Viva Las Vegas

Our family took a spontaneous trip to Las Vegas this week. Here is some of what we did: We went to Hoover dam...

Check out the huge bridge under construction in the background.

This is how they worked on the dam. I can't even imagine how scary. 114 people died during its construction.

The Arizona side...

We stayed at the Luxor. The kids thought staying in a pyramid was the coolest thing ever.

We hiked from the Venetian to the M&M Factory. (About 2 1/2 miles one way.) We also found out it's not a factory. Sadly, it's just a store. Lame!

We walked through the Coke Factory. (Also not a factory!)

Corbin rocked it out pