We’re Baaaaack…

Note: There were photos in this blog, but they weren’t formatting properly so I took them out!

So, we are back from Las Vegas and we had an absolute blast… except for the fact that I hurt my foot early on in the trip (the doctor thinks it’s tendonitis) and it bothered me most of the time! I don’t want to bore you with all of the details of our trip, but I will give you a little summary of what we did each day.

Tuesday

We left our house around 5:00pm to get some dinner and then head to the airport for our 7:30pm flight. We had some Wendy’s, got to the airport, checked in, and went through security in plenty of time. Then, it turns out our flight was delayed for 30 minutes. Now, 30 minutes may not seem like a long time, but our layover in Atlanta was only 45 minutes so that wouldn’t leave us a lot of time to make our flight… if we even made it. We ended up barely making our flight (we actually ran in the airport)! It was not a smooth flight at all and we were happy when we finally landed in Las Vegas at 11:00pm Vegas time (2:00am Jacksonville time). We took a taxi to our hotel, checked-in, and finally got to sleep around 1:00am Vegas time.

Wednesday

We got up around 10:00amVegas time and ate at the hotel. Then we headed out on the “Deuce” (a double decker bus that takes you up and down the Strip stopping at pretty much all of the hotels). We headed to Treasure Island to pick up our Cirque Du Soleil “Mystere” tickets and then to the Venetian and the Palazzo to walk around the shops some. After walking around all day we were hungry so we went to P.F. Chang’s at Planet Hollywood and had dinner. After dinner we headed over to the Bellagio to pick up our Cirque Du Soleil “O” tickets. We were tired from our long day so we headed back to the hotel and had some Ben & Jerry’s and relaxed some.

Thursday

We got up early Thursday morning and took the Deuce to Paris hotel/casino so we could catch a shuttle over to the Rio/the Palms to meet my grandma for some lunch. We ate at the Palms and walked around some. This is when my foot started hurting me really badly. After walking around for a little while we headed back to the Strip. I sat on a wet seat on the bus so it added some frustration to our day. We went to the Coca-Cola store and I got a pair of shorts to change into. We headed back to the hotel and had some dinner. Then we changed to get ready for our first Vegas show, “O.” The show was SO amazing. We recommend it for anyone who makes it to Vegas. After the show we headed back to the hotel and got ready for another fun-filled day.

Friday

We slept in on Friday and had lunch at the hotel. Then we decided to head to the opposite end of the Strip and work our way back. We got off the Deuce at Luxor and walked around there for a bit. We also saw an IMAX “Ridefilm”… don’t recommend it at all! Then we headed over to Excalibur and walked around for a little while. We headed across the street to the MGM Grand and looked at the Lion’s Den. While there we decided that since “O” was such an awesome show, we should see another Cirque Du Soleil show. So, we headed over to New York New York and got tickets (great seats by the way) for “Zumanity” that night. Since it was the late show, we had plenty of time to kill so we explored NYNY and then headed over to M&M’s World and the Coca-Cola Store (again). After that we headed to Planet Hollywood and had dinner at La Salsa Cantina. Then, it was back to NYNY for “Zumanity.” We saw a great show (not as good as “O”) and then headed back to the hotel.

Saturday

Saturday was a very relaxing day. It wasn’t supposed to be that way, but we missed the shuttle (by seconds) to meet my grandma and ended up spending most of the day in the hotel sleeping/relaxing after we had lunch at the Bellagio. The most exciting thing we did that day was had dinner at the Italian restaurant in the hotel!

Sunday

Sunday was Easter and Kyle’s birthday. We slept in that morning and had lunch at the hotel. We went to the Fashion Show Mall on the Strip only to discover it was closed for Easter (this was about the only thing closed)! We walked around a little, but it was hard because we were both so sore from all the other walking we had done. We decided to kill some time by playing some penny slots… one dollar can last about an hour and a half! We had dinner at the Grand Lux Cafe (owned by Cheesecake Factory) and then headed over to Treasure Island for our third Cirque Du Soleil show, “Mystere.” It wasn’t our favorite of the three shows we saw, but it was pretty funny when the man sitting next to us was pulled into the show as “Papa.” After the show we headed to La Salsa Cantina (this one was at Caesar’s Palace) and had some chips and salsa and a frozen margarita each (we don’t really drink, but we decided to celebrate Kyle’s birthday)! We sat outside and had an amazing view of a fountain at Caesar’s Palace from our table. Then we headed back to the hotel and relaxed.

