I could wear on our trip. So he didn't have to pick anything out for me. I had a relaxing day until church. I got to enjoy the first little bit of sacrament meeting before having to take Ruby out. Boo hoo. But luckily she is in nursery, so I was able to enjoy Sunday school and relief society.

After church we went to my brother's house for a wonderful dinner. We had Russian chicken, potatoes and salad. For dessert we had ice cream and toppings. The kids had fun playing and we had fun watching them and visiting.

On the way home we picked up my niece and nephew--we are watching them for a couple of days while Jared and Chrystalyn are out of town for a follow up appointment for Jared's hip surgery.

This morning I was able to watch some new videos on the Mormon channel. Here are a couple new favorites:

Behind (again)

Seriously...why can't I keep up on this anymore?!?! In a nutshell: school, preschool, track, YW presidency meetings, laundry, laundry, housework, laundry, making bread, stake temple day, planning new shelves in the pantry, photo shoots, making graduation announcements for friends, new laptop, getting ready for and going to Vegas with Brian this past week, coming home, getting back into the groove, etc., etc. It never ends! I hope to post about our trip before June. Haha.

Easter

This year's Easter started really early. The girls came in at 6:30 AM! I told them they had to wait until at least 7. So at seven, they went into the front room and found a note from the Easter Bunny with their first clue that started a scavenger hunt to find their baskets. It took them around the house and finally into the playroom where their baskets were waiting for them. This year he brought hula hoops, Pillow Pets, shorts, a movie and a swimsuit (for Ruby). The girls had pop tarts for breakfast, then they did their usual Sunday stations before church.

I think my little camera is on its last leg--the pictures have this weird haziness about them. They are actually quite horrible! Sorry!

Party Time!

Yesterday we had a fun family party at my parent's house to celebrate Easter, my dad's birthday and my dad's retirement of 39 years with the police department. He is retiring at the end of May and he wanted a party with all the kids and grandkids. We met at their house in the early afternoon. We brought the kids in their swim suits and told them they might get to go in the sprinkler or do water balloons or something. The truth though was that my parents had rented an inflatable waterslide and a bouce house. When the kids went outside, they were surprised! Libby had accidentally seen it from the street when we pulled in, but I told her not to tell anyone. So the kids played on those for most of the entire party! They had a little inflatable pool that Luke, Hattie and Ruby had a blast in, too.















For dinner, we had pizza and wings. Yum! After dinner we went inside for the traditional fish pond. The kids got a bag of candy, a chocolate bunny and a new beach towel.



Then we went back outside for the Easter egg hunt. Once Ruby figured out what to do, she loved that part.





The kids went back to playing while I made cotton candy. What a fun mess that was as strands of cotton candy were flying around and getting all over us! The best part was when we first plugged in the machine and it tripped the breaker to the inflatables. Quick! It's going to crush the kids! Happy to report, no children were lost.







The rest of the night was filled with more playing and snacking on dessert! What a fun time everyone had.

Reader

One night we came home from date night and found that Libby had literally read herself to sleep. So cute.

Birthday, Track

I feel like I am so far behind, but then feel like I don't have anything to update!Brian had his birthday on the 2nd. He spent it at Eliaz's track meet. We gave him presents that evening and now I can't even remember what we gave him! I think we got him some dress pants, a belt and some books. It's pretty uneventful when you turn 32.

Eliza has had a few track meets lately. She's been doing high jump at all of them and has been doing great. Her PR is 1.10m. She also got her PR on the 100 (16.86) and 200 (36.90) at the big Phoenix Invitation she had at the beginning of the month. At that meet, she medaled in high jump, getting third place. The two girls in front of her were from California and Texas. We are excited for her to compete in state next month.

Lemon Cake

A couple weeks ago for our family home evening treat, Eliza chose lemon cake. I found a recipe on Tasty Kitchen and it turned out really yummy. It's called Extreme Lemon Cake. It reminded me a lot of the super duper yummy lemon cake they have at Costco.

p.s. I am WAY behind on posting. I have been SO busy lately with young women stuff, track, life, etc. etc. I hope to get caught up soon on things like Brian's birthday, General Conference, etc.

Kite Day

A couple of weeks ago, Libby's class had kite day at school. Her class flew kites one afternoon and parents were invited to come help. Well, I gave her the option of me coming and my dad watching the three little girls or she could have Grandpa come fly kites with her. Almost immediately she said she wanted him to go fly kites with her. So that afternoon, my mom came over and hung out with me and my dad went and flew kites with Libby. Surprisingly only my dad and Chrystalyn were the only parents to show up. But Libby had a blast (I think my dad had fun, too) and they got the kite up really high!




When my dad got back to my house, Ellie, Hattie and Ruby joined in on the kite flying fun.