Las Vegas Blvd.
Okay, this is try #2. I had typed the whole thing and somehow deleted it by accident and couldn’t get it back.
Yesterday, Ryan and I spent the afternoon on the “strip”. We had a great time walking around, ignoring the guys trying to sale shows and hookers. Walked through a few casinos to see what was so special about them. Our biggest purchase was at M&M World. We bought a little M&M onesy. Ryan had to have yellow since its his favorite M&M character. We also bought a red hat to go with it so that the poor kid is in Iowa State colors.
We saw a few exhibits while we were there too. We watched the trainers try to sway 3 lionesses to get up and play around. They were laying on the glass tunnel that you can walk underneath. It was cool to see and very cute when the lioness did bat at and play a little with the trainer. We also saw 2 cubs that were just adorable. One woke up and went and started pestering the other to wake it up. It was so cute! We also saw a white tiger laying around too. It was pretty but the habitat wasn’t as nice and the lions were better. At the Flamingo (an older and more historic hotel), we saw African penguins, pink flamingos as well as various ducks, swans, turtles and fish. It was our favorite exhibit to see because there wasn’t a thick piece of glass separating us from everything. It also had fountains and waterfalls throughout.
We walked around the strip for 8 hours yesterday. My calves and feet were killing me!!!! We had ice-cream at Ben & Jerry’s, supper at Planet Hollywood and other fun stuff. It was nice to hang out with my honey and snap a few pictures. At the end, we watched the fountains at the Bellagio – yes, it is a must see. By then we were so tired that we only watched one of the shows.

Homeward Bound
This morning we awoke to our hotel bill – always a scary thought. Had breakfast and now its time to pack to head home. Woo hoo! Las Vegas is an interesting and fabulous city with lots to do but home is where my heart is! We get home late tonight, I have the weekend home and then I’m back on travel Monday through Wednesday for work.

Happy Birthday Mom!!!

Another wonderful day in Vegas. It was gorgeous out this morning when I left my room for breakfast. I stayed in bed while my honey was up, ready and gone this morning for the conference. We all met at 11:00am for lunch. Had some good Chinese food and went to the exhibit hall. I snuck in as Capt. Mike Hansen from Ft. Riley, Kansas. Ryan and I walked passed EVERY single booth in there. It took almost 5 hours including the stops we made along the way. Holy cow, my feet are tired!!! Had 2 interesting moments of the day, at the CVM (Christian Vet Mission) booth we met a veterinarian who's been in Mongolia serving where Ryan has been several times. So, that was fun for the two of them to reminisce and talk about people they both knew across the world. It was cool. We also ran into Cameron Aguiar, a guy I was in dairy club with and showed cattle with at Fresno State. He's now working for Fort Dodge (animal health). It always amazes me how small our world can seem.

I'm back at the hotel for an hour before I head back to the conference. Ryan is still there getting educated. There's a CVM presentation tonight that I'm heading over for since Ryan has been involved with CVM and we support them. When he's done tonight, we'll meet up at the CVM talk. And by then, a whole day will be gone.

Things are going well here. We had supper with mike and Marla last night, it was good to see them again and I'm glad Ryan has a buddy here. I don't quite click with marla - she just seems stand-offish to me. This morning, we all met at the conference early. marla signed up for the spouses program because she wants the free breakfasts and would also like to do the cooking thing and the shopping trip. I'm not interested in that, I get free breakfast here, don't care to cook fancy foods and can't see paying to go shopping. So, we chatted for about an hour and went our seperate ways. I'm wasn't sure what to expect as far as spending time with her or not. But it sounds like it will be minimal at most. Likely in the evenings when the guys haven't had enough hanging out yet.

Its raining here so I don't think I'll be out playing basketball today but I'm looking forward to catching up on some reading and another morning of lounging. We're all meeting at noon for lunch. Tonight is the Iowa State alumni dinner thing so that will be interesting.

