Las Vegas

To begin our West coast trip we decided to fly into Las Vegas for a few days to see some of the sights. Our trip started out with an early flight out of Cincinnati. After the 4 hour flight we were ready to begin our vacation. After picking up the most horrific looking rental car we headed to the Las Vegas Strip to find our hotel, Treasure Island. Unfortunately we were not able to check in for a couple more hours so we headed out to walk the strip.

View from the plane on the flight in and the not so famous Welcome to Las Vegas sign that was located in the airport.

That ugly green rental car I was referring about.

We went ahead and parked the car and decided to walk the strip to try and find something to eat for lunch. We ended up walking almost the entire length of the strip and ended up at Bruxie, which was a recommendation by my sister and brother-in-law. It's special was fried chicken sandwiches that had waffle buns. They were delicious and I would also highly recommend it if you ever are near one. We actually found out that it was a chain restaurant.

On the walk back to the hotel we wondered into all the different hotels to see what all was in all of them. Probably our favorite hotel was Cesear's Palace. In the shopping center located inside it the ceiling was painted to look like the sky and looked really realistic. I kept looking up and having to 
do double takes that we weren't outside.

We also walked through the Flamingo and walked through to the garden and waterfall area. It was neat to see, but you could tell that it was one of the older and very outdated hotel and resort areas. There were some of the largest Koi that I had ever seen, as well as some flamingos and a black swan.

The Bellagio had a really awesome display in their lobby. It was a couple of huge peacocks that were made entirely out of natural ingredients like flowers, sticks, pebbles, and plants. It was truly beautiful to look at and these pictures don't even come close to giving it justice.

That night we experienced our first Cirque du Soleil show, KA. It was really spectacular and we had a very good time. We almost bought tickets to go see a different show, but decided that there were so many things in Vegas that we would try to do other things.

We were right across the street from a Carlos Bakery so I told Jennifer that I really wanted to get some dessert from there. We stopped in and we each picked a cake -Jennifer picked Oreo and I picked carrot cake. Then I knew that I wanted to get a cannoli too. They were good, but I just need to remind myself for next time that unfortunately, the desserts at Carlos always look better than they actually taste.

With the time change and getting up early for our flight we were exhausted. We were probably some of the earliest people in bed that night in Vegas. As it turns out it was probably good that we did get to bed early because our races in a few days were going to starting at 5 am.

The next morning we got up and really didn't have any plans. Jennifer had found online a recommendation for a local restaurant so we drove outside the strip a bit to eat at Mr. Mama's. They gave us so much food that I couldn't even finish it, which is very rare for me. Since we didn't have any real plans I remembered a place a co-worker of mine had said that we should check out. We hopped back in the car and headed towards Red Rock Canyon. My research on my phone told me that it was actually a 13 mile loop that you can drive around to see all of the sites. We had no idea how interesting and cool that it was going to be.

Every so often on the 13 mile drive was little parking areas so that you could pull off and go explore some. There were lots of people out hiking and even a few people that we talked to that were going rock climbing. It was so cool to get out and see everything up close.

Some of the views were breathtaking. Again the pictures do not give justice to seeing it in person.

I was just goofing around climbing on the rocks. Jennifer was a nervous wreck that I was going to twist my ankle or something and not be able to run in the races.

We really enjoyed the drive and we got out at almost every opportunity. It was fun just spending time with my wife. I spent most of my time looking for turtles. There were signs all over the place that said to look out for turtles. I think it might have just been a ploy to make silly people like me look for turtles.

We even set up my camera a few times and used our Apple Watch to snap a few pictures of us. I really enjoyed the mountains that had the different colors that you could see. It ended up being such an awesome experience. We both had decided that for the sake of saving our legs for the races over the next couple of days, we would not go hiking. In the end it was probably the best decision, but now we will have to go back some time to explore and hike some of the trails.

After the hike we made a quick stop by the Welcome to Las Vegas sign. There was a line of about 50 people waiting to have their picture made so we opted for the selfie.

We had no idea that they had set up a memorial area for all the people that had been killed during the mass shooting about a month prior to our visit. It was really touching and sad to see about all the lives that were lost because of a psychotic individual.

I had also been doing some research into Top Golf. I had heard about how awesome that it was so I talked Jennifer into going to play. It ended up being a really awesome experience and I can't wait to get some people together to go play a couple of games.

