Trip to Nevada

I've never been a fan of Las Vegas. Since I don't smoke, drink, gamble, or watch strippers there just isn't much of an appeal for me. But last week Cade had a convention there and it turned out that R.J. and Jen had planned a trip there for the exact same days. So I decided to tag along rather than stay home by myself and it turned out to be a pretty fun trip. We mostly walked up and down the strip watching the free shows, looking at a few shops, and getting plenty of exercise. But we also went to the Tournament of Kings which is a jousting show with dinner. The food was pretty good and we had to eat with our hands and the show was fun. We also saw the Cirque du Soleil's show "O". That was really good, I definitely recommend it. There were synchronized swimmers, divers, trapeze artists, and even some polynesian fire dancers. I could barely breathe while the trapeze people were going, I just kept waiting for one of them to make a wrong move and then be forced to watch them fall to their death. Luckily, there were no mistakes and everyone lived :) R.J. and Jen also got to see Phantom of the Opera for free after watching a time share presentation. Cade and I wished we could have done it too but he was busy with work at the time. Here are some pictures from the trip.

Cade in front of the Luxor Hotel

Jen, me and Cade at Tournament of Kings. Its very unflattering for me to be standing in between two skinny people who haven't just recently put on an undisclosed amount of weight.

Cade eating his dinner with his fingers

Us in front of New York New York Hotel

Cade, R.J. and I all very successful at the slot machines

At another slot machine I pretended to be playing I let out an excited yell. A lady walking by turned to look at what I had won. Jen was so emabarrassed, she pretended she didn't know me, but that just made it all the more fun, right Jen!

Jen and R.J. checking out the flamingo habitat

Me enjoying a cookie dough sundae from Serendipity. And no, I did not eat that by myself, and we still didn't finish it. But it sure was good. Gestational diabetes, here I come.

The "Eiffel Tower" behind the water show at the Bellagio

R.J., Jen, me and Cade in front of the Bellagio

Giant Mushroom

I know this post isn't exciting or anything, but I've had nothing to blog about for weeks. We just haven't had anything interesting going on in our lives lately. So in an effort to put something up this month, here you go.

The other day I found a mushroom in our yard about like this:

Nothing special. But then we went to Mesa for 4 days and its been raining so much that when we returned the mushroom had turned into this:

In half a week it grew to about 9 inches long. It was crazy.

Drum Roll Please...

For those of you who haven't already heard, we're having a boy! Do you see the exclamation mark? I'm trying to trick myself into being excited for a boy. I'm sure by the time he gets here I'll have adjusted. I guess Emma and I will just have to keep waiting and cross our fingers for twin girls next time. On the plus side, I've had a boy name picked out for years so Cade and I can continue delaying the agonizing decision of agreeing on a girl name for now.

Here is his little face. I sure hope he has two eyes since I can only see one here.

Here we see that there is no chance for a girl.

Our Good Friend Lou

Lou Amundson from the Phoenix Suns came to Flagstaff to sign autographs on Monday. Since Cade and I were already up there babysitting, we decided to take the kids to get his autograph. He is 6'9". I personally enjoyed the free food from Ruby Tuesday more than getting an autograph. Unfortunately we only had our phones with us so the picture sucks.

Eliza, Lou, Quintin, Cade

Our Trip to Utah

Over the weekend Cade and I went to Hurricane, Utah (aka The Greatest Place on Earth according to Cade) to celebrate his grandma's 80th birthday. We had a great time seeing everyone and hanging out with his cousins that we don't see that often. We got there late Thursday night and stayed with his Ewell grandparents. On Friday he went with his uncles to check out this cattle ranch that his cousins have started. As always, it got Cade totally envious that his cousins are living "The dream" and he isn't. That's when the compromises on getting me to move there start. This time the agreed upon compromise is we'll TALK about moving there as soon as Cade passes the CPA exam. After that the cousins got together for dinner, played volleyball, talked, etc.

Here are some pictures of Cade being the cowboy he wants to be and turns into whenever we go there.

Here are Sam, Natalie, and Jacob playing volleyball.

Sam with his wonderful Scrabble tile stack.

On Saturday Cade went fishing with the boys and I stayed behind with my sister in law Katie. We ended up helping Tina get the big dinner ready for everyone. On our way over to the dinner there was this HUGE hail storm and the streets were flooding really quick. It was a traumatic event for us. Keep in mind that it was just Katie and I in the car and we barely knew how to get where we were going, there was construction going on messing up the lanes, we could barely see out our windshield from the rain/hail, and we were close to being swept away. But after some tense moments and a little screaming we made it. I wish I had thought to take a picture during it, there was so much hail on the ground it looked like a blanket of snow, it was crazy. Cade's dad and brother were on a horse ride in the middle of it and had to get back as fast as they could to avoid the lightening, they were soaked! Then we had the dinner which turned out great, BBQ pork sandwiches, one of my favorites. After that was the big birthday bash. Lots of people came out to see his grandma. We were sad to leave on Sunday, especially because now we have to focus on the talks we're giving in church on Sunday. NNNNNOOOOOO, I HAAAATE giving talks!!!!!!!!!

Grandma Johnson with her birthday cake and a bunch of great grandkids.

Katie and I checking out our bellies. She is 6 weeks farther along than me.

Us with Grandma Johnson. I think that cute little girl is Mason, when she saw us taking a picture she ran to be in it.

Whit, Golden, Kendra, and Brendan at the birthday party.

Us with Grandma and Grandpa Ewell.

(Blast our crappy camera making pictures blurry)