16-19 week photos

Week 16

Minneapolis Airport, just enjoying a snack as we wait for our delayed plane to take off for our weekend in Vegas. I loved this little box of Cheez-Its because it was mini!!

Week 17

We spent the beginning of this week in Vegas!! This was probably my favorite part, the Bellagio Fountains! So fun to just stand and watch the water move to the music. the Cirque show we saw that night was pretty amazing as well.

Week 18

We got the remaining five windows replaced in our house. Everything is coming together! We've been taking it room by room, next up is the basement... then that leaves the two bedrooms on the main level, the bathroom, and the kitchen!

Week 19

I love spring! And watching all the little surprises pop up and bring a splash of color into our world which had been white for so many months. I just couldn't believe how big the head of this tulip had gotten. We've had a lot of rain this spring and some storms which blew the tops off of all my flowers shortly after this was taken.

I'm starting week 21 tomorrow, I haven't taken picture 20 off my camera yet, but I'll get caught up soon enough :-)

May Flowers!

I'm so glad I got out and took pictures when I did because last weekend all my flower tops blew off in the storms we had.

I couldn't believe how BIG my tulips were!

Of course I had to get this shot, I think I have the very same picture from last year, lol.

These are my beautiful daffodils I had tried and tried to get to grow the previous year. Last fall I just got a big bag of daffodils bulbs and hoped something would come up!

I had so many bulbs I just put a whole bunch in the back flower bed

That's all I have to show this time around.

New Windows!

We now have a house with all new windows (except the basement) and new exterior doors!!! We got our first three new windows in June of 09 (I just realized all my pictures are gone from that old post... add that to my list of things to do). We got our new doors last summer, here are the two posts about it One and Two.

So to complete our window project we had 5 remaining windows. One in the front bedroom, two in the back bedroom, and two in our upstairs bedroom.
Here are the before's:
back bedroom


front bedroom


And the afters of those
front bedroom


outside of other back window


Here are the two upstairs befores


There was a bit of an issues with these windows upstairs. Whoever put them in before, just slapped up some trim, over the drywall that was just sitting on the plaster behind it....


Which wasn't so good for keeping drafts out, and wasn't very pretty. This problem caused our window guy to be delayed and have to come back another day.


They were hoping to be able to just put a piece of cord trim over that, but he actually had to make all new trim. Here are the windows finished.


They look MUCH better. Of course I'll have to post another AFTER picture, once we get the trim painted white. I have the holes filled and sanded, we just need to paint soon :-)

Day 5: Vegas - the flight home

Tuesday, April 26th, 2011
{Edited to add photos from my phone of Kyle and I}

The bad thing about this taking me so long to blog about is I have kinda forgotten what we did, unless I have the pictures that spark the memories... oops.

Tuesday morning we woke up and had appointments to get massages. We laid by the pool waiting for our spa appointment. It was CHILLY! Too chilly to be laying out. But the spa thing didn't work out, more on this in a different post, but it kinda killed our plans for the morning. So we went back to the room and packed everything up. We had already decided to leave our bags with the bell hops until it was time to head to the airport, so we did just that.

Then we went over to NYNY and MGM, did a little roulette here and there I think and then wondered around MGM.




There were people handing out 'free tickets' and we were looking for something to do so we stopped to chat. It was a television show screening session they were holding. It was free and we could get coupons for free stuff. We had nothing better to do so decide to par-take in it. The show was bout 45 minutes and we were to take a survey. I actually like taking surveys :-)

We ended up watching a show called 'Hail Mary', with Minnie Driver. It was a pilot (which are never good anyway) but it was fun watching a show that could possibly be released in a few seasons. Once this was finished it was time to head to the airport. These were along the walls, various places so I had to snap a few photos


Notice our hotel on the Vegas wall!


We arrived early enough because we knew there were slot machines there and we had heard that people have really good luck prior to heading out, so we saved a $20 each and played a little, which actually lasted us a LONG time, an hour maybe. Then we cashed out our $20 and called it good.

We had dinner, then I enjoyed taking some photos of the mountain view from within the airport.








Once we finally boarded the plane, I got some more photos of the strip




I thought this was funny and fit our 'Excalibur castle' theme


Then we were up in the air!


It was so exciting flying over the mountains. I was SOOO hoping we were able to see the Grand Canyon. We did see a lake, which later I looked up and it's Lake Mead. Which I think you can tell that it's low by looking at that white line


Then THERE it was!!!




My eyes were glued out the window it was so breathtaking!


The farther east we flew the quicker the sun went away, but I did get to see some pretty cool colors.


We were lucky enough to have a friend bring us to the airport, so we just took a cab home at 11:30pm... which was actually cheaper than parking for those 4 days. AND the best thing was, Harpo was home waiting for us! Our friends had dropped him off earlier that evening, it was so nice coming home to him and boy did he miss us!

Vegas Day 4

Monday, April 25, 2011

Monday morning we got up and had breakfast, I think just in our hotel restaurant. Then we went over to NYNY & MGM. We had found that the casinos had $5 tables in the morning verses at night these went up to $10 & $25 tables, so we were liking the early morning betting better than any late night gambling.

The days before we had tried to see the lions at MGM. There is a cage that they hang out in during the day... but I believe they aren't out until 11am, and go in before 7 or something... Anyway we had missed them EVERY TIME we were there. Well today we got to see them, finally. But they were SLEEPING with their trainers. WTF!?!

After being at MGM for a bit we decided to go for a walk down the strip. On our way out we checked out the lion's den again... YEAH! They were up and playing... but the people were still in there :-/ doesn't make for great pictures.

We walked down the east side of the strip and I saw this outside of a little shop! This was so funny to me because in my work I am ALWAYS blowing bubbles... now if only I had this little gaget to do it for me, lol.

