From Las Vegas to Laundry ...

... and when she woke up, Cinderella discovered that the razzle dazzle of Las Vegas was gone and she was back in the kitchen sorting laundry and cleaning the oven (although why she ever thought that would be a good idea I don't know).

Our friends, Jane & Sally, arrived on the plane that Ben went back on on New Year's Day, and what with Christmas, New Year,  another week of fun in Phoenix, followed by a girls weekend in Las Vegas (more on that in a minute),  I have had the perfect excuse to eat like a pig, drink like a fish and generally skive off all but the most necessary of chores since 23rd December ... Yay me!

One of the highlights of J&S's visit was a trip to the races.  They had been to a local racetrack called Turf Paradise on a previous trip to Phoenix several years ago and were curious to see if it was still there.  It was, and races were scheduled that weekend.  Having never been horse racing before - apart from a Corporate day at Goodwood once, during which I don't think I even saw the racetrack (far too muddy for my liking!) - I didn't really know what to expect other than the stereotypical chain smoking old men with nicotine stained fingers, flat caps and dodgy anoraks or cigar smoking Arthur Daley characters in trilbies and macs?  Whilst there was still an element of that, (except here they wore stetsons and cowboy boots - no anorak required), in general there was a wide mix of spectators, including lots of families, and it was a really fun afternoon out.

There were other people there, honest!

Whilst Marcus and the girls studied 'the form', carefully picking their horses based on the data available,  the look of riders, who'd had their Shredded Wheat etc.,  Ethan and I just went for those with the most appropriate sounding names.  A strategy that clearly paid off as Ethan managed to pick the winner for 4 out the 8 races whilst I had the biggest win of the day with a horse called 'Wed too Soon' and the longest odds (well, I found it amusing anyway!)

Winner!

So, back to Vegas.  After leaving us the girls were off for a spot of golfing, with a week in Las Vegas and a week in Palm Springs, before coming back to us for a further week before they flew back home.  As they were going to be driving to Vegas from here on a Friday, I wondered whether there was any reason why I couldn't tag along for the weekend and fly back Sunday afternoon.  It turned out there wasn't ... so I did! Yay!  The girls wanted to go via Lake Havasu to look at 'London Bridge' which was perfect as I had never been there before either and so we headed off after breakfast, amusing ourselves with singing and 'alphabet' games along the way, and arriving just in time for lunch.  One of the Newcomers group who used to live in Lake Havasu had recommended a restaurant called Shugrues which overlooked the bridge and we were not disappointed (thanks Jen!).  

After a fab lunch and a leisurely stroll across the Bridge we were soon back on the road again and a couple of hours later arrived in Las Vegas.  The girls had an apartment booked at the Wyndham Grand Desert resort, just off the main LV Boulevard, which was lovely, and even better had a free shuttle to the strip!  After checking in and a quick unpack and freshen up we headed out for the evening.  We were all still too full from lunch to eat 'a proper dinner' as my Mum would say, and so just popped into Ghirardelli's ice cream parlor for a small snack...

Chocolate Fudge Sundae ... Mmmmmm!

We visited several of the large casinos (all very smoky ... yuk!) before finally settling in The Bellagio (a much better class of smoke!) and largely stuck to playing the slots, which whilst not yielding any dramatic wins, did enable both Sally and I to leave with most of our assigned 'pocket money'  in tact.  Result!  The next day we headed to the Premium Outlets for a spot of retail therapy, which to be honest we found to be dramatically overpriced and mainly geared towards the tourist market, which I suppose was inevitable.   Much better bargains to be had here we decided (ask Jane about her $1 golfing shorts!).  Then it was back to the apartment for another quick change before heading back to the Bellagio for the 'O' Cirque de Soleil show.  There is no doubt that this is a spectacular show and one which I would definitely recommend as a 'must see', however, we all agreed that if you have already seen several Cirque de Soleil shows, as we all have, they do begin to get a bit repetitive as whilst the characters and costumes are different, the format is the same and even the acrobatics, whilst still impressive, were very similar to every other show. Sorry Cirque but I think I might be falling out of love with you just a little bit.  After Sunday breakfast and another amble around the Wynn and Encore casinos (still smoky but with much comfier seats!) it was time for me to head to the airport and home to Mr B - who had been in his element finally having the TV to himself and watching sport all weekend - and Gadget Boy,  who I don't think even noticed I had gone anywhere! A fab weekend and great fun - definitely to be repeated!

