. weekend away .

Mom and I were lucky to have a weekend getaway to Seattle this past weekend. We needed the escape from reality and responsibility and drama.

This picture of Kamryn is from last week one night when she came over. This is her favorite face to make right now and I think it’s so funny! I got her a little talking teapot so we can have tea parties when she comes over. It’s pretty cute and so is she!

We met Kamryn and her gramma Karen on Saturday morning in Othello and caravanned with them to Seattle. We stopped in Ellensburg for an early lunch at Jenikka’s, a super cute coffee and sandwich shop. Thanks for introducing it to us, Karen!

From there, we headed over the mountain (bare and wet, thankfully!) and went straight to Fife High School to watch the All-State Volleyball games. Kate was chosen as the SCAC Coach of the Year last fall, so then was asked to coach the All-State game. That is such an honor and I’m so glad we were able to watch her! Two girls from CHS were on the All-State team that Kate coached, so that was exciting to watch Michelle and Brooke too! The last match was really close after the team finally found their groove, but ultimately lost the game 3-1.

Here’s Kate and her co-coach Josie from Ellensburg. They had a lot in common, so it was fun to coach together, Kate said.

After the game, we went to Mali Thai, a favorite of Brian and Megan’s, for dinner to celebrate Brian’s birthday. It was very yummy and fun to be with such great friends.

Kamryn (check out her cute Whitworth onesie!) chewed on a lime while we waited for our food. She wasn’t so sure about it, but kept going for it. She would make a sour face, but I never could get it a good picture of it!

Sunday morning, we enjoyed a breakfast at the hotel with the Baumann/Johnson’s then headed out for IKEA. We wandered around IKEA for two hours, inspecting everything! I found a new office chair for the craft room, so looking forward to breaking that in!

We separated from the Baumann/Johnson’s, who went on their way home, while we headed toward Des Moines to a quilt shop that Amy Wieseler told me about.

Carriage Country Quilts – it’s an old house and there are bolts of fabric EVERYWHERE! It was pretty overwhelming and the fabric was not really my style.

I had to take a picture of the bolts of fabric even in the bathroom!! Crazy!

Mom and I went back to South Center and went to Target, had a late lunch at The Cheesecake Factory, and went to Nordstrom. We were both ready to buy some shoes at Nordstrom, but were unimpressed with what they had to offer. Big bummer. We found a$3 movie theater and went to see “Country Strong,” which Mom hadn’t seen yet. Still as good the 2nd time for me!

This morning, we went to our favorite little stamp shop, Impress (I haven’t scrapped or stamped in months – yet still, I couldn’t resist buying some things. What is WRONG with me?!). We made plans with Kristiane to meet up with her, so we had a couple hours before it was time to meet her. We drove around the Capital Hill, Magnolia, and Ballard neighborhoods. We don’t know how we get ourselves into the situations we do, but we seem to always be directionally challenged and go in the opposite direction of the cute little neighborhood shops. Or, we end up in some residential neighborhood with super duper narrow streets with a Sears delivery truck already taking up 75% of the street. We are losers!

We drove and drove and drove around and were about to turn around to finally get on track to go where we were going to meet Kristiane – I looked around and said to Mom, “this looks like a college campus!” Well, what do you know…we literally stumbled upon Seattle Pacific University. Literally. We drove around campus a little bit – wish we could’ve had time to stop at the bookstore because I’m a sucker for college bookstores, but maybe next time. We were about to be late to see Kristiane!

We met Kristiane and Laurel at Kristiane’s friend’s house and got to spend a couple hours catching up! It was great to get to meet Laurel and snuggle her a little bit. I hadn’t seen Kristiane in about a year and a half, so it was a much needed visit! I’m so glad it worked out to see each other.

Mom and I headed home from there via downtown Seattle one more time. A trip to Seattle is not complete without a look at the Space Needle!

We felt like we had a real mini-vacay and feel ready to face the week ahead. It’s not going to be fun or easy, but we’ll get through it. Nothing a little kahlua can’t help along.

...last day in Vegas...

Lisa was up early and out the door to catch her flight. We were up and around earlier that we had been all week so we could check out on time. We had arranged for the Bell Desk to hold our luggage until we had to go to the airport. While we got that arranged, Mom took some pictures of the hotel...

This was the road we walked to the Strip.

Melissa's friends were coming in a various times on Friday to spend the weekend in Vegas - Nichole was the first to arrive.

My roommate from college, Andrea, had come on Thursday with some of her friends for the weekend, so we met up on Friday afternoon at the Venetian for lunch.

It was fun to catch up, even if it was just for a short time!

We went back to our hotel to grab our luggage and get to the airport. We said goodbye to Melissa and Nichole as they left to get to their new hotel on Fremont Street.

We made it through check in and security - LONG LINES!! - with enough time to grab Starbucks and do a little shopping. Grandma had lost her watch sometime during the day on Thursday, so we took her to Brighton to pick out a new watch. I told the salesgirls there that she needed a new watch because she'd pawned hers to gamble. She was so embarassed! :)

Mom ended up finding one too - so pretty!

We made it home safely...now resting up and regrouping to leave for Priest Lake this week! I love summer!!

...hello Thursday!...

Thursday morning, the girls spent some time at the pool and then we headed out for the day! We took a taxi to Caesar's Palace to check out the Forum Shops!