For lunch we just happened to be walking inside Caesar's Palace and saw Bobby Flay's restaurant, Mesa. We both found something that sounded good on the menu. The entire meal was delicious! I had the shrimp tacos and Jennifer had the salmon. Both of us would highly recommend this restaurant.

The only thing that we had actually planned for the day was an afternoon comedy magic show. It was good, but at times his jokes were rather silly. I guess it makes sense though because it was a family friendly show. In the end, the show was worth the $17 that it cost.

We stopped by to see the fountain show at the Bellagio while we were still on that end of the strip.

Dinner was at Guy Fieri's Vegas. It was delicious and I would most definitely eat here again. It was a cool atmosphere and they said that Guy actually comes in here quite often.

After eating we headed back to the hotel to play our hands at slots. My dad had given Jennifer $20 to play the slots before we left. Jennifer was not really excited about playing the slots and she even referred to it multiple times that she still needed to lose my dad's money. Since it was our last night in Vegas we decided that tonight was that night. We tried out the penny slots first but we quickly lost those few dollars. Next we moved over to the quarter slots. Jennifer lost almost all the money when she got lucky and then she won almost all of it back. I told her that she had won everything back except for a quarter, but she misunderstood what I said. She kept going and within a few more minutes she had lost the remaining $20. Neither one of us understood how someone could think that was fun. Jennifer was just happy that she had lost dad's money and didn't have to worry about it any more.

We still got to bed early because we were wanting to get up early the next morning to begin the next part of our journey to California. It was a pretty uneventful drive and in just around 4 hours we made it to our hotel right outside Disneyland. Now we just needed to get to the race expo to pick up our race materials. I will write about our fun at Disneyland and California in another post.

We flew back home from Vegas, so we had to drive back from California. This four hour drive seemed to take forever! The only thing that kept me going during the drive was listening to the UK vs. Kansas game on the radio. After we got into Vegas we called and ordered a pizza at my favorite restaurant, Giordano's.  I even got to catch the end of the UK game. I just wish that we had been able to pull out the victory. Right before heading to the airport we stopped once again at the Vegas sign so that we could get a picture of it with the lights on.

Las Vegas proved to be a very interesting city. There always seemed to be something going on and plenty of entertainment options. Although we didn't really partake in most of the things that people come to Vegas for like alcohol and gambling (minus the $20) we did have a lot of fun. I could see us going back sometime if there were a few shows that we wanted to see. Also we would love to go back sometime to actually hike in the Red Rock Canyon. Thanks for reading and God bless!

Fall 2017

This year for the Halloween and fall season we found plenty of fun activities to do and places to go. The kids always enjoy dressing up so we took advantage of some of our stock pile of dress up costumes. We carved pumpkins and even visited a couple of the apple orchards.

The kids and I went downtown to Transyvania University for Pumpkinmania where all the students and faculty passed out candy to all the kids. It was a good idea, but there were just too many people and the kids didn't seem too interested in waiting for it to get dark and for the lighting of the pumpkins. So, we left after they visited all the candy stations.

We had gone to Evans Orchard for Brinley's school field trip so we decided to take a family trip to Bi-Water Farms. We enjoyed going through a corn maze together.

The kids enjoyed playing on all the different things around Bi-Water. I didn't get a picture of it, but the kids had the most fun going on the zip line over and over! This place is huge and has tons of stuff to play with. The only downfall from other orchards in the area is that all the adults have to pay to enter even if you don't play on any of the equipment. Definitely worth checking out though!

This year I tried to let the kids cut their pumpkins as much as possible. I also let them decide what shapes to make their eyes nose and mouth. I think they turned out pretty good. 

After the kids went to bed, Jennifer and I cut out our pumpkins. Jennifer went with the evil pumpkin and of course I made the UK pumpkin. I did mine completely free hand, so I was really surprised that it turned out that good!

Since Jennifer didn't get to go with us to the Pumpkinmania we decided to go see all the pumpkins lit up one night after a UK basketball game. We spent about 20 minutes looking at all the pumpkins and picking out our favorite ones. It is pretty cool to see.

Portrait Innovations sent out an email telling about a special day that they were going to be having for kids dressed up in their Halloween outfits. Jennifer had to work so the kids and I packed up and headed to get some pictures. I am so glad that I did because these turned out awesome! Everyone loved the Buzz and Jessie costumes. I am just a little sad that we didn't have the whole crew together for the pictures. Also, they took and printed off pictures for us for free, yes FREE! How awesome is that!

