Erica & Wes do Las Vegas!

Erica & Wes' belated honeymoon road trip, part 3 -

     BOULDER CITY, NV & LAS VEGAS, NV

My neck. My back. My Netflix. My snacks. (Even though I like Hulu more.)

Before venturing into Las Vegas, we made two impromptu stops. One was to the Hoover Dam and the other was to an alpaca store in Boulder City, NV (the world's largest alpaca store, to be exact). The Hoover Dam was damn impressive. Hahaha...puns. We wanted an alpaca from Alpaca Imports but they were over priced and we really had no place to display it at home. What does one do with a stuffed alpaca?

Then came the main part of our road trip... Las Vegas! \(^_^)/ We stayed at the MGM Grand and saw a different show each night. They were all really really good. It's hard to pick a favorite. 

Our home for the next few days.

Wednesday: Arrival and Ka. 

I couldn't find a good souvenir at the gift shop so I just took a promotional picture. 

We gorged ourselves at the buffet and saw a sign for BOGO Ka (a Cirque Du Soleil performance) tickets. If you purchase one ticket at regular price, the second one was only $10. How do you not take advantage of a deal like that??!? The show was amazing. It was Wes' favorite of all their shows. It was the story of a prince & princess (royal twins) who are attacked by a villain who wants to abuse gunpowder. The twins get separated and they go on crazy adventures before reuniting and having a double wedding (they each fall in love along the way). My favorite act was a trapeze type act on a vertical floor.

Everyone was taking pictures when the show ended. (They had some good display props, costumes and artwork.) We came across a group of young female tourists who asked for me to take their picture. I took a few and became the best photographer ever. LOL They were so excited to return the favor and took several pictures of me & Wes with my phone. As we walked away, they all shouted out their thanks to me and proclaimed that I was #1. I think they maybe had been drinking just a tad. Hahaha!

Thursday: My favorite day <3

Korean BBQ for lunch.

We started the day with lunch with my uncle. I called and told him we'd be in town and he asked what type of food we liked. Korean is one of Wes' favorite cuisines so we all met up at Sura. My uncle was their first customer when the restaurant opened. We ate for hours (he kept telling us to take our time and get more food) until we felt like we were going to burst.

Wee Kirk O'the Heather

After lunch, we went to get married... again! We had a renewal of vows ceremony at the Wee Kirk O'the Heather chapel. We had an Elvis impersonator officiant (because Las Vegas, right?)  This was the absolute best part of our trip for me. I wish I could show you pictures but they didn't allow photography inside and our photo order hasn't come back, yet. You can see the pictures at www.weekirk-photo-lab.smugmug.com/ Click wes_erica. We have both candid and posed pictures. 

Our Elvis was hilarious. He was super nice in person and a ham of a performer. He had "Elvis vows" for us to recite and act out. I could see him out of the corner of my eye gyrating his hips away and then he made Wes do the moves. I couldn't stop laughing. Oh, and the lady at the front desk asked how long we've been married before renewing our vows so we told her five and a half months. Elvis remembered to throw that in throughout the ceremony. Five and a half months!  Five and a half months! We were the happiest re-newlyweds. 

That night we saw another Cirque Du Soleil performance, Zarkana. It was a traditional circus type show. The premise centered around the legend that theaters have to leave one light on at night so the ghosts of the theater can come out to play. There were all sort of circus acts ranging from tight ropes, sand art, human balancing pyramids, and hand ropes (my favorite). I enjoyed all of the acts --they were all crazy impressive-- but wish there was a story to tie it all together. Sadly, the theater didn't have any cool displays and there were no giggly tourists for me to be a photographer for. So we just left after the show.

Hand rope performance. They allowed non-flash photography.

After the show, we walked around the strip a bit and caught the dancing fountains at the Bellaigo. Then we called it a night. 

Friday: Sharkreef at Mandalay Bay and David Copperfield... DAVID COPPERFIELD!!

I got to pet some sting rays and blue horseshoe crabs.

We walked what looked like a short distance to Mandalay Bay (it was NOT a short distance and we took the tram on the way back) and toured the aquarium. The aquarium was neat but I think we've been spoiled by the one in Sydney and nothing else compares. I'm not sure what we did after the aquarium. I think we went back to the hotel and I took a nap. Yeah, that sounds like me. 

