A Las Vegas honeymoon

Ok so I think I'm starting to get the hang of this whole blog thing, thanks in part to my sister in-law. So I've been going to Vegas every summer since I was 7 but I've never been able to experience it the way adults do. The last time I was there it was a month before my 21st birthday and the last time Luke had been there, he was 6. So we both decided that we wanted to make that our destination for our honeymoon. It was an awesome vacation! This was our first time out of state by ourselves, other than Wendover (which I don't think really counts, it's only 2 hours away). The drive there was so long and draining! I drove the entire way, I guess I just like driving. I was so worried about checking in though. I had already changed my last name on my ID and my reservation was in my maiden name. Then my friend told me that Vegas has problems accepting a temporary ID as proper indentification. So I freaked out about that, since that's all I had. Thankfully I wasn't ID'd once during my stay, or does that mean I look old? We stayed at a fairly new casino called South Point. It was really nice! It had a movie theater, a bowling alley with $1.00 bowling after midnight, tons of yummy resturaunts, and in room movies. It felt so good to just get a break from everything and everyone. The first night we arrived in Vegas was Sunday January 4th, we were so exausted that we passed out at 8:30 that night. The next morning we went down into the casino to try out the buffet, I love the little omelets they make! After that it was a day of adventure. We went over to Sam's Town over on Boulder Highway, to see if we could watch the lazer and water effects show. The next show wasn't for 2 hours so we left and ate again. We then ventured to the strip and went to the Stratosphere. Luke had never been to the top and he was amazed at the view when we got up there. It was really sad though, the strip looked nothing like I had remembered it. They had taken down a lot of the original casinos and some of the newer ones. They had a ton of construction and a ton of highrises, it was really dissapointing for me. Things began to look up though. 1: I found wine coolers with plastic soda pop type bottle, they had a lid that screwed on and off 2: There was this awesome guy doing charicatures (I'm sure that's spelled wrong, please forgive me). We decided to do one. I've only had it done one other time and I was with my dad, so it was really special to be able to share all of this with Luke. 3: When we got to the bottom again they have this new thing where you can purchase pictures of yourself on the strip backround. They do this with a picture they take before you go up the tower. So all and all it was fun. We never made it back to Sam's town that day. We went back to our hotel and lounged around until midnight, when we went bowling. It was awesome, the dude only charged us for one person! We paid $ 15 for 10 games, how great is that? My thumb hurt so bad, by the time we were done. The next day we met with my dad's girlfriend for lunch. We ate at a dinner called Blueberry Hill. I've never ate anything like that. I ate a 1/3 lb burger and all my fries, Luke had a mexican sampler plate and he ate every single bit of it, which is highly unusual. He normally complains, so it must have been really good. Plus we each had a huge sundae! I think we were full for hours after that, thanks Deb, we love you! Later that evening we made our way to the strip. I parked at TI since it's pretty central and I knew how to get there. As we made our way out of TI we noticed a crowd developing so we figured the Siren show was getting ready to start. It was onlt 15 minutes away, so we decide to stay and watch it since neither one of us had seen it before. It was a pretty good show, but I think they're old show with the british and the pirates was better. We left after that and walked over to The Mirage and as we were walking by the volcano was getting ready to erupt so we stayed to watch that. From there we walked over to Ceaser's Palace, where we ate at The Cheesecake Factory with our giftcard from Andy and Camie, thanks guys it was delicious!!! After that we went and bought me one of those huge drinks you see people walking down the strip with. It was really good, it was Pina Colada and Strawberry. I drank most of it, but let me tell you I was sick at 2 o'clock in the morning! On the way back to our hotel, we stopped at the original Welcome to Las Vegas sign and took a few pictures of it, the other side said drive carefully. The next day we rented movies in our room and just relaxed. We watched Saw V and Zach and Miri Make a Porno. We had an awesome trip and were sad to leave, but at the same time we were relieved to go home. We missed the babies and our dog! Luke was supposed to drive all the way home to compensate for me driving there, but unfortunately Luke bruised his tailbone doing sit-ups on a hard floor. So I drove home, it was ok though. Luke was our scenic photographer on the way back and we also stopped at his aunts house, sadly she wasn't home. On the plus side she had left us a card with money in it, which was awesome considering we had just spent all our money living in Vegas for 4 days. I would love to it again next year, I'm just not sure if we'll have the money. Maybe next year we'll goto Lava Hot Springs ;) I hope you enjoy some of our pics, just as we enjoyed our trip!

