Top Eight Things I will miss about Las Vegas...

Beside the people of course, here are a few of my favorite things about Las Vegas. I will probably think of more once we are gone but these the the ones I remember now...they are listed in no particular order.

While living in Las Vegas one goal Chris and I had was to eat at a different place every time we got to eat out. We were able to accomplish this most of the time but there were a couple of places that we would always go back to.

#1 Roberto's Taco Shop (also known as Faustos in Henderson)- Best Steak Fries (they were on our speed dial)


#2 POP's - Best Philly Cheese Steak



#3 Rec Centers - As a family we were able to take at least a dozen different classes for really cheap prices. Austin took swimming, Art, tumbling, and Tae Kwon Do. It was awesome and definitely something I will miss.








#4 Peter Piper Pizza (I know this is the third food place but it wasn't for the food) We loved going to Peter Piper Pizza because it has a roller coaster for the kids and lots of games and even a simulated motion ride plus pizza all for relatively cheap. You could spend endless hours of fun there and Mom and Dad loved having it available to help the kids "earn" a chance to go.




#5 Water Parks - Being that Vegas is in the dessert and it is very (no - extremely) hot in the summer the parks have water toys for the kids. LOOOOVE ITTTT!!! It is really the only way you can be outside for longer then 15 (maybe 10) min.



Here is another fun park the kids like to go to.



#6 Our backyard - I loved walking down my stairs into my kitchen and the first thing I would see every morning is my green "Hawaiian like" backyard. It was so pleasant and relaxing to sit back there. Plus we had an apricot tree...oh how I will miss our sweet, juicy and fresh apricots. We loved making jam, pies, crepes, syrups, etc with all the apricots we got. I don't think you can even grow apricot trees where we are going. :(



#7 Our neighbors house - For any of you who have been to our house you know first hand the smile and the "What were they thinking?" look that comes to mind. It was kind of humorous to look at after awhile and provided a good laugh every once and a while. Plus it was a great landmark to tell people where our house was..."we live next to the glow in the dark florescent green house..."



#8 The Elementary School - We are zoned for the best school in the district...probably all of Nevada. I actually heard a rumor that it was featured on the Today Show because is has this amazing micro society. Here are some pics of "Going to Town Night" where the kids get to spend all their hard earned "Gold" at all the different stores. Each class has a different business that they run. They have to get a business license, advertise, sell, etc. It is such a great idea and the kids love it and learn a lot from it. Austin's class ran a Movie Theatre. They sold tickets and popcorn.





Here is Allie buying a book at the "book store."


And here are the kids getting their picture taken with Santa Claus at another "store".

How Sweet the Memories...

We have our pictures and video come up on our screen saver on our computer and this video of Allison popped up today. I hadn't seen it for awhile and I just thought it was too cute. I just couldn't help but share it with the rest of you. This is Allison's first birthday party. I think she is loving her first piece of chocolate cake...what do you think? Hehe!




Ok so here is the link. After several different tries I couldn't get the video to actually work on the blog so here is the link to Google Videos. You will have to cut and paste it into the web browser because I couldn't even get a link to work. :( There is still a lot to learn about this whole blogging thing...if any of you fellow bloggers have any advice I would love to hear it. Enjoy the video!

We've Been Keeping a Secret!

Our family is moving (Dec. 22nd)!...there I said it. For some of you, I know this isn't a secret but if you live in Las Vegas, it is. We had to keep it a secret so it didn't get back to Chris' boss who is also LDS. He also works with a lot of LDS people. We wanted to make sure he found out from us. I can give a lot of reasons to why we are moving but for some reason they don't make this any easier for me. I will miss so much about Las Vegas...things that no one can possibly understand unless they have lived here. You never fully appreciate what you have until I think it is gone. As we get closer to the moving day Chris and I have been noticing so many more things about life in Las Vegas that we will surely miss. Most importantly are the many great friends we have made. Although I have always lived in some great wards, I have never had so many people from one ward befriend me the way the Durango Ward has. I have had so many calls just to see how I am doing and "girls nights out," etc. The only thing I can do to fully say thank you is to hopefully "pay it forward." This truly has been the most difficult decision Chris and I have had to make in our short married time. We know that it is the right choice but it is still hard.