That night, we saw David Copperfield. David freakin' Copperfield!! I have seen all of his live TV specials and I had the biggest crush on him when I was little. He was my favorite celebrity in grade school. This was gonna be awesome. 

The website that I bought our tickets from messed up the ticket dates (don't trust BestofVegas.com) so we got a seat upgrade. We were in the third row!! We shared a table with a couple from Norway. The show was great. He only did a few grand illusions but the audience interaction was what made the show. It was really funny and the audience members he chose were all pretty good, too. I almost got to participate. One of the stagehands came to our table beforehand to ask for a volunteer but it had to be a male. Our table-mate, Christian, got the honors.  His show centered on when David was a child and this dinosaur toy that he had. For the last illusion, he made a life-size dinosaur skeleton appear in this empty box. Oh and he had dancing duck who waddled to Shake your tail feather. 

Saturday: Walkin' the Strip

This was actually just a store at the MGM Grand. We didn't come across the actual sign.

Saturday was our last day and we hadn't gambled or done any shopping. What horrible tourists we were! I won a $5 slot machine voucher from the Lucky Cat at the Cosmopolitan so that's where we went. Wes advised that I play at least $100 because the machine would recognize that I put a large bill in and then it would pay out more but I was cheap and only put in $1 (you had to put in a bill in order to use the voucher). We wandered around the casino to find the perfect machine for me to spend my grand $6 on. I played the Big Bang Theory machine. I was doing okay at first (got up to $11) but then I lost it all. LOL

 Me winning my voucher a few nights before.

Big Bang Theory!! I'm there with Penny but I'm a bit dark compared to her lit up image. 

After that, we had lunch at Shake Shack--per my cousin, Kent's, advice. Good recommendation; yummy burgers!! Then we went to the Venetian for some shopping. I realized that I hadn't bought any souvenirs!! (I guess shopping isn't my strong suit.) I ended up with a shirt for my mom, another shirt for Mike and nothing for myself. Wes got us a poker chip magnet. I really didn't see anything that I liked. 

Lunch!!

Then that was it. We drove out of Las Vegas in the middle of the afternoon and headed back to Arizona to see more family. Take a break ladies and gents, there will be more to come next week!

Carlsbad Caverns & a visit to the Ngo's

Erica & Wes' belated honeymoon road trip, part 2 -
       CARLSBAD, NM & LAVEEN, AZ

I did a little self promoting the last few weeks and craft shows are in full swing. (^_^) To alleviate the stress, I will blog about my somewhat recent road trip.  Remember the detailed journal entries and pictures I promised a few weeks ago? Here it is. You're welcome ;)

Our first planned stop was at Carlsbad Caverns. I wasn't a huge fan of the day but Wes really enjoyed it. (He likes caves and especially bats.) I liked the cave itself but everything else about the day was only so so.

SO.MUCH.RAIN.

We came into New Mexico and I must have accidentally angered Mother Nature because it rained...and rained...and rained. Luckily, the caverns were underground and not affected by rain. I was pretty worried that our day would be ruined. There were some hiking trails in the park but we had to skip those. The picturesque mountain trails weren't very beautiful to drive through because winding mountain roads plus slick road conditions plus rain equals stressful driving. And my left windshield wiper decided it didn't want to work very well. (x_x)

Before going into the cave, we stopped in the gift shop and Wes wanted to buy every mug and magnet. LOL He refrained and only got one mug & one magnet. I got a magnet for my mom, a commemorative coin for Mike and a pair of socks for myself.

The entrance into the cave.

The cave was 900ft underground. We walked down a mile to get to the Big Room. It was a really pretty trek. We saw stalactites and stalagmites. A lot of them were named after what they supposedly looked like but I don't remember any of them. We also saw popcorn (the clusters of water droplets) and soda straws (the hollow skinny stalactites). There were pools of super clear water here and there. It was hard to take pictures because of how dark it was but I tried.

After walking all the way down to the Big Room, I decided I was hungry so we rode the elevator back up, had some snacks in the car and took the elevator back down. (Thank goodness for elevators!) Refueled and rested, we took the 1.3-ish mile self guided tour around the Big Room. The Big Room was literally a big room. It was the bottom of the cave where a lot of the formations were. All while we were walking, we wondered where the bats were. We found out that they sleep in a section of the cave where visitors aren't allowed.