Viva Las Vegas!

Cheers

This week it was back to earth with a bump and all was eerily quiet at Barlow Towers as my Vegas partners in crime have gone off golfing for a couple of weeks,  Mr B has flown off on another jolly work trip, and Youngest is at school.    So with nothing to distract me further,  I could avoid it no longer and reluctantly dragged myself back to reality.  As well as oven cleaning (it seemed like a good idea at the time but after five minutes of scrubbing the shelves with one of those evil green wiry things I had rapidly gone off the idea), I washed and dried four loads of laundry (I swear the boys wore nearly every item in their bloody wardrobes during the two days I was away),  shopped for groceries (dull), restocked the fridge (although looking at it now it seems to be mainly wine and chocolate ... no clue how that happened) and the piece de resistance, dealing with the somewhat unscheduled task of sorting out the tyre pressure warning light which had helpfully chosen this morning to show itself.  Thanks for that.  Never mind, I thought ... only mildly irritated at this point ...  no big deal.  I can pop into the garage and top up the air in the tyres on the way back from the supermarket ... it will only take a few minutes. 

Now, when I was in the UK, providing you had the right change for the machine, topping up the air in your tyres was a relatively straightforward, although admittedly not a favorite, task.

1. Pull up to machine.
2. Scrabble in purse for change. 

3. Punch in desired type pressure.
4. Begin adding air.
5. Stop when machine beeps to indicate correct level reached.
Easy.  The trickiest part was having to run round the car like Annika Rice on speed to complete all four tyres before your 40p ran out whilst trying (and invariably failing) not to lose any of the little black caps you needed to screw back on afterwards.   Today's experience though was somewhat different.

1. Pull up to machine.
2. Look for slot to add coins.
3. Determine there aren't any ... must be free?
4. Check it works ... it does! ... good times.
5. Look for where to enter required pressure ... there isn't anywhere.  Sigh.  OK.  Never mind, will just have to rely on the gauge.  Now, if I can just find that  ... oh great ... there isn't one.  Bad times.
6. Curse loudly several times.
7. Get back in car and set off to find another garage.

Drive 10 minutes to next nearest garage.

1. Pull up to air machine (helpfully hidden behind Rhino gas canisters)
2. Look for slot to add coins ...  ah ... here we are ... 4 x quarters ...
3. Scrabble in purse for correct change and miraculously find 4 x quarters
4. Feed into slot. So far so good.
5. Look for where to enter tyre pressure ... not on this one either ... grrrrr
6. Curse loudly whilst simultaneously noticing driver of large truck watching with some amusement as he sits in his cab eating his lunch
7. Large, Heavily Tattooed Trucker slowly disembarks from cab and makes his way towards clearly pathetic female
8. Actually very nice Trucker, helpfully explains that gauge is hidden in end of air hose and proceeds to demonstrate ... well, how bloody stupid is that?!! Asks pathetic female if she would like him to do it for her?
9. Somewhat indignant female, replies that she will be fine now thank you very much and Helpful Trucker gets back in cab to continue with lunch.
10. Run round car to remove black caps from tyres
11. Attempt to add air to first tyre ... nothing ...  try again ... still nothing ...
12. Notice Helpful Trucker disembarking from cab again  ... oh god ... pathetic female now dying with embarrassment
13.  Trucker asks pathetic female if she is sure she wouldn't like some help?
14.  Pathetic female admits defeat and concedes that maybe she does need some help after all ...
15.  Helpful Trucker promptly determines machine is broken and advises finding another garage ... Oh FFS!

Now that I knew what to do (thanks to Helpful Trucker) it was a relatively quick exercise once I found another garage with a working air machine (apart from needing a bloody magnifying glass to read the miniscule numbers on the tiny gauge).  I later discovered that air machines without gauges are quite common and apparently you have to carry your own ... what?!! ... well that's just ridiculous!  

