This morning HK, Deb, Jennifer and myself got up early and made our way over to Caeser's Palace to enjoy a morning at their spa. I was SO excited to get to share this experience with the girls as I went there last September and LOVED it!
We were first given a tour of the all that the spa has to offer. Then we were given lockers where we changed into these heavenly robes. We all started off by getting 50 min massages and enjoyed the huge selection of coffee, teas, juices, water, fruit and other snacks while we waited to be called on.
After 60 minutes of absolute heaven, we all met up and made our way first to the eucalyptus sauna room and after 20 minutes of that we headed over to the roman baths/jacuzzi room.
Last but not least, we finished our spa experience in the arctic ice room where it was a chilly 55 degrees. We exfoliated our skin with ice chips and then moisturized with the falling snow flakes which were actually lotion flakes. Definitely a great way to close up the pores and end your spa experience! We then made our way to the shower facilites where we got ready for the rest of the day. All the ladies LOVED their spa experience and we can't wait to return!
We walked back to the hotel, checked out, enjoyed the champagne brunch buffet there at Treasure Island and then made our way to the airport for our 5pm flight. We were patiently waiting for our flight to board when they announced it was delayed until 6pm...then they announced it was delayed until 6:30pm. By this point we were all so ready to get back home and the group was the quietest I had heard them all weekend. We finally boarded and got off the ground shortly after 7pm and arrived in KC around midnight. Ended up pulling into the driveway a little after 1am and crashed into bed exhausted from the weekend festivites. Thank goodness I had Monday off! I definitely needed it to recover!And so, another wonderful girls weekend behind us! There is already talk about where we are going next year...
My morning consisted of sleeping in, going for a run along the strip with Deanna and then later we took a taxi and met all the girls at the Luxor for the bestest breakfast buffet ever! While we were at the Luxor, we decided to pick up our show tickets for Criss Angel - Cirque de Soleil. For those of you who don't know, Criss Angel is a magician and has a show that airs on A&E called Mindfreaks where he performs all kinds of stunts & tricks for the public. Most of his stuff is pretty amazing to watch and leaves you baffled as you try and figure out "how did he do that?"
While we were in line to get tickets, a lady with a headset approached us and asked if we wanted to stick around and participate in an episode of "Mindfreaks" which they were taping right there at the hotel for this fall's show. We all agreed to stay and after waiting around for almost 2 hours, me, Deanna & Kari decided to go shopping instead. An hour after we left, Criss Angel finally appeared and out of all the people standing around waiting to see him, my friend HK had to be the most excited - especially when she was selected to participate in a magic trick with him which they filmed for the show. After the taping, he let her keep the cards used for the trick and took a moment to get a picture with her. She had a permanent grin on her face the entire rest of the day:
While the girls stayed at the Luxor, we walked back to our hotel which was on the other side of the strip taking in all the sites and doing some shopping as well. Here are a few pics from the afternoon:
Eiffel Tower @ Paris
Fountains @ the Bellagio
New York, New York We all met back at the hotel later in the evening and ate dinner at a really fun restaurant called Kahunaville in the hotel. We had the worst service from our waitress who was anything but nice to our group and after complaining to the manager about her, they were all bending over backwards for us! We somehow managed to have a good time regardless of the crappy service & the food was really good!
Afterwards, we all went back to our hotel to get ready for another night out on the town. Earlier in the day while we were shopping, a gentleman had stopped us to tell us about a nightclub he was promoting and ended up giving us 7 VIP tickets to the nightclub JET at the Mirage. We were positive we were going to have to pay him something since it seemed everyone in Vegas who helps you wants a cash kickback, but he walked away before we could even get out our wallets. So we told the girls about it and we all agreed to check it out. We all got ready to go and about 11pm we made our way to JET - of course getting a picture before we left:
We got to the club, found the promoter guy, stood in line for just 10 minutes and he escorted us all right past 3 lines of people on in to the club. We all even got 2 free drink tickets per person which was awesome since drinks in Vegas are at least $10/beverage. Inside the club was way cool and they played great booty-shaking music all night - which we did plenty of! At around 1:30am they had a special performance by a dance group called Beat Freaks who performed last year on MTV's America's Best Dance Crew and placed 2nd. They were awesome to watch and well worth waiting around to see! Of course we managed to snap a few pics of the ladies up in the club:
HK, Jennifer & HT ( a Heather-sandwich :)
HK, Deanna, Kari, & Marlo
...a beautiful word indeed! I am off for 5 days of fun in Vegas with my girlfriends and shall return Monday June 12th with LOTS of pictures & stories! Until then...
This is the site I see every morning just as I am about to rush out the door to go to work. Once Shane gets out of bed, he puts the Bullies in bed with me and there they lay....long after I have gotten out of bed, after I have showered, ate breakfast, put my shoes on and am ready to leave - they are STILL laying there snoring away. It is a chore to try and wake them up and literally drag them out of that bed, down the stairs and out the door to potty.
