Viva Las Vegas!

End of February I had to go to Las Vegas for a work function. Ry and I decided this was the perfect opporotunity for a much needed R&R. We flew in on a Wednesday morning and flew out on Sunday afternoon. My work forum was really fun and I learned so much. It was also, sadly, the only nice days, which Ryan got enjoywhile I was working inside. Below are our photos.

 

 

 

Thursday night after my work we headed for some yummy mexican and then walked the strip. The water show at the Bellagio still takes my breath away!

Closest we will probably ever get to the Eiffel Tower- we take what we can get!

For work they had us at the Wynn- OMG! so amazing! Don't ever go from a 5 start to a 3 star which is what we did later. Actually the 3 star was probably a 2 star, but after the Wynn it felt like a negative 2 star.

Walking through the Venetian on Friday.

We hti up the wax museum as well.I would have loved to spend more time there but there is was this really obnoxious drunk British girl. Someone let her on a mic- awful idea!

This photo of Ry cracks me up!!!!

Oh, did I mention that Friday was freezing!

New York, New York

The Luxor

Saturday after grabbing dinner buffet at Planet Hollywood (got an amazing groupon deal) we went to the Cosmopolitan for drinks. This could be one of my favorite bars! It looks like you are inside a chandelier dangling in the middle of the room! Soooo ME!

Scenario 57: Ways to impress strangers....

We were at a birthday part at a friends house and the strangers around the table were mentioning how delicous the almonds were. Wanting to blend in and make small talk I decide to try the said tasty morsels. I scan the table and all the bowls on it. I quickly spot a bowl of 2 almonds left and they look delcious in all of their dark roasted goodness. I pick one up and pop it in my mouth. I barely have enough time to savor the flavor on my tongue with my friend looks at me with horror and gasps "Mary NO!" Having heard this  many times in my life I quickly spit the almond out. Everyone stops and stares at me as humor spreads to their faces as they realize what I just put in my mouth.
"What?" I ask with concern.
She says to me, face red, "that's not an almond. That's the pit of an olive that someone spit into the discard bowl."
I wanted to die! I was so embarassed and also really grossed out! It's one thing to put a friends olive pit in your mouth its a completely different thing to put a strangers olive pit in your mouth.
Luckily, after the laughter everyeone felt bad for me and told their own equally embarassing stories.

Holiday Party

Another year, another Holiday Party. Actually, that's not fair to say as I have skipped the last 2 years because they have become very boring.
I decided this year to join the planning committee to see if I could change things up.
3 ideas of mine were implemented.
1) Purchase Xbox/Kinnect for people to play.
2) Create home made photo booth, featured above.
3) Face painting for the kids. Note my face above, the kids got to me...

Christmas Tree Check In

I am currently in the process of assembling my "show" tree for the downstairs. Things are going...interestingly.
As anyone knows who creates the magic that is a Christmas tree, it's a full day process.
All started well, I was so proud of myself for putting all the branches away properly so I could quickly put the tree together. Dolly crooning in the background some hypnotic Christmas tune, a fire roaring and me prancing around in my tiger footy pajamas, all was as it should be in the Brown household.
Next was to tackle the lights (I should have known this would have been the death of my magical Christmas morning). I plug in my first strand and only half works. I immediately am seething over the lights, my husband must certainly be wondering if I need to be tested for having bipolar disorder. One minute I am belting "O Holy Night" and the next minute I am yelling "O Holy Shit!".
I start messing with the bulbs. I replace one and voi-la, the second half now works but the working half has now stopped. I try replacing more lights but they are more tightly fastened. I start yanking bulbs out of their container with the little wires exposed. Meanwhile commentating the process to Ryan as he tries to ignore me. I keep hoping he might jump up and volunteer his expertise but my words fall on deaf ears. As I fuss around more I somehow manage to rip the entire copper wiring out of the lights and have that exposed while plugged in. I stare it for awhile wondering what would happen if I was electrocuted while trying to test Christmas light bulbs. What kind of eulogy would my family prepare for me? Would my funeral be a Christmas theme? Would my casket be wrapped in a thousand holiday lights? Or would they take the murderous light strand and have a ceremonial burning to honor my legacy? I shake myself from my daydreams and decide to can the lights.
I then test the other strand of white lights and they work perfectly. I now test the red lights that will go up the center of my tree and they are a no go. I twist one light and decide my well being just isn't worth the hassle. I'll impress my stepmother with my tree dressing skills some other time.
I am now ready to delicately drape my white strands perfectly upon the branches. These lights are two strands connected and therefore quite long to wrap around the tree. I decide the best approach is to wrap them around my body so that I can move around the tree, which is backed into a corner. On my 5th trip around the strands starts to tighten around my neck and I realize I probably need to readjust. Due to the circles around the tree I was running I managed to knot the lights around my body. I am trying to undo strands that are somehow looped together creating a treacherous web around me. Ryan somehow isn't alarmed as I grumble the fact that I am now stuck in the lights. I pick through each section and finally free myself; or at least until the last section which has now managed to get wrapped in my hair. I fight and fight with the strand but it will not loosen. I finally have to call out to Ryan to come untangle me. As he turns from the computer, finally registering what all has been going on he breaks into a large smile. Imagine the sight my husband turns around to see- his wife, in full body tiger pajamas with Christmas lights hanging out of her hair, the sheer look of panic and chagrin on her face. It actually took Ryan quite a while as my hair had made an impressive knot around one of the lights.
Freed I went back to work. I hid in the back of the tree starting from the bottom and spreading out the branches making my way to the top. As I got mid way up I somehow got one of the "needles" caught in my wedding ring and couldn't free myself, again! I had to take the ring off and let it hang from the tree as I analyzed how the needle was weaved around the stone and prongs.
This is the point where I stopped to write this down. I'll keep y'all posted if any more of these tree manages to ensnare me or I ended up burning it to the ground, whichever comes first.



