A Fun Day at Bass Pro Shop

We decided to meet my parents at the Silverton for lunch and to browse around Bass Pro Shop. We ate at the cafe, I had their yummy Chicken Fried Steak and Eggs! Charlie made fun of me because I ate it all...it is a really big serving, but what the heck, I am eating for two right! After lunch we wandered over to the aquarium and were lucky enough to get there just in time for the mermaid show. Kadence absolutely loves the mermaids, so we hung out for a while so the kids could get their fill of the underwater creatures. Cole thought he was pretty cool and decided to give the mermaid "knuckles" when she came over to him. We then headed over to Bass Pro. We had to have been in there for at least an hour and a half. It is such a fun store! The kids had a blast climbing on all of the ATV's while us adults perused the Pontoon Boats. We have joked about all pitching in to buy one and then reality hits us! Megabucks, where are you when we need you!

Tag...I'm It

A while ago I was tagged by Carol to display the sixth picture in the sixth folder of my pictures. Sorry it took me a while to get around to this but here we go...

I like everyone else am in dire need to get my photos organized. I actually have two layers of photos saved on my external drive, the first set is before Adobe and the second set is after downloading Adobe. So I decided to post both:

Before Adobe

This is a pic of Kadee and our friends little guy Brett who was actually out here in Vegas a couple of weeks ago. We had gone to Albuquerque for Christmas and took a two day trip down to El Paso to visit Adam, Nicci and Brett. Wow, look at those pigtails...she is going to kill me when she's a teenager and I pull these pics out to show her friends!

Post Adobe

This picture was taken of Cole in December 2007. I actually had taken the kids to get their shots, they both had to have a couple. Our pediatrician's office at the time was attached to St. Rose Sienna Hospital (where I had both Kadence and Cole, and God willing will have Chance). They have a beautiful little serenity garden there that I thought would make a great background for our Christmas photos that year. So this was Cole's pose on the bridge. What a handsome little man!

It was amazing that despite them both having multiple shots they were in a great mood to have their pics taken. I actually got a really cut one of both of them that I used for my card that year...

Our Visit with Adam, Nicci and the Boys

As I mentioned in a previous post, our great friends Adam and Nicci and their boys Brett and Justin came to town to visit with us. It was wonderful to see them. Charlie has been out to visit with them a few times but I hadn't seen them in a long time! Charlie picked them up from the airport on Saturday and we just hung out at the house and celebrated Charlie's b-day. On Sunday we got up and headed to the MGM to see the Lion Exhibit, and visit the M&M and Coca-Cola store. After that we met up with Tanya and Micaela and our friend Shayla for lunch at the Rainforest Cafe. The rest of the evening we spent back at the house just watching the kids play with one another and catching up. It was very relaxing and so nice! On Monday I had to head into work but Charlie took the day off to spend with them. They headed out to the Silverton to check out Bass Pro (Adam and Charlie love fishing so I am sure they spent lots of time browsing the aisles). After work I met up with them at the park, Charlie coaches flag football and they had practice that night so Adam and Nicci went with him and let the kids play in the park adjacent to their practice field. We came home and Adam and Nicci treated us to a wonderful dinner and then me and Nicci took the kids to Nielsen's Frozen Custard that just opened around the corner from our house. By the way, I highly recommend it, it is delicious! We came home and had a mini birthday celebration for Brett who was turning five the next day. They left on Tuesday and I think we were all very sad to see them leave. It seemed like the visit just went by so fast. Hopefully we will be able to make it out to Colorado to visit them sometime this summer.

Lunch at the Rainforest Cafe

On Sunday us and the kids, Adam, Nicci and their boys, Tanya and her Kiddos and another friend from high school who also lives out in Vegas, Shayla, all met at the Rainforest Cafe in the MGM to have lunch. The kids loved eating among the elephants and monkeys. However, Cole was deathly afraid of the Jaguar that was hanging over the edge of a cliff that our table was below. Luckily he fell asleep on my lap and we got through the lunch without having to move tables! He really was freaked out by it! Every time it rained and the thunder and lightning would come the kids would scream with excitement!