Can you say SPOILED?!? :)
So last week as I was getting the hose out from under our deck, I noticed a little woven, fluffy mess in an old flower pot that resembled a nest of some kind with a hole burrowed in it. Didn't think anything of it and went about watering the flowers.
This evening, I went to put the cover back on our grill and notice some small black specks on one of the racks. As I look closer at it I see that it is mouse poo and not charred pieces from the grill. Then out of the corner of my eye I see something on the deck floor move quickly. At first I thought it was a frog since it was raining and they end up on our deck all the time. Uh.....NO! It wasn't a frog. As I get a closer look at it I notice it is a mouse. Then I remember the little nest I saw last week under the deck and realized this little rodent was shacking up under our deck and feasting on the remnants of our grill. Little bastard!
He scurried on over to the corner & just sat there looking at me and I at him (or her)! The mouse actually stayed there long enough for me to go inside & grab my camera so I could get the proof I needed because I knew Shane won't believe me when I tell him about the mouse! I ended up taking 3 VERY zoomed in pics of the little guy and suddenly as I sat watching the mouse with his gaze meeting mine, I got all "soft" and noticed how super cute he was with his little brown body, white tiny paws, little fuzzy ears and a cute twitching whiskers. Then I thought, what if this mouse has a family in that little nest!?! I can't possibly kill a family of mice!?!! I was quickly forced to come back to reality as that furry little devil darted across the deck, past my bare feet and flew down the side of the deck sending shivers up & down my spine. That's it - he was cute NO more! I went inside, got the D-Con out from under the kitchen sink and set it on the grill. It is time for this mouse to have his last meal - RIP sweet furry mouse!
Today we were invited to two different Fish Fry's! The first one was held at Shane's cousins' house out in Lee's Summit, MO. We enjoyed spending time with Shane's mom, aunt, uncles, cousin's and his brother visiting and catching up with what everyone has been up to. We feasted on a spread of Spoon Gill, White Bass & Crappie fish which were all caught by Shane's cousin and his 2 boys. I must say that the crappie was my favorite!
We headed home around 6:30 pm, fed & let the dogs out and then we headed over to our neighbor's Melissa & Nick's house for Fish Fry #2. There were plenty of yummy sides to pick from and LOTS of crappie fish to eat! It was all so very good.
One of the highlights about Melissa & Nick's fish fry is that they have a "weird beer" contest & award prizes to the winners of the most unique named beer as well as the best tasting weird beer. Last year the girls judged the event so this year the boys were the judges. Shane & I were the winners last year with the most unique named beer - "Santa's Butt" beer. This year we entered another holiday themed beer called "Bad Elf" beer and well, let's just say it was NOT a hit of the guys who judged it! We ended up losing our winning title and the Moose Drool beer won for most unique name. Oh well, there is always next year!
By 9pm, most everyone had left the party but leave it to this group to stay around and have a good time. The usual "game-night" crew and their spouses stuck around for more beverages, smores and a bon-fire & enjoyed stories & many laughs around the fire!
Here are a couple of pics from the evening:
L-R: Katrina, Melissa, HT, Erinn. Front: Keri & Michelle
All the guys together posing for a "rare" photo-op
I have found yet another "must-have" that I need to share with you all. It is called the Magic Bullet Blender and it is awesome!
This little machine will peel, chop, mix, blend, whip, and grind until your little heart is content. It will whip up fruit smoothies, milkshakes, salsa, margaritas, pancake batter, dips, scrambled eggs and SO much more in no time flat!
My favorite thing to make in it is fruit smoothies for breakfast. I just whip one up in less than 2 minutes and I am out the door with my handy little cup that I mixed everything in. With the additional attachment cups you don't have to worry about washing a dirty cup for the next day! They are dishwasher & microwave safe which is one more reason why I love it! It also comes with a 10-sec recipe mini-cookbook which has great recipes in it!
The cheapest place I have found to buy the Magic Bullet is at Costco for $49.99. It comes with 22 pieces where most stores on-line only have 17 pieces. Now the only problem is where do I store this little blender of "magic"?!?
For those of you who are wondering, I managed to escape the "holiday-call-weekend from hell" with only getting called in twice - once Sunday and once Monday! It had to have been a record holiday weekend since last Memorial Day weekend they got called in over 10 times! I lucked out and managed to have a pleasant 3-day holiday weekend after all! Thank goodness!
It's day 3 of the holiday call weekend and amazingly enough NO call-ins as of yet which is unheard of! I keep checking my pager to see if it is turned on or not! How lucky is that? I hope the next 48 hours are just as quiet!
This morning HK, Deb, Jennifer and myself got up early and made our way over to Caeser's Palace to enjoy a morning at their spa. I was SO excited to get to share this experience with the girls as I went there last September and LOVED it!
Last but not least, we finished our spa experience in the arctic ice room where it was a chilly 55 degrees. We exfoliated our skin with ice chips and then moisturized with the falling snow flakes which were actually lotion flakes. Definitely a great way to close up the pores and end your spa experience! We then made our way to the shower facilites where we got ready for the rest of the day. All the ladies LOVED their spa experience and we can't wait to return! 
