11th ANNIVERSARY - 2012

Today is a sick day for me. Who get's bronchitis in the summer? Seriously.....having a cold in the summer is a total oxymoron! Anyway, since I have a little extra time on my hands I thought I would cross some things off my to do list. One of these things is to blog our anniversary trip to Vegas. Um, yeah, our anniversary was back in February. Sigh. Oh well!

The Bubs and I try to take turns planning our anniversary extravaganzas. Sometimes we'll do it together, but a lot of times we alternate years. Because this was my year I started to look at different options the latter part of 2011. I wasn't quite sure what I wanted to do until I received an email about some upcoming Broadway musicals that were coming to Utah. The Bubs and I are both music nuts. It doesn't matter if it's concerts, musicals, the symphony, we just love to go! It got me to thinking about musicals I still wanted to see and Phantom of the Opera was right at the top. I knew the Venetian Hotel in Las Vegas had built a theater specifically for Phantom, so after looking at the prices, I knew where our anniversary trip was going to be. Now, normally I'm not a Vegas person. I mean, c'mon, if you don't drink or gamble Vegas isn't exactly the funnest place. Plus there are only so many times you can walk the strip. AND it's super dirty. But, I am SO glad we went. We ended up having so much fun! We left early Tuesday morning and got in a couple of hours before the show started. We were going to stay at the Venetian, but decided to go across the street to the Mirage as the rooms were a lot cheaper. After getting all fancied up, we headed to the show. They don't allow you to take pics in the theater (which by the was is AMAZING) so this is the best we could before we got chastised!

On our way over to the Venetian

The show was AMAZING. Couple of things I would have done different. We were on the front row so we didn't get to see some things the other patrons did. The Phantom came out of the chandelier (which is in the middle of theater) a couple of times and we didn't know. Also, the chandelier crashing which was pretty cool. One nice thing is that a couple of times the actors would come down onto the main floor and sing. One of the times they were right in front of us.

The next day we bummed around Vegas for a bit and went to the wax museum. I've never been to one before and although it was kinda creepy, we had a blast walking through it. I also got to marry George Clooney and feel up Bradley Cooper. Win win,right?

My dress was obviously off the rack. It was also little too big, but I wasn't planning on getting married again. But, he was there, I was there, it was just pure magic!

This pic was for my little brother, Steve. Growing up we used to call him Stevie Wonder so I cracked up when I saw the wax Stevie Wonder. Of course I had to take a pic of the two of us!

I don't know how Obama can sit there and smile. Obviously there was a state of emergency that required the use of the "red phone!"

There are seriously so many other pictures I could post of us in the wax museum, but then it would REALLY be picture overload! After the museum we headed out to the streets of Vegas which can be entertainment in itself. Every time we go to Vegas there seems to be more and more street performers. It reminds me of San Francisco which I love. Plus, it's free entertainment, right?

I swear this Hello Kitty was a guy. First off, it had to be the tallest Hello Kitty I have EVER seen. Plus it had some pretty sweet break dance moves. I know girls can break dance, but the way it moved you just knew it had to be a guy.

A little shopping. LOVE the M & M factory!

When we were checking out of the Mirage we noticed the different shows that were being held at the hotel. One of them was Love - a tribute to the Beatles by Cirque du Soleil. I've always wanted to see a Cirque du Soleil show and the Bubs LOVES the Beatles (me, not so much) so I thought, why the heck not? The tickets were kind of pricey (especially as we were getting them last minute) but worth EVERY penny. We had so much stinkin' fun and LOVED the show. We both said that while we thought Phantom was amazing, we thought Love was even better. They were huge sticklers about not taking pictures in the theater, so we didn't get anything good.

After Love we headed back up to St. George, Utah where we bummed around for a couple of days and then headed back home. All in all it was a GREAT trip. The weather was perfect - not super warm, but warm enough where you could wear shorts. The shows were awesome and amazingly enough, Vegas was not super crowded. You could actually walk on the strip without running into people. Imagine that! Love ya Bubbies and thanks for going on so many great adventures with me - including the biggest one of all that started 11 years ago!

5KS AND FESTIVALS

Look at this smexy group! Pretty hot for 6 in the morning, right? This past week our little city has been celebrating it's founders day and Saturday morning found us at the park waiting to run! Er, walk for me I guess! The Bubs has recently started training again (he had to hold off for a while due to an injury) and thought the Clinton City 5k would be a good start to see where he's at. Well, he's at a pretty dang good place because he ended up placing first in his age division. Isaac and Lou decided they wanted to join the party as well (can you really blame them?) and lo and behold, Isaac placed first as well in HIS age division. Guess Lou and I just have some pretty dang awesome men! Lou and I became "walkers" (tee hee - get it, walkers? Zombies? No? Allrighty, never mind then. Sigh. Hey, I thought it was HILARIOUS at 6 in the morning!) the day before the race. After a leisurely breakfast and nice (tiny) little nap, it was a great morning!

That night found the Bubs and I at the Deer Valley Music Festival in Park City, Utah. I had never been to the music festival before up there (it's all outdoors in GORGEOUS scenery) and we had so much fun! The music festival is all about teaming up the Utah Symphony Orchestra with different singers/groups. Last night was the kickoff and they collaborated the orchestra with James Delisco to celebrate the music of Michael Jackson. I'm not a huge Michael Jackson fan, but the Bubs liked him, so I thought win win! It was a blast! I was a little worried about the weather as it's been so crappy here lately (not that I'm complaining as we need the rain!) and the concert was rain or shine. We've been to outdoor concerts before in the rain and it's kind of miserable. Lucky for us the weather held for the most part (we did get a few sprinkles towards the end) and it was even tolerable cold wise. I think one of the best parts had to be one of the other concert goers. I don't know if this kid spent HOURS watching Michael Jackson dance on youtube or music videos, but he was dancing his little heart out. He was actually pretty good, and bless him provided some GREAT entertainment. I'm so glad we got tickets (it was more of a spur of the moment thang) and will DEFINITELY be going up again for some other concerts. Getting out was a joke, so I think next time we will make a weekend of it and just get a hotel room up there.

(Can you tell we were a teensy bit bored waiting for the concert to start?)

Okay, so one really quick funny story about this. The Bubs might kill me, but I thought it was hilarious. See the second guy walking up the middle with the black jacket and colored shirt? Well, let's just say the concert last night was full of alternative lifestyle goers. The Bubs had stood up to take a pic of the concert and the guy in the jacket/colored shirt TOTALLY checked him out which made crack up. What can I say? My man is a hottie and obviously I'm not the only one that thinks so!