A Tennessee Thanksgiving

I had the most amazing Thanksgiving! Dad and Kathy graciously flew me out to Knoxville, TN to spend my holiday with them. *Ry was in Idaho seeing his family*

We had an amazing Turkey dinner and Kathy really outdid herself. My cousin Dan and his beautiful wife Noel came over and he even let me sit in his new California edition Mustang GT! For anyone who doesn't know, I am in love with the new Mustangs. So if anyone is looking for the perfect present I will take a Black GTO, please. Tinted windows preferred...

 

 

Friday we headed into downtown Knoxville to enjoy shopping, peanut sampling, and a tree lighting! They shut down the main street for all the foot traffic and they had several train for children toting many a tot merrily as they rang the bells connected to each train car.

 

Saturday we headed into Nashville (3 hours away). We first did a drive by through the city. Near the Vanderbilt campus is the Centennial park. They have a to scale replica of the Parthenon in Athens, Greece. It was built for their 100 year anniversary. The city loved it so much that when it was time to tear it down they rallied to save it. Hopefully this isn't the closest I come to Greece.

 

We had tickets to the Grand Ol' Oprey to see the Rockett's (featured above). The show was such fun! There were a few aspects I wasn't for sure how to feel about which was the camels, donkey, and sheep they had on stage and then the Little People portraying elves.

 

We had a few hours to kill till dinner plans at Bob's in the Omni hotel so we ventured through the surrounding stores. Kathy soon felt tuckered out and "rested her eyes" in the hotel lobby while Dad and I explored Broadway, or better known as the Honkey Tonk. We travelled 3 blocks down, 1 block over and then back the same street. In that time, at 6 nonetheless, there was a live band playing at every bar. I lost count at 20! Even a karaoke singer sounded like she should have a record deal and we had to stop and listen as she belted "Faithfully" by Journey like a pro. Yep, definitely never singing Karaoke in that town...

Sunday was a lazy morning where I made crepes for the family and burnt out Kathy's Cuisnart while trying to de-lump the cottage cheese. I felt like such a jerk! Oh thanks Dad & Kathy for flying me all the way out here, driving me around, paying for my meals, and purchasing me a souvenir! - Let me just return the gratitude by burning up one of products you use daily.

Anywho!!!

We took a lovely drive through the Smokey's. They have a gorgeous park that you drive through, totally free. I believe it's an 11 mile loop. We stopped off at this cute little replica of an old town, or something, featured below. They had a great demonstration of how to ground corn using  water wheel energy.

We then drove on to Gatlinburg for dinner, it was amazing as well! Dad & Kathy just had to have their dessert, which they had every night I was there and swore this wasn't a usual thing- mmmmhmmmm...

The town was adorable and looked like a lot of fun. It reminded me of a beach community meant for tourists. Lots of gimmicks and fun places to stop at, putt putt golf, etc.

Not far was Pigeon Forge which is where Dollywood is. It was huge compared to Gatlinburg and had at least 15x the tourist gimmicks! It was however spread further out. They even had one structure that was built to look like an upside down building, with work street lights and everything! I was deeply fascinated by this!

Pigeon Forge flows into Sevierville which is Dolly's hometown. This is why she picked this location for Dollywood. Thanks to Dolly she pumped a lot of money and life into that town.

