Update Too!

Vegas continued to be a great trip. The next day we geocached a bit more, this time on the north end of the strip. We also did something new, something we should have been doing for years – had our nails done! This was the greatest girliest thing ever! Look at our pretty nails!



Susan had never had solar nails before and we found a very nice place. I had gel polish done with sparkles and black tips. The gel polish is a brand new thing that lasts a month! At this point I have had it on two weeks and it still looks great! Here is another cache that we found, it was quite a walk off the strip but it was a great one to find.



The last night was Cher’s last show. It was so bittersweet. The show was fantastic and we had awesome seats, but it was so hard to tell all of our friends good bye. Here are some of my favorites – no explanation needed.






When I got home, Brass was very glad to see me!


I got to hang out with an elephant gun.



I had the privilege of attending my nephew’s 8th birthday. Here is me with far away family.


AND I got to hang out even more with my best friend!


This sums up a large part of our relationship!

This past few days of updating was pretty fun! I hope to blog more this year - and also floss more.

UPDATE - Part Duex

The beginning of 2011 brought many cold and interesting days. We actually saw some snow.



But more than snow, we had record breaking cold temperatures. I dressed in layers and had the mascara freeze on my lashes!



I geocached a ton, finding more caches in January then I have in another month. YAY ME! And I also started going to the gym much more. In my first step class I pulled my left calf muscle and could hardly walk for a week. Here is the calf all taped up with KT tape.



Notice Brass here and his handsome face. This is before he got in a fight at work. (Another interesting event to start off February) After the fight is pictured here. Many stitches, antibiotics, and eye drops later, he is fine! The stitches came out today!


He has a great cosmetic surgeon!

Right after this happened I headed out to Las Vegas. I met Susan out there and the trip was just amazing! We went to see Cher’s final shows and had a great time. I had to change my flight because of weather and was able to get there SO much earlier! It was a relief to arrive safe and sound. I was so happy to see Susan and I think she was pretty glad to see me too! We hung out in the room for a while squealing like little girls and exchanging gifts.

After a great night was had by all, we got up early Thursday and grabbed breakfast at McDonalds. We grabbed the bus and checked into the Flamingo Hotel. I loved this hotel! It smells good and everything is PINK!! Whoop! We got In N Out Burger for lunch which we LOVE!!



We are so sad when it’s gone!



This day we geocached our way thru the strip. We have found many caches here before, so it was fun to try and find some we had not found in the past. I had a few trackables to drop and we were able to do that! All three have been picked up by good cachers and will be moved on! I also picked up this cool one from Colorado!



TO BE CONTINUED!
More Vegas to come!

UPDATE - Finally (part one)

While writing this post I had every intention of it being one large update blog. Well it seems that it is just too much for one post, so I will break it up and post the rest in the next few days. So stay tuned!

Hi all, well it has been quite a busy few months for me. I thought I would just make a nice huge blog to update everyone and hit on a few major events. The holiday started off with a bang at thanksgiving. Our whole family was able to be together for the first time in 7 years and that was a blast! It’s always fun seeing the kids and with Thanksgiving being one of my favorite holidays it made it even sweeter. December started out with a whirlwind trip to London. It started out as a trip to see a Meat Loaf concert and turned into hanging out with friends, going to a movie premiere and seeing Cher! (as well as an unforgettable night in Sheffield)



I flew in to London early Saturday morning, got picked up by Jazz, her mom and Susan at the airport. They ran us to the bus station where Susan and I grabbed a 5 hour ride up to Sheffield. We took walked to the hotel and grabbed a tram to the concert. After the show we got to meet Paul Crook and of course see our friend Patti Russo! It was so great to see them and the night was truly unforgettable.




The next morning we grabbed the bus back to London and spent the afternoon seeing the sights.


Westminster Abbey


Big Ben by night

Monday was spent hanging out and waiting for the Red Pink carpet premiere of Burlesque.





Well the wait was worth it because Cher came by twice and even signed my book.



From there we RAN to the Graham Norton show because we had tickets to that nights taping – with special guest CHER! We made it just in time and happened to bump into the right person who let us in! After three unbelievable days in London I was on my way back to real life.

As soon as I got home I had to get ready for my birthday weekend! That Saturday I turned 31 and truly had an amazing birthday.


Birthday Picture!

I had a group of ladies over for lunch and mom and I shopped and ran errands and got Starbucks and just did anything I wanted to for my day! Mom even surprised me with a cake, which I LOVED by the way!




Birthday picture with My Boy!

Christmas came next and with that came the far away family again! Because they had missed my birthday they brought my gift a bit late. Well what a fun surprise! They hid three caches in honor of me and Cher! I had to find them and then we had them logged permanently into the system for other people to find. Christmas came a few days later and it was, as always, great to see everyone open their gifts. We had some big and small surprises including a new train for me from my dad. My gift to everyone was matching pajamas!



Ok I will stop here for today before your eyes start bleeding from all these pictures you are overwhelmed with this huge post! More to come!!

Flashback Friday

So my sister has been having a rough time lately, so I thought I would post some of my favorite childhood pictures of us. You mean the world to me babe!

New Hobby!

Ok, so I have a new hobby. Have you ever heard of Geocaching? Its official website defines it like this: “Geocaching is a high-tech treasure hunting game played throughout the world by adventure seekers equipped with GPS devices. The basic idea is to locate hidden containers, called geocaches, outdoors and then share your experiences online. Geocaching is enjoyed by people from all age groups, with a strong sense of community and support for the environment.” But I define it as FUN and do you want to know the best part? Its free! All you have to do is to have a GPS and a sense of adventure. Just yesterday I grabbed three caches out running errands.

This was a fun find with Engineer’s Falcon and family!


Is this making since? You basically can geocache two ways. First you can get on geocaching.com and find caches (containers big enough for at least a log) near you, then you put the lat and long into your gps and you are off! Or you can, like me, use an app downloaded to your smart phone. The app uses gps to again locate caches and guide you to them.

Here is an example of one that I found up in a tree - can you see it?


I have been to Vegas many times, but the last time I was there I decided (with Best Friend) to geocache! We not only had a fantastic time, we were taken to many places we would have never seen had we not been caching!

I think this is my favorite find ever! Here we are down in a ditch near the Vegas airport. Helicopters and planes kept taking off all around us and there were warning signs everywhere! HA


OH! Did I mention geocaching can be dangerous?

Ok not really, but we followed a ‘mob history’ series that took us to some very interesting places!

Another very cool aspect of caching is trackables. If the container is large enough, many people will drop what is called a trackable inside. They can be coins, travel bugs, tags and I even found a POW MIA pin! If you choose to take the trackable, you log it and relog it when you drop it in another location. You can see everywhere it has been and how many miles it has traveled.

In Vegas I found my first trackable – a geocoin!

After logging it we found out that its goal was to go where all dreams come true. So we took it and dropped it in a cache at the entrance to Disneyland!

In closing – my dad and his first find!


Please let me know if you have any kind of questions about geocaching in the comments! I am more than happy to answer!

Dog Dog Turns 7 !

Hey all! Well I seem to be perfecting the 'update your blog once a month thing' and to all my loyal followers, sorry! I will try to be better. Anyway, my favorite dog in the whole world turned seven years old today and I wanted to do a little tribute to him. Here are some of my favorite pictures of Brass throughout the years and some new ones of his birthday this year, so enjoy!

Baby Brass



Snow Nose


Spring Chicken


My Favorite Nap Place


I will NOT sit


Oh HI!


I know now not to run in the street


Birthday 2009


Birthday 2010




Here's to another decade, I love you sweet boy!