Vacation Day 5,6 &7

I thought it would take to long to do a post about each day so I am just going to post some of my pictures from our 3 days at Disneyland and California Adventure. Due to the batteries dying in my camera and forgetting it as well...some of these pictures were taken with my phone...so they arent as good. :p But here you go...Enjoy! Entrance. I apologize for the quality of these next few pictures...I forgot my camera on out last day at Disneyland so I took them with the camera on my phone.

Vacation Day 4

The next morning we wanted to leave pretty early just to get on the road and get to one of our final destinations. So we got all packed up and headed out to pick up Lisa. We were having a hard time getting a hold of Nikki and Justin cause their phone wasn't working and Justin's mothers phone was low on battery. So we went and loaded up Lisa's stuff and then headed over to Walmart to grab some more road snacks. (A lot of ours were ruined cause of the water from the melted ice.) After a quick shopping trip and some breakfast we headed out. At the gas station we finally got a hold of Nikki and she said they were already in Primm Valley but they were going to stay there for awhile. So we headed out to look for them. This is a late picture but this was our hotel we were on the very top floor and about 7 doors down from that wall you can see. It was fun. Well when we got to Primm Abby came running up to us and had big hug for all of us then informed us that she was going to ride on the big roller coaster that went around Buffalo Bills. (the hotel/casino we met them at.) We stayed and played here for a little. Abby and Justin went on the roller coaster...we opted not to cause it was pretty pricey and again we were unsure of the money issue. Nikki and her mother in law Barb decided to take the boys on the log ride that went through the casino and I don't know where exactly. :pJust a fun picture of us in Primm.They had these little bridges so you could watch the people come by in the logs and on one side of the bridge they had this fun little box that if you paid 25 cents you could shoot water at the unsuspecting people in the logs. For 1 whole min. :p So James and I put in our quarter and he waited on one side to take the picture above while I waited on the other with my evil plan. He let me know when they were coming. waved and said hi to them and took the picture ran over to me just in time to see my push a button to get them wet. :) Nikki laughed, Nate just looked around, Barb yelled and Gavin got MAD! We never told them it was us...but I guess the cats outta the bag now. :) Sorry Nikki. We didn't realize till after we got them wet that for 25 cents you could shoot water out of the guns and stuff for 1 min and if you had planned it better you could have got them at 5 different locations. we started playing around with it and then this other log came through with a husband and wife and we were busy playing with the water we didn't notice them till we had pushed a button to let fly a stream of water right into this lady's shoulder...oops. She screamed and the guy turned and looked at us and said something. We don't know what it was though. I did fee kinda bad. While we were waiting for everyone to finish their rides, I decided to gamble a little. I have never gambled and thought it might be kinda fun. James watched me for awhile. I just chose a nearby slot put in a dollar and started hitting the spin button till James said "Hey you won." I got all excited and asked him how he knew. He pointed to a little button that had a light on saying cash out. So I hit it and got my winnings...WAHOO... a whole 5o cents..HUH? I put in a dollar, how's that winning? James asked if I wanted to go cash out and get my 50 cents. I decided I wanted to scarp book it instead for the shear fun of it. :p Well after my "big" winnings we saw that everyone was done. Nikki thought it was pretty funny and told me that I needed to gamble another $5 just to get my 50 cents back from my first dollar. :p After we moved some stuff around so Abby could ride with us the rest of the way. Then gas...then go. Caravaning with them was a lot of fun. I always love doing this...mostly for silly reasons. It's fun to pass each other while waving, making silly faces and laughing. It's fun. this ride was a lot shorter than the one to Vegas which was nice. before we knew it I was giving directions on the California freeways from our Map quest to get us to our hotel, and then we were there. So we checked in and dropped off all of our stuff. Then we drove over to Nikki and Justin's hotel to meet everyone. Mom and Dad it was so good to see them again. we usually see them at least once a week but they actually left close to 2 1/2 weeks before us and are staying the whole month of Oct. After we visited with everyone for awhile. we all decided we were just going to do our own thing. Mom and Dad where going to take Lisa back to the condo they were renting in San Diego. The Wardell family was going to go for a swim in the pool and then just rest. So James and I went back to our hotel got all the information about the shuttle to Disneyland and bought our tickets for the next day, and found out anything else we needed to know. Including a good place to eat. :p the guy at the front desk recommended this place called Shakey's down the street so we decided to walk cause it didn't sound to far...which it wasn't. But it was crowded. a family had reserved almost the whole restaurant for a birthday party and then the Angels were playing the Yankees so the rest of the restaurant was filled with baseball fans. we checked out the cost which for pizza wasn't to bad, but we had one problem... there were no tables. just when we were about to leave one of the many friendly staff who greeted us stopped us and asked if we have ordered yet. (he looked like a manager) When we explained there was no tables he said he would find one for us and sure enough he did. He then asked a waitress to clean it off real quick and had it ready for us. We were amazed. He had me sit there so no one could take it. While James ordered our food. It was fun the excitement and electricity in the room was awesome. EVERYONE was cheering for their Angels to win. It was a lot of fun. We didn't really want to leave but thought the only polite thing to do was to let someone else use our table since we were done. So we left and James said he wanted to see how far it was to Downtown Disney...walking. It wasn't to bad...it was about a 30 min walk. and we walked right into another crowd of excited Angels fans at the ESPN Zone. We watched more of the game and then moved on to check out everything else. There was this stage close to the game and two people were painting a really pretty picture of a cheetah with their hands. It was neat to watch and they had other really amazing pictures nearby on display. if they weren't so expensive I would have bought one immediately. They were REALLY good...once again though because this was something unplanned and spur of the moment...I forgot my camera. Well we continued on down the street looking at the shops and everything else. There was a lot of people out playing guitars, drums, harps, etc. The music was pretty..some a little different. One of the guys we loved. We didn't bring enough money to buy one of his Cd's though dang it. We listened to him for awhile. It was mesmerizing. the store were kinda fun too. We went into the Lego store and they had these neat things made entirely out of Lego's...a giraffe, a robot and snake going in and out through the wall...and this is when I remembered that I had a camera on my phone. duh!Darth Vader and the belly of the Giraffe in the background. this store was neat. We had a lot of fun walking around and checking out all the different sights and stores. After awhile we decided we better head back since our feet..well my feet were starting to hurt. so when we got back to the hotel we found a Halloween show on Disney channel. James went to grab something from the car and he didn't come back for awhile. then I heard these big Booms...like a gun shot. I hurried and got out of my pajamas and grabbed the nearest pants and shirt and headed outside to find James running towards me saying he wondered if I was ever going to come out. We walked into the parking lot to see right over our hotel the fireworks from Disneyland. It was fun we stood next to some other people from our hotel and talked with them while we watched. After the amazing grand finale we said goodbye and spent the rest of the night in our hotel finishing the movie and then bed time.

