A Mystere-ious Weekend

So I have failed at blogging our lives for the last few months. Instead of backtracking I will just continue on. This weekend we had our first house guests since moving to Vegas, my parents! They were able to find some cheap airline tickets for Valentine's weekend and decided to come on down.

We had a great time and did a lot of things we have been wanting to do since moving here. Before moving to Vegas, Brandon and I really had never spent time here. It was great because this weekend we got to play tourists. On Saturday we went to New York New York and rode the roller coaster twice (second time is free for locals!). We went to the M&M and Coke factory. We had a good time at the Coke factory. We tried the 18 sodas from around the world. Beware of the drink called Beverly! I can't remember where it was from, but wow it was nasty. The M&M factory was crazy busy. There were so many little kids everywhere. I am sure I stepped on a few before we left. And...I was disappointed because $12 a lbs for M&M's is pretty steep, even if you can get every color in the rainbow. It was fun to look around though. We walked around the MGM and went out to dinner.

On Sunday, we went to church and decided to go to Red Rock for a nature walk. It was so freezing!!! We didn't last very long. We walked up to a little waterfall that had ice everywhere, saw some petroglyphs, and walked around on some rocks.






On Monday the girls went shopping while the boys went and saw a movie. Later on in the day we got together and toured the Bellagio. We watched the water show in the rain. We then went to Maggiano's and had the family style dinner, tasty! Later we saw Mystere at Treasure Island. Our seats were awesome. We were sitting practically on the stage. I have never been to a professional show and been that close. We could see all the costumes and make-up very well. The fog machine did tend to be a little much at times though. My favorite act was there were two strong men that were on a rotating stage. They lifted eachother and did just some of the craziest things. It didn't hurt that they had amazing bodies either.


The weekend went to fast, but we had a great time! Parentals it is too bad that you were here during one of our coldest grayest weekends we've had. Of course this weekend is supposed to be sunny and 65 or above. Can't win them all I suppose. Brandon's parents are coming this weekend for Brandon's white coat ceremony for dental school. We can't wait to have the fun continue!

Shark Attack

The last three weeks have been somewhat uneventful. It feels like Brandon has had 3 tests a week and I have had at least 1 test a week. So our lives have been full of studying.

I will mention, however, I got to dissect a shark in Biology class. I thought that was pretty awesome. It took 3 dissecting trays to hold it. If you want to know, sharks are mainly liver, stomach and an intestine. Those three things really are what make up most of the shark. The brain was the size of a peanut and the heart was about the size of 2 peanuts. My teacher said that is why people don't eat shark meat, because the meat tastes like urine due to the size of the liver. Interesting! The class has a bucket of animals and everyone just put their hand in and grabbed one. There were birds, turtles, rats, eels, and who knows what else. It was an interesting lab because we pretty much were just told to have at it.

Pictures of actual shark that I dissected:

In my chemistry class the next day, my teacher gave us a 15 min break. As soon as she did, some girl stood up in the front of class and announced that she was tired of some other girls in the class talking smack about her (she went on and on). Before long, this class of mainly girls was having a full on fight. The teacher stood there not knowing what to do. This event was entertaining and I will have to say made me feel like I was high school all over again. This is my school experience in a nut shell so far.

In between studying we have managed to have some fun. We have taken up tennis. Our friends and neighbors, Brian and Heidi, took us to play one weekend. I have never really played, except for on the Wii :) Which, I argue, does prepare you for the real thing. Brandon had to somewhat agree with me when he found out that I was not as bad as he expected me to be. Brandon and I went and bought a racket for me so it's pretty much official that I will be a tennis pro shortly.

Also, we went to the temple last night. The Las Vegas Temple is so gorgeous. The stained glass in the celestial room is amazing! We had a great time. We got out late and walked all around the grounds. You can see all of the lights of Vegas from temple hill. I was sad that I forgot my camera. Next time I will have to bring one.

This weekend we are preparing to go on our trip to Zion's next weekend. We are going on a repelling trip with Brandon's sister Cindy's family. I have never been, so we are going to try and find some hill to go practice on. We are very excited to go. This is part of Brandon's BD present. I told him I would be brave and try not to wimp out. We saw some pics of what we are going to be doing and it looks pretty amazing. Stay tuned until next post and I will tell you all about it.

Now my biggest news is that I finished my English online class yesterday! I finally finished it! This class has been hanging over my head for a year and 1/2. I have realized I do not have the discipline to be in an online class and will never attempt one again :) So, I officially have earned my BS from BYU and will graduate in December officially.

Viva Las Vegas

Vegas is good. We've been having a fun time exploring. So far we have made a few trips to the strip, eaten at some good restaurants (Maggiano's is our fav so far), went to a show by Danny Gans, and have been making lots of new friends with people in the ward and from the dental school! Here are a few pics of our happenings:



I got free tickets to the Danny Gans show! We took some of our new friends Josh and Hilary. I don't know if I have ever heard Brandon laugh so hard before!! The guy sang just like Rod Stewart, Jon Bon Jovi, Nat King Cole and Natalie Cole, Frank Sinatra, John Mayer and many more.

Our friends Becca and Matt took us around the strip. It was awesome to have a guided tour! We would have gotten lost for sure by ourselves. They knew where to park and how to get around. We got a raspberry chocolate gelato and watched the water show. So fun!!

The gardens at the Bellagio were amazing. They had made objects out of plants like trains, bears, etc. This picture doesn't do it justice. Kim if your reading this u should come and do this:)

I think this was inside Venetian? After awhile all the hotels mixed into one. This waterfall castle was the center of the escalator. Very fancy.

At church, Brandon was recently called to be Elders Quorum Secretary and I was called to be the Primary Secretary. I have been kind of scared of this calling because I haven't been in primary for 10 years and don't exactly know what I am doing. The other leaders are very nice, so I am sure I will be fine. My first Sunday I pretty much was the hallway monitor trying to convince one little boy that he didn't want to runaway to nursery and that primary was fun too.

I got a job!! I am now working for the Financial Aid center at school. It has been great because they are very flexible with my schedule. I have school from 11-2, so the fact that I got a part-time job is pretty amazing. I pretty much answer phones all day. Not too shabby. That's about all our news for now. Oh yeah, my brother Aaron & his wife Kelly found out they are having a baby boy and my brother Sam & his wife Tiffany found out they are having a girl...we are excited for u guys!!!

My First Posting!!

Hi Everyone!

I have broken down & decided to join the blogging world. I guess I will start with an update. We moved to Las Vegas about a month ago. Brandon had only been to Las Vegas twice, once to interview and once as a child. I had never been to Vegas before. So...this is already an adventure for us. Brandon has just started his first year at dental school and I have gone back to school to get my BS in Nursing. I will be applying to the program next Fall. The cool thing is since I already have my BS, the program will only be a year long. I am tired of temp jobs and decided since they had no Masters programs here in Speech Therapy, I would get my nursing degree. So that is what we r up to in a nutshell. Hopefully I will figure out how to work this thing better so that I will be more inclined to post things:)