Us girls had a great time catching up with one another. I recently had gotten back in touch with Shayla but Nicci had not seen her since high school. After we chowed down we headed to the gift shop where all of the kids got to pick out a special souvenir. Kadee and Cole got water weenies, Micaela got a bag full of colorful rocks and Brett and Justin picked out stuffed snakes. All in all it was a great time. What a wonderful place to take kids to eat!

Charlie's Birthday

Charlie turned 32 years old today! Our friends Adam and Nicci and their boys Brett and Justin flew in from Colorado the night of his birthday to visit. We have known Adam and Nicci since high school and it had been a while since we all were able to get together so this was an extra special treat for Charlie's birthday. We cooked up some Carne Asada and a few of Charlie's buddies came over. We had a great night visiting with everyone. After we got all of the kids to bed we headed out to the garage to watch the games of shuffleboard and darts.

Circus Circus Adventures

One of my best friends, Tanya came into town for the weekend. I was so excited because it always great to spend time with someone you have known for so long and are so close to. People joke all the time and say, do you guys do everything the same, especially when it comes to kids. We both had girls first then were blessed with our handsome boys and are now both pregnant again with boys. It will be great because when we get together our kiddos will always have a buddy to play with! We are also very lucky that we get to see each other as often as we do. Luckily her hubby's family lives out here in Vegas and my hubby's family still lives in Albuquerque so we get to meet up every time we head out to visit our families.

We decided to meet up Saturday morning at Circus Circus. We met Tanya and her kiddos along with some of their cousins. We had a blast. The kids loved all of the rides and we made sure they went on them several times to make sure we got our money's worth :) We had a great time catching up and watching the kids run from one ride to another, their eyes filled with so much excitement!

We topped of the adventure by letting the girl's get hair wraps in their hair. They were so excited to pick out their colors of thread and their beads.

Our Sinful Sundae!

On our way home from work on Friday night we were debating about where we would eat dinner. I pulled out my coupon book and noticed a coupon for Sammy's Woodfired Pizza. We hadn't been there in ages so we though what the heck. It was a beautiful night so we sat out on the patio and enjoyed a yummy dinner. The best part of the whole night was our dessert. We ordered the "Messy Sundae" and let me just clarify that "messy" is an understatement. It was absolutely delicious and we all fought for the last bite.

Abe's Last Day

March 13, 2009 was Abe's last day at work. He is off to Afghanistan to serve us all proud! He will be in all of our hearts and prayers and we look forward to seeing him back at work in a year from now! We will miss you Abe!

My 34th Birthday!

On March 6, I turned 34 years old! I had a wonderful birthday. My parents came and picked up Kadence and came back with the most beautiful flowers, a bouquet of Stargazer Lillies. These are my favorite flowers and I couldn't remember having any since my wedding in 2000. It was such a wonderful surprise!

Charlie's parents came in for the weekend and we had a wonderful visit. On Friday night our old neighbors who we miss very much, Peter and Dolly stopped by to bring me some beautiful flowers. We enjoyed some yummy pizza (which we typically have every Friday night) and had a good time catching up.
On Saturday night we decided to celebrate my b-day. Barb Neilson brought a delicious brisket from Abq and we cooked it up along with lots of other delicious food. My parents, Julie, Pete and the kids also came over to celebrate. It was a wonderful night topped off with a Dulce De Leche Cheesecake from the Cheesecake Factory that my parents brought, it was DELICIOUS!

Spring Projects

We have several projects around the house that have been hanging around all winter. Now that the weather has been beautiful we decided to get out and tackle them. First off was the garage. Our cars do not fit in our garage so Charlie kind of converted it into his man room. However, after the holidays it typically gets cluttered with decorations that need to go back to storage along with about a hundred other things! Charlie worked on the garage while me and the kids did some painting projects. The kids easel which is a chalk board on one side and a dry-erase on the other was in much need of a paint job. The kids took black sharpie markers and scribbled all over them. So we got some chalkboard paint and white dry erase paint and fixed them up good as new. I decided it would be fun to repaint the kids table with the white dry erase as well that way it would be easy to clean any scribbles that missed the paper. I love signs with sayings and wooden letters that say something or another. I had purchased letters at JoAnn's a while ago that spell out, "Always Kiss Me Goodnight" to hang in my bedroom so I painted those while we were at it. All in all we got a lot done and the kids had a blast putting their painting skills to test.