Highlight of the day (so far): came back in the hotel a few minutes ago and went into the breakfast area to grab some apple juice. walked back around the corner to see a bunch of EMT's attending to some guy. Earlier this AM, a guy fell on the slick wet rock outside. I figured the same thing happened. So, I sat down to read the paper and drink my juice - of course I positioned myself to hear the EMT's. The guy started pulling off his socks and shoes and I could see a huge blister on his foot. I thought that was wierd for a fall but it is Vegas. Anyway, as I perused the visitor's guide section, I heard the man say that he'd been walking and when questioned about it, he said he'd been walking since 3pm yesterday. Non-stop, he walked for 17.5 hours. That's a lot of walking! They put him on a stretcher and hauled him off to the hospital. Kinda random but this is Las Vegas and I could just see a CSI story looming in the background.

On other news...
we got the whole baby sex thing figured out and life has continued for us B's. Like I said, we're in Vegas and it was quite the trip. I forgot to buy a water before we left which I desperately need. Our flight was delayed about an hour leaving Iowa. Things were delayed in Vegas because of the rain. The rain here means only one runway to receive planes and each plane had to have a 5 mile radius in the air which really clogs up the system. But, we finally got off the ground in our very cramped Allegiant Air seats. It was a 3 hour direct flight (nice) BUT they didn't have complimentary beverages. Wow, never experienced that before and I was quite dissapointed since I had forgot my water! I was so uncomfy on the plane - not sure if it was because I'm prego, it was way past my bed time or just the cramped seats. Anyway, we got to Vegas and after circling the outskirts of the city for a while, finally landed and taxied in. It was so packed and clogged up there, even for Vegas, it was wild! We stood in line for about an hour for a taxi; it felt like I was in line for a ride at Disneyland. But, we eventually got a kind taxi dude who brought us to our hotel.
Then, we come in and they have us checking in Saturday (it was still Friday night). Ryan had tried to change the reservations after we bought airline tickets but they didn't have anything. So instead, he changed our arrival time to 12:00 am. Yeah, I had prewarned him that I would be ticked beyond belief if we had to wait in the lobby till we could check in on Saturday. The guy at the desk was kind and something had since opened up so we got a room. We got to our room at about 2:00am or after. Of course I was exhausted but Ryan had got his second wind. We were up at a decent time this morning and went to breakfast. Came back to our room and I laid down on the couch and went to sleep for a few hours. We have yet to venture down to the strip area yet. Thought we'd just hang out today and take it lightly. We played a little basketball in the rain and have ordered in some italian for supper. I just talked to Tebbe on the phone. She left me a message that her and Andy were coming down to stay with us for the weekend but I'm a slacker and just now checked my messages. I'm kicking myself for not checking it earlier! I wanted to see them but its not going to work out since its already Saturday evening. Okay, back to my lounging around. Tomorrow will be a big day, my 25th birthday! Woo hoo!

Ah, that reminds me (the woo hoo part), I talked to my nephew and sister yesterday. Kaleb said he wants me to have a girl and not a boy so that he can play with her. I asked him what he thought about names and he said "ashley". that won't work for our little B. My father-in-law suggested Mark II. That won't work either. Any other suggestions???

So, we're in Vegas and finally are getting settled in here. First things first though... IT'S A BOY!!!! I'm so excited (I just can't hide it...). Our ultrasound dude wasn't all that exciting - kinda like working with a pineapple. He didn't say or show us a whole lot but it was fun watching the screen as his worked. It took a half hour total and it was so uncomfy laying on that table. Not so much fun but we're having a boy, woo hoo!

Yay, its the end of my workday and work week. Its been a long and hectic day at the office. We received training on some new programs. I learned one little short cut and eventually decided that I didn't need the training. But, at least I made it through the work day. Yesterday I went home sick before lunch. Stomach cramps and feeling yucky; it was so nice to go to mom's and lay on the couch. She fixed oakie stew for lunch and then I had fried fish for supper with them before going home. Also watched the movie Notebook. Its really cute. On my way home, I picked up my JV kids. After JV was over, I went to bed way early. So, the week has gone fast, I haven't been home at all. And I have a wonderful friend, Renessa, who came and cleaned my downstairs since I had been sick with strep throat for 4 days and still feel like a weenie. Tonight, I have a long TO DO LIST. We'll see how much gets done - I'm hoping to make it to a new bible study that starts tonight and goes for 6 weeks. Tomorrow will be a full day with packing, laundry and hopefully finding out if we're having a boy or a girl. I'm so excited.

