Spreading Holiday Cheer

Today is my Mom's birthday. Happy Birthday Mom! She is in her last school year of work before she retires and they actually had a snow day today. I figured she would have been there answering phones as she has in the past but thankfully she took the day off too. I took her some flowers and a gift certificate where she gets her hair done yesterday afternoon.

I thought I would spread some Christmas cheer today and share photos of my house decorated for the holidays. I am hosting the immediate family get together next Friday, which is perfect since my house is festive.

I love this time of year when you can turn off all the lights and enjoy the glow of the Christmas tree.

It took a little while to find places to put my existing holiday décor since we don't have the same set up in our new house. Perhaps in the years to come I'll decorate even more.

Happy Holidays!

Mostly Lazy Lindsay

I'd like to say it has been a busy few days but really I am taking full advantage of my three days off....and being lazy!

Working night shift means staying up all night on days off so I've been doing quite a bit of TV watching. I signed up for a 30-day free Netflix trail membership so I could watch Fuller House. I got through those 13 episodes pretty quickly so now I am working my way through two seasons of Frankie & Grace. After that I'll start in on Gilmore Girls. Hey, when there isn't much to do after everybody goes to bed, you fill your time with TV.

We also had Snowmageddon from Tuesday through Wednesday and we were pounded with snow. By now it has turned to rain so the snow is now melting. However, rain turns to ice and thus makes our work nights pretty tough. Our poor troopers in just the Boise metro area worked 97 crashes last week. Boise drivers don't do snow/ice/winter weather very well.

Since I stayed in all day yesterday, my neighbor invited me over for an afternoon chat. I made a Mexican layered bean dip and also brought over cheese, crackers, and beer. It was nice to have a social outing that didn't involve driving in the snow.

I made it to curves on Tuesday. My Wednesday activity was snow shoveling. I've yet to determine what my Thursday activity will be since I had errands to run all day today and won't make it to Curves before they close. I have new kickboxing video to try out at-home. So maybe I'll plan that and report back in a blog post.

I'm working on a post about my new Lipsense lipstick so I can make sure all my party-goers know what it is all about. I am hosting a party in January and looking forward to maybe earning a free lip color too.

Happy (almost) Friday to you all.

From California To Nevada

California Adventures Day One click here ß

California Adventures Day Two click here ß

On our third day we loaded up in the car and drove back to Las Vegas.  There isn’t much to see along the drive between Nevada and California nor are there many places to stop.  We had a terrible time trying to get out of town this morning due to a suspicious package being thrown from a vehicle onto Interstate 210 near a metro station stop.  The day before there was a bomb threat called in at the Universal Studios metro station so the city was on high alert.  Apparently somebody had thrown what ended up being a coat onto the freeway near the Lake metro station which caused an entire shut down of I-210 and made for a nightmare trying to get anywhere.  We ended up driving in a circle and then heading north before we ended up going east.  It took about five hours to get to Vegas and since I am not a fan of road trips, I was happy to be there.  We stopped in Baker, CA at the Mad Greek for a fresh strawberry shake.  That made the drive more manageable.

We checked into our room at the Palace Station Hotel off the strip.  My sister Katie and I stayed here 11 years ago when we visited Las Vegas for the first time.  It was a pretty good casino and prices are cheaper when you get off the strip as our buffet was only $8.99 each.  Kenyon also won over $100 on the first game he sat down to play.  I’m talking like first game and first spin!  Crazy.

The main attractions on our list for Vegas this trip was the Linq High Roller and the conservatory at Bellagio.  I bought our tickets for the High Roller on GroupOn and got the tickets with the all-you-can-drink “party pod”.  This meant that for the entire 30-minute rotation of the High Roller ferris wheel, I got to drink all I could fit into that timeframe.  Talk about an awesome idea and a bad idea both at the same time!

We really enjoyed the High Roller and the views from the top were amazing.  The High Roller is a large ferris wheel where you step onto a large pod and rotate very slowly for a 30-minute full rotation.  You hardly even feel yourself moving.

We ended up getting into a really fun “party pod” with some really fun “party people” and my poor husband was the only non-drinker.  When I asked for a diet Pepsi for him the bar tender said, “just the Pepsi?”  Yep.  Just the Pepsi.  I was thankful Kenyon was with me for the remainder of the night because I happened to drink five mixed drinks and three shots during that 30-minute rotation.  Oh my!

Once our full rotation was complete we walked to Bellagio to see the quarterly flower exhibit in their conservatory.  As usual, it did not disappoint. 

We ended up walking for a bit and then catching a cab back to our hotel.  My feet have not walked as much as we did over our entire vacation in a long time.  I had wished our time in Vegas was longer since I really do love visiting.  But, I am glad we ventures to California during this trip.  I can’t wait for our next vacation!

Oh, one last thing.  While we were at the airport waiting for our flight home, I put some of Kenyon's winnings into the slot machine I won big on the last visit to Vegas.  Sadly, I wasn't winning.  Kenyon encouraged me to scoot over one machine and I won $258.  Thank you Kenyon!