Happy Birthday Granny!

We love you and hope to see you soon! I wish I would have known you were in Las Vegas, we could have had a small birthday celebration!

Girls Weekend in Vegas...Part 2

This past weekend, a good friend of mine (Lauren) flew into Las Vegas from Colorado to come visit me (and to see the fantastic sights in Vegas). The fun began when I picked her up from the airport. The passenger pickup lane was basically deserted, except the one car stopped in front of me. I stopped behind that car, and Lauren and I happened to see each other then. She hurried over to the car and put her stuff in. The car in front of me started moving, but a cop (on foot) motioned for me to stop. He pointed out to me the fact that I was in a thru lane, and there was a sign that read "No Stopping in the Thru Lane." He then proceeded to tell me that it is a $100 fine for stopping in the thru lane. Fortunately, he thought we were "incredibly good looking" so he let us off with a warning and told us to have a good weekend. And don't worry, we did!


Friday night, we went to see Cirque du Soleil's O, which is an amazing show in the water.

Saturday, we explored the strip for a good 8 hours. We started off at Mandalay Bay, and walked all the way to Treasure Island (while detouring through casinos).

First stop: The Bellagio (where O was playing). There is a room off to the side of the main lobby that always has beautiful garden scenes. This time, there was a Japanese theme. Here is one of the beautiful plant sculptures.

We walked past the House of Blues, and I had to get a picture. There are so many random things cemented into the wall, it caught my attention.

As it started to get dark outside, we happened to be walking by the Bellagio. A group of guys asked us to take a picture of them, and then they snapped a picture of us in return.

We kept on walking and got a good spot to view the fountains. They are so beautiful, and I love how they sound like firecrackers.

This duck swam by as fast as he could in the beginning of the show. It was probably thinking the world was ending lol.

Next, we went to Caeser's Palace Forum Shops. Here is the entrance to FAO Schwartz toy store, a HUGE wooden horse whose head moves up and down when its eyes glow red.

A little further down in the Forum Shops, there is a mechanical show. This show has a huge fish tank built into it.

A stingray in the fish tank smiled at us!

And our last stop for the day was Treasure Island where we watched the show "The Sirens of T.I." It is always cool to see a ship sink......

.....and catch on fire!

*Note* I was recently told that my comments section would not allow most readers to post a comment. I have now fixed that glitch, so feel free to comment as you wish!

Girls weekend in Vegas...Part 1

On Sunday, we took a tour of the Hoover Dam. It was really neat to learn the history of such an important piece in American culture.

In the middle of the Hoover Dam is the boundary between Arizona and Nevada, I am in two states in this picture!

In the background is the Hoover Dam Bypass, it is making some headway, but won't be completed for 2 more years.

In this photo, we are walking through tunnels in the Dam. I love how it looks like we are in a wormhole in the picture. Nice picture Lauren!

Here is the main powerhouse on the Nevada side. Those turbines are very big. In order to maintain them, they have to use 2 cranes at once to lift each one up so they can replace and look at inner parts.
In this photo, you can see a nail in the floor right in front of the toe of our tour guides shoe. A family of 7 brothers from Denver laid this floor. They say each brother hid a nail in the floor, only four nails have been found to this day.

We got an opportunity to look through a vent in the face of the Dam. Here is the view of the Hoover Dam Bypass.

Inside the dam, there is what they call the stairway to heaven. You can't see to the top or the bottom, and it is seven hundred something steps!

Thanks for coming out Lauren, I had a blast with you!

Valentine's Day 2009

I hope everyone had a romantic and fun Valentine's Day weekend! Cody and I had a great weekend. He bought me a beautiful bouquet of lilys and snapdragons! I absolutely love them, and I wish I could have travelled back to Nevada with them [and Cody too ;)]. We ended up staying in and watching movies pretty much all day. We saw Madagascar 2, which was pretty good, and Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist, which was a cute love story.... perfect for Valentine's Day!

I had President's Day off, so I got to spend a long weekend in Denver with Cody. It was very relaxing, and it was good to see some snow for a change!

Yet Another Flight

Off I go on another flight today! I am going to Denver for a long Valentine's Day weekend. I can't wait to see you Cody!

New Lakewood Apartment

First off, here is the new closet. I LOVE LOVE LOVE this closet, it is so big, it even has its own window! This is a bad pic of it, but I decided not to show you all the piles and piles of boxes in there :)

Here is the one and only bedroom, this is kind of blurry. The room isn't too big, but it does the job. Hmm, I should have made the bed...

Here is the living room. I can't believe we fit almost all of the furniture from a large 2 bedroom apartment in here. I love all the windows in this apartment!

This is the nice kitcken. I haven't ever had a kitchen island before! This will make baking a lot easier.

Here is the dining room, it is next to the living room.

Here is the view from the back patio. Cody said there are bunnies that are always hopping around back there. I didn't get to see them when I visited though.

These apartments look like houses, and this is a gated community. Cody found this great (and cheap) apartment. It is nicer than the apartment we just left in Belmar, and almost half the cost! Poor Cody had to move by himself. He managed to recruit one friend to help him move the furniture. I came and helped him unpack a couple weeks ago.

Hopefully we will be able to stay here until we buy a house.

25 Random Things About Leslie

So, there is a thing going around on facebook: 25 things about me. I have been tagged by two friends to do this, and since I saw it on some blogs too, I figured I would share with you all. Here goes:

1. I am (and always have been) a perfectionist.

2. I am NOT a clean freak.

3. I love to do anything outdoors: camping, fishing, snowboarding.

4. I love to do girly things: get my hair done, get my nails done, etc.

5. I am a videogame-aholic! I love Team Fortress 2 and any first person shooter game, I also love my Wii and I play a lot of Super Mario on it.

6. I love to sing along to music in the car, or when I am at home in the shower. I sing really loud, only when I think no one is listening.....I have been embarrassed before when I got out of the shower only to discover someone was in the house listening.....and laughing.

7. I am deathly afraid of bees........I do a weird looking dance trying to dodge/ run away from them.

8. I have been with my husband since senior year in high school.

9. I love him more than words can express (and I miss him terribly right now).

10. I have 2 apartments in 2 states right now.

11. I love to read, currently I am re-reading the Twilight series for the 3rd time.....I just can't get into any other book at the moment.

12. I miss college, and can't wait to go back for my masters degree.

13. I am very liberal.

14. I love candles that smell like cinnamon apples............it is relaxing to me.

15. I don't want children until I am in my 30's, I don't feel like I could handle that right now.

16. I have been on way too many airplanes in the last 4 months (well over 20).

17. I don't like flying in airplanes, I would rather drive.

18. I love to bake! Lately, I have been making a lot of pumpkin bars and brownies.

19. I have two cats. One of them likes to bite me when he is happy.

20. I would much rather own a dog than a cat.

21. Family and friends are a necessity in my life, I keep them close.

22. I didn't always feel that way about my family and friends.

23. I am very stubborn.

24. I live life without regrets. If I made a poor choice ( and I have made many) I choose to learn from it and not repeat the mistake.

25. I am one of the few poeple that actually LOVES their mother-in-law. I have the coolest mother-in-law on the planet

26. I have moved 3 times in the last 12 months (sigh)