Vacation-Day 3

Oct 16th-Our original plan was to go to the Vegas temple and do a session there, but James forgot his recommend. So we decided to see all the different places. We didn't know that for $7 has access to the buses for 24 hours and they would take you to any place on the strip you wanted to go...had we known that...oh well off we went...on foot. (Did you know: The Las Vegas Strip also known as the Las Vegas Boulevard is over 4 miles long?) We saw lots of really cool stuff, one of the largest malls in the U.S, Treasure Island and the two ships that come to life at night to fight, etc. The people were interesting too, we saw people as we walked that had cardboard signs that said stuff like..."Why lie? Please give me money cause I need a beer." the elusive clickers were there and they were driving James nuts. and one of our most favorite people are the ones that sold bottled water for $1. We were SO happy for that when our water ran out. it was a really hot day. Well by the time we reached Caesars palace we were tired and hungry. So we went inside and sat down on a bench overlooking this really pretty fountain to eat our sandwiches we brought. The statues were pretty, the ceilings were neat, and the fountain was very pretty. Oh and I saw Wayne Brady. it was kinda fun he walked into the restaurant by us. Here's some pictures...The best and funniest thing though about this place was this guy we saw. While we were sitting there eating our lunch over to our right we noticed this guy that was just sitting at the edge of the fountain. No sooner had we sat down to eat this guy takes off his shoes and socks and swung his legs over and puts them in the water. The he filled a cup with water from the fountain, drank from it and set it down. He sat there for awhile looking around then he took off his shirt sat there for a min then slowly eased himself closer to the water looked around again then laid flat down in the water. He stood up and put his shirt in the water, swirled it around a bit, rung it out and put it back on. He then proceeded to dump out the cup of water and placed it back on the side of the fountain. He got out put on his socks and shoes, filled up the cup again and walked out drinking the water in the cup. A few minutes later...a security guard walks by. He was a little puzzled as to why there was tons of water on the floor. :p James couldn't stop laughing. Then we started the debate on whether the guy was drunk or something else. After we finished our lunch we walked around Caesars some more, this place was HUGE! I couldn't believe how big it was. We tried to see everything...the talking and singing statues, the color changing ceiling, another Elvis impersonator...in a store... it was kinda funny.I took this picture and he didn't stop, smile, wave, nothing just kept on singing like nothing was happening. Well after we saw pretty much everything we could...or wanted to see inside we went back out. An imitation Trevi fountain and more...After we finally got away from Caesars. :p We went to the Mirage and the Billagio. Both of these were Awesome too. I didn't take as many pictures as I wanted cause I didn't know how many pictures total I was going to be able to fill on my camera and I wanted to save some for all the other stuff we were going to do. Here are some of the things I did takes pictures of though...This was a really cool garden inside the Billagio.These pumpkins were huge. they had them situated around the whole garden and each pumpkin had a plaque saying how much it weighted. Some came close to 1000 pounds. We couldn't believe it.there were a couple ani-matronic trees there this was the only one working when we went. He would talk to you as you walked by, it freaked a couple people out. they did a really good job making it though his eyes would move back and forth and his eyebrows would twitch and raise. the kids around us loved it. The other animated tree...that didn't work.