We went by the Coliseum where Cher performs (previously Celine Dion and Bette Midler have had long-running shows there). Some of her costumes were on display...

It was fun to window shop at stores like Tiffany & Co., Fendi, Michael Kors, Chanel, and Prada. It was also the day the new iPhone 4 came out - so among these high couture shops, there was a line of people a mile long in shorts and baseball camps with coolers sitting on camp chairs waiting for their new iPhone.

We stopped to eat at The Cheesecake Factory - but Mom & I had just been sucked into buying some Gelato along the way and so we didn't get any cheesecake. Bummer! (by the way, Bananas Foster Cheesecake mixed with Chocolate Peanut Butter is the best!)

We stopped to check out the Caesar's casino and watched some people play Roulette for a while. Melissa & Mom got up the nerve to put "10 on Black" and won! :)

We continued walking to the Bellagio, where were were just in time to wacth the fountains.

We walked through the Bellagio, I picked up our show tickets for that evening from Will Call, and we explored the beautiful lobby and gardens.

I took this picture for little ladybug, Kamryn!

Of course, we stopped by the chocolate fountain - again, didn't feel like Gelato because we'd just had some! Dang!

Melissa, Lisa, and I decided to head back to the hotel early while Grandma & Mom stayed in the casino.

Lisa packed for her early morning flight the next morning, I took a short nap, and then we got ready for our big night out!

We had decided from the very beginning that we were going to go to a show while we were there and decided on seeing Cirque du Soleil's "O" since we thought that's what Grandma would enjoy the most.

We got all dressed up...

went down to the lobby, and surprised Grandma with this and boy was she surprised!!

We only meant for a stretch limo, but there were none available, so we got a stretch Hummer! Crazy! It was huge - we probably could've fit our whole family in it!

Our limo driver took us to the "Welcome to Las Vegas" sign and took some pictures for us!

So fun!

We cruised down the strip and then we were dropped off at the Bellagio.

We went to dinner and then to "O"!

It was just as good as the first time - amazing! I think "O" is fantastic, but I was a little sad that we didn't get to see "Love" again. It is my favorite!

Back at the hotel after a fun evening!

...lucky wednesday...

We decided to get tickets for The Price Is Right on Wednesday. After spending some time by the pool on Wednesday morning (8am is the ONLY time I would sit by the pool in Vegas! The rest of the day, I'd have to be IN it!), I went down the street to stand in line for 1/2 price tickets.

We headed straight for Bally's to get registered for the show (which was at 2:30pm). We got our official Price is Right nametags:

and our official Price is Right picture. (not a great picture of ANY of us! We were still laughing/in shock that the lady in line in front of us fell into the green screen!)

While we were waiting, Grandma played the big big big slot machine...and of course, won $60!

Here we are! Ready to go into the theater!

I was excited to go to the show, but not to excited about the possibility of being randomly drawn to go on stage! There weren't that many people in the theater, so the possibility was fairly great.

I even suggested that we all give our nametags to Melissa in case one of us called since she wanted to go SO BAD.

Imagine my surprise when my name was the 4th name called for the first group on Contestant Row! The item up for bids was a silver boombox/CD player. I did some quick math in my head (the price I thought it was, jacked up a percentage, but then lowered the price so I wouldn't go over) - I bid $160. The actual retail price was $175 - I was closest to the actual retail price without going over!

I went up on stage and small talked with the host. I proudly said I was from Connell, Washington - the host was asking about that "great Italian restaurant there" - to which I replied, "there is none!" We went back and forth like that a few times until the next pricing game was finally ready.

The pricing game I had to play was the one where there are four items and four price tags - you have to match the correct price tags with each item and run back to pull the lever to see how many are correct - in 45 seconds.

My items were a cheap elliptical machine, a bassinette, a snow blower, and a side table that held wine glasses and bottles. The lowest price tag was around $117 and the most expensive was around $507. I put the most expensive price tag on the snow blower and the cheapest one on the bassinette - and the two in between price tags on the other items. I ran back and pulled the lever - 0 right. I was confused then and down to 15 seconds, so I quickly tried to rearrange them, went back and pulled the lever right when the time was up and got 0 right again. How disappointing. I really thought I put them in the correct order the first time, but part of me didn't care too much because I didn't want to win any of those items! Come to find out later, the prizes can be cashed in! DANG!

So - game over - back to my seat. They played a few more pricing games and then it was time to spin the big wheel. They randomly drew names for people to spin the wheel so more people got an opportunity.

And....Lisa's name got called!! The first person spun and went over $1.00. The second person got $.40 so Lisa had a really good chance of winning. On her first spin, she landed on a $1.00! She ended up winning $350!

Lisa and I with our big winnings!

We were ready for a late lunch by then, so we went to Harrah's to Toby Keith's Bar and Grill - Melissa had been there before and really liked it, so she wanted to take us there. It was a fun atmosphere and the food was delicious!

We rode the monorail from Harrah's to the MGM because we wanted to see the lions there. Of course, we were 10-15 minutes LATE!

We took the skywalk to New York, New York...

We went to the Dueling Piano Bar there - so fun! The piano players were great and it was fun to people watch there!

Lisa immediately spotted this girl when she walked in - her name is Gina Glocksen and she was on American Idol, Season 6. She finished in 9th place behind Jordin Sparks. She sang "Don't Stop Believin'" that night - it was awesome. She rocked the house!

Another great day in Vegas...to bed so we can enjoy our last full day!