Lastly on the way home we stopped by my cousins Dan's house so we could see all the hard work he is putting into it. He has an impressive talent and a lot of work cut out for him and his Mrs. The home has a lot of potential and I think they will turn it into something very beautiful.

Auctioneer

We had a benefit at work and I was asked to volunteer as their auctioneer. It was pretty intimidating but also very exciting. We ended up raising $136k for a great local charity, Rainier Scholars.

I had to get people to vote on the silent auction as well as the live. I also had to inspire people during our "Raise the Paddle" where they had to generously donate their money just because. Probably the hardest part of this was remembering what number we left off on. I kept forgetting what the last number was as you are looking around the room, talking, trying to inspire. Major adrenaline rush!

There was also a photo booth, photo featured above.

Pumpkin Goo

This year we went to a patch to procure our precious pumpkins. Never having been done before by either of us it was quite the delightful adventure with kettle korn and muddy high heeled boots.
We bought our pumpkins near the beginning of October and carved them approximately 2 weeks prior to Halloween. I don't know if it was our organic patch pumpkins, the warm weather, or the intense daily fog but they were struggling to make it to Halloween.
We had 3 pumpkins. An extremely large pumpkin that laid on its side and had a schooner carved into it. A green tall pumpkin carved to be Frankenstein. And lastly a small perfectly round pumpkin in which I drilled a bunch of holes to create a lantern effect- thank you Pinterest!
A week prior to Halloween the large pumpkin started its stream of goo on our porch. Daily rivers running out of this thing full of rot! It had to go.
A week to go and we are down to two pumpkins. Day before Halloween, the rot stream starts up again, this time from the Frankinpumkin. We had just one day to go so we were going to chance it.
Pumpkins made it! and so did the constant river pouring from them. But being lazy and hosting many a guest we let it be.
My Aunt Cathy arrived Monday evening to our home for the first time ever. I wanted everything to be perfect for her which means the 2 pumpkins that have now collapsed (literally the insides melted away and there was no support for the outer shell) on my front porch must go. Ryan was still at work and I had left early to finish my remaining tasks. I had come up with a plan to use the snow shovel to lift the pumpkins into the compost can as I suspected they would melt into my hands and permanently stain me. I would later be known for the rest of my life as pumpkin hands and could never take up a career in hand modeling.
Plan created, time to execute. I am literally running around the house as I am on a time constraint. So I dart out to the shed, which is locked, to fetch the snow shovel. Due to the time change I am now in a weird twilight and can't see all that well. Ryan has the lock combo memorized but I can't bother him! He's slammed at work. So I try to lift the combo lock up and see the numbers on it. Nothing. I'm flying blind here and my bat sonar isn't strong enough to subtly listen for the clicks of the lock.
I must abandon my efficient plan and think outside of the box. Ryan has been building a garage in the backyard so there must be some scrap wood I can turn into a make shift shovel. I spy a triangular piece of plywood and decide that will do it.
Up front I throw my plywood next to the pumpkin and position my compost garbage can as close as possible. I find a large tree limb that was dislodged and placed in my yard. I use said limb to roll the smaller pumpkin on to the plywood. Majority makes it on but the rest of the pumpkin slimes all over the stick, my shoe, and the porch. I try and use the limb to push the remainder onto the plywood, it just smears it around more. I try to use a spooning technique with the limb and get majority of the rest with a large sploosh. I dump my contents and move on to Frankinpumpkin. He moves on easily and I think this will go off without a hitch. This pumpkin is significantly heavier and I now have goo all over one side of the triangular plywood- the side that I need to grab to distribute the weight evenly. As I don't want to be pumpkin hands freak girl I choose the other side and am now struggling to lift this 4ft plywood with a rotted pumpkin and goo all over it.
I manage to lift the pumpkin, I'm excited, I get cocky, and that's when I start to loose the balance. The pumpkin is shifting and I am losing my secure hold. I start dancing around, armpits pumping out sweat, as I try with failing might to get this pumpkin to the can. But I feel the final shift and watch it roll off my plywood and hit the front porch with a thud. Yelling "NO, NO, NO!!!!" I watch the initial impact take chunks of the pumpkin. Then it rolls to the second level leaving more bits of it's body and rolls to the edge of my walk.
I am now left to pick up the remains of my rotting, molding, gooey Frankinpumpkin. I don't care who I am cleaning for, I refuse to pick up the slick, soupy parts. So I take that hose and spray candles, bits, goo and all into the grass and pray to God no one notices.

When my Aunt Cathy arrived that night she asked if it had rained as the porch was soaked.