Madamme Tussauds

Something I have been wanting to do since we moved here is to go to the Wax Museum.  I finally went in December with Alli and Aaron's family when they were in town before flying home.  I was able to leave work early enough to go with them.  We had such a fun time! 

Alli and James Bond

Micah and Shaq...Shaq was huge!

Micah and Claire jammin with Stevie Wonder

JT!

I had no idea but they have a haunted house in the museum!  It was pretty scary.  

Oprah!

The Venetian still had all of their Christmas stuff going on, which was so fun!  The white person was part of the Christmas "parade."   They also had an ice rink and a live performer singing outside.  The Venetian is my fave!  They are the only ones that decorate for Christmas on the strip.  

Robbie and Kelli were able to come visit in January (which was so fun!), and we went to the museum with them.  It was just as much fun the second time for me! 

Babe Ruth

The boys with Will Smith

And me and Kelli hanging out with our friend Cameron

Willie and his doppleganger

 It really is a super fun museum, and one of the few less expensive things you can do in Vegas (I don't remember exactly how much, but less than 15 a piece with the locals deal).  We had lots of fun!  

Christmas 2012

So this is a little late...but we had a great Christmas!  We went to St. George to spend the night and visit Willie's parents before they headed up to Alpine.  They took us to the live Nativity at the Tuachan, which was so much fun!  We were unprepared for how chilly it was in St. George at night, and Jamie and Bill had to bundle us up.  We sure are getting used to the warm Vegas weather!     

Later that week my family all came to my parents' house in Mesquite (which is only 1 1/2 hours from us...so nice!!), and we had the best time.  I am always so happy when we all get together!

 

  We play our own version of a White Elephant game every year.  My parents get the gifts, and there is always a theme.  This year it was pretty ornaments that are hand painted from the inside of the glass.  

For my Mom's birthday this year we went geocaching, had a campfire and roasted hot dogs and marshmallows for lunch, then went home and Aaron cooked us the most delicious dinner ever.      

  

I loved being able to spend time with my family.  As always I was sad to go when the time came, but we had a great time! 

Thanksgiving

When we got home from California, Willie had a day off and I went back to work for a day, then headed down to St. George for Thanksgiving!  We had such a fun time with everyone that was able to be there (we missed you Marcie and Jamis!).  We definitely miss seeing everyone, and were so excited and happy to spend time with the family!  

For Thanksgiving day we went out to eat at a buffet.  It was delicious!  We enjoyed the nice weather and scoped out the Black Friday deals while we waited to get in.  

  

That night we went Black Friday Shopping (no pictures), and found some great deals!  We stayed out until 4 AM!!  I had not stayed up that late since college!  It was super fun!  But, when I woke up (at 2 pm) the next day, I was so exhausted.  My body is getting old!  I cannot believe it.  I know I'm not that old, but it is a weird feeling to all of the sudden get queasy on roller coasters, have my metabolism slow down, and now I realize I can't handle those really late nights like I used to be able to!  It is crazy.      

The next day, we went on a hike at Zion's National Park.  I had never been there, and loved it!  It was really pretty.  This is us riding in the shuttle up to where we started the hike.

 The girls,

the guys,

and Willie and I.

We celebrated Kelli, Jacob, and my birthdays that had happened recently, and Jamie's real birthday on Sunday!  

We had fun decorating the tree on Sunday :)

We loved spending time with everyone!!

California

It has been a long time since I posted!  Work was really crazy for me the past two months because of holidays, vacation time, and trainings we had.  I had to get the same amount of work in a much less amount of time, and it was really busy!  But, it was nice to be able to have time off, too.

Willie was placed in his permanent position at work, and got his first choice, Financial Projects!  He is enjoying it.  Before he was placed in projects, though, they gave the Finance MAPs a week off for Thanksgiving.  We were so excited!  Since we knew he probably won't have time off again for awhile, we decided to take advantage of it and headed to California for a few days.  We had lots of fun! 

We were so excited to be able to spend time with our friends Megan and Josh.  They were great tour guides! They took us to some of their favorite places, including a restaurant named Lemonade with the most delicious Lemonade ever!    

And Rodeo Drive!  It was decorated for Christmas and was so pretty.

We also went to Venice Beach...sketchy!!  This was our request because I kept reading that it is a fun place to visit, and I thought it would be more like eccentric artsy people but instead it was kind of scary, and we made sure to leave before dark.  It was still fun to see it, though.  We saw lots of "street performers" doing strange dances with bowling pins and other such props.  One thing we thought was cool was Muscle Beach, where Arnold used to work out!

Josh and Megan live by the much nicer Santa Monica Pier.  It was such a cute beach!

We got LA Go passes for a day.  You pay one price, and it gets you your choice of a bunch of different attractions.  We definitely should have taken better advantage of it, but were a bit lazy and slept in.  We were able to ride the rides at the Santa Monica Pier with it, and had fun on the Ferris Wheel and Roller Coaster!