Monday

We got up early Monday morning so we could make sure we made the shuttle to meet my grandma so we could spend the day with her. We made the shuttle and met my grandma about 15/20 miles off the strip at the Suncoast Casino/Hotel. We headed to Olive Garden and had a wonderful lunch. Then we headed over to Red Rock Canyon. It had such amazing scenery. After the scenic drive we headed over to the Red Rock Casino and explored that for a little bit. Then we went to my grandma’s apartment and got to see her cute little place. After that we headed over to the Rampart Casino to see that some. Finally, my grandma dropped us back off at the Suncoast and we headed back to the Strip. We had dinner at the Cheesecake Factory at the Forum Shops at Caesar’s Palace. It was so good! We finally headed back to our hotel room to rest for our day of traveling.

Tuesday

We headed to the airport at 5:30am Vegas time. Had a smooth flight to Houston. Had a short layover and then headed to Jacksonville on another smooth flight. We made it home at 4:45pm Jacksonville time after another smooth flight.

Overall, we had a wonderful time on our anniversary/Kyle’s birthday trip. We definitely want to go back to Vegas so we can see my grandma again, see the two Cirque Du Soleil shows we didn’t see, and so we can explore the Hoover Dam and the Grand Canyon. Well, hoped you enjoyed hearing about our trip. Let us know what you think!

PS- Click here to see photos from our trip!

Goodbye… for now!

So, it is 4:30pm on March 18th and I am waiting for my husband to get home so we can head out for Vegas! We are so excited! We will have a laptop and internet access, so there may be some updates, but don’t count on it! Haha! Check back soon for updates (next week for sure)!

Fathoming 1 Billion

This morning on the radio there was a discussion on fathoming the number 1 billion.  This is the way they tried to illustrate 1 billion.

If you subtracted 1 billion seconds from today it would be the year 1976.

If you subtracted 1 billion minutes from today it would be the year 106.

The year 106, that’s almost Jesus’s time!

What’s Coming Up…

So, there is a lot going on for me this week. I finally submitted my Grad School application this past Saturday. The whole decision process can take awhile, but hopefully I will hear back from UNF soon. Also, I submitted an application for a new part-time job. It is an administrative position and it is 20 hours per week and would work perfectly with my school schedule (if I get accepted, of course!). I love working at Pottery Barn, but this is a better opportunity because it is with a Criminal Justice/Social Welfare agency. In fact, I would still work at Pottery Barn on Saturday mornings/afternoons. I will keep everyone updated about my school/job situation.

This Friday I will be cutting my hair… finally. The last time I cut my hair was last July. It may not be considered long for a lot of people, but my hair is past my shoulders and too long for me! I cannot wait to have it chopped off! Then I leave Saturday for South Carolina. My mom and I are going up there Saturday and Sunday for my friend Elaine’s bridal shower. Monday is mine and Kyle’s one year wedding anniversary! Yay, we are so excited! Then, Tuesday evening, Kyle and I leave for our week-long trip to Las Vegas. We cannot wait to have some fun and get away for awhile!

So, that’s a little bit of what’s going on and what’s coming up.

My New Portal Page

I just fell in love with my RSS feed aggregator (Netvibes) all over again today. They just released a new version of their system and it included a new “My Universe” feature. “My Universe” is a section of my account that allows me to have a collection of feeds and social widgets that are public for anyone to see. I can share my favorite youtube videos, most recent del.icio.us bookmarks, and let everyone else check my favorite feeds.

It can also be a mini profile page like a facebook account where people can write on my wall and interact with my account. I have to admit that Facebook has pretty much become a profile account filled with widgets connected by friend relations. Facebook’s problem is that it started out as a social friend site first and then tried to widgetize everything. This has left it very cluttered and hard to look at with everything being listed in long vertical columns. I just read the other day that Facebook is thinking about creating tabs for profiles so profile information, widgets, and other stuff can be separated. Well whadaya know, that basically describes what Netvibes has been for years. A tabbed widget system under a profile, except they are just now allowing public pages which opens it up to so much more.

Having this public widget page really struck a love note with me mainly because the old site I used to have (walkingfreely.com) had turned into something along these lines but I just recently let it die because I didn’t want to continue paying for its hosting. I had written some ASP to pull in my most recent bookmarks, flickr images, and youtube videos because I was excited to share the interesting stuff I had found on the web. It was also the only way I would keep up an internet presence because I have never been in to blogging regularly but I enjoyed just bookmarking/favoriting stuff and having other people instantly be able to view it.

So now that I’ve talked long enough about it I guess you want to check it out. Have fun!

http://www.netvibes.com/kpeterson85