Mini replica of the Billagio and the fountain our front. There was a lot more cool stuff in this garden. It was a lot of fun.

This was a display in the bakery and candy shop. this is just part of it. it went clear to the ceiling. the chocolate was coming out of the ceiling and down these little glass leaf looking things. It looked SO good I just wanted to eat it. :p

We actually got lost in the Bellagio after looking at this chocolate fountain and when we finally found our way out we went over to the fountains to watch those. We waited for about 15 minutes when we over heard someone say they go every hour and by this time we were both hot, tired, sore and a little grumpy. I had worn the wrong pair of shoes (with no arch support) and my feet were hurting so bad that it was very difficult to walk. So we headed back and ran into this guy for free you could have 4 of these birds placed on you and they would take your picture. for $17 you could buy the picture. James said if I wanted to do it I could but I thought $17 is A LOT of money for some picture. While I was thinking about it I asked the lady if I could pet the one she was holding she said no cause he bites but i could pet the big red one the other guy was holding and he almost did bite us. That was pretty much my deciding factor. It took us awhile and we did get into a little tiff but we finally made it back to the hotel. After a quick re coop we got in the car and went to pick up Lisa for dinner. We had decided it would be fun when Nikki and Justin make it into town to all get together for dinner. Well after we got Lisa we found out that Nikki and Justin were going to be a lot later than they thought and told us to go ahead. So after some debating we decided to do the Buffet at the stratoshere...which did cost quite a bit but it was a seafood night so you could eat all the crab legs, shrimp, salmon, etc. that you could....which we did...well at least Lisa and I. James isn't much for seafood...but I was impressed when he tried some tilapia and catfish. He said he really liked the catfish. After dinner we decided to take a drive down the boulevard to see all the lights....and this is what we saw.... (Disclaimer: These pictures may be a bit blurry due to the fact they were taken in a moving car. Thank You. :p)

We saw tons more than this of course. These are just some of the pictures. After we were pretty tired and Lisa just wanted to get back to her hotel (she really doesn't like Vegas) so we took her back, went back to our hotel walked around there for a time debating on whether or not we wanted to walk back over to Circus Circus but we decided to just call it a night.

