And back to the real world!

Alright, so did you miss this sweet face?!

We had a wonderful trip, but we sure were anxious to get home that last day! 

So I had every intention of taking lots and lots of pictures... and didn't. We walked so much, I got tired of carrying around my heavy camera. But I still managed to snap a few, albeit not the most amazing pictures you will see of vegas (somehow I didn't take a picture of the strip all lit up or the bellagio fountains!). But anyways, here is a little glimpse into our vaca...

We saw lots of hotels/casinos... and lots of people thowing away their money even at 9 in the AM!

Lots of neat architecture everywhere: 

I got to look at this a lot! 

And another reason I didn't take lots of pictures... apparently some stores don't want you taking pictures of their merchandise... like this hat store: 

And we got to see some awesome friends from CO who happened to be there at the same time! Sorry Jess, for some reason I don't have a picture of your faces :) 

And I hung out some more with this dork... or do I mean stud? :) 

And one afternoon we just relaxed around our hotel. Here was my view up: 

Out front: 

Well, more like this with my incredibly tanned legs! 

And to the side: 

Ahhh,so nice! I did get in the pool for some reason. It lasted all of two minutes. Just long enough to say I was in a fancy pool with waterfalls that we swam under :) And I got a lovely sunburn with some funny white lines going up and around my neck. 

And the place I spent the longest time taking pictures... the Bellagio butterfly garden. 

I am obsessed with taking close ups of flowers now. 

I could have spent all day in there taking pictures. But eventually a certain someone gets hungry. So we enjoyed LOTS of yummy food.  My favorite restraunt was most definitely Serindipity 3.  Absolutely delish. I wish I had taken a picture of our food there. Instead here is some yummy gelato we enjoyed:

We also got to see Cirque du soleil and a magic show and did a little dancing, sleeping in, shopping, people watching, cheesecake eating, and sipping of a three foot tall slushy drink :) 

And now we are back to 13 hour work days and a super whinney child growing some more teeth. Next vacation, only 6 weeks away! But seriously, it is nice to be back :)

An evening stroll.

Here are a few more from Tara and Ryan's visit. After having a few days off Taylor is back to being at work all day.  So today I am doing a P90x workout with my neighbor and other than that reading tons of books to Madelyn and getting things done around the house. Even though I am not a fan of rain it is nice to have a day where I can just stay in my sweats and not worry about putting make up on :)

Aw, aren't they so cute?! 

And this is how they normally act :) 

Love this. Thanks Tara for these next two! 

And I don't normally post pics of just myself but I love this one!

Ow ow!!! 

And  we tried everyday to get a good one of Madelyn and Tara... Here Madelyn is whinning to be put down but it looks like a smile right?! 

And here's one so we can show off our long model legs :) 

And this is what happens when you let two girls bring their cameras on a walk to the mailbox.

Some talking.

The girl has become quite the little talker. Morning time is typically when she is fired up and she will just chatter away through breakfast.  Her favorite subject... puppies. That is the first thing she says almost every time we go in to get her when she wakes up. She has also started pointing TO EVERY LITTLE THING and saying "nah" as in 'what's that?.' The problem is she points to the same thing over and over and over and excpects an answer every single time :)

I finally discovered that when we are reading and she points to an animal, she wants to know the name of it AND also the noise it makes... otherwise she will keep pointing and asking until she has both pieces of info! Funny, yet it becomes kind of exhausting :)  Also, her new favorite activity: singing songs that have hand motions that go along.  I try to teach her a new one every other day or so and she always wants to do it at least a dozen times. But I am so grateful I can stay at home and watch her take in all these new things!

Anyways, I have tried to record her talking but it never seems to work very well... she is distracted by the camera or she just wants to hold it.  But here are two attempts at getting her on tape:

Oh and we got to go to a gymnastics meet down at the University of Utah a few weeks ago!!! It was incredible. It was against Florida State who (I am pretty sure) is ranked #1 in the country and Utah is ranked pretty high too. Amazing gymnastics! And it was pretty fun to be the one who knew all the answers to the questions about the sport instead of the other way around :)  This was the last home meet, but next year we will be going to many more!