Snowed In, (well for Bellingham Standards anyway!)

I was at work on Monday and Tuesday and we've been getting the forecast that we'll get a bit of snow. Not sure what they meant by that, but now I know.

I am glad that I drove across town to the grocery store on Monday and Tuesday after work, (making me late to pick up Grace at Daycare on Tuesday!). I picked up the essentials and a movie to get us through the "snow storm" that was for told.

Well today it's Friday and I haven't left the house since Tuesday, except for a stroll out our backyard to make snow angels with Grace. I am getting cabin fever and have a ton of things to do before our big family Christmas. I have not bought a thing for Christmas dinner and am still sending out more X-mas cards as I type. Bob, our wonderful mailman, has been an angel, taking my envelopes and packages without complaints. I need to get him something nice for X-mas, do you think he'd like a massage? Our mailbox has been knocked off it's post by the snowplow, and since they are still plowing like mad we've deemed it futile to put it back up anytime soon.

Anyway, so my hubby is in a crabby mood cause there is sooooo much to do and so little time. Employees that are unprepared for the weather, customers that are whiny and don't want to pay, computers that work too slow, phones that don't work at all or drop calls, 50,000 voice mails to check, bills to pay, gifts to buy, etc, etc, etc. I'm sure you have your own story...

I'm off to finish wrapping presents (given that the big brown UPS truck can make it here today as promise!), writing the last of my Christmas cards and planning our dinner. I'm sure there's more on the list, but for now that seems daunting enough...

Viva Las Vegas Baby!

I guess it's about time I blogged about our trip to Lost Wages. It's been a month already and wow, lot's of things been happening.
Most of us in the house have been sick for the past month on and off. Martin got sick right after we returned from Vegas. We arrived home to a blizzard and landed in Bellingham airport with a total whiteout. It was strange to see this at the end of January, and the whole town was turned into a winter wonderland.
Vegas was definitely a last minute decision as we had originally planned to spend that weekend on the "Rowe Boat" out in the San Juans. When we heard that the forecast called for cold weather that weekend with snow int he mix we just thought that we'd be better off somewhere else. Since the place we wanted to go to in Oregon was booked that weekend Troy suggested flying out of Bellingham with Allegiant Air straight to Vegas. The price was right at $88 each way so we looked into a hotel and booked. I even investigated a little and reserved us a limo from and to the airport. It was quite an experience...
We stayed at the Mandalay Bay and I must say the place was very nice. Our room was connected to Troy & Aubrey's and there was a TV in the bathroom and even a phone in the toilet room. We immediately made plans for dinner and Troy's choice of restaurant was vetoed by the girls. We picked a different one and boy did we pick! It was a wonderful choice at the top of THE Hotel, a section of the Mandalay Bay and the view was spectacular, including sitting right across from Stone Cold Steve Austin the wrestler. Dinner was fantastic but so was the bill at the end. We even decided to forgo a wine and dessert as we just couldn't justify spending that much.
The second day we went for a walk down the strip. Here's the boys on the bridge crossing the strip at the New York, New York.
The idea was to head to the Paris for some crepes for breakfast. We obviously didn't' realize how much of a walk this really was. The last time I was in Vegas was back in the late nineties and the Mandalay Bay was just being built, the Paris not even thought about....

Anyway, we did make it to the Paris hotel and walked the little cobblestone streets to the cafe where we ordered up our crepes. Not my favorite I must say, and definitely nothing like the chocolate croissants or "Pain au chocolat" in Paris. The weather was nice maybe a little breezy but we enjoyed the walk and soon headed back towards our hotel. We had talked about going to a show and of course in true Man/Woman style no one could make a decision. So Aubrey & I headed for the box office at the New York, New York and proceeded to make reservations for the night. Well, by the time we had our ducks in a row of course all that was left for seats was waaaaay up in the rafters, not even the nosebleed section. We again made an executive decision and booked the tickets for Sunday night instead, forgoing the hypnotist we had talked about seeing. So with some rather pricey tickets for Cirque de Soleil's "Zumanity" we headed off home to the Mandalay. Troy had made some calls to his contacts in Vegas and managed to get us some awesome third row tickets on the floor to see the amazing Brad Paisley up close and personal. He just happened to be performing a the Mandalay that night. Martin & I had already enjoyed his show in Vancouver a while ago, but it was so good that we decided to do it again. And man, was it great. The talented Rodney Atkins opened for him after a great performance of Chuck Wicks the guy who sings "Stealing Cinderella" (great song and awesome performer, you'll see more of this guy!).

Brad of course rocked the house with his awesome guitar playing and performed all his hits including, Ticks, Letter to Me, Celebrity (a must see video with Jason Alexander), The Fishing Song, You Are the World, Everything (a personal favorite!) and a new one that hasn't been released yet called I'm Still a Guy. During the show they had a slide show going on the screens and couldn't help themselves with poking a little fun at the Monte Carlo fire that happened the day before.

So Sunday we headed over to The Hotel for a nice breakfast. Then we spent the day enjoying the spa, doing some bargain hunting, playing some card or slots and Martin took in some poker with the big boys. He almost won big, got a great hand and was beat by an incredible hand, twice...what are the odds of that? Not very big, we were told.

Sunday afternoon we got ready for the show with a haircut for the boys, a little shopping for the girls... Aubrey had Troy buy her a beautiful sparkly ring and I shopped for a little black dress to wear that night with my Anne Taylor heels that I had snagged up the day before for $20, they were marked down from $200. Yeah! So looking a snazzy and pretty we headed to the Shanghai Lily for dinner that night.

After dinner we took a cab to the New York, New York to get there in plenty of time to have some dessert and of course to help us ladies with our heels. It would've been hell to walk all that way.
The show was phenomenal, I haven't laughed that hard for a long time. It was an adult show so it was a bit risque but tasteful and with the audience participation you never knew what you were gonna get. There was a midget who did acrobatics on the silk ties hanging from the ceiling, synchronized swimming by two very flexible Asian ladies, hot dancing men, a clown couple for some comedic relief and all in all I think we all enjoyed the show immensely. I would even go back and see it again, if there wasn't so much else to do and see in Vegas. I think we've already picked out a different show for our next trip...

Frosty Travels

Came across a truck in the ditch this morning on the way to work. It had snowed a bit during the night and there was quite a bit of frost in the fields. The roads were covered in black ice and many drivers were going way to slow, this in turn aggravating others , like myself, with some of these being more reckless and trying to pass only to fail miserably and ending up in the ditch. Scary!

I bought a new ornament for our tree. I am painfully aware that we do not have even close to enought ornaments to decorate the huge tree we can fit into our new livingroom. So I've been collecting new ornaments at every turn. I found some cute handcrafted snowflakes in Tofino during our Thanksgiving excursion...maybe I can take a photo of them later this week. TAnyway this one is obviously from Starbucks, or the "coffee" store as Gracie likes to call it. IT's a cute snowglobe on a Starbucks cup.

Woke up to snow again this Sunday.

It didn't' last long though by the afternoon it was all gone again, so nothing like last Weekend.

Today's countdown number is accented by Miss Julie's wonderful POM (that stands for Project of the Month! for all you non TOM visitors!)

We ended up vegging out on the couch today and didn't do much. Martin cleaned the kitchen after I made breakfast and we watched a couple of football games. The Seahawks kicked the Arizona Cardinals butt. Yeah!

I got a little bit of scrapbooking done, a couple more X-mas gifts. The irony is that I had already packed up gifts for these people and the one I really needed to work on I didn't have enough paper for. ARGH!

Better luck next time I guess...