That said, I'm also excited in general about parenting and really want to pursue adoption right now even though we'll have our own little one in July. I even had a dream about it last night. We adopted brothers (twins if I remember right). They were young and oh so cute. I so want to adopt and love some little ones who would otherwise not receive that love. The dream was so real and I layed in bed awake for 2 hours this morning thinking about it before the alarm went off. Ah, the joys of dreams and daydreams.

Tomorrow by noon, I hope to have a reason to update my blog on the sex of our baby. Best wishes for us that we don't have a shy baby tomorrow during the ultrasound.

Wow, its Monday and I'm still exhausted and have a headache. It's been one wild weekend but not my normal wild. I went home an hour early Wednesday with a cold. Dealt with my conference call at my mom's, ate supper and went home to bed. Yup, I was in bed and asleep shortly after 6pm. I slept all day Thursday too. Its amazing how much sleep our bodies need when we're sick. My doctor suggested that I visit him Friday if I wasn't feeling better so mom took me there first thing Friday morning. My cold had turned ugly. Any time I get a cold, I end up with a sore throat and ear-ache. That happened by Friday morning and Dr. Miller put me on antibiotics for strep throat. Isn't that fun! The cold was eventually going to happen since EVERYONE here has it but the strep throat was an added bonus. Saturday too was a day full of sleeping (while my husband worked from 715am to 830pm) when my usual house cleaning occurs. The house is a pit and theCulligan guy is coming today and will see it that way. I hope he doesn't think someone broke in and ran sacked the place :)
Anyway, Sunday I made it to church. My honey was baptized. He'd been baptized before at a young age but this time wanted to re-affirm his faith with his own decision. That was cool. Baptists believe that you have to be immersed (that's the translation of baptism). Ryan joked that God wasn't a Baptist becuase He'd been sprinkling him all morning with rain. It was too cute and Pastor shared that with the church right before he was baptized which really embarrassed Ryan. Oh well. So, I made it through church although I didn't have the energy to stand and/or sing.
I'm excited for today. It's Valentine's Day and I have nothing special planned for the one I love. I've been sick plus we're headed to Vegas for a week this Friday so I figure we'll do plenty then. Friday morning my ultrasound is scheduled and Friday night we leave for Vegas. So, I'm hoping for a week full of healing and feeling better before we leave. Last year I was sick for V-day and my birthday so I'm hoping to feel better this year.
Gotta run. My boss is taking my appointments this morning to help my conserve my voice. I better get at it though :)

No near death experiences lately - woo hoo! We've had WARM weather, the snow for the most part gone. It's been in the 40's and even made it into the 50's. Yesterday we had rain all day. Not too bad though - sure beats ice. THis morning we woke up to about an inch of snow on the ground. It had cooled off to 22. That also means that the rain and melted snow had since frozen on the roads. Ryan warned me before I left this AM that the roads weren't cleared. I stayed home a few extra hours and read some and took a nap. Oh, so nice and needed!
The super bowl party was fun and exhausting yesterday. Who cares about the teams, we wanted a good game and that was reason enough for the party. There were 17 people at our house, lots of noise, lots of food and a little drama. Just before the game, Ryan and Renessa's little boy (Caleb 1 year old) pulled a slow cooker of chicken wings off the table. He stayed safe though and just got a little sauce on his new shoes and pants. Good thing he was safe. It was a fun mess to clean up just before we ate and left a charming "Swiffer" smell in the dining room. Yay for wood floors! I'm just glad my little buddy pulled that over instead of the little smokies and the chili beans that were on either side of it!
I wasn't overly impressed with the commercials this year. A few good ones. My favorites were the one where the daughter catches his daughter who snuck out and didn't care so long as she gave his car back. The other favorite of course was the commercial where the military folks were walking through the airport and everyone was clapping. Good stuff.
It's Monday and at this time next week I should have an appointment for an ultrasound. Will it be a boy or a girl???