Our LOVEly Weekend

This friday Kate Jones, one of my best friends, flew into Vegas for the weekend. Kate and I first met while attending college in Wyoming. We graduated together in May and the last time I saw her was at our wedding. Nick also got to know Kate very well and we've always had a BLAST together.

We told Kate that we had a surprise for her and she would find out when she got here. While Nick and I were waiting for Kate to come down the escalator at the airport, Nick was talking to a couple of LAX escorts. LAX is a club at Mandalay Bay. The escorts were waiting for Reggie Bush and they told Nick he would see him later at work that night if he didn't see him coming down the escalator. So I while Nick and I were supposed to be looking for KATE, he was TOO busy looking for Reggie! ;) I found Kate first, so Nick had to wait until he went to work. lol!

Once we left the airport, we went to eat diner at Stripburger. We told Kate we had to get her surprise before we could get diner. We pulled up to the Mirage and walked to the concierge desk where we picked up 2 FREE tickets for the LOVE show and purchased one. The LOVE show is a Cirque du Soleil show featuring The Beatles. As some of you know this show is pretty expensive. The only reason we went was because one of Nick's classmates works at the Mirage and got us 2 free tickets. The show ended up costing each of us $46 which is amazing compared to a total of $420. You can see we would have NOT gone if we didn't get any free tickets.

The TICKETS!

Hangin' with The Beatles After the show

We went to the show Saturday night after a full day of shopping and going to the temple. It was great to do baptisms together. Nick and I haven't done them for a very long time and Kate actually couldn't make it to her wards temple day so it was perfect for us all. What a great experience it was too. That day while Kate and I went shopping, Nick went to an Elder's Quorum activity where they watched the UNLV v. BYU game. And I do have to say that BYU didn't KICK our butts this time. :) It was tied the whole game until the very end where we ended up loosing. And of course the LOVE show was the highlight of the weekend. For anyone who has the chance and money to see this show and is a BEATLES fan... it's totally to die for. It was amazing! Check out this clip from youtube...

Sunday we went to church and Kate got to meet our cute primary class. :) They LOVED the Halloween treat bags we made for them too. After church we had a great diner of potatoes, steak, salad, and corn on the cob. :) When Nick and I got married, Kate got us this CUTE Caramel Apple set. So... since it is the Halloween season we decided that making caramel apples would be a blast. Check it out...

And then we TRIED to eat them.... YUMMY MESS!!

We also decided that carving pumpkins was A MUST....

Here is the finished product...

A sister missionary that was in Nick's area while he served his mission was also in town this weekend. She dropped by to visit him and meet Kate and I. She was a such a sweet girl. It was fun to hear their stories and get to know her. Another friend of ours, Bruno, also stopped by on Sunday and dipped an apple while we finished our pumpkins. It was so fun to be with them all.

Kate had to be to the airport by 6:00pm on monday so we made the best of our last day together. Nick missed out unfortunately and had to get some sleep and studying in for school. Kate went to work with me for a few hours and then I had one class I had to go to. After that we hit the strip and visiting M&M world and the Coca-Cola store. I've never really done the whole "trourist" thing, so it was all new and fun to me. We also walked down to the Mirage to check out the LOVE show gift shop where Kate found a coupld of souviners for her family. It was sad taking her to the airport :( But we were SOOO GLAD that she made time to come to Vegas to see us and we couldn't have had a better time. :) Thanks Kate!! We love you!

Bite of Las Vegas

This weekend Nick and I went to Bite of Las Vegas at Desert Breeze Park. For those of you who don't know it's a food and music festival. There were over 40 different GOOD resturants there as well as the bands Puddle of Mudd, Secondhand Serenade, Lifehouse, and Metrostation. It gets even better... it was only $8 a piece to get in. It was a very fun and relaxing family atmosphere where you could just enjoy the food and listen to the music from a distance OR try to make your way to front of the crowd. We did both and it was very fun! We went a little later in the evening so we only got to hear Lifehouse, but they did a GREAT job. Nick was laughing at me because it was my SECOND concert... yes, in my whole life. The first concert I went to was Garth Brooks in Montana. My Grandma took all of her grandaughters and what a sweet memory it is to us. :)

There was a photographer at the park that was randomly taking peoples pictures and then handing out cards with a website where we could get our free picture. Here it is! Not the best picture, but my camera wouldn't download the vidoes we took or the pictures last night? So it's the best I can do. The other picture is the lead singer of Lifehouse.

