las vegas, part 2, with a side of whine

Ok, seriously.  I have to get this out of the way before I go onto the rest of the trip.  I am weary.  So very weary from living out of laundry baskets while traveling back and forth from my parent's house to Brian's parent's house.  I feel very blessed that we have family that are willing and happy to take us in while we wait for our stuff to be delivered, but.  I want to go HOME.  But home is empty.  And next home isn't ready, and we'll only be in next home for 6 months to a year, so will it really feel like home, or will it feel temporary, and will be ever feel home when we move every few years, and, and, and.  These are the things that keep me up at night.  Are you crying for me yet?  Ok, good.  Let's move on.

The second day of Las Vegas included lots of spa and pool time (wow, I've lost all of your sympathy just now, right?).  This won't help any, but here are some more pictures.

Ah, palm trees.  With my beloved sunflare.

And hello, how about these gorgeous bathing beauties? 

I know, there's no shot of me in a bathing suit.  Thank God.  But the other girls have them on their cameras for leverage.  So here's hoping I'm not in trouble for putting up their pictures...  Don't worry, we were all wearing SPF.  But we would hang out in the sun, go back into the cabana, drink wine or cocktails outta pineapples, take a dip in the water to cool off, and go into some sort of spa coma listening to the plinky-plunky music.  We never even made it into the tops optional bar-pool.  We be old.  We liked our tops on, and more importantly, everyone else's.

And then we finally made it down to the strip after getting gussied up.

We ate some dinner, drank some wine, got some blisters and bought flip flops to alleviate said blisters.  Unfortunately, Karen's flip flops included some sort of medieval torture device that dug into her toes whenever she took a step.  She spent the rest of the evening transitioning between her blister shoes and her pokey toe flip flops.  Oh, women.  Me?  I wore flip flops to begin with.  I KNEW I'd end up in them sooner or later, so why not sooner?  Besides, I like to feel short and squat next to the amazon women that prowl around the strip.  Just cause I like to be unique like that. 

But!  Karen was lucky, lucky when it came to the slots.

The rest of us would put our $1 or $5 into the slot, push the buttons a few times, and then lose all of it.  Then we'd fold our hands in our laps and stare at Karen's machine that was inevitably winning.  Karen sweetly shared her winnings by buying us more drinks.  Geez, I make us sound like a bunch of boozers, no?  Well, it was Vegas.  And well, we are a bunch of boozers, too. 

We went to the top of one of the casinos to check out the view.  There just happened to be a club up there.  We were the ones taking pictures of the view while everyone danced behind us.  Cause that's how we roll.

Hey, don't yell at us.  We had blisters and pokey toes.  Anyway, after most of us lost money, we scoped out the strip a bit, and we got smothered by second hand smoke, we decided to call it a night.  We went back to our resort, got (what else) some wine and relaxed in one of the big beds by the pool. 

After I took this picture, I apparently fell asleep, cause I awoke an hour later drooling on meself.  Yep, I'm the girl that fell asleep first.  Luckily, there was no freezer in our hotel room.

I was planning on making this Vegas thing a two parter, but I haven't even looked at the gazillion pictures I took of the Bellagio fountain show.  So I'll catch up next time, and I won't be so late in getting it out there.  Maybe.  Probably.  No promises, people.  I'm living out of a laundry basket right now.

vegas, part 1

I flew into Las Vegas early on Friday and met one of the girls, Karen, at the airport.  The other 2 girls came in later that afternoon, so we had time to really check out the resort.  It was beautiful!

The offered a "room with a view" for about $25 extra a night, but since that was at least a couple drinks worth of cash, we went with the "room without a view."  This was our non-view.

Still nice, eh?  Jo and Karen enjoyed the view!

We spent a LOT of time at the pool and in the spa, which was just where I wanted to be.  They brought us wine poolside that was apparently squeezed from gold judging by the price.  But we really enjoyed the Green Valley Resort.  It's well outside the strip, but I highly recommend it if anyone wants a relaxing time in Vegas.

Not too shabby, right?  Our first night we stayed in at the resort where there was a huge casino, lots of restaurants, and lots of bars.  The best part of getting together with best friends is catching up while getting ready.

Or maybe the best part are the stories you come away with after the trip is over.  Karen provided a GREAT story on our very first night there.  We had a few drinks before heading out to dinner, and then stopped at the bar and had a couple more.  By the time we got to the restaurant, Karen was pretty happy.  We went to sit in the bar area, turned around, and Karen was gone.  I found her sitting at the bar with a very pink drink.  I took it away from her and led her to where we were sitting.  As we walked to our table, we passed a display table of food.  Karen stuck her hand in a big bowl of zucchini chips and pulled some out, asking loudly, "What are THESE?"  And then throwing them back into the bowl.  We all started laughing pretty hard, but Tara overheard another patron asking for the waiter to remove them because "that girl stuck her HAND in there."  Uh, it's display anyway, lady.

As Tara was telling us what the woman had said while we waited for our dinner, Karen got more and more irate at this woman.  By the time our meal was over, Karen was pretty riled up.  So as we walked out, she decided it would be a good idea to stick both of her hands in the bowl and kind of toss them up in the air, while looking around the restaurant with a look of defiance and triumph.  It's probably a good thing that we were on our way out!