After the pier, we headed to Burbank to go on a tour of WB Studios.  It was super fun!  We got to see a few streets where they film lots of movies and TV shows.

Anyone watch Pretty Little Liars?  I kind of love it.  This is the door to Hollis College where Aria's dad and boyfriend work.

We went in a museum of cars from movies.  This is the Batmobile!  We also got to go in another museum where they had costumes and props from tons of TV shows and movies, including Willie's favorite, Inception!  We weren't allowed to take pictures in that one, though.

The town from Gilmore Girls!!

This is the WB water tower.  The trailers in front are for the actors filming the Hangover 2 (or 3?  I don't know).  Apparently the tours before us saw them walking around.  I was sad we didn't.  I had high hopes of seeing an actor, but it wasn't meant to be.  You can get free tickets to shows, though, so next time we go up that is something we want to do!  We got to go on the set of Two and a Half Men, which we don't watch, but it was still neat to see what a stage for a show looks like, and how they do it.   

One of my favorite things was seeing The Central Perk, from FRIENDS!  It wasn't where they actually filmed, but for the Jay Leno show after the series ended when he interviewed the cast, they set it up in this room, and decided to leave it up for people to see.

We had such a fun getaway!

Update!!

This month has been probably the craziest month I have had since the month before I got married. Some highlights include: my car breaking down and needing numerous repairs, our apartment flooding, work being super busy (it is my first month on my own!), and giving a talk and teaching my first Young Women's lesson on the same Sunday!  Maybe speaking and teaching are not big deals for some people, but I am not one of them.  I get anxious!  It all worked out ok though, and I concluded that maybe this is how life is supposed to be.  We're probably not meant to spend our nights watching Netflix for hours.  I know life is only going to get crazier the older we get, and it was kind of good to see that we could survive and get all we needed to done, and actually be pretty happy doing it.  We've also had tons of visitors this month, which has been so fun.  So, amid all of the craziness, we have gotten to spend lots of time with people we love all month, and it has been good :)

Here is some of the fun stuff we were able to do:

Willie got a "Splash Into Summer" pass from work with some discounted and free passes to attractions.  We went and rode the NY NY rollercoaster with it.  I kind of expected it to be like a kiddie rollercoaster...not so.  It was so scary, and I kept thinking "I am too old for this!" as we were riding it.  Which is kind of sad haha.  But in the past few years I just can not handle rides like I used to be able to!    

We went to the Shark Reef Aquarium with our friends from the ward who have a little boy who just loves sharks.  It was pretty cute to see how excited he was.  There is a part where you go in this tunnel and the sharks are swimming all around you.  It was fun!  

Willie's family came into town for a good family friend, Marc Stone's, wedding.  It was so fun to see all of them, and the wedding was beautiful!

 Willie and I at the luncheon

 The fam at the reception with Marc and Alycia

 Willie's mom treated us all to some delicious dessert at Serendipity

The desserts were SO good! 

My mom was in town (at her house in Mesquite) for a couple of weeks.  It was so fun to have her nearby!  While she was here, she took us to see Aladdin at the Tuachan in St. George.  We love the Tuachan, and had a great time.  The play was different than the movie, but so good!     

Loved it!  

Willie gave blood at work and got us free tickets to Recycled Percussion!  It was so much fun, and far exceeded my expectations (especially considering I originally thought he was getting us tickets to a recycling plant...I was super confused about why he wanted to donate blood to get them haha).  Recycled Percussion was on America's Got Talent.  They use all different materials and tools to make music.  

 It is a really interactive show, and when you walk in you get a drumstick and an "instrument" of choice.  You can applaud with them, and they have you play along sometimes, too.  It kind of turned everyone into 2 years olds just banging like crazy on their instruments.  The guy next to Willie was a little slow on following, too.  There would be parts where you are supposed to be quiet when the performers are playing, and we would hear the guy next to Willie banging away.  It was pretty funny.  Our tickets expired the end of August, and we almost didn't go.  I am so glad we did, though!

We also used Willie's splash into summer pass to get into the Adventuredome at the Circus Circus.  We went with our new friends the Longhurts, and had a great time!  

We rode some rides and did laser tag.  My first time ever!  Before we went in, I was saying I hoped I wouldn't end up in last place.  It was fun playing, then when I looked at my final score I got...ZERO!!!  How is that even possible?  Willie tells me it must have been a computer error.  I know I heard the machine say I got hits when I was playing, so I am hoping he is right!  

Willie's sister Marcie and her family came into town, but no pictures :(  It was so good to see them, and we had so much fun with them!!   We also had our friends Charlotte and Chayse and Josh and Megan each in town for a night.  We had a great time with all of them!  It was so fun to catch up with them both.  We have loved having so many family members and friends here this month, and will miss them all!