Recap of March

A lot has happened in the last few months, I haven't found the time to sit down and work on my blog. So here I am in May working on the happenings for March.

The month began with one of my friend's birthdays. She has a fear of heights and wanted to overcome some of it so she invited her friends to join her on a ride around the High Roller. The High Roller is a huge observation wheel down on the Strip. Locals get on for half price so it was worth a trip. I rarely go down to the Strip so it was nice to have a fun reason to. Here are some pictures:

 

 

 

Me and Doug

The Gang

After the ride we had ice cream at the Ghirardelli chocolate shop down the street....yummy...

 

Following our adventure on the High Roller, St. Patrick's Day fast approached. Not only is March 17th that fun green holiday it is also the day I returned from my mission...its been 5 years. I can't believe it. As become tradition I made my Irish Apple Cake to celebrate the day...I think I get better and better at making it each year.

I was even successful in making the custard this year. Yay me!

Spring time also came to the desert, I had fun taking some pictures of the flowers:

The wind knocked all my plum blossoms off.

 

I saw some critters on my evening walks. A rat and a Raven eating a rat...fun times:

 

Then one Sunday, my father asked if I would be his co-pilot driving to California for a cousin's baby blessing. So I found myself in my dad's Porsche taking a one day road trip. Three hours there....hour visiting....and three hours back home. It was a long day.

They were happy we came.

Crazy Smog in Cali

Traffic  leaving Vages

Then it was Easter! We colored eggs using our cool rice trick and I even got a Easter basket. And there is always time to play with bunny ears:

 

 

....and on to April.

Birthday 2016

This year my birthday was pretty low key. Since I had just gone up to Utah, I wasn't planning on making another trip so soon. So I stayed home. My birthday fell on a Saturday, which made it nice. The Friday before my birthday, my co-workers decorated my cubicle and brought in beagles. They are so sweet.

Then on my birthday, my parents and I went to the Mob Museum downtown. We had been wanting to check it out since it opened a few years ago. It was pretty cool...and in a lot of ways pretty depressing. The life of a Mobster isn't the greatest. The Museum was built in the old courthouse where a lot of the Vegas mobsters were tried. Here are some pictures I got.

 

Actual wall from the Valentine's Day Massacre

 

After the museum we had lunch at Bachi Burgers....soooo yummy....and then went and saw a movie. Afterwards we went home and had my birthday dinner. This year I was feeling nostalgic and wanted to eat some Hawaiian food. There is a great Hawaiian BBQ diner just a few blocks from us so we called in an order. When my parents went to pick it up the diner threw in some Hawaiian donuts...I was thrilled.

I requested Angel Food Cake for my birthday cake...its my favorite. So mom cut me a slice and put one of the donuts on a plate with two candles. It was fun.

 

About this time I got a FaceTime with my little kiddos and brother and sister-in-law up in Seattle. They watched me open my presents:

 

It was a fun birthday. Another year older....sigh....

Getting a New Nephew

Before our trip to Utah, Mike and Nicole had gotten an ultrasound to see what their new baby would be. But they wanted to find out in a creative way so they had the nurse seal the gender picture in an envelope and gave it to me. They asked me to make a cupcake that had either blue or pink frosting filling, and they were then going to have Dan eat it.

I hid the envelope until we got back from our trip and then on Sunday I made the cupcakes and opened the envelope.

 

 

IT'S A BOY!

We weren't that surprised its going to be a boy...I was hoping for a girl. But in this family there are a lot of boys...oh well we love our boys. Can't wait to meet the little guy.

Utah Trip - Provo City Center Temple Open House

A few weeks ago I got to take a trip up to Utah to visit with my cousin Kaytie's family and go and see then new Provo City Center Temple open house. Mom, Doug and I drove up on a Thursday. We knew it was much colder up north so we made sure to pack snow clothes. Around Cedar City and Beaver we hit snow. All the roads were clear but it was pretty cool seeing snow again.

We were making really good time and expected to make it to Kaytie and Jared's around dinner time but as we were passing Payson,UT our car blew a tire....luckily it was right before an exit that happened to have a Big-O tire place. So we limped up the off-ramp and into a parking lot. Big-O sent over a man to help us get the spare on and then had us drive to their shop where we got 4 new tires.

 

Once that was done, we got into Kaytie's about 8:00pm. Her kids were in bed already. We stayed up chatting and catching up. Then went to bed.

On Friday, Mike and Nicole with little Dan came over to Kaytie's in the morning. They were also up in Utah visiting her family. Dan got to play with Kaytie's kiddos and then Kaytie's husband Jared offered to watch the little ones and Dan while the rest of us went to the Temple open house.

 

Downtown Provo was a little crazy but we were lucky to find some parking really close to the Temple. While I was on my mission in Utah the Provo City Tabernacle burned down. I was so sad because I had always thought it was a really cool looking building.

Provo Tabernacle December 2010 - Just after fire

The following spring at General Conference, Pres Monson announced that it would be converted into a Temple. I was sooooooooo excited. So I was thrilled Kaytie was able to get us tickets to the open house. Here are some pictures we got. We weren't allowed to take pictures inside but the outside was just as cool.

 

Kaytie and her two older girls

 

After the tour we drove to the Brick Oven Pizza place and got lunch then went up and walked around BYU campus. I got a new sweatshirt. Then we met up with Jared and the little ones at the BYU creamery on campus. Getting ice cream and brownies...yum yum.

Then we headed back to Kaytie's to relax. Mike and Nicole left to go meet up with her family and the rest of us had Thai take-out for dinner.

On Saturday, we had lunch with some of Mom's long lost cousins. Her mother died when she was born so she never got to know her cousin on her mother's side. In the last few years they have been meeting up with my mom it's been kind of neat. My Uncle Dave was in town so they got together to meet him for the first time.

Yeah...I can see a resemblance.

For the rest of the day we just relaxed...that night I took Kaytie and Jared out to the movies as kind of a thank you for getting Open House tickets and mostly for Jared being the baby-sitter all weekend. We saw "The Finest Hours." It was a great movie...I highly recommend it.

Then we headed home on Sunday. Stopping in St. George to see Uncle Dave one more time. It was a wonderful trip. The Provo City Center Temple is very very pretty and I hope to go back and see it again when it is dedicated and open.