The bats come out each night around 5:45pm and visitors are allowed to gather at the mouth of the cave and watch them fly out. It's supposed to be a really neat sight to behold. This was actually the main reason why we stopped at Carlsbad. After cave exploring, we went back to the hotel and putted around until it was bat time. We drove back to the cavern with exited anticipation, but, it was raining and the bats didn't come out. (;_;) Super sad face!! There was a good handful of tourists gathered around and the park ranger (Ranger Mark) did his best to entertain us but in the end, we all walked back to our cars soaked and disappointed. The bats didn't come out the night before either because of the rain so we had high hopes that they'd come out Sunday night to feed. We later heard that it was supposed to rain the rest of the week. Those bats either gotta man up and fly out or just starve.

Before leaving the city, we decided to grab dinner. The only place open on a Sunday night was Danny's Place. It was a barbecue restaurant but I foolishly got a burger. Well, sort of. It was called a 'flip plate' and it was supposed to be a local favorite. It was a hamburger quesadilla. It was a hamburger patty, salsa, and an American singles slice of cheese in a folded tortilla. Not very tasty, in my opinion.

That was it for Carlsbad and we were headed to see my cousin, Sieu and his family in Arizona the next morning. Before getting to his house, we ate at Chompie's. It's a sandwich place that Wes saw on Man vs. Food. The portions were huge and the food was delicious. And they had watermelon beer! :) Our waitress, Karen, was great. She told us some pretty funny stuff but I don't remember what and at the end of our meal, she sent us home with bagels (we were the last customers that night).

 Brewed in Phoenix. Keeping it local : )

So much food!! I got the meatloaf sandwich with split pea soup. Wes got the Jewish sliders.

We hung out with my family a bit when we arrived (oh and its STILL raining, by the way) but it was late so we didn't want to keep the kids up. I was super excited to see everyone and could have stayed up all night playing with the kids and catching up with my cousins, Sieu and Jill. My second cousin, Michelle, is in a variety of dance classes (9 dance classes, I think is what she boasted to us). She recently had a summer recital. Before bed, she showed us the video recording of her recital and she and her little brother gave us a live show as they danced along. So stinkin' cute!!

Me, Michelle and Kate. I should have taken a video of the live dance recital reenactment but I was too entertained to think about it at the moment. 

The next morning, the kids had art camp so Wes and I entertained ourselves. We went to IKEA and the Arizona Mills mall. Wes saw an arcade machine that only came out in Japan. But it was here!! Pictures had to be taken. LOL Oddly enough, he didn't want to play the machine (he claims we were on a tight schedule and didn't have enough time). We wandered around the mall a bit and headed back to my cousin's for some old fashioned family time. On the way home, we picked up Chinese take-out that Jill called in. She got two sushi rolls for Michelle. The 6- year-old eats sushi. I'm related to the coolest kid ever.

Tatsunoko vs. Capcom

The rest of the night and some of the next morning consisted of catching up with my cousin and his wife, Jill, and playing with their two kids. Best time of the trip so far and just what I needed after driving three days in torrential rains. We all played board games & acted silly with the children. Michelle was the master of Candyland and Ryan loved Don't Break the Ice (even if he got the rules a little backwards). Even Kate (the eldest of the children who isn't really a child anymore) was a good sport and played along. The cats tried to come out to play but Ryan just chased them off again. Haha!

 We attempted to play Sorry but everyone lost interest when Wes started explaining the rules.

The kids have a ball pit in their play room. I got in and played some. Ball pits are pretty fun even as an adult!

Our stay reminded me of Christmas dinners when I was younger. I had tons --okay, like 15-- aunts and cousins packed in our living room and my mom and dad were busily cooking a delicious meal in the kitchen. We played made up games all night. We didn't hang out much outside of those family dinners but when we were all at my house, age and social status disappeared and we were all the best of friends. Those Christmas gatherings ended when I was in high school because everyone grew up and moved away. I don't think we have ever all gathered together since. It was great getting to reconnect to one part of my dad's side of the family again. Laughs were had and memories were relived. Good times overall.

Erica has an ambitious month lined up.

