Meet Louie the Traveling Lion

When I went on my trip back east, I had a traveling buddy...and I'm not talking about my brother Doug. This little buddy fit into my bag. Meet Louie the Lion:

"I'm READY!! Let's GO!"

He was traveling to meet his new best bud, my nephew Daniel. Louie was with us the whole trip. So of course he wanted to get some pictures of the sights as well.

Here they are:

He climbed to the top of the Bunker Hill Monument...what a view

He loved the view of the road traveling through Rhode Island

Hangin at the Roger William's park in Providence....the geese scared him a little

Chillin' in front of the summer cottages in Newport

Here he is resting on a bench in Central Park, New York City...he's admiring the Balto Statue

He was quite impressed with the Julliard School...resting on Mike's shoulder

Wide eyed by the New York Subway system.

All tucked in for a nights rest at the hotel in New Jersey

Waiting in line at Independence Hall....he didn't come out much in Philly...too many soldiers scaring him

Ft McHenry...he liked the big flag

He's all ready to explore the Nation's Capitol

Posing in front of Grandpa's airplane...he loved all the aircrafts

WWII Memorial...he's bowing his head in respect.

Made it to the Lincoln Memorial

"Just me and Abe"...amazing no one else was in this shot

He loved the huge Choo Choos in the American History Museum

Ooooo Dinos

"Is that my Daddy???"

"Heeeellllooooo Ladies!" ...shhhh he didn't know they were stuffed

He was surprised by this HUGE statue

He liked the cool old buildings of the Southern Virgina University

He felt like a king at the Biltmore Estate

But through all his travels the part he loved best was meeting his new buddy Daniel:

Awwwww Hugs...home at last

He loved Daniel so much he stayed home while we finished touring Charleston. I hope he goes on many more adventures. :)

Fall leaves and Big Brother Visit

Autumn doesn't really begin in Vegas until November. But some of the trees down here do change colors, after the flowering plants go through their second spring, the trees finally realize its actually fall and start shedding. Every year I have fun watching the trees in my work's parking lot change color. This year they went bright red:

 

I have very few autumn decorations but I enjoy putting them out.

This last weekend my older brother, Tony, came down for a quick visit. It was fun seeing him and getting to tour around town with him. I took Friday off and we took him up to St. George, UT. He has an old mission companion that runs a cool wood crafts store there. So we stopped in and said hi.

Here is one of the crafts you can buy:

Mom bought a whole bunch of fun crafts to work on. And we were excited to hear they just opened up a second location in Vegas. After shopping we stopped in at the Iceberg Diner for lunch.

They have some HUGE onion rings. And those milkshakes were "mini" size....Then we rolled ourselves back into our car and headed back to Vegas. When we got back Tony came over and said hi to grandma, I got to show him our house for the first time. Then we decided to do a buffet for dinner at the Suncoast Casino.

I took some pictures at dinner and everyone was being silly.

Lovely pictures....afterwards we were going to go to a movie but there wasn't really anything out we wanted to see. So we went back to my parents and watched some stuff on Netflix.

When we were driving back from St. George earlier, we listen to the news update about Paris, France. Terrorist had attacked multiple locations and there were hostage situations. Lots of people were killed. The world is getting to be a pretty scary when some people think its okay to kill and injure innocent unarmed people. It really makes me sad...but I still see good in our world too.

So on Saturday after my brother met with a doctor about his foot, we all decided to go down to the Paris Casino down on the Strip. We parked at the Monte Carlo and took the tram over to the Bellagio. The fall flowers were really pretty at the Bellagio:

 

The view of the Paris Casino is really cool from the Bellagio:

The inside of the Paris Casino is pretty cool. The mini Effle Tower comes down through the ceiling. We didn't go up into it, there was a line. But we looked at the gift shop.

 

Then we walked down the Strip to the New York, NY casino to see the new Hershey store and get some New York hotdogs for lunch.

That's a lot of Chocolate

Only in Vegas can you go from Paris to New York in less than a half hour. After lunch we headed back to the car and back home. We spent the rest of the day relaxing and grocery shopping.

On Sunday, I had to give a talk at church during Sacrament Meeting. It was pretty awesome because two of my brothers and my parents got to come and listen to me. My talk was about the article in the Oct. 2015 Ensign magazine entitled "The Mission and Blessing of the Seed of Abraham" by Elder Shayne Bowen. I think I did a pretty good job. It was my first talk in over four years. If you want to read the article here is a link: the-blessings-and-mission-of-the-seed-of-abraham

After I spoke, they took my brother to the airport. It was great having him visit. I sometimes wish he and his family lived closer but its also fun getting to travel for visits. I know we will see them again soon.

Halloween 2015

I actually got a chance to dress up this year for Halloween. But it all started with that I got invited to go to a friend's party a week before Halloween. Unfortunately that was the day my car's battery decided to die. It was a very frustrating weekend. I had to miss the party and get a ride to church the next day. I hate being without a car. So I got it into the shop on Monday and luckily it was just the battery and not something more serious. I was lent my brother's car to drive to work for the day, no power steering and no A/C...it was an interesting ride. I got my car back after work and all was right in the world again.

On Tuesday, my parents' ward was having a Trunk n Treat at the church building. A few weeks ago Mom had surgery on her foot and she can't put any weight on it for a month. Dad had to be at the activity early, so Mom asked if I could drive her over to the church. My grandma decided to come as well. So here I was driving around, one lady with a walker and the other rolling around on a Knee-lee Wheel-lee. We were quite the sight when we arrived. It was fun though, they had chili and hot dogs to eat before and we had fun seeing all the kids dressed up.

When it got dark the Trunk n Treating started, that's when Mom and Grandma began to get tired. As we headed back to the car we saw the full moon rising. It was pretty cool looking. This picture doesn't do it justice.

Then on Thursday my ward's Relief Society was having a "Witches Tea Party". Everyone got to dress up as witches and we had dinner, then a game and Sister Cooper, our Bishop's wife, read us a monster bed time story. It was a lot of fun. And I looked pretty good as a witch.

 

Sister Cooper

The Bishopic and some of the men in the ward did the dishes

Then Halloween rolled around and I thought I had bought enough candy....I was wrong. Around 5:30pm I parked out in my front room, a room that is very under used by the way, and waited for the door bell to ring. And it did. Almost continuously. We ran out of candy in about an hour....I had to turn the lights off. But the kids kept knocking. Kind of scared grandma a little. 

Doug and I were heading out to a Single Adult dance at our church later that night. So I went and got dressed up. I decided to wear my mom's Kimono and went as a China Doll. Doug wore his Chinese jacket and sprayed his hair red.

 

The dance was fun and it was good to get out for Halloween. So getting to dress up twice and eat candy hang with friends. It was fun.