We went into M&M world.

Then walked a little further down and turned back and walked up the other side of the street.

Here's M&M world from the other side of the street.

We spent some time wondering and some time on roulette in the casinos. Then for dinner we had plans to see the Tournament of Kings at our hotel: the Excalibur. This is just like Medievl Times, like we went to in Atlanta many moons ago. It's dinner and a show. On our way to the show, we passed a COIN DOZER!

This was really funny because before we went to Vegas I said "I want to find a coin dozer"... Kyle said "there aren't going to be any coin dozer in Vegas!" lol But we FOUND one! It was in the arcade in the basement of our hotel. I put in a quarter hoping to push over some and get some quarters.... but it turns out the machine gives you tickets, which caused my interest in it to immediately diminish, lol.

The dinner and show was fun, just like they are... corny & fun.

After the show we had a coupon for a restaurant in Mandalay Bay for a free shot of Jamenson with a purchase of a pint of Guinness... Well since we were at Mandalay Bay the day before and planned to use it until I realized it said "Only valid after 11pm" we had to choose another night to use it. So we didn't really have anything better to do so we walked up to the monorail (free) that runs between Mandalay Bay & Excalibur... as we were walking I said, wouldn't it be funny if it closed at 10:30, lol. We get up there and it closes at 11pm HAHAHA luckily we were able to catch the last ride. But this meant we'd have to walk back.

We used the coupon, then walked back toward our hotel. We had to go through the Luxor again since it was between where we were and our hotel. Here's a view of the Luxor from the inside, it's the pyramid looking casino.

It was late and we were ready for bed!

At this point of the trip we were happy the next day was our last day. There's only so much to do in Vegas :-P

Day 3 in Vegas! {Easter Sunday}

April 24, 2011
Way back when, when we were in Vegas :-P

We got up Sunday morning and hailed a cab to take us a little ways off the strip to a Methodist church I had looked up before hand.


Since it was Easter Sunday we wanted to go to church and thought it'd be fun to experience a Vegas church. I had actually searched for churches ahead of time... but came across some very interesting Churches, Church of Scientology, little wedding chapel churches, etc.... I began to think maybe I should stick with what I knew, so I searched for Methodist churches. At least I knew what we'd be getting ourselves into then, and now some alien cult!

We took our seats in the back, actually the only open seats, right next to the big pipe organ!

We began to look around and Kyle whispered to me "I think we are the youngest ones here... by 40 years!" lol


It was a pretty decent service, lots of signing (nothing knew for Methodists) and even some interpretive dance thrown in there.

After church we called the cab company and waited outside for them to pick us up.


It was actually kinda fun taking the trek out into the 'real' Las Vegas... much different than the strip. And SOOO FLAT!

This church was located north west of the strip. Our hotel was pretty much the very south of the strip, so instead of taking a cab back to our resort, we decided to take it straight east to downtown Vegas and explorer the old time Casino's on Fremont street. It was shorter for us to take the cab there and also helped us to mark another thing off our list of things to see.

We had the cabbie drop us off at the Golden Nugget.


We played a little roulette & blackjack inside. I liked playing there because I doubled my money :-) I can't take pictures of the tables so you get to look at slots!




We made our way to THE GOLDEN NUGGET! thanks to our cabbie who told us about it.



We had a shrimp cocktail lunch at some dinky little casino lunch place then walked along Fremont Street.




At night there is a cool laser show we heard about that plays there on the ceiling above Fremont St. Our timeline of events didn't put us there at night, so we didn't get to see it... but that's okay at least we got to see some of the old time casinos.

To get back to the strip we decided to take the bus. Since our hotel was on the VERY south end of the strip and we were way on the north end, we took it as an opportunity to do some more sight seeing.


It was actually really nice, we got to see ALL the resorts... and even some of the flat land between the strip and downtown Vegas.
Palm trees! Lots of palm trees! I love them!!


And even a once in a life time experience of seeing the WORLD'S largest gift shop!

hahaha

Of course I took pictures of everything, but often times pictures from a moving bus don't turn out so well... so I'll just give you a little overview.
Trump Hotel


Treasure Island


The Mirage


Some shopping at Caesar's Palace




The Bellagio


and New York, New York


Sorry you don't get to see any of the hotels/casinos that were on the OTHER side of the street, lol can you tell what side of the bus we were sitting on.

I think after the bus ride, we took a little time at the pool. Then decided to walk to the two hotel's that were south of us, The Luxor & Mandalay Bay. Seeing more palm trees!


The Luxor






We made our way through the Luxor & over into Mandalay Bay. There were signs for a shark tank, and we were actually excited so we followed the signs... and followed... and followed... only to find it to be an actual aquarium you have to pay for :-/ so we walked back to a buffet because I was really wanting crab legs! It was go to a sea food restaurant and get 1 lb of crab legs for $35 OR go next door to the $50 buffet and have all the crab legs I want :-)

For dessert we had lots, but among that were these cute little tiramisu cups! YUM YUM!


After dinner we took the free monorail from Manadalay Bay to Excalibur. Then we walked over to NYNY, getting to see the sunset over the mountains on our way.


We did some video roulette and just hung out for a bit.

This was in NYNY... a Jelly Bean Lady Liberty!


I had to get a picture of these people... playing a fake game of horse races!

Little plastic horses run around the track in the middle while they place their bets on the video screen in front of them.

We pretty much finished the night in NYNY, had a drink at this Americana Bar across from Times Square. The ceiling was so cool!


It reminded me of this project my brother's did in elementary... I can't remember if it was Josh or Brad, but they had to make the state of Mississippi, and it was a 3D model. I remember that thing hanging in their room for years. A while later I made my own version of Tennessee!

It was a late night and again lots of walking. We hit the sack and went right to sleep!