OK, enough blubbering...I will be sending out my new address info. by e-mail so you can either leave me a comment here if you want it, e-mail me at our family e-mail address or e-mail me at jennifer40@hotmail.com and I can send it to you. And we always have blogging!

Digital Scrapbooking

A lot of people have been commenting or asking about my scrapbooking pages that I have on my blog so I thought I would tell you a little bit about it.

I just started scrapbooking about three months ago. I never got into paper scrapping before that because it was too much money, too time consuming and took up too much space. Yes it is very cute and even a great journal method but I am, unfortunately, much too practical. Chris' cousin, Wendy, introduced me to a computer program called Scrapbook Max that does digital scrapbooking. There are a lot of other programs available to do digital scrapbooking on but this one seemed to be the best deal for the money and was also very user friendly, thus, very practical for me. Digital scapbooking solved almost all of the issues I had with paper scrapping...much less money (I have only spent $50 so far and have completed about 75 pages of scrapping), much less time (let me repeat...I have completed about 75 pages in about 3 months...I don't know any paper scrapper that could do that unless they did it full time) and less space...I keep it all filed away on my computer until I am ready to print and then it will be nicely made into a book (a littler one then you can even do paper scrapping) that I can display on my shelf.) There are a ton of freebies you can download and additional kits that you can buy. Once you have downloaded the zip file. You unzip it, and then you can drag and drop any papers or elements into Scrapbook max when you need them. FABULOUS! It took me about 10-15 hours (spread about over 3 months) to do all 75 pages. The first couple might take a little longer but once you get the hang of it you can go pretty fast. I give digital scrapping two thumbs up.

A Night without Pictures!

I am so bummed! OK, a little bummed. Our ward had our Relief Society Christmas Enrichment dinner last night and it turned out SOO beautful BUT I didn't get any pictures so I am bummed. I have to tell you about it though. All the ladies in the ward loved it and I was so grateful that we (the enrichment commitee and I) could provide such a wonderful service that made them feel like the Queens that they are.

The night was called "The Keeper of the Violin." This month is Christmas (of course) but it is also the birth month of our Prophet Joseph Smith. We had a guest speaker, Linda Isom, who happens to have a violin that is over three hundred years old! She tells the story of this amazing violin and how it traveled from person to person and how it ended up in the hands of her great-great grandfather who happened to be a great friend to the prophet Joseph Smith. There are stories written about how he would spend hours playing for the prophet and his family and friends and even what songs he played for them. Linda happens to be a concert violinist so she was able to take us back in time with a couple songs that were played for our Beloved Prophet. She then tells how the violin was mangled and musically abandoned and how the instrument litterally died. When she came to pocess the instrument (also a series of miracoulous events) it was in was in a box in several different pieces. She tells how the instrument was restored but that it has taken 60 years to bring it "back to life." Linda says that this violin has been played for about 9 of our prophets and she finishes this wonderful story by playing Joseph Smiths favorite hymn "Poor Wafering Man of Grief." What a wonderful story!

But that was just to top if all off. The Enrichment commitee was able to provide a 5-course meal completely served to the ladies. The tables were each assigned to be decorated by a different lady and they turned out BEAUTIFULLY! We have such talented sisters in our ward. Then we served a 5-course dinner...here is the menu...

Roasted Red Pepper Soup with Parmesean Crisps
Mandarin Orange Salad with Orange Viniagrette
Ham, Baked Potato
Green Beans, Rolls
An assortment of bite-sized desserts

I don't think I could have recieved any more compliments then I did but the best part was just knowing that we made the ladies feel so special.

I HAVE to give a special THANK YOU to my amazing husband who stayed in the kitchen the entire night helping serve up the plates and then doing ALL those dishes while the ladies enjoyed the program. WHAT AN AMAZING MAN!

Our RS President took pictures and said that when she figured out how to e-mail them, she would e-mail them to me. When I get some I will add some to this post.