Jonathon and Nancy: July 2012

Sunday, July 15, 2012

Beacon Rock

Jonathon, Cosmo, and I hiked up Beacon Rock last month and it was awesome!

Beacon Rock is the center of an old volcano.
Lewis and Clark called it "Beaten Rock" and then changed it to "Beacon Rock" later on.
Pretty cool hike- just one mile up!

So gorgeous

Nancy n' Mo taking the lead

Cosmo found a little looking spot just his size!

At the top! (phew!)

So cute. And 'glowing' with his cute sweat beads.

Wahoo!

Cutie Patootie taking a break

View from the top overlooking the Columbia River

Heading back down

We went at about 8:30 at night so it was starting to get dark by the time we headed back to the car

The ONLY bad thing about this hike was that apparently you need a "Discover Pass" to park there so we came back to a $99 ticket on our car :( - that was disappointing. Oh well! It was a fun night!

My little half brother Nolan came to stay with us for a few days in June and we had a great time. His mom Dina Marie was attending a deaf conference at the WA State school for the deaf and asked if we could watch him. Here are some pictures of the fun we had:

Taking a picture of Nolan taking a picture of me

Nolan LOVED playing with Josie and Cosmo (the dogs)

Nolan spent time with Jonathon's mom Susie during the day on Thursday and Friday while Jonathon and I were at work. They had lots of fun together figuring out how to communicate to each other. :)
Nolan's favorites were going swimming at Joni's house and going to McDonalds and ordering 'black soda' which Susie figured out was Root Beer. He also did NOT like how Susie put water in his fried eggs and refused to eat them. LOL.

Going to visit Jonathon at his work and taking a tour of
Underwriters Laboratories

Making silly faces while waiting for Jonno to finish working

Eating dinner at Sweet Tomatoes
We had so much fun LAUGHING- Nolan has the best laugh.
Every time I hear it, it makes me laugh too! Sweet boy.

Cosmo and Nolan after his shower

Nolan with Cosmo and Josie

On Saturday morning, Jonathon, Nancy, and Nolan went to help our friends Andy and Tara Sutton move. Nolan worked SO HARD carrying things up all the stairs! We were proud of him. He enjoyed the hard work and being given tasks of things to do. We told him we'd go get ice cream after:

Frozen yogurt at Menchies before saying goodbye!

Mine and Jonathon's favorite was playing hide and seek with Nolan. We also played tag and ran all around the house. It was fun.

--Nolan would ask us each night what time we planned to wake up at in the morning. Somehow, no matter how late we went to bed, he'd come open our bedroom door at the EXACT time we told him we planned to wake up! He'd poke his head in and check if we were awake yet, then tip toe in and if our eyes were open, get a big grin across his face and give us a big hug!

We LOVED having Nolan come visit and hope we can see him again soon! We love you Nolan!

Sunday, July 8, 2012

Viva Las Vegas!

Viva Las Vegas!

Jonathon and I had some unexpected time off of work and decided to make the most of it and go on our first "big kid" vacation since our Honeymoon (almost 5 years ago!) and go to Las Vegas since we'd never REALLY experienced it!

Jonathon researched and found great deals on everything. We learned lots about how to vacation and had SO MUCH FUN!!!!!!! We'll definitely go back and visit again someday.

DAY ONE:

Our first night we stayed at the Las Vegas Hotel (LVH)

This is also where Elvis lived back in the day- in room 3000!

Since we got there pretty late, we were STARVING. Being inexperienced LV folks, we just ate at the buffet here. It was smokey. And expensive. And the rolls were rock hard. :(

Lesson learned: Never stay or eat at LVH! Cheap.. but you get what you pay for!

But that didn't stop us from having a great time anyway....

The 'King' #1 and the 'King' #2! Cute J!

I won my first dollar in slots! LOL

Jonathon giving it a go!

Rubbing my tired, smokey eyes from the buffet/casino at LVH

Jonathon by some pretty decorations at the Wynn

We went for a midnight stroll to burn off some calories and check out the nightlife. We ended up at the Wynn and were amazed by how many people there were! The architecture and decorations in LV everywhere are so beautiful. We walked about 5 miles that night all together by the time we walked our tired feet back to our hotel!

Day Two:

We were so tired from everything that we slept in until about 5 minutes before check out! We just threw on clothes and booked it so we wouldn't get charged for a second night and decided we'd just get ready at the next hotel, MGM.

Our first stop of the day was to FIREHOUSE SUBS!!!!

Jonathon served an LDS mission in the south (Alabama/Florida) and he LOVED these subs. He was excited to get a taste and we bought some of the perfect sauce to take home.

(He'd also never seen this drink dispenser before. They are pretty new still but they have HUNDREDS of different options and combos to make whatever drink you could imagine. He LOVED that too!)

Excited to be in Las Vegas!

Statue of Liberty

MGM Grand Lion!
I was sad to see they no longer have the real lions here. :(

We finally checked in at the MGM (the wait was an hour!) and it was awesome! It was about $40 more than LVH but much cleaner and nicer and the bed was awesome!

The lights in this bathroom made you look like a movie star..
Point in case ---->
My skin looked flawless!
I wish I could just feel like that ALL the time! :)

We got all gussied up for our night on the town! It was sure fun. :)

MODEST IS HOTTEST!

I was quite surprised how much attention Jonathon and I received as we were out for our fancy night. Many men and women were trying so hard to get attention by wearing short dresses and 'trendy' clothes, but if you want to really STICK OUT in the world today, DRESS MODESTLY and be WELL-GROOMED!

- I was grateful to not have to worry about 'covering up' from all the eyes while we were out from wearing my long red dress (Thanks to my sis-in-law Jenny for letting me borrow it!) and cardigan. And men can't go wrong in a classic tuxedo! We got so many compliments. It was a fun night!

Sexy man

Sexy woman

First we went to a mind-reading show called "The Mentalist" and it was pretty cool!

I got to go up as a volunteer and help him get blindfolded. He asked me to put the duck tape over the coins covering his eyes and press on it so it was on there good. I poked a little too hard and even felt his eye ball move! Ha ha ha! Everyone started laughing when he commented about my roughness.

Afterwards, we got to see the HIGHLIGHT of my trip...

MYSTERE by CIRQUE DU SOLEIL!!!!

It was AMAZING!!!!!! It was a combination of acrobats, aerial performance, flipping, drumming... everything cool-ing. The performers were so talented and strong. It moved us and touched our hearts emotionally, especially to see what our human bodies are capable of. WOW. SO GOOD.

And these were the cheapest Cirque du Soleil tickets but I can't imagine it getting better than that.

We finished our night off with a fancy, schmancy dinner at......

McDONALD'S!!!!!!!!! Ha ha ha! Nothing beats a late night Big Mac n fries.

We wandered around and dinked around for a bit until we were ready to hit the hay.

DAY THREE:

We slept in (again! ...Can you tell how much we needed a vacation from how TIRED we were?!) and then drove/walked around to see a few more sights of LV before heading to The Red Rock Resort.