Vegas and St George

The kids had a long break from school this October, 4 weeks to be exact, and I decided to take them down to Las Vegas/ St. George for a vacation.  Me and the kids left on a Wednesday afternoon and made the 6 hour drive down to Las Vegas.  Aaron was going to fly into Las Vegas on Friday where we would pick him up to finish out the vacation.  

For lunch we stopped at our favorite hamburger place: In-n-Out Burger.  We couldn't find a place to sit, so we made an impromptu picnic in the back of the Escalade.

We basically spent most of our time swimming at the pool, which the kids couldn't get enough of.  And I made them go to my favorite home decor store, Kirklands.  On Saturday, after Aaron joined us, we decided to go to the Children's Museum in Las Vegas.  The kids had so much fun!  It was hilarious to watch Alex.  It was like he was the Road Runner, quickly running from one exhibit to the other.  He was so excited with all the activities.  

Adam, Abbi, and Alex, and even Mom and Dad had fun creating HUGE bubbles at this station.

Alex's favorite was this station.  He loved "fixing" the car.

And, what Children's museum would be complete without the "Grocery Store" Station?

Here is Abbi and Alex in the hurricane tunnel.

The second half of our trip was spent in St. George.  Here again, we swam and swam.  We got out of the pool long enough to do a little miniature golfing ( I won, by the way) and race cart driving.

We also stopped by the St George temple to take some pics.

EO in Moab

Welcome to Moab, Utah.  Home of Utah's adventure Capitol (at least according to utah.com).  Can you believe that Aaron and I have never been to Moab?  I know, people come from all over the world to find adventure here in our backyard, but we have never experienced it.  That is, until Aaron's EO group (Entreprenuer's Organization) put together a quick one night getaway and invited us to go.  It took all of about 2 seconds to say "Yep, we'll be there."  We all caravanned down to Moab stopping off at several locations to fill up the gas tank and to grab drinks and snacks.  Aaron and I had a great time talking and singing in the car on the way down.  Okay, Aaron talked on the phone and I sang, but who's keeping track?  We stayed at a quaint ranch up the mountain above Moab.  The kids would have loved it!

They even had teepees.  So cool!

That night, they fed us a chuckwagon dinner complete with steak, potatoes, vegies, the whole works.  It was yummy!  In the morning, the guys took off to do a little mountain biking on Slick Rock and Hillary and I went into town for a luxurious 60 minute massage.  It was heaven!  After that we were supposed to take a jeep ride adventure over the rocks, but because of some miscommunication, we were unable to do it.  Oh well, Aaron and decided instead to do some sightseeing through Arches National Park.  

We had a great time exploring Moab for the first time.  Maybe next year we'll bring the kids with us.  I think they would love it!

Our Summer Concert Series

I am a country girl at heart and this summer Aaron surprised me with tickets to some great Country musicians playing at the Usana Amphitheater.  Of course, I had to wear my cowboy hat:

We saw:

My all time favorite: Tim McGraw

He came with this cutie:

Luke Bryan

And these guys:

The Band Perry

Tim's was a great concert, although, I don't think Aaron and I quite fit in with all the beer drinkin', daisy duke wearin' crowd.  At one point, I turned to Aaron and said, "Do you feel old?"  He replied, "I would feel old, except there are people older than us here."  Ha Ha!  We still had a great time.  Tim played some of his old and new stuff.

The next concert we went to was:

Rascal Flats

With Sara Evans

Great Concerts shared with my great hubby!  What more could a country girl ask for?  

Our "Amazing" Great Urban Race

On Saturday, Aaron and I participated in the Great Urban Race.  We got to race around downtown Salt Lake City against 44 other teams figuring out clues and completing tasks in hopes of making it back to the finish line in first place all for a grand prize of $300 and a chance to go to Nationals in New Orleans. We started out at Lumpy's Bar and Grill and at 12:00 they blew the start whistle and gave us our envelope containing all 12 clues.  Rules:  You have to complete 11 out of 12 clues correctly, you can run, walk, jog, or use public transportation, you can use a gps/laptop/iPhone/whatever, and it is best to have a great phone-a-friend.  So, after the whistle blew Aaron and I ripped open our envelope and started deciphering the clues to figure out where we needed to go.  The clues were word searches, riddles, tic-tac-toe, and play on words.  We quickly figured out the easy ones and ran out the door to get to our first stop:  Ken Sander Rare Book store.  Here, we had to answer 4 questions correctly in order to get our stamp.  We quickly completed the task and ran back outside.  At this point we decided to figure out the rest of the clues and come up with some sort of game plan as to where we needed to go so we didn't backtrack.  The next stop was to a cafe where we had to peel a potato.  From there, we ran all over downtown Salt Lake Completing the clues.  Our final clue was to take a picture in front of the SL Olympic clock at a certain time.  When we got there, 4 other teams were there and Aaron told me we would have to run to the finish line.  At this point we had been running pretty much non-stop for 2 hours - I was exhausted, but I said I could.  But, after listening to the other teams, I quickly realized they were not done with their clues.  YES!  So, we got our picture and ran back to the finish line.  As we turned the corner, we could see one team sitting outside the finish line and I thought "Shoot, I wonder how many other teams are done."  When we finally hit the finish line, we were told we were team number 2 but because the first team didn't have everything they needed they had a 30 minute penalty which made us TEAM #1!  We couldn't believe it!  

WE WON THE GREAT URBAN RACE!  

It was so much fun.  We got the $300 and qualified to go on to the finals in New Orleans on Nov. 12.  Will we go to Finals?  We're not sure yet, but we had a great time on this race and will definitely be doing it again next year!  Aaron and I make a great team!

A HUGE thanks to Ali and Ben for being our fantastic Phone-a-friend support team.  They did a great job figuring out some of our clues.  We couldn't have won it without you!  

Getting ready for the race to start

 Aaron with his Juice-stache at Lunaberry

Me high-fiving a stranger in uniform

Me and a stranger with 2 visible tattoos

Me in front of the White-Allgar family tree at the Family History Musuem

Aaron in front of the Gateway Sign

Aaron and I in front of the Olympic Clock at exactly 2:00

We're Team #1!

Yep, 300 smackeroos!

And, here we are with a big check!

Wendover

A few couples from the neighborhood found out that Bill Engvall was going to be in Wendover and they asked Aaron and I if we wanted to go.  Um, Yes, please!  We boarded the "fun bus" and headed out to Wendover.  On the way, we laughed, talked, and played Bingo!  We had a great night being together and Bill Engvall was very entertaining - "Here's your Sign!"  I know I've said it before but here it is again... We are so blessed to have such amazing neighbors!

Waiting for the "fun bus" to arrive

Susan and Dale Byers

me and my honey

Celena and Chad Collotzi

 Suzy and Scott Ricks

 And, our good friend, Bill Engvall