The Nook

Hmmm…. What happened to me? I used to be much better about updating my blog. I’ve been meaning to post an update since I got back from Vegas- just haven’t gotten to it.

So, first of all- yesterday a crazy hair brained idea popped into my head. Not sure if it will actually happen or not. I was looking at my paycheck and saw how much vacation time I have accrued and Chris has a couple of weeks coming up in August, and I thought, “hmmm, maybe we can take a trip to visit Andrew on the trail.” So, who knows, maybe we’ll be driving to Idaho or Montana in August. That’s a lot of driving- about 39 hours or so! If we do this, part of me wants to surprise Andrew, but I know that really isn’t practical. We would have to time it too perfectly to be able to do that.

I’ve also been spending my time knitting cupcakes, but I think most of you have already seen those over at TallyScrapper.

Spring seems to finally be here. I’m busy planning out what I’ll be putting in my garden. At the beginning of April I started a bunch of seeds, but now I’m trying to figure out what I’ll plant where as well as planning some other things to buy. And we’ll also be trying to remove an old stump and a bush from the existing area.

Anyway- back to Vegas. This was a work trip for our annual customer conference. The hotel we stayed at was fabulous! It was about 20-30 minutes from the strip but that’s ok since we hardly had any free time anyway. The property was fantast- lots of gorgeous landscaping, water features, etc. And the weather was perfect. Not too hot, so great for walking around and admiring it all.

And my room! Wow! I was truly spoiled. It was a 2 bedroom suite that I shared with one of the other admins. I arrived a day before her, so I claimed the “nicer” room, although, truth be told, I would have been perfectly content with the smaller room. The whole suite was almost 2,000 square feet- that’s bigger than my house! The bedrooms were both very large- and the bathrooms. Oh my. Giant room with a Jacuzzi tub and the shower had a rain showerhead. Separate room with the toilet and bidet, and yet another room which I deemed my “makeup room” with sink and bench to sit on.

The living area had a wet bar, 2 separate sitting areas (1 facing the TV and 1 for sitting and talking) as well as a dining table for 6 and a very comfy chaise lounge chair. And outside all of this was a humungous balcony with views of the mountains (I had no idea the mountains were so close! You don’t see them on CSI.) I even could see a little bit of the Strip out in the distance.

We had a discounted rate for the conference for the hotel so I inquired what the regular rate was for this room- over $900. Yikes! That’s a bit out of my price range. But from what I heard even the regular rooms at this hotel were fantastic.

Most of my time there (5 days) was spent working, but there was one evening where I went to the Strip. We saw the fountain at the Bellagio, walked through Caesar’s and the Venetian, and took in some of the sights. And can you believe it- no gambling at all for me!? I had wanted to play the slots a bit, but really no time. And I was overwhelmed. There are so many different slot machines. How do you decide which one to play? When I landed I had seen a Star Wars slot machine at the airport, but I was with someone else at that time and didn’t want to have to make him wait. Besides, it was very late and we were about to go stand in an hour long line for a cab. Yikes!

Anyway, there’s the very quick summary. Hopefully I’ll start to get back in the habit of more frequent updates.