Tuacahn Trip

An intense Monopoly game! Oh and is that a Starburst Samantha is eating? HA HA
Tuacahn entry

Jura and the girls on the way into the play

Payton and the girls from Les Miserables!

We decided we'd have one last family weekend trip before I start back to work and the girls go back to school. The Oasis up in Mesquite, Nevada offers CCSD teachers a free 2 night stay so we figured we'd take advantage. Although it is no five star hotel, it made do for a couple nights and allowed us to have some fun with the kids. Friday night we found a great little Chinese food place in town to have a deicious dinner and we had taken the new Monopoly game with us to play back at the hotel. The new version uses a debit card type system instead of the actual money that ends up getting lost or torn, so we tried it out. The girls had tons of fun bidding against us for properties! It was a fun night of playing games and eating junk food. Shhh...did I just say that? Saturday we slept in then drove over to St. George and walked around the outlet mall for a bit. We then had dinner and headed up to Tuacahn. This is a beautiful outdoor amphitheater set against the red rocks. We took in the evening performance of Les Miserables. It was absolutely wonderful. It was a bit hot, but nothing we aren't used to. If you haven't ever visited, I would highly recommend. I can't believe I've lived out here ten years and NEVER gone. We will certainly be going back, maybe next time earlier in the summer or early fall when it isn't quite as hot. I'm headed to KS tomorrow to visit my family, the girls are at their mom's for the week and Darrin will be busy working here. Two more weeks of vacation for me and then back to work:)

Oh the joys of cleaning!

One might ask just exactly why there is a picture of my callused right hand and a vacuum cleaner. Well I'll tell you why. I've been complaining about the two vacuum cleaners we've had for months on end. I'm sure Darrin was SO tired of the constant complaining. It seemed like no matter how much I vacuumed it still wasn't clean, or at least not to my standard. Yes, the DOG, our beloved Buddy is a constant source of hair. So my loving husband read all he could and researched through his consumer reports magazines and found that the Kenmore Progressive Direct Drive Intelliclean vacuum was high on the charts. I guess Kenmore has had some good vacuums for almost the last eight years. So we drove over to the Sears Grand and had a look and guess what, IT WAS ON SALE! Now for any of you who know me, that is a good thing because I am a shopper but I almost always buy on sale and especially big ticket items. I of course wasn't quite ready to make the purchase and needed a few days to think about it, but by the middle of the week we went back and purchased. WOW! What a great vacuum! Now I'm not getting any kick backs from Sears for writing this, but if I could...Anyway, yesterday we cleaned AND cleaned AND cleaned. This vacuum has a sensor on it that only gives you a green light AFTER the carpets are clean. And all this time I THOUGHT they were clean... It was a LONG day (10AM-11:30 PM before I finally sat down) and lots of hard work and as you can see by the calluses I've got on my hands no fun, BUT I'm happy to say I feel like the carpets are finally truly clean. Now we should be ready for the carpet cleaners to come on Tuesday! After everyone's hard work (the kids and Darrin worked their tails off), we are off to Mesquite and St. George, Utah this weekend to enjoy some family fun at the pool, hopefully a movie and/or bowling and an outdoor theater performance at Tuacahn of Les Miserables.

Summer Fun

Summer has finally arrived at last around here! I only say that because until this week I had been working pretty much full time except for a few days in Chicago. This past weekend we (Darrin, his mom, Lyn, and myself) embarked on the ever horrible task of having a garage sale. Ugghhh...what a yucky task, but one that must be done. For the last several months I have been trying to slowly clean out all the cabinets and closets and get stuff set aside for the big sale. We have so much stuff in this house it is almost unbelieveable that two people could possibly have so much, but we have and do. So in order to make room for a new little person, we decided to purge what we could and get ready. While all of this was going on we discovered that the downstairs AC unit had quit working. After a few phone calls it was determined that the compressor had gone out and the earliest it could be fixed was Monday. Hmmm...go figure! So we went a head with our garage sale and endured a horrible day of heat on Saturday. We didn't get rid of any of the big stuff and only made $250, so we decided to open the doors again on Sunday. According to the weatherman the temperature was supposed to be at least 10 degrees cooler and overcast. Well luck was with us and Sunday was great! All in all we made $575 and we got rid of all the BIG stuff! Thanks to Darrin's mom coming out from Chicago we successfully had another garage sale. Every time we do one we swear we won't do it again and two years later here we are! This time I'm not saying that because I know with a baby on the way we will certainly need to purge again sometime in the next couple years!

