Viva Las.....Vacation

E and I took off for a short vacation to Las Vegas last weekend - kidless! My Mom graciously agreed to come and stay with tweedle dee and tweedle dum. - (which can be a lot to ask these days...but she survived and even said she would do it again - next week right Mom???!!)


We really had a good time - but came to realize that Las Vegas isn't really the place you go to relax...we came home needing a vacation from our vacation. We spent our first day touring the outrageous hotels - Paris was one of our stops....but it pailed in comparison to the real thing - I still dream of the day of having a "real" pan au chocolate again!



I think by far one of my favorite stops was at the Bellagio conservatory.....hence where most of our pictures were taken.


It sure made you think spring.....and while the temps were in the high 80's this day...they were enjoying snow back home.




And of course I had to take a picture of this chocolate fountain - it's about double the size of this and actually coming out of the ceiling - but my camera couldn't capture the whole thing.



And what trip would be complete without a trip to the Hoover Dam - especially when you are married to an EE - it was actually quite interesting to see....


You can see from this picture - how low the lake is.


And this is the start of the new bridge that will cross the river....pretty amazing to see the construction of it.

In Need of Child Sanitizing System...

E and I were commenting tonight after dinner how nice it would be if there were a child sanitizing system that you could run your kid through after a "messy" meal - which for litte E is every meal.


Tonight's entree was Lasagna. We have one child that gobbles everything up that is put in front of him...and one child that will hardly touch a thing when it comes to dinner anymore....she is beginning to have some hungry nights hopefully she will learn sooner rather than later that the reason she wakes up starving each morning is because she doesn't eat her dinner!!!

My Cooks...

Dirty Boy!

I am really starting to realize how "boy" E really is.....After today's encounter with the outside - I am pretty sure E will need a bath every night this summer - he was so filthy after spending most of the day outside. He spent his morning eating rocks at the playground and his afternoon in the sandbox at home tossing the sand OUT of the sandbox. A has just never been a messy person...but even after every meal we need to get the broom out - I don't know how one little boy can make such a mess every meal!!!


I also made the realization today that one outfit a day will probably not do for the summer.....especially if I stand any chance of keeping even little sand out of my house.



E also discovered going down the slide today - all by himself.....of course we had to be there to catch him...but he was ready to jump back on every time.


And this would be the play spot of choice in the front yard today....E crawled over to the "island" of rocks all on his own...and planted himself right in the middle of all the fun....at least these rocks were not small enough for him to eat.


He didn't seem to mind one bit - crawling all around on these rocks.....funny boy!



And yes - A was outside with us all afternoon too....but she steered clear of most of the rocks and opted for the toy car instead.

Finally....

We broke out the capris, short sleeve shirts and sandals today and A finally got to give her new sandbox a try!!

Caught in the Act......

I knew it was a little too quiet in my room while I was talking on the phone....this is what I walked into....

Must Get Smaller Yard.......

So this wasn't on our Saturday to do list....but our neighbor rented a power rake machine and offered to let us use it too...so we took advantage of the offer and power raked the yard today.....at the end E's exact words were - "We need a smaller yard"


If you click on the pictures to make them bigger you can take note of the 25 piles of dead grass we had in the front yard. We had an additional 18 piles in the backyard to pick up.




Not quite like jumping in a pile of leaves but A & E enjoyed the piles and there time outside none the less. We all feel a little wind burned this evening.


At this is what we have to show for at the end - 34 "FULL" lawn and leaf bags to dispose of.......that will be tomorrow's project. Unfortunately our garbage service will not haul this for us...so we have to load the bags in our mini-van and dump them at a yard waste sight in Rapid City. We are guessing it will be at least 2 full van trips into town - maybe 3.

Park Time

We finally had some park worthy tempratures yesterday so we took advantage and spent a good hour our more there. A & E were exhausted from all the fresh air and took extra long naps!!!

Spring Snow.....

Can only be good for one thing.....and I guess if it won't go away we'll just embrace it and play in it!!

E wasn't too excited about his snow suit this time around - it is officially too small!! So moving became quite difficult for him and he was sure to let us know he didn't like it one bit.


Our sad sad snowman...it was the best I could do.....with what we had......and I was too lazy to round up the hat and gloves for the "man"....He got rocks for eyes and nose...and that seem to do just fine for A.



E thinking - please just get me out of this thing so I can at least breathe!