Vacation-Day 1&2

Okay well I have 13 days to talk about so I am going to take this a few posts at a time. My first day was technically on Oct. 14 but that was just cleaning the house, doing laundry and packing for the trip so it doesn't count. So Oct. 15 James and I wanted to leave Ogden around 8 cause we had to pick up his sister Lisa and then drop off Rosko at Erika's house. Well we did pretty good we got up about 7 and wasn't out the door till close to 8:30 but that's ok. We got to Lisa's house and she was still at the bank so we went ahead and filled up the car and then went back to her house to pick her up and figure out how to load everyones luggage into the back of our car. Then off to drop off Rosko. From South Salt Lake to Kearns...not to shabby. We dropped him off talked a little with Erika and Craig and then were off again to Walmart and get snack foods and lunch for the trip. Then we were off YAY! I started out the first half of the drive and we were doing great...till we reached Payson and got stuck in traffic because of construction that wasn't happening. Honestly who blocks off a lane for 30 miles and only works on 5 of those miles. Anyway after a bunch of jokes about the construction and getting a hotel for the night we were off again. We decided it would be fun to stop in St. George to fill up and see the temple...something I had never seen. The St. George temple was beautiful...We took a quick tour and watched a movie about the building of the temple before we walked the grounds. James and I found it funny that after the pioneers got to the St. George valley they were concerned about having enough water to build a city and plant crops but then when it came time to build the temple they had to build a drainage system before laying the foundation to drain off all the excess water. :) Kinda interesting. Well after we left the temple it was James' turn to drive cause I did NOT want to drive in Vegas. No way no how. The canyon in the tiny corner of Arizona that we had to drive through was really pretty too. Here we are being happy campers. :) At this point we were happy cause we had a good rest and leg stretch. it wasn't very long before we were in Vegas and looking for Lisa's hotel which was an adventure in itself. When we finally found it I was NOT feeling good about the location OR Vegas. Turns out the others were feeling the same thing...I was the only one who seemed to be voicing my opinion though. Well the lady at the front desk told Lisa that her room had been flooded and they were transferring her to a sister hotel in North Las Vegas. I was really relieved to leave that place..it just felt kinda yucky. On our way to find her new hotel we came to a conclusion that she just wasn't suppose to stay there and the fact that her room was flooded was a blessing. Her new hotel was kinda far from the Las Vegas strip but we all were a lot more comfortable with this hotel. Lisa really doesn't like Vegas anyway and assured us that it was going to be fine for her just to hang out in her hotel. After everything was settled with her we were off to check into our hotel. The Stratosphere. We were actually very impressed with it. After we checked in and got our luggage we had a small adventure trying to find our room. It turned out to be on the very top floor (the 24th floor) and the 7th room down from the end of the North side of the hotel. Our view was AWESOME!This is a bad picture but you get the idea. This was the sunrise the next morning. The window had a little alcove where you could sit and look out. James and I both sat there and it was really freaky cause I was right up against the window and all I could see was DOWN. Well we thought we would be to tired to do much so we decided to just check out the stratosphere. We checked out the pool, the retail shops, the tickets where you can go up the tower to the observation deck and rides, the casino and the buffet. pretty soon we found ourselves outside and we thought we would just walk a little ways. We saw a double decker open topped bus with a Elvis impersonator singing the guided tour. It was so funny. We walked a couple blocks down to Circus Circus and decided to check it out. James really wanted to show me the second level. there was TONS of carnival games and restaurants and right in the middle of it all was a stage. We were just in time for a show too. We watched this guy do a really cool juggling act. He was really good. unfortunately I forgot the camera...I didn't think I was going to need it. After that we decided to head back since our feet were starting to hurt a little. The rest of the night we just watched TV in our room till we fell asleep. The next day we saw A LOT of stuff and have a lot of pictures to share...So I am going to do that one as a separate post. :)

Happy Birthday!

Today is my sister Nancy's birthday and I wanted to wish her a happy birthday. Nancy is a very fun loving person who loves to do stuff with her family as well as visit with extended family she hasn't seen in awhile. She loves to joke and tell stories and above all laugh. She also loves to go skiing with her family and just like any other woman she loves to shop. :) She also loves to vacation and see new places either with her family or just with her husband. She has enjoyed many trips. So here's to you Nancy on your day I hope you have a great adventure today...despite the snow. :p

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!!

Happy Birthday!

First off...I think I am going to get a talking to for posting this picture but I think it's to dang cute. :) Today is my sister Kari's birthday. I had the chance to live with Kari when I was going through a hard time and trying to change my life around. Kari is very loving and supportive and cares for everyone. She loves her family very much and enjoys spending time with them whenever she can. Kari likes hanging out and shopping with friends and family, she loves to sew and make new creations. She also loves to bake and is VERY good at it. So here's to you Kari on your special day.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!!