Now that I am officially on vacation for a few weeks, I figure I'd get all those things done that have been on my "TO DO" list. I have about decided that it is a good thing I work, because when I'm home all day I'm not the most productive person. Monday of this week was an absolute bust and I didn't even get out of my pj's till about 8PM that night. Tuesday we got up with a plan that included swimming, cooking dinner, being home for the AC repairman, laundry, etc. Darrin reminds me this is what summer is about-relaxing, enjoying the kids, sleeping in, staying up late, etc. Well that would all be totally acceptable EXCEPT we have a lot of things to get done in less than 3 months before the little one arrives, so all I can think of is how I'm going to get everything done. So for any of you moms that have been there, done that and have some advice-send it my way! I'm just a "nesting" pregnant lady trying to get ready! Below are some pics from this week of summer fun!

Hamburger Casserole Recipe

1.5 lbs of lean hamburger

2-3 potatoes

1 med. onion

1 can green beans or frozen corn if you prefer

1 can cream of celery soup

1/2 cup grated cheddar cheese

seasoning to taste

This is a super easy recipe that the kids can help prepare. First peel the potatoes and then thinly slice and layer in the bottom of a greased casserole dish. I usually sprinkle them with a little salt and pepper after I have them in the dish. Next chop your onion and brown with hamburger. I season my onion and meat with garlic powder, season salt, and pepper. Next open a can of green beans and drain the juice off into a bowl where you can mix the juice of the green beans with the can of cream of celery soup. If you use frozen corn which I have used as well, just mix water with your cream of celery soup to dilute it a little. Next layer your corn or green beans on top of your potatoes, followed by the hamburger/onion mixture. Take your cream of celery soup mixture and pour over the top of the hamburger and then put a layer of grated cheddar cheese. Once this is all layered pop in the oven for 45 min. to an hour until your cheese bubbles at 350 degrees. BAM! Dinner!

Here is Samantha layering the ingredients into the casserole dish. All of these pictures are real high quality b/c we grabbed the closest camera we had-our iphone!

Payton was helping season the hamburger. Not a very glamourous shot of the two of us in swim attire and just coming home from the pool, but we had fun making dinner!

When we came home from the pool on Tuesday, I decided I'd cook dinner. This was probably the first homecooked meal we've had in two weeks, so as soon as I started Payton came in and wanted to help. Once Samantha saw how much fun it was and how much attention Payton was getting she decided to jump in on the action. Here they are cutting up the green beans for the casserole. I didn't notice the Raid can still on the counter until this picture came out. We have had to deal with those pesky little black "sugar ants" this summer and have always had the Raid within and arm's reach-hmmm...maybe I should put it under the counter! DUH!

Samantha decided it was time for some nachos!


Here the girls are hanging out at the pool, enjoying a break from the heat!

3 Year Anniversary! NBA Summer League Game

Happy Anniversary! We just celebrated our 3rd year of marriage. It was a wonderful day and we got to spend time with family and friends. We enjoyed an afternoon NBA basketball game and then came home to hang out with the girls and some friends. The adults enjoyed a 5+ hour game of Phase 10 and the kids had fun playing the Wii! Darrin and I can not believe it has only been three years since our HOT July 12th outdoor wedding. We have been so blessed and looking forward to many more! My mom and dad called that morning to wish us a Happy Anniversary and my dad reminded me that in 48 more years we will be caught up with him and my mom who just celebrated their 51st anniversary! Thanks for the inspiration Dad!




This is a picture from the NBA summer league games at the Thomas & Mack/Cox Pavilion on July 12th! A friend of ours had tickets and invited us to go. We went to the afternoon game of the Denver Nuggets and Charlotte Bobcats. It was very fun and nice and cool compared to the horrible humidity and heat outside. We've been dealing with the annual monsoon season the last few days, so it was a nice indoor activity!

The Line and The iPhone 3G

Darrin with his new phone! We are both enjoying the new phones!


This is the line outside the AT & T store at Boca Park that had almost 200 people by the time they opened at 8 AM on July 11th. As many of you know Darrin is crazy about keeping up with the latest technology and when he read about the new iPhones coming out a year ago he had his heart set and the waiting began. He made arrangements with a friend to go sit out all night so he could make sure he got us each a new phone on Friday morning. (Thanks, Daniel!) I helped him pack up some chairs and he took a cooler with drinks and snacks and they began camping out at 2:00 AM in spots #10 and #11.
I hadn't really paid attention to the whole craze, until about two weeks ago when he got me to watch a 30 minute informational video on the capabilities of the new phone. Needless to say I was completely hooked and couldn't wait until they came out. We decided since our anniversary was coming up on July 12th we would plan on getting new phones this year! Thank goodness for a husband who keeps up on technology and keeps me in working order! I'm loving the new phone! Thanks D!

