Random Shots.....

This picture was taken from our room. It overlooks the strip and is hopping every minute of everyday. You can just make out the hills in the background of the pic.

This is a picture of sunrise from the room. The pictures don't give the wonderful colors of the horizon justice. Trust me it was breath taking.
This is a picture of the lobby ceiling. The glass is hand blown by Dale Chihuly http://www.chihuly.com/ There are 2,000 flowers in this display and it is the first thing you see upon entering our hotel lobby. Stunning!
For those folks in Columbus there is a Chihuly exhibit in our backyard at the Franklin Park Conservatory. Seeing the lobby I can't wait to get to the Columbus exhibit. Check it out here: http://www.chihuly.com/installations/franklin/index.html Perhaps a knitting field trip in March?

And the strip......

Hoover Dam

According to Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoover_Dam there are some interesting facts about Hoover Dam:

There were 112 deaths related to the construction of the dam
There is enough concrete in the dam to pave a two-lane highway from New York to San Francisco
The table below reflects the distribution of power generated at the dam:

I was a bit surprised we had to pass through a security check point before we could drive into the dam area but I suppose we have to protect our resources. My mom lives less than a mile from a nuclear power plant and since 9/11 it is guarded 24/7 by the National Guard so I guess I shouldn't have been all that surprised.

Halfway Point

Hello from Las Vegas..... We have reached the halfway point so I thought I would give a quick update. We have been attempting to cram as many things possible into the time we have. Sunday evening we met up with Mark and had a nice dinner in one of the dozen or so restaurants in the Bellagio. Jimmy and I split a meal so there were only two meals ordered and the bill was still over $200. OUCH since the food was good but not THAT good.

The casinos are fun for about 10 minutes. I can just hear my Mommy, "we work to damn hard for our money to piss it away gambling." I guess I did learn somethings from Mom. :-)

There are many sites and sounds in Las Vegas and they are truly 24 hours a day. The city that never ever sleeps. I witnessed people at the bars at 6 AM drinking. Not sure they were left over from the night before or starting their day right?

We have a wonderful room that overlooks a lake where every 15 minutes from 8 to 12 PM there is a wonderful fountain show. Here are some pics taken from our room:


Yesterday afternoon I took a taxi ($31 dollars ride at that) to a LYS ~ Gail Knits yarn shop. There were 8 or so ladies sitting around knitting. I did purchase some bamboo yarn. I will post some details about that in Ravelry soon. I spent a couple hours chatting and knitting with them which left me missing my knitting group. So have a cup of Joe for me tonight ladies. I miss you!

Jimmy and Mark came to pick me up and we took a drive to Hoover Dam. It was cool to drive from Nevada to Arizona and back again while seeing an amazing sight. I will post some pics from the dam soon. We did have dinner at a Cheese Cake Factory and for those of you who live in Columbus you may know how long the wait is to get in at Easton. Well we were able to at 6 PMish walk in and be seated. I asked the hostess if they had just opened and she said they have been open 3 years. I was shocked. Perhaps a bit of market saturation with places to eat? You would never know it with the prices of food.

Welcome to Las Vegas Baby!!!!!!!

So last night I went into our bedroom, turned the light on and found this:


I don't think Poo wanted us to go away.....

So here is the gratuitous Welcome to Vegas pic:
There are about 170+ more pictures from our first day of the trip here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/11682716@N08/sets/72157603932192623/
Check this link often for updated pics of the trip!

Sleep Study # 2

I can no longer travel down the road of denial.... I have the results from my first sleep study and I have been diagnosed with Sleep Apnea. Why the denial you might be wondering? Well I have somehow gotten it in my head the "thing" used to treat it isn't sexy or cool. I wont be able to sleep with tubes and hoses attached to my head. Well I need to buck up and get over it and this is my first step in the acceptance process. Oh yeah and I have been invited back for a second sleep study tonight. This time they are going to hook me up to all the same lovely wires and crap with additional "thing tubes" so they can determine what settings to set my new "thing".

While I don't understand everything about this condition I did find this site and wanted to share it with anyone interested:

http://www.sleepapnea.org/

Thanks for reading.....

4 days and counting!

OMG....
That was the temperature in Las Vegas tonight when I looked online. 75 degrees!!!! Oh I can't wait. Is it possible I need to give myself a pedicure and pack sandals? Is it possible?


Imagine our surprise the other day when Jimmy discovered this scene. Kiki has been slowly coming around but this is HUGE. They are asleep in the same room but oh wait on the same bed at the same time. WOW!



I couldn't resist sharing this picture. The other day I received a couple books ordered from a book club. About 2 minutes after the books were removed Kiki discovered her new "home". Isn't she sweet?

Hand warmers, studying, BALL WINDING, and kitties......

Gail's, a coworker of mine, birthday is next weekend. Gail really really hates the winter time and it really affects her serenity when we go for days and days with no sun. When I found this yarn I couldn't help but think of spring flowers and thought it would be fun to make something for her to reminder her spring is right around the corner and keep her hands warm. She loved them!


My honey has been working so hard the last few weeks. Often he can be found at his computer attending online class meetings or writing papers or in front of the XBox 360 destressing. I snapped this picture the other evening while he was in a class meeting.


This lovely yarn, Louet Gems, is being wound into balls so that I can start a secret 2008 Christmas Gift. :-) This yarn is AMAZINGLY soft. I am so excited about this project to the point I think it is going to be my Las Vegas trip knitting project. It will be small and transportable yet tangy enough to keep me interested in one knitting project for a week away from my other knitting projects.


Kiki has made some much progress lately. She is less timid and comes out to hang with us more in the evenings. She is doing much better with Poo too. I don't think I have heard her hiss in a couple weeks. The other day I actually saw them rub noses and she didn't bat at him. That is progress! Yeah kiki girl......


This picture is priceless. I snapped this random picture of Poo while he was in a room where there wasn't any lights. When I snapped the picture I figured it would be a dud but when I dumped the picture to my puter I was surprised. Now anyone who has met Poo learns very fast that he spends a great deal of time cleaning his lovely long fur and it isn't uncommon for him to hike his back leg up wherever he currently resides and start cleaning his butt. Well when this pic was snapped that is exactly what he was doing..... Kids don't try this at home!

Wearing handmade goodies

This picture was taken at my husband's belated work holiday party. That is us and I am wearing my "Mason Dixon Perfect Sweater". The pattern can be found here: http://www.masondixonknitting.com/archives/images/PerfectSweater101206.pdf

Knit-together & Frogging

A couple of weekends ago a few of us from the Wednesday night knitting group got together for an extracurricular meeting:
I must have CRS because I can't remember if Ginny was frogging the socks in this picuture. Ginny?
In the picture above Joanne is working on her special donations for the babies. They are so cute! You should have seen the Santa size bag of yarn Ginny brought for Joanne's wonderful work.

In the picture above Molly is knitting something. I think it was a sleeve to a sweater. HELP! CRS!!!!!!!!!!

And this is me. I had to frog this hat and I tried casting it back on and messed it up a second time. I am going to give it one more shot after I finish something so that I can rebuild my lacking knitting confidence. We wont even discuss the bombshell right now. It is taking a break because otherwise I might do something drastic.