I have four shows coming up in November and December. I haven't done any of these shows before so I'm not sure how it'll go but I am eager to find out. I've been sewing new pillows and getting my booth displays ready all weekend. I hope you can make it out to one (or all, if you really want to be a doll) of the shows to check out what I have. As always, if you have a custom order, bring it out because I'll have my sewing machine with me. And, if one of your pillows needs a little more stuffing, I will re-fluff and stuff for just $1.

Here's a little bit of detail on each show:
    (to further encourage you to come and to help you decide which show to attend)

TRIUMPH FAMILY WORSHIP CRAFT FAIR
SATURDAY NOVEMBER 7, 2015     9AM-4PM
       This is a small show at a local church. I don't expect too many vendors. It'll most likely have your usual craft show fare: jewelry, knitted items, baby items, soaps and candles. If you're looking for something extraordinary, I would go to one of my other shows later in the month.
       The reason why I chose to be a part of this show is because of the event organizers. I was contacted on Facebook by one of the ladies who is running the show. We talked a bit and she seemed really nice. The booth rent was within my budget so I signed up. A couple of weeks later, I received a complete vendor packet. It outlined the show's itinerary, do's and don'ts, and all other general information you could think of. I knew months before the show exactly what time I needed to be there for set up, what I needed to bring and even what would be served for lunch (soups & stews). I am not a spontaneous person so having all this information in advance was great customer service in my mind.

This show is having a silent auction to benefit the church and all vendors were asked to donate at least a $10 value item. Here is mine.

PUTNAM CITY WEST HIGH SCHOOL "WEST FEST"
SATURDAY NOVEMBER 14, 2015     10AM-4PM
        I didn't attend PC West but I'm supporting the cause anyway. LOL One of the show organizers handed me a flier at The Summer Show and I decided immediately to give it a try (I think I was just really excited to be at a show and wanted to do more). But now, the more I think about it, the more I think I should have chosen another show to do on this weekend... but it's too late now >.>
       I've heard mixed reviews regarding this show. The last one they put on was in the spring. I heard the actual event, "West Fest," was great. There were lots of games for children, outdoor grilling, signs advertising the outdoor festival everywhere but the craft show part that was inside didn't get too much traffic because everyone was outside enjoying the family activities. So, I'm telling you now... there is a craft show that is indoors. After you have fun in the bouncy castles and face painting, come on in and look around at all the local vendors and shopping.
       The only thing I must tell you now is that I am only selling totes at this show. No Pillows. I will have my sewing machine but I'm not bringing any cotton so if you want a custom order, I'll have to sew you a tote. Or I can take your order and deliver it to you at a later date.

This show is having a silent auction to benefit the school and all vendors were asked to donate at least a $25 value item with a sign explaining their shop. Here is mine.

EARLYWINE PARK YMCA CRAFT AND VENDOR FAIR

SATURDAY NOVEMBER 21, 2015     9AM-3PM

       One of the first vendors I ever met (back at the Indie Trunk Show) told me that I have to do this show. She said that she and her husband get more sales at this show than any other one they do. She said it's a small show but all the vendors are great and the YMCA does a great job hosting it. She advised me to try to get in this show each year but it is juried (yikes, competition!) so I decided that I needed to apply in May. The show isn't until November so I applied entirely too early and just freaked myself out when the YMCA didn't contact me right away. As I was finalizing my holiday show schedule, I got an email stating that I was accepted. YAY!

       I have walked the track at the Earlywine YMCA a couple of times so I think it's great that I'm able to be a part of their show and give back to the community. All of our booth fee went back into financing YMCA programs. 

THE CROWN CENTER HOLIDAY HANDMADE SHOW

SATURDAY DECEMBER 12, 2015     9AM-4PM

       This show also came highly recommended. Two of my fellow vendors at Indie Trunk Show singled this one out as one of their favorite shows. It, too, is a juried show. And it's a handmade show. That should mean no direct sales (Jamberry, Avon, Origami Owl, etc.) and no boutique. Pretty much, this is my dream show on paper. (^_^) If you're looking for an actual craft show, this is the one for you. And its right around Christmastime.  Here is a list of vendors thus far:

I wish they listed shop/business names instead of our actual names but this was a post for other vendors and not the public so I guess names make sense. 