And that was just our first night there...

what happens in Vegas...

Doesn't always stay in Vegas!  Hello, friends.  Hope you didn't miss me too much.  I had a blast in Las Vegas, but I really have a billion pictures to sort through, and I have some permission I have to attain before I share stories and pictures.  You understand, right?

Stay tuned, it's gonna be as exciting as 4 moms in Vegas can be. 

goodbye house. goodbye friends. goodbye neighbors. goodbye west dundee.

Tuesday I took the littles to my parent's house.  Wednesday morning I drove back to our house and watched as all our stuff got packed up into big boxes.  You never realize how much crap you've accumulated until you see it all in boxes.

I may have cried when they packed up the kid's rooms.  It was sad to see the rooms empty.

And today I watched as the boxes were loaded into the truck.  The huge huge truck needed for the crap we had accumulated.  Our house felt echo-y and empty.  Especially without the kids running through. 

And then I said one last good bye to our little house.

And then I said one last goodbye to West Dundee.  I fell in love with our little village.  I hope we find homes and towns as wonderful as we had here.  And I hope we find friends and neighbors as wonderful as we had here, too.  We'll miss you all!

I would be really sad and depressed right now, but tomorrow I'm leaving for a long weekend with my 3 best friends!  We're going to Vegas, and I just feel excited and happy to have something so great to look forward to.  So I'll be away from here for a little while.  Try not to miss me too much, and I'll update soon with details from a trip to Vegas!

one last big party before we move

Hold tight, friends, cause this may be a long one.  So grab a snack, drink, get comfy.  Go on, I'll wait.

Ready?  Okay.  So as you may have heard, we're moving!  So of course it makes sense for us to be organizing, packing some things we want to make sure make it okay, sorting through the clothes and items we'll need to get us through the next 2 weeks before we actually make it to the new house.  So since that makes sense, we do the opposite.  We throw a huge party instead! 

My very awesome and adorable babysitter/nanny, Annie, is getting married in October and we're gonna miss it.  Boo.  So I threw her a wedding shower with the help of one of her friends to make up for missing her wedding.  I got a lot of help from my parents, too.  Brian took the kids to his parent's house, and we got to work!  My dad helped clean the house and deck, and made runs to the store for last minute items we forgot.  Thanks dad!

My mom helped with the decorations and all the cooking.  Thanks mom!  Here is the kitchen counter while we were working on both.  And maybe drinking some wine in the process too.

I wanted to make pennant banners in the wedding colors for decorations. My mom helped me cut all these out, and then she stamped some of them for me. Annie loves skulls and Gothic details, so we went with that.




I wrote on a few and my mom threaded the pretty black ribbon through.

And here are a couple shots of them hung up.  I think they're cute.  I'm obviously obsessed with pennant banners.  I have a pennant banner problem.

I made my tomato pie recipe into little tartlets, which turned out better than I thought they would.  They were all gone, so I guess they were pretty good!

Annie requested "cute" little finger foods, so we also made cucumber sandwiches, caprese kabobs, veggies and fruit with dip, and small cheese sandwiches.  Also made was a big ol' punch bowl of sangria that we kept refilling all day.  Annie's friend, Boo, also contributed lots of cute decorations, all the dinnerware, door prizes, favors, and really yummy homemade blueberry cupcakes.  She was an awesome co-host.

I stole pictures off of Annie and Pete's wedding website, and made a photo garland for them. 



Here's Annie and her adorable niece checking out the pictures.

We all ate, drank, and were merry.  And then Annie opened presents!  She got quite a good load of loot to take to her new home.

Uh, notice that I made her sit in my awesome new chair that Brian hates.  Brian, just an fyi, I got LOTS of compliments on it.  It's staying.  Anyway, Annie was so sweet, making sure to thank each person, and commenting on what she loved about each present.  And she may have cried just a little.  Her friends seemed almost as sweet as she is.

Annie's family seems great, too.  Annie's sister, mom, aunt and soon to be mom-in-law.

Annie with her Grandma and sister.  Generations of beauty!!

And here is Annie with her two maids of honor.

These girls worked hard writing down all the gifts and making this lovely bow bouquet. 

And here are all the brides"maids" that were present.  I think there are two more out there that couldn't make it.  Annie is blessed with a load of good friends!

I wish I had taken a picture of the spread before it was attacked, but here it is more than half way gone.  My mom found this perfect fabric to use as a table cloth.

And to leave on a sweet note, here is Annie's niece enjoying those great cupcakes!

It was a party filled with:

Annie, I wish for you and Pete a life time of love, health and happiness.  Always be on each other's side, and the rest will fall into place.  God Bless!

ordinary moments

This week's You Capture is ordinary moments.  We have lots of those around here!  With kids, there can be a lot of ordinary punctuated by something extraordinary.  Just seeing how fast they change can be extraordinary!  Here are a few ordinary moments from our house.

eating breakfast

watchin' tv

waiting for papa

playing on the swingset

playing fort in mama and papa's bed