Las Vegas

Well, we are back from Las Vegas. :-( We had a wonderful, wonderful time. Probably one of the best trips we have ever had out there, but we missed Drew immensely and are glad to be home to see him. He had such a great vacation too while we were gone. He stayed with Aunt Terrie the first two nights. Aunt Terrie, of course, filled the two days with excitement for Drew and took him to the Magic Kingdom one day and MGM Studios the other. Drew had a great time, I am sure, but fell asleep in Mickey's arms at the end of Day 2. He is like his Mom because he loves to go, go, go (until he drops.) No time for rest or naps! The rest of the week he stayed with Mom & Dad (Ya-ya & Papa) and had a great time as he always does.

Vegas was great. We had a great flight out. I of course got myself so worked up over the flight as I usually do. I am not a fan of flying to say the least, but I do it anyway. My stomach was in knots and in so much pain before we even took off. I got a glass of red wine from the stewardess to try to settle my stomach. It helped a little bit and allowed me to relax enough to fall asleep. We got to Vegas about 10:30pm their time and headed to our hotel. We actually lucked out as far as our room was concerned. They were having a big Oracle convention at the hotel and were overbooked. By about midnight when we arrived, there were no standard suites available, so we were upgraded to a corner suite which boasted 34th floor views of both the strip and the mountains. It was very nice especially at night when all the lights were on on the strip. One minor disappointment was that by the time we got up to our room and back down to get our car, we were 7 minutes late in getting a late dinner at In & Out Burger. They closed at 1 am. They are a fast food chain in Arizona, California, and Nevada. The menu is very limited, cheap, and very very good. Everything is fresh. They make there french fries and buns there. Not sure what they put on there burgers, but they are something Brad & I dream about. So needless to say, McDonalds just didn't cut it but had to do. If anyone has ever eaten In & Out you will definitely sympathize with our disappointment. :-)

The rest of the trip was great. We shopped one day, laid out by the pool two days, and kayaked the other. We ate lots of great food and tried some new restaurants this year. The kayak trip was great. So glad we did it. We had to meet at a hotel to be picked up by 6:15. The bus took us to the bottom of the Hoover Dam where we took off from there. It was a 14 mile trip down the Colorado River to Willow Beach where we were picked up at 3:30. We stopped along the way and took a few short hiking trips through the canyons and rested in a few hot springs. The canyons were so tall and the close together. Brad & I want to hike "The Narrows" one day in Zion National Park in Utah and some spots felt like some of the pictures we have seen. Anyway, Brad & I happened to be the only 2 people on the 7 am launch. It was so quite on the river and so peaceful. No one around except the 2 of us. We lounged back in our kayaks for a while and just took in the beauty and the serenity. We saw chipmunks, very friendly mallards, and several mountain sheep at the end. We had to take our paddles with us when we hiked in case of rattlesnakes. YIKES!! Yes, it took me a while to settle down from the thought of those after our guide told us. Brad was like great...you shouldn't have even told her - now that is all I'll hear for the next 14 miles. I wasn't that bad though. It was lots of fun and we worked up a great appetite for Mexican when we were done.

We had a great, great time celebrating our anniversary. We love it out west and are so thankful we were able to take another trip out there this year. Until next time.......

Here are a few pics from our kayak trip. More pics later when I figure out the slide show thing.....