       I'm really super excited about this show. I expect a good variety of vendors and a lot of quality made items. It's a larger show than the one at Triumph Family Worship and PC West. If you could only choose one show to attend, I would recommend this one or the YMCA show. I will have both pillows and totes (unless I sell out at West Fest) at these two. I will only be bringing pillows to the Triumph Family Worship show.  I wish I found some shows that were in north OKC but driving to south OKC and Moore for a show isn't bad. I will have feedback on each show after they are complete. I look forward to seeing you!

TTYL... I have work to do!

RagsReborn loves custom orders!

It's never too early to start thinking about Christmas gifts. I've said this before and I'll say it again... please consider shopping local when you're buying your holiday presents. There are so many unique artists in our great state of Oklahoma. I've met a stationery designer, candle & jewelry makers, woodworkers, a glass etcher, clothing designers, etc. Oklahoma crafters make up a wonderful community and we'll all love it if you showed us your support. <3

I'll be selling at a craft show each weekend in November (11/7- Triumph Family Worship, 11/14- PC West, 11/21- Earlywine YMCA & 12/12- The Crown Center). And there are so many more shows that I'm not a part of but I will be visiting as a shopper. (I plan to either hand-make or purchase locally for each of my Christmas gifts this year.) If you can't make it to shop in person, all of the vendors have an Etsy or Facebook page.

One goal that I have for RagsReborn is to specialize in custom orders. I love purchasing shirts to sew into pillows but getting your old shirts and ideas is so much more fun. I can sew pillows & totes from any of your old t-shirts. Or, if you have an idea of what you want, I can purchase the fabric and sew your ideal pillow. Let's brainstorm!

Below are some samples of pillows that I have done. If you are interested in placing an order, please contact me either via Facebook message or email ragsreborngifts@gmail.com

I can stencil with paint or cloth lettering to personalize your pillows. I can also do trim and other flourishes (buttons, patches, ribbon, etc). I work with a variety of fabric types. I made the pillows below as pet pillows...because dogs need love, too. I've done orders for baby showers, wedding gifts and just plain home decor.

One for puppy Athena & one for a friend of mine's dog.

I price depending on size and how much detail you would like on the pillow. I can do pillows in almost any shape & size. I'm open for price discussions and I love trades. If you also craft, I will probably just do a swap instead of actually charging you cash monies. 

 Wedding gift with lace and stencil lettering.

Wedding gift with buttons and stencil lettering. 

 Baby shower gift: small blocks with stencil lettering. Heart was done free-hand.

 A friend requested a pillow and I knew he liked the Juggernaut so I did a free-hand mask.

 This was a coworker's son-in-law's shirt that I sewed into a large pillow for her new grand-baby. 

 A coworker gave me one of her daughter's old high school shirts so I could make a pillow to pass down to her granddaughter. Old shirts from parents or grandparents make great gifts for the younger generation!

Multicolored patch pillow with painted stenciling. 

If you want to see more pictures, I have updates and photo albums on my Facebook page and Instagram. If you've purchased from me on Etsy, please leave a review. Good or bad, I want to hear it all. I want your feedback so I can keep improving. Happy shopping!! :)

Erica is baaaaaack!!

Erica & Wes' belated honeymoon road trip, part 1 -
       INTRODUCTION & CONCLUSION aka the short version.
(...for those of you who don't have time for the in between details. This will be long enough anyway.)

We finally have wedding bands!! 

They both arrived just in the nick of time, too. I got mine the Tuesday before our trip and Wes' came in that Thursday (we left on Saturday).

We survived our 12 day road trip. \(^_^)/ We drove across 5 states, totaled 3,000 miles and I drove all but about 8 hours of it.  **applause please** This is quite impressive since I've never driven further than Dallas, TX before embarking on this trip. And because I hate driving. LOL Driving 8 1/2 hours straight from one state to another is horrible. I had a wonderful vacation over all but Wes and I agreed that we're flying on our next trip.