Before we went to the concert, we also went to the temple which truly made our week. I'm SO glad that we've set a goal together to attend the temple each week. It really is the best thing for both of us and a great way to spend our time together. When we were there I told Nick that it would be awesome if we could attend EVERY temple in the world just once. I don't know if that'll happen, but I do know we're going to try and attend every temple that we're near at that specific time.

Just to catch up on a couple of other things... Nick has a phone now. :) AND it's the same number so that makes it easier for everyone. So if you need to get ahold of him, now you can. :)

You know that I'm really into scrapbooking and digital scarpbooking is the new thing; however, I haven't really gotten into that until recently. I'm just learning, but I've found that I love it just as much as regular scrapbooking. I've been experimenting with designing my own blogger layouts and headers. The one you can see right now is my FIRST. Yes... I know it's a little rough but I'm excited to see how much I can learn and see what different things I can create. It's a fun new hobbie for me esepically when I need something to distract me from homework! ;)

Making Tips and Getting Jipped!!

As most of you know Nick is working at Mandalay Bay. He's working the graveyard shift full-time as well as attending school full-time. Sometimes it gets a little overwhelming for a couple of different reasons...
1. It seems like he's ALWAYS going, going, going and never sleeping;
2. I know it's life, but we don't get enough time together; and
3. the atmosphere at work is NOT the best, if you know what I'm saying.
But there are also some good things about working there. The people that own this Valet Company are such great people and treat Nick so well. In fact he was just moved to graveyard Supervisor. He continues to move up and up! :) We are blessed because of these good people and Nick's hard work.
Nick also has made some great friends who have just gotten off their missions. I always ask him how work was and what happened and so on. He always gets the most random tips and meets a lot of different celebrities. SO... we sat down the other day and wrote up a list of all the people he's meet and random tips. Check it out...

Famous people:
Mike Tyson
Shug Knight
Rob N' Big
Ja Rule
Nikki Hilton
Jermain Oneal - He gave Nick a $100 tip :)
Michael Jordan
Zab Juda
George Bush - saw him in a limo- didn't actually meet him.

If you don't know who some of those people are, don't worry I'm the same way. He always has to explain to me what show, or music group they're in.

Random Tips:
4 different hats
Corn beef sandwich
In n' Out Burger-Double Double
2 Ties - Nice ones too!! :)
Cases of water - the whole crew... not a personal tip
Cases of Monsters - energy drink
$20 in poker chips - no he didn't go inside the casino to use them :)
Pizza
McDonald's Gift Certificates
CD's
Hot Chocolate
Krispy Kreme
Disneyland Key Chain
$100 tip from some drunk dude!

AND OF COURSE... a Prostitute stole his phone... yes it's a long story. :) So when he's not getting tipped he's getting jipped. So if any of you have tried to call his phone and it says "out of service", that's why. And his favorite is when people from Wyoming come through. :)

Our Weekend

Our weekend began Friday night as Nick took me to the movie, Nights in Rodanthe.

This is a must see for all you ladies. ;) Nick made fun of me throughout the movie because I cried more than once. I have to be honest, I was wondering what we got ourselves into in the beginning of the movie. It was very slow moving and kind of lame. But as it went on it got better and better. So if you have the chance, go see it.

We watched General Conference on Saturday and then we had the opportunity to have the Crosby's stay with us the rest of the weekend. Brett and Des came and only brought their youngest, Matthew, and I told them they were in trouble for not bringing the rest of their kids. This is the Crosby family. :)

Cute family huh? They are from Wyoming and my family and I are very good friends with them. I worked for them for 3 years as a secretary/nanny/run the errands/clean the office/work on their new house/my pickup needs washed... You get the idea! :) and I also got to travel with them to New York, Nashville, Washington D.C., Pennsylvania, and Virginia. Brett travels a lot due to his job and sometimes the family got to go along, so I would be the nanny. It was such a great opportunity to go with them and learn so much from their great kids. Brett sang at my Wedding reception and Des was one of my friends who threw a Bridal Shower for me. As you can see, they're pretty close friends and we were very excited to see them again.
Brett enjoys to run Marathons... yes those things that are 26 DREADFUL miles long where you have to run the whole time... he likes to do this, and so he ran the Saint George Marathon on Saturday morning. And yes he could walk afterwards, but not very easily. ;) I have to give him props for running those things. We all know I'd rather jump off a bridge than RUN at all. :) Anyways... They arrived at our house Saturday night. We enjoyed some diner and dessert and then due to everyone being so tried, we went to bed. :) Sunday we had breakfast, watched conference, had lunch, and then took them to the airport. I don't have any pictures from our fun weekend and yes their visit was short, but it was so good getting to see them and visit with them. I love getting visitors from home. :) Thanks for taking time to see us Brett and Des!! See you in December! :)