The past couple of years we have made a little trip over to Georgetown for their Spooktacular downtown trick or treating. It is always a lot of fun and the kids love it. This year with Brinley being in school it got to be a special little day with mommy and daddy for Landon. He had a lot of fun, but acted so shy to everyone and didn't even want to pick out candy at times or say trick or treat. I guess he still heavily relies on his big sister to do most of the big talking. This was also a trial run for our actual Halloween costumes.

Grandma and Grandpa came to celebrate Halloween with us. They had told us in advance that they were going to be coming up since my little brother's birthday is the day after Halloween. So, Jennifer made them a Mr. and Mrs. Potato Head costume so that they could fit in with the kids. On the right hand side is a picture of the kids with our next door neighbor's dragon lawn decoration. They love it and I think have gotten their picture made by it the last few years.

The whole Toy Story crew. Jennifer started asking the kids a few months before Halloween what they wanted to be. We couldn't ever think of anything that worked out very well. Jennifer was ready to just tell the kids that they could dress up as whatever they wanted, but I still like when they dress up as something that goes together. We tossed around a couple of ideas and went to the Disney store for some inspiration. Landon loved the Buzz outfit and then Jennifer decided that she could make the Jessie costume for Brinley. Then she made my outfit by dying one of my shirts yellow and drawing red lines over the whole thing. She made a cow print vest and a homemade belt buckle along with a few other accessories to complete my Woody costume. Jennifer downplays sometimes how good she is with all of her Pinterest projects, but she is very talented and everything always turns out awesome! I just wish that she had gone for a bigger character for herself, maybe like Little Bo Peep. We got so many complements in the neighborhood and a few people who said "oh look, an astronaut and a cowgirl!" I almost failed to mention that Jennifer also sewed the stick horse Bullseye for Brinley too!

Halloween is such a fun time for kids to dress up and pretend to be one of their heroes or favorite characters. I have enjoyed the past few years of dressing up as a family. Jennifer swears that this was her last year of making our costumes, but I might just have to persuade her again next year. They are truly one of a kind and we are so thankful for her creative and artistic abilities. Send us an idea or two of what you think we should be next year. Thanks for reading and God bless!

Soccer

Earlier this year I had a friend mention to me about his son playing soccer with Upwards. I thought it would be something that the kids would enjoy so we went to one of the tryout nights so that they can see what skills and abilities each kid has so that they can try to even the teams out to some degree. Thankfully they allowed the kids to be on a team together. We met our teammates and coaches at practice and started working on our soccer skills, which I have no idea about anything that they were learning. We also learned that our team name was going to be the lil monkeys. The season seemed to go by extremely fast and the kids actually had a lot of fun. I wanted so bad for both kids to score and as the season progressed it seemed more and more unlikely that it was actually going to happen. The kids had a couple of kids on the team that were much better than everyone else and they seemed to keep the ball and never pass it to any of their teammates. I understand that it is hard for kids at this age to understand teamwork, but sometimes Brinley and Landon were wide open and had a easy score but nobody would pass the ball. A couple of times I actually got really upset when the kids were going toward the goal and one of these kids on their team took the ball away from them. The other side of it was that because they had these good players the team was always on the winning side of things, although they don't keep score. Here are a bunch of pictures from our season.

The kids were excited after their first soccer game.

For the last game they had a tunnel and smoke machine for all the kids to run out of and have their name announced.

Here was one of the times I was talking about. Brinley had a breakaway and then her teammate swooped in and took it before she could kick for the goal.

Some of the family members would create a little tunnel for the kids to run under after the game. The kids thought it was awesome and were always so excited about it. Sometimes the other team would even come run through the tunnel.

At the celebration pizza party after the last game.

2017 Upwards Lil Monkeys

We had quite a few people come out to watch the kids play during the season. They enjoyed having a pretty big cheering section for this game. I think MiMi came to almost every game. 

At the end of the season the kids both said that they had a lot of fun and wanted to play again next season. At least they enjoyed it and that is in all honesty the most important thing. One thing that I was really proud of was that Brinley won the Christ-like award one game because she helped her teammates and opponents up every time that they fell down. It got to be excessive in later games because the ball would be right beside her and she would skip on kicking the ball to go help someone up. We just need to work on kicking, passing and ball handing skills before next season. Thanks for reading and God bless!