My coworkers got us a "just married" sign for my car. I accidentally rolled down the windows and lost it on our second day. My bad >.> 

"Why a road trip?", you ask. Well, I've always flown to and from my vacation destinations. I've never done a road trip before. Okay, I take it back...we drove to a few places here and there when I was growing up but I hated it. My mom, dad, two aunts and two cousins (that is 7 people in a 5 passenger car...good thing we were all small) piled into my dad's car and drove straight to wherever we were going--usually Lake Murray or Houston, TX--with no stops. No potty breaks. No snacks. No sightseeing. No whining. When Wes and I were talking about honeymoon ideas, I decided I wanted a real road trip. One that was the exact opposite of the trips I took when I was younger. I wanted stops at random interesting locales. I wanted to take my time and not have a destination timeline. I'm not sure if Wes was 100% on board but he didn't object so I decided that's what we were going to do. I mean, who would want to vacation in Aruba when you can spend two weeks in a car? Hahaha...

My coworkers gifted me with an awesome road trip goodie cooler the day before I left. We only got through about half of the snacks.

I had a few destinations planned out (mostly friends and family I wanted to see) and Wes was my navigator. With my car serviced, cleaned and filled with snacks- thanks, Elizabeth, Rachel, Tashara, Brendon & Audra--we set off. We were on the road from Saturday October 3rd until Wednesday October 14th.

   
We drove out of Oklahoma (there were no interesting stops) and into Texas. Somewhere in Texas, I stopped in a "trading post" aka touristy rest stop + gift shop and got some Minnetonka moccasins. We also missed a turn and accidentally drove through the town of Anson, TX. That was one of my favorite stops. We barely stopped (only at the Dairy Queen to use the restroom) but it was the cutest town to accidentally get lost in. The speed limit was only 30mph so I got to take in the sights. They had quaint homes along the street, a park, town hall and some old fashioned looking restaurants. They also had all the expected small town shops: a bakery, pharmacy, general store and church. It was like driving through Pleasantville (remember that movie with Toby Maguire & Reese Witherspoon?) I wish we could have stopped to explore but it was our first day out and we wanted to get to New Mexico before dark. If it was around dinner time, I would have insisted that we eat at the Anson Diner.

Out of Texas and into New Mexico... and straight into monsoon season. We got into New Mexico pretty late at night and it was raining solid sheets of water. Living in Oklahoma my entire life, I was accustomed to driving through rain. I was not accustomed to driving through streets that had no drainage systems. Seriously, zero storm drains on the streets. All of the roads immediately flooded. You know how on the news they tell you to not drive through water if you can't see how deep it is? That was like every intersection. There was flooding everywhere and I couldn't tell if it was just a foot deep or 6ft deep. Getting into New Mexico that first night was the worst part of driving the entire trip! Luckily, we made it to Carlsbad, NM without any trouble (just one stressed out Erica :/ )

We spent the next day in White's City, NM exploring the Carlsbad Caverns. I will blog about that experience in full next week. (I took tons of pictures!) There was an Apache Trading Post that had cherry cider but they were closed when we drove by :( Literally, every place was closed on Sunday. I feel like the only good part of New Mexico was the handwritten thank you note our hotel left for us when we checked in.

I took a picture of my car in almost all of our destinations. I started to forget to toward the end of our trip.

Out of New Mexico and into Arizona... but not before passing through El Paso. That was another stressful drive. I'm not sure if any of you have driven through El Paso, TX but it is terrible. The speed limit changed from anywhere between 45mph to 65mph every 3-4 miles. I was constantly either speeding or being run off the road. And there were cops EVERYWHERE. I was waiting to get pulled over but we made it with zero speeding tickets : ) After passing through border control, we were safely in Arizona. We stopped in Arizona to see my cousin, Sieu, and his family. We also went to Arizona Mills (the mall I go to every year when I visit) and IKEA. Wes & I got some good home decorating and furniture ideas. I picked up some candles for my mom and drooled over a sewing machine. Then Arizona was done and we were off to Nevada!

I didn't consider that we'd be driving through mountain and desert for a majority of this trip so my options for interesting touristy stops was very slim. Most of our stops were at gas stations for potty breaks. Nevertheless, I got to take in gorgeous scenery and drive through a few mountain ranges--I don't remember which ones. I do remember that the Guadalupe Mountains were really pretty. I wish I would have pulled over for pictures but I will just have to keep the images of the mountains in my memory instead of on my camera roll.

