My first trip to Sin City

Don't worry, Mom - I was a good girl! What a great city! My friend Heather is such a great blessing to me in so many ways, but this one has to be at the top of the list right now! She surprised me with a trip to Vegas when I couldn't have needed it any more! I had no idea you could go on such a tight budget! I spent around $200, and I'm so proud of myself! (That's including the coach purse I bought!) Wow, how many exclamation points are in this paragraph? I was a little excited ....

Anyway, here's some of the PG-13 pictures (I'm kidding - seriously, I didn't do anything that I couldn't do at church on Sunday .... ok, maybe that's a little drastic, but I had a GREAT time with GREAT girls, and I can't wait to go back this summer!)

Me and Jennifer ... we made our cabbie stop here to take a picture

Me and Heather

The gang ... Rachel, Heather, Me, Haley, KC

Eating OUTSIDE at Mangiano's because the wait was like 2 hours! The waiter was awesome and brought us table cloths to wear! Brrrrrr But so beautiful!

Possibly my favorite thing ... the water show at Bellagio ... or as Haley called it, "Bella-gee-oh!" I posted a video last week (scroll down!)

Heather, Rachel, Me in the limo

KC, Lauren, Haley, Rachel, Me, Heather ... we never had to wait in any lines or pay to get into the clubs ... look at these girls! Sad, but that's how this city works.

In the limo with our driver, "Big Mike"

At Club Rain at the Palms about to see 3-6 Mafia. We were in a VIP table because apparently, guys with money hire a host to find girls like us to hang out with them for the night. No worries, parentals, no one was pimped out! They were really nice, and didn't even ask for numbers! The doctor and the engineer were there to patrol too! Ha! We love you, Sarah and Larry!

This was an entertainer at Club Haze ... Heather swore this was a man ... I don't think so!

Yep, that's Katy Perry! Don't be so jealous ... Heather and I camped out all night at this perfect spot (like 3 feet away) so she could sing 2 songs! HA! It was really cool though!

I could live here ...

I do find it quite amazing that you can walk around the mall with a daiquiri! This was Ceasar's ... most places were way too pricey for me to even breathe in, so I just bought a drink and people-watched. You can't put a price tag on that kind of entertainment!

some strip pictures ...

Yep, and you thought he died ...


Heather made us take a picture outside the limo and it was FREEZING!

This is Larry ... His wife Sarah is one of the doctors I work with ... what a trooper he was this night! He put up with all of our girl drama and all the crap that the club promoters gave him. (they don't like dudes much!) And he still had a great time, and played our body guard behind the ropes! We can't thank you enough! The girls loved him! And Sarah wanted this picture so he could make all his college buddies jealous when he got home! Ha!

Heather ... I know God had more in mind than Vegas when He brought you into my life, but I know you were a special gift! I love you! Thank you for the trip!

And her friends were pretty awesome too! I wish they lived closer! WE WILL DO THIS AGAIN!

I know I've really been slacking on the blog-front lately, but I've decided to make this more of a priority of mine again, so keep your fingers crossed! I've been reading a friends blog ALOT lately, and it's made me feel like I've really neglected mine. My life is interesting too!

Ok, maybe not ... but you're reading about it!

So we called in on Friday and spent all weekend basically with our new family, the Bradleys. We had a slumber party Friday night, went sledding Saturday, and joined them for church Sunday because ours was canceled. I know they are sick of us!
Here we are waiting for Ryan and Heather to pick us up for lunch on Friday ... so what else do we do ... we take pictures of ourselves, of course!

Getting ready to go sledding ....

My brave little peanut ... "I wanna go by myself!"

He went down the hill a hundred times all by himself! He's not afraid of a thing!
Me and Heather ... aren't we cute?!
Ryan and Madison preparing for a race .... my mom giving her a little boost!

Heather and Ryan ... I love these people! I love having more reasons to be happy living in Claremore! And look ... she's so happy to be hanging out with us!

Vegas

So while I try patiently to wait while my friend Heather uploads her Vegas pictures, I will give you a little tease. Here is a video of one of my favorite things in Vegas - the water show at the Bellagio.

It's been a while ...

I know it's been forever since my last post, so here's a hodge-podge of info for you ... from Christmas on ...

Evidence that Christmas was complete success ...

Braden loves my snuggie!

Sorry I still haven't replaced the camera, so these are terrible iphone pictures, but you can still see how cute this baby is! After a rough start to 2010 on Jan 1st, I made a trip to Kansas to see Debbie and her new baby Isaac. I didn't put him down all weekend. Free therapy ...

Next time I see him, he'll be a stinky boy like the other two!

Debbie drinking her Starbucks! ;)

I miss you.

How many little boys can you fit in one lap? Notice the blanky, jammies, and lack of makeup ... this was the theme all weekend. It was lovely.

Goofball

We finally came out of the snowed in house to see the T-Rex adventure in Kansas City. I wish I'd had a real camera because I didn't get any great pictures. It was so cool. There were dinosaurs everywhere. They were life-size and they moved and made noises. We sat and ate in the ocean room under the giant octopus. Braden loved it. We then made a dinosaur at the Build-A-Bear. His name is Rex now even though Braden initially wanted to call him Jesus! He has glow-in-the-dark dino boxers. It was so much fun!

Braden giving Rex a bath after he was created ...

BATMAN

Lucy update

for those of you who knew our Lucy ... you know she was the sweetest girl and deserved better than we could give her. Well, she got it! She has sweet parents that have all the time in the world for her! Look how happy she is here! Here she is giving back to the community! She volunteers now! HA!

Jingle Bell Run

So we might have been secretly excited when they told us we couldn't do the 5K with our stroller this morning, but our 1 mile run was pretty invigorating! It was freezing outside! The kids had their stroller decked out in Christmas lights, and we had so many jingle bells on we sounded like Santa's sleigh! We did the run and then sat at Brookside By Day and had a fantastic breakfast, stayed warm, and watched the run from the inside instead!

Here's a blurry picture of Braden with Santa ... sorry it's a picture of a picture from my phone! My camera is broken! Too bad he's not the real thing or I'd have Braden ask him for a camera! HaHa!

Our tiny tree ....

Next time I'll just buy Hershey's!

So Braden and I hung out for a bit today with our friend Josh and he showed us how to make chocolate! It was fun to get to see how much work really goes into this! Who knew!

First you get the bean .... and you have to take as many of the shells out that you can
After you bake them for about 20 minutes, you pick through it one more time ...
some helpers ...

You have to carefully measure out how much you have because you'll need to know later when you start adding your other ingredients ...

This is the grinder that Josh got for his birthday ... I think it came from India!

Then Braden helped him add cocoa butter, milk powder, and powdered sugar

after about 9 hours of turning the grinder on and off every half hour, it is done in the grinder. There's some stuff I missed in between that and when it came out of the fridge, but this is what we did to the chunk that was already done! We melted it down and poured it into molds for his parents' Christmas party.

Then I licked this bowl!!!!!!!

I know Josh doesn't read my blog, but if you are ... I'm kidding about the title. I think the hobby is way cool, and it was awesome to be a part of it for a day!