Wedding Reception

If I could pick one word to describe our reception, it would be amazing! I am very grateful to my in-laws, my friend Ashlee and my mom. Without them none of it would have been possible. My in-laws helped with our setup. It looked beautiful when I arrived. I picked Purple for our color, everything looked perfect together. My friend Ashlee and I spent the afternoon prior cutting crossiants for chicken salad sandwiches. The evening before I took my sister in-law Shayla to the store with me to go and get fruit. Would you believe they charge $30.00 for one measley platter of fruit. That's just outrageous! So I swallowed my pride and bought it anyways. It had cantelope melon, strawberries, pineapple and water melon. I love water melon! The morning of the reception, my mother in-law made like 5 pans of green bean casserole and Ashlee made like 6 pans of funeral potatoes. Now I know what your thinking funeral potatoes at a wedding, what were we thinking? Holy cow do you know how delicious they are? That's what I was thinking. Our cake looked amazing too! Thanks to Harmons bakery. We had a nice turn out of guests. Some of my husbands friends came down from Roy to be there, which made it even more special for him. His best friend Joe was there too. Both my sisters came, with their dates. All of his siblings made it. It was really nice to have all of his siblings there, I had just met his little brother Tim like 3 weeks prior to this. I actually met him 2 days prior to our wedding, which was kind of wierd, but he has been on a mission for the church in Mexico for the last two years. All of his mom's sisters came but one. His dad's brother and his wife made it. His dad's friend from work was kind enough to come to our reception to take some pictures of our family and special day, he also took a lot of my wedding pictures. As the reception started his dada said an opening prayer and welcomed everybody. Our family and friends all took their turns standing up, introducing themselves and offering their advice to us, the newly weds. We ate and visited for a while with everyone, then we cut the cake. That was really funny! When Luke fed me my piece of cake he was gentle but still made sure he got it on the out side of my mouth. When I fed him his, I was a little more aggressive but at the same time the piece of cake broke in my hand! So it was pretty messy. We had an amazing time and we are so grateful that we got to share our happiness with our family and friends. We waited until we got home to open our presents, but when we did it was fun. We got quite a bit of cash from everyone, a gift card to target (which bought our new comforter set), a really nice griddle (it makes awesome french toast), a nice clock, a beautiful album for our wedding pictures, some new towels, silver ware and an amazing book on finances. I have yet to send out my thank you cards though, I guess I better get that done soon!

My beautiful babies.

This was my little family, before Luke added

to us.

This is our family plus our new addition, Luke!

Very happy to be married!

Luke thought we were done taking pictures.

Just a little cake fight!

The aftermath.

Some of our guests.

Our Wedding

It's amazing to think about being married and having kids. I look at the people I went to school with and it's like I still see them as the little kids I knew, but we've all grown up so much. Most of us are married and some of us have kids. I just got married in December of last year and I couldn't ask for more. My husband is an amazing person and I look up to him everyday! He's been through so much and he's still the most caring person I know. The first time I met Luke, I was head over heels. I didn't stop thinking about him, he was always in the back of my mind. He felt the same. I never thought I would experience this feeling with anyone! Luke and I had random run-ins through out the years, but nothing came of it until the final meeting. He decided to make a move that day and he got my attention. It was really funny though, his car runs on natural gas and regular gas, so he has this gas tank for the the natural gas and he says it looks like some nuclear bomb or something. So as I'm walking out with my friend, he follows and asks me if I would like to see his gas tank? I chuckled a little but I said yes because I really liked him. A few months later we went out on our first date and we haven't been apart since. On December 11, 2008 we decided to make it official. Our plans for a church ceremony fell through, but we weren't going to let that stop us! We had a very nice civil ceremony. I only had to get married in front of 10 people versus the 70 originally invited. It was nice, his parents were our witnesses and we were so into the kiss at the end that we didn't even hear someone's cell phone ring. All and all it was a beautiful day. Our wedding night was just as awesome. We satyed at this little bed and breakfast called the Castle Creek Inn. It was a beautiful place and they had an amazing breakfast! When we first got there, we were kind of bummed since our room was kitty corner from the lobby. As the night went on though, we decided to go explore and found that they had this beautifully landscaped back yard. There was a stream that ran through the entire back, it was really pretty. That night we also went out and tried a new place to eat. We went to Hoppers and the food was delicious. It was everything that I could have wanted!

My very first blog!

I've seen so many people I know with these little blogs and I've decided it's my turn to follow suit. So here I am, to let you all in on a little bit of our lives. Our family consists of my husband Luke, my 4 year old daughter Cirenna, my 2 year old son Barrett, my puppy Anney, my two cats Hailie and Biff, then of course, last but not least me. We are very simple people. We love to stay home with our family and watch movies. I will update my blog as often as possible.