Before driving into Las Vegas, we stopped at a bridge over the Hoover Dam. We got to walk over the dam and we walked out of Nevada & back into Arizona (then turned around and walked back into Nevada. LOL).
       Las Vegas was a lot of fun. Besides the usual Las Vegas Strip tourist stuff, we got re-married by a spunky Elvis impersonator. And we gorged ourselves on Korean BBQ when we met my uncle for lunch. My uncle is only in his fifties and he still gets around just fine but he had a stroke a few years ago. He was having a hard time getting out of my car (we dropped him off at an Asian grocery store where his wife was meeting him after lunch). I stopped in front of the store & put my emergency lights on. My uncle started to get out and the car behind us honked their horn at us. Ummm...excuse me...first off, you don't honk at an elderly man with a cane and secondly, you don't honk at a Ngo. My uncle turned around, glared at the guy behind us (first an angry look then an "oh watch me" look) and proceeded to take his sweet time getting out of the car. Wes & I laughed. And I wished for myself that I can be that sassy at 50 years old.
       I think both Wes and myself were too grownup to truly enjoy Las Vegas as they portray it on television. We only drank in moderation and didn't gamble our life savings away.  But for me, that isn't what I wanted to do anyway. I will have an entire blog post devoted to Las Vegas activities but for now, I will just leave you with a picture of me and David Copperfield, who is still dreamy at 59 years old.

We spent four days and three nights in Las Vegas and were both ready to leave. We did everything we had on the list and didn't feel like exploring anymore. It was entirely too hot. I really wanted this evil eye bracelet from the Cosmopolitan but oh well. I suppose I can always order it online if I really wanted to. We drove back to Arizona to see another cousin & her family (Trevor and Andrew!!) and then to lunch with an old friend. Details and pictures of our Arizona ventures will be posted on later blogs, if you're interested. It'll mostly be pictures of me and my cousin's kids & dog and then pictures of me and Christine. Because family.

Then out of Arizona and back through New Mexico, Texas and back home. We had to drive through the scary city of Holbrook, AZ. It was an old paleontology site so all of their town decorations were old run-down life-size ceramic dinosaurs. The entire city was old, drab and unwelcoming. I wanted some pictures of the dinosaurs but not enough to actually get out of my car. All the gas stations had signs proclaiming "no free restrooms." We finally went into a Dairy Queen and Wes asked about the signs. The teen at the register said they needed to have those signs to prevent the homeless population from ruining their restrooms. There were zero homeless people on the streets when we drove through so either the homeless are all invisible ghosts or the town of Holbrook just hates people. I vote the latter. On our way out through New Mexico, there were signs on the highway advising drivers to not pick up hitchhikers because the Federal prison was nearby. Then we saw a few hitchhikers. We both had a good laugh about that. I wanted a picture but decided against it. And, no we didn't help anyone escape prison. LOL

The later half of the trip wasn't as fun as the beginning because we both started to get sick. And I started the monthly dread. (x_x) Between cramps and a sore throat, I was just ready to get home. That was the only time I couldn't do all the driving. I had to pass the wheel off to Wes as I laid in a painful ball. But, it wasn't all bad. We did stop in Albuquerque, NM and spend a day at Old Town. I really enjoyed Old Town and will be writing about it on a separate blog. I paid for an hour of parking but spent two hours walking through the plaza and looking in its unique gift shops. I would have wandered more but I started to worry for my car. Wes decided he wanted a souvenir kachina doll but he was too picky to find one he liked. Nothing else noteworthy really happened on the way home. Oh, we did stop in Cline's Corner. Wes and his family used to stop there on road trips in his youth so we made a stop for nostalgia's sake.

I will blog more about each of our Arizona, New Mexico and Nevada stops later. I have so many pictures (SO.MANY.PICTURES.) and stories I want to tell you! I love to journal and I'm pretty long winded so be prepared. LOL Overall, it was a wonderful honeymoon vacation. I'm glad we drove it and I loved all the extra stops we got to make. Our vow renewal ceremony in Las Vegas was my favorite part. Elvis was hilarious and I can't wait to get our pictures back. It was amazing getting to see my family along the way and catch up with old friends. But...like I said earlier, we'll definitely be flying to our next vacation. Driving for 8+ hours really put its toll on my old bones. And I've rediscovered why I usually don't go into gas station bathrooms. I have a crazy month of craft shows coming up so travel blogs might be put on hold. But yay for craft shows, right?!!?! (^.^) CRAFT SHOWS! TRAVELING! RAGSREBORN! Sometimes, the Universe is pretty swell.