We were able to enjoy a nice family dinner at Claim Jumper restaurant with Uncle George and Aunt Tete and Grandma and Poppa. What a wonderful trip and great memories!

In four short months I will be doing this on a full time basis. I was trying to figure out just how to help Adam get comfortable. He was soo cute and smelled so good. His long eye lashes and thick dark hair was so sweet. I can't wait to see how those motherly instincts kick in;)

Adam smiling at Payton! She's going to be a great helper when our little one arrives soon.

Saturday we were lucky to get to go visit our friend's Dave and Carmen and meet their newest precious addition, Adam. He was almost two months old in this picture and was sooooo cute. He absolutely LOVED Payton.

We went to Navy Pier where we were able to see a fabulous fireworks show on Fourth of July Eve a Chicago tradition. Darrin was able to take some awesome pictures!

The "world's smallest sundae" was a big hit and what made it even better was that they got to keep a souvenir sundae dish so we can recreate these at home!

The girls loved that we each had to wear a goofy looking hat while we had dinner.


We had fun going to Ed Debevic's 50's Diner for dinner. The girls got a kick out of the waiter and waitresses who were very loud and rude! They really got a laugh when the sweaty waiter sat down and squished mommy into her seat while he took our order.

We all enjoyed watching the different street performers on our walk from Grant Park back to our hotel. This is not something we get to see too much of here in Vegas.

Buckingham Fountain

http://www.chicagoparkdistrict.com/index.cfm/fuseaction/buckinghamfountain.fountainhome

These were homemade potato chips from Harey Carey's. We got to try all kinds of different things that we don't normally get to eat including pierogis, ratatouille, and pad thai. It was fun to get to "taste" such different foods from other cultures.

We've tried to make it to the Taste of Chicago for four years and finally got there this year. It was a beautiful day-sunshine and about 75 degrees-almost chilly to us in the shade. We couldn't have had a more perfect day.

This was a strange sculpture we came upon as we walked through Millenium Park on our way to The Taste of Chicago at Grant Park. The interesting thing about this was there were no visible seams anywhere on the HUGE sculpture. It was fun to walk around it and look at our reflection.

This was the morning after our first day in the city. The girls were beat and had a hard time getting up for DAY 2 in the city.

We forgot to take our white out so the girls got to leave their mark on their chairs. This was so fun b/c where do you actually get to write on the furniture? They loved it!

The mouthwatering tomato sauce is soooo delicious. We have special ordered it and had it shipped before but of course they don't ship the sausage patty -only the pepperoni, crumble sausage, or cheese:( Maybe someday??

No matter how hard they try they just can't resist giving each other those silly bunny ears.

Samantha had fun digging into her slice of deep dish pepperoni pizza-the ooey gooey kind you can't eat without a knife and fork.

The fun thing about this restaurant is that the kids can actually write on the walls. They had fun writing on the walls and going to see where their daddy wrote on the walls many years earlier. Granted it was now covered over by other writing it was cool to see where "dad" left his mark.

Gino's East was the chosen place for dinner. My mouth had been watering for the sausage patty deep dish pizza for months.

On Wednesday, we took the train downtown to Union Station and then took a cab to our hotel on Michigan Ave. We stayed at the InterContinental and had a nice room with a great city view. This is a picture of Darrin and the girls on Michigan Ave. about to embark on our walking adventure to find our next food favorite! If you can't tell, we look forward to the food in Chicago. YUMMMMMMMM!

Family Trip to Chicago July 1-6, 2008

We arrived in Chicago on Tuesday, July 1st and immediately did our normal tradition of driving straight from O'Hare to White Castle for Darrin's absolute favorite. He loves their sliders and goes through withdrawal in between trips to Chicago (this time it had been almost a year since we'd been there). He has tried the ones that can be purchased in the frozen food section of the grocery store, but doesn't think they do the real thing justice. I personally am not really a fan, but told him I would eat at least one and introduce the baby I'm carrying to "oh so unique" taste just as he was when he was carried by his mother. Regardless of when we arrive in Chicago this has become a tradition NO MATTER the time of day or night we arrive. Samantha and Payton have also become well schooled in this tradition and on a recent trip to Chicago with their grandparents this was their first request upon arrival. Our first laugh of the trip came when we tried to place our order and the girl taking orders had to apologize about the car ahead of us confusing her on their order because they were "smoked high." We had never quite heard it explained like that before but we got quite a chuckle and our trip was off to a fun start:) Darrin was very happy with his double cheeseburgers and the baby was introduced to her first white castle burger.