I have been so busy!  Here’s what’s going on…

• We went on a little vacation last week to Oregon.  Visited two aunts, went to the Enchanted Forest, Prehistoric Gardens and Gold Beach.  Had a great time.

• Andrew performed a magic show for Katie’s birthday party and the kids loved it!

• I took the Joann’s sewing class and made this pillowcase… then I finally made the dress for Katie.  Let me know what you think!

• Katie finished her swim classes and will be starting gymnastics at the end of this month.
• Grant is trying so hard to talk… a few words he’s yelling at me: BABY, HERE! and MAAAAAAA!
• Baby is getting big (3 months already)
• We are all sick.

We leave tomorrow morning for our vacation!  The past several weeks have been spent planning and preparing for this year’s road trip.  Today was spent running last minute errands: oil change, pedicure (WHOO HOO!!  I think it’s been about 3 years since I’ve gone to have one done professionally!), dentist, car wash, etc. 

There are so many fun things we have planned including a visit to Alcatraz, a DUCK tour of San Francisco, Fourth of July at Lake Tahoe, and a tour of the Jelly Belly factory, just to name a few.  Of course I will be posting some pix when I get back.  So don’t forget about me in the meantime!  I can only imagine what my Google Reader will look like when I get back.

xoxo

Andrew and I are busy planning this year’s road trip.  Looks like we will be traveling on my birthday again.  We’re heading up to San Francisco and Tahoe this year.  In honor of our upcoming Alcatraz tour, we watched The Rock last night. (How is it Sean Connery looks so good even at his age?)  My FIL is coming with us, so that should be fun.  Katie loves taking road trips and is really looking forward to going.  Baby should travel well… I’ll be in the backseat some of the time, so I’ll be able to keep an eye on both of them.

This picture is of her a few years ago at Lake Tahoe taking a nose-dive into the water. LOL… our friend Jon calls it the snorkeling picture. 

I plan on making another photo book again this year.  We used mypublisher last year through the Costco website and got about 40% off.  Our book was gorgeous… I just love it!  I’ve been looking at Blurb’s site too, and can’t decide which service I want to use.  Has anyone out there used Blurb yet?

Curly wrote about this awesome site where you can be creative and make some collages.  Here is my creation.  My old 90210 collage from high school has nothing on this!

I found a fun Geography game…

That was my score and I couldn’t pass level 6.  Now I have to try to beat my score!

What is your score?

UPDATE:

I am now up to level 8 with 270557 points.

I found a fun site where you can select the states you’ve been to and a map is produced.  Of course I am a little technically challenged, so I was unable to get the code and put up a better copy of it here, but I did save the image to my computer and used that here instead. 

At any rate, I have been to 25 of the 50!  Fun!  I can’t wait to check out the other 25… especially the northeastern seaboard. 

A couple weeks ago, we took a much needed vacation and drove up through Oregon and Washington to Canada.  It was so much fun and I plan to do a full run down of our trip, but for now wanted to at least post what we’ve been up to lately!

Katie is now two and will not stop talking.  Not only does she copy everything I say, but she also will sing the songs that I sing.  How fun is it to teach your daughter Dr. Demento’s Fish Heads?  VERY!

We’ve also learned that #2 is going to be a boy.  Needless to say, Daddy is quite happy.  Boy Scouts, here we come.

I’m STILL getting sick during this pregnancy.  I’m closing in on 20 weeks (halfway there!) and so far, everything is good.  We’re looking at an early December baby.  What a nice Christmas present!

My husband is doing great and appears to be cancer-free with no radiation or chemo needed.  What a blessing.  He is on the job hunt, as his former employer could not hold his position.

All in all we are doing great and hope the rest of this year has nothing but good things for us.

The title of this blog can be deceiving… though I did in fact take a road trip to Las Vegas over the weekend, it was not the glitz and glamour you’d expect.

My friend Jenn & I drove up to see our friend Shannon who moved to Sin City almost 2 years ago.  This was a great trip for me on many levels…

• I’ve known Jenn since we worked at Bullocks right after high school (that tells you we’ve known eachother awhile since Bullocks has been closed forever!), and we’ve never gone on a road trip/overnighter together.
• Shannon had baby #2 in January and I’ve yet to see this little one (and since she is terrible at sending me pix, the only one I have is from her at the hospital).
• My first solo trip without my hubby since we’ve been married.  Good because it was GREAT hanging out with the girls for a weekend.  Bad because we’ve already been spending time apart while he is working in OC and I am out in the desert.

So it was a weekend of ‘You watch my kid while I take a shower’ and visa versa.  We went to dinner at Gordon Biersch… yum.  We barbequed… yum.  And we stayed up and talked. 

I love my girlfriends.  It is so interesting to have known them from when I was 18/19 to now when I am 32.  They have seen me through my twenties… supporting me during unhealthy relationships, giving me sometimes unwanted but much needed reality checks, helped me move from apartment to apartment, planning my wedding, and throwing me a baby shower.  We now swap recipes and compare notes on child-rearing.  And I love every minute of it.

I love postcards.  Getting them, sending them… whatever.  I have stacks that I have collected from various places I’ve visited, as well as ones I have received from places I’ve never been.  I’m lucky enough to have friends that would appease me and send me one while they are on their own travels.

So, imagine my delight when I came across Postcrossing.  A site where you not only SEND postcards to people you don’t know, but you RECEIVE them too!  Some of my favorites are from Brazil, Portugal, Estonia and Hungary.  And for some reason, there are a ton from Finland.

In our day and age where email and electronics are a part of our every minute, it is so refreshing to open the mailbox and have a handwritten, scenic postcard with stamps from around the world.  Call me old fashioned, I don’t mind. 

In fact, I kind of like being old fashioned.