Book Club

I am involved with the best Book Club ever! We have such a good time. We decided for the month of December to forgo reading a book entirely and just go straight to the party! Evan, our token guy, was kind enough to host the party at his house. A fab dinner was made, beverages were consumed and gifts were opened. Sadly, two of our members were sick and unable to make it. Any of you in the Las Vegas/Henderson area are more than welcome to join us. We are always looking for more members. Good times...

HO HO HOlidays...

I can't believe it's been two months since I last posted. I think I have phased out a bit because you all reading this are probably friends with me on Facebook...redundant huh?  However, a certain someone has been giving me grief about my lack of posting.
So Thanksgiving has come and gone and it was a blast being able to go back to Seattle this year and spend it with family. It was our first holiday back since moving to Las Vegas three years ago. I don't know if we will do it every year, but we will make an effort. Holiday traveling sucks though as we had to divert to Portland on the way down because of fog. We refueled and flew back to Seattle tacking on an extra hour and a half. On the way home Southwest Air didn't transfer our luggage from our stop in San Jose. We went home that night without our bags. Luckily, it wasn't lost and we had the option the next day of picking it up at the airport and getting a travel voucher or having them deliver it within a 6 hour time frame. Since we only live 15 minutes from the airport we chose to pick up our luggage and get the travel voucher.
Last year I bought a fake Christmas tree so I have already put it up and decorated the house. Enjoy the picture of Mack under the tree. That has been his favorite hang-out spot lately.

Pahrump Fall Festival

The Pahrump Fall Festival was...interesting to say the least. The phrase "rode hard and put away wet" kept coming to mind when I was people watching...

Did you know prostitution is legal in Pahrump? Oh, also smoking anywhere outside and drinking. I have never been to a carnival with so much cigarette smoke. My two choices for alcohol were Bud and Bud light so needless to say it was a alcohol free evening. My friend, Nannette was a working at a booth promoting dog food so we went to hang out with her and baby Henry. I'm glad I went to experience the "culture" on the other side of the mountains.

PS. I fit right in with my tattoo.

RENO!!

When I get the chance to meet my blogger friends in "real" life, I jump on it. Alan wanted to go to the Reno Air Races and meet up with his friend, Don from Alaska. I thought that was the perfect opportunity to meet Martini Molly!

We decided to make a road trip of it (8 hour drive from Vegas) and took Tug and Mack with us. We hit the road Friday morning for a long 4 day weekend.

Alan and I met up with Molly on Saturday and took a drive to North Lake Tahoe. What an awesome place!

Martini Molly & Shelly

Alan "King of the Rocks"

Later that day when we headed back to Molly's house she made us her famous martinis! Chai-tini and Godiva white chocolate martini were on the menu. Oh so good! It was a great weekend get-away hanging out with friends and I can't wait to see Molly and her son, Ned again!!

Why yes, a bachelor does live here...why do you ask?

Our friend, Chuck's casa on the first Sunday football game of the season. I think he has it covered.

New addition to the family.

His name is Whisper, but we renamed him Mack. He is a 10 year old, chubby, deaf Boston Terrier, but sweet as can be. His people needed to re-home him because of their situation. We weren't looking for another dog--we still really miss Willy, but felt like this was the right thing to do. He has lived with us for four days and we are all adjusting. First order is to get some weight off of him.

Tug

Tug LOVES his new toy...

Lake Mead!

Alan and I have lived in Las Vegas almost three years and we had never gone out on Lake Mead. Our friend, Kurt was nice enough to take us out on his boat.

Hoover Dam

Kurt & Shelly

Pretty sad how low the water level has gone down the last several years.

Alan

Sammy loves his boat rides!

Here is a picture of Sammy with a HUGE rock in his mouth. He paced up and down the beach with that rock for about 10 minutes.

It was a fun day but not a very successful ending. I thought I was being good and drinking enough water (even stayed away from the beer), but I ended up getting really dehydrated and had to go to the emergency room for a couple of IV bags. Alan said it was the most expensive bottle service of the night. Thinking about it later I think the reason I got sick and the boys didn't was because they kept jumping into the lake and swimming. I only did it a couple of times. It was to hard to haul my lard ass into the boat!  :~)  Lesson learned...

Baby Henry

My friend, Nannette had baby Henry when I was out of town in San Diego so I didn't get to see the little fella until he was a week old. So cute!

Here I am feeding and burping him. Yes, I'm a natural with kids. Who knew?

Better late than never...

I haven't posted in over a month--haven't been that motivated although there has been a lot going on! The girls and I all got together in San Diego. Melissa and Yolanda live there and were gracious enough to host all of us for an awesome weekend. The pictures below are in random order and I can say with 100% certainty that the weekend was a success! Can't wait to see them all again!

Melissa, Yolanda, & Katy

Yolanda, Shelly & Melissa

Since San Diego is a Navy town needed to take a picture of a big ship!

View of downtown San Diego from our hotel.

Katy being disrespectful to her stepmother.

Yolanda, Christy & Melissa trying to decide what to eat.

Yolanda, Christy & Melissa waiting for some adult beverages.

The view from our hotel room.

Pretty flowers at Mel & Yo's place.

The pool where we had fun drinking adult beverages and whoring it up!

Yes, I got a tattoo. Melissa's friend, Kurt's a tatt guy and he did an awesome job. I love my tattoo!

Woof woof!

Kevin...

Or Becker as I like to call him...came to Las Vegas with his boss for a couple of days. Becker and I go waaaayyy back. Back to our years of working in the deli together in the 90's, and we have been friends ever since. He now lives in Palm Springs and we love to compare notes on the weather and how much we love the desert life and do not miss Seattle. We don't see each other nearly enough but have managed to keep in touch all of these years. Alan and I were talking just the other day about how a road trip to Palm Springs is in order this fall. Can hardly wait.

Two very catty biachtes with the same sarcastic sense of humor.

Provo, Utah

I spent last week in Utah. I flew down on Saturday afternoon and stayed with my family in Roy until Sunday. Jake and family drove me to Provo to my hotel. I was there for four days of software training. While I learned a lot of what I needed to for my job I'm not going to write about that. How boring! However, the highlight of the week was making two new friends, Dawn from New Jersey, and Scott from Texas. The three of us hung out together from the first day of training until they dropped me off at the airport on Thursday night. We tore up the town in Provo, and did manage to get in a little bit of nature during our attempts to find alcohol. The proof is below...

Provo Canyon--the green and cooler temps were a nice change from Vegas.

Provo River

Here is Bridal Veil Falls in Provo Canyon. Pictures don't do it justice.

Scott and Dawn were a blast to hang out with. We had a lot of laughs!