On recounting the tale to Mr B when he called earlier that evening, he told me that the tyre pressure warning light had also come on on his car a few weeks ago.  

"Oh ... so you obviously managed to work out the air machine then?" I remarked, feeling even more stupid

"Nah ... never even tried.  I just took it to the garage on the way to work and they did it for me". 

Good grief.

Hope you have all had a good start to 2016.  How are those New Year Resolutions going? Would love to hear what they were and how you are doing with them - leave me a comment below!

Thanks for dropping by and see you next time,
TTFN
Bev x

What happens in Vegas ...!

So this week we had a little jaunt to Las Vegas for a few days to make the most of family time before school starts for Ethan next week (for which I think he is more than ready now!).  Besides, the Ballagio were doing a '3 nights for the price of 2' offer, so quite frankly it would have been rude not to.

Although it is just under five hours from here, it is a very straight forward and easy drive with long straight roads and beautiful scenery.  We drove by majestic mountains, the Joshua Tree National Forest (didn't realise it was an actual tree and not just the title of a U2 album) and once again, witnessed stunning Arizona skies with some of the loveliest cloud formations I have ever seen.  I think I could take a photo every day of the year and I would have 365 different skies ... hmmm, I can sense another photo album coming on ... #project365

Joshua Trees

The Bellagio was indeed lovely and lived up to our expectations in every way. You couldn't help but be impressed by the Murano glass ceiling decorations and the fabulous conservatory (although I had to agree somewhat with Youngest who exclaimed "OMG ... I've wandered into a Disney movie!")

"Under the Sea ... "

The beautiful colored glass ceiling at the Bellagio

If truth be known, this was also a bit of an exploratory trip prior to numerous friends' visits over the coming months who all seem to want to visit Vegas while they are here (can't think why?!) to see how easy it would be to include some 'adult time' at the casino, whilst feeling comfortable that we could leave the 'tweens' in the room and weren't too far away to be back in a few minutes if there was a problem.  (Some of the hotels are so huge that you would have to walk miles from the bedrooms before you reached the casino and I didn't feel comfortable with that).  The Bellagio fitted the bill perfectly in this respect.  Not so huge that everything was miles away, but big enough to allow the variety and freedom we wanted.  It transpired that this worked really well at the Ballagio - Ethan couldn't wait to get rid of us for a few hours each evening and was quite happy munching his way through snacks and sodas, chatting to his new American friends via the wonders of social media (mostly girls I have to say!) and watching Netflix ... thank God for Wifi!  Before we went anywhere though, I was obsessed with going through fire drill scenarios and making sure he knew what to do should the alarm go off when we weren't there. 

"Now, are you sure you'll be alright if we go downstairs for a couple of hours?"

"Well, I was perfectly fine until you started going on about being burnt alive in my bed ..."

As for Mr B and I, we were like a couple of naughty teenagers who had managed to give their teacher the slip for a couple of hours on a school trip and we had a hoot!  We had allocated ourselves a small amount each evening to play with and stuck mostly to the slot machines to make sure we got the most out of our evening (otherwise I think we would have been back in the room within half an hour) and of course took full advantage of the free cocktails offered at regular intervals!

We really should have had L plates, as neither of us really knew what we were doing and muddled our way along, somehow managing to win enough to top up our pot each time ensuring enough funds to last the evening.

Mr B with his girly cocktail!

During the daytime we enjoyed visiting some of the other hotels on the strip, marvelling at the sheer size of some, and the grandeur of others, and trying to navigate our way inside as much as possible,  venturing outside only when absolutely necessary as it was still hotter than hell.  Las Vegas is also a great place to indulge in our other favorite pastime - people watching - and we certainly saw some sights ... memorably a very large lady in yellow hot pants and matching crop top, prompting Ethan to remark "What's she come as ... Sponge Bob?"  :D 

All in all though a fun few days together and a successful fact finding mission - I have a feeling we could be visiting a few more times over the next year or so!

Hope you all had a good week too and those in the UK are enjoying some sunny weather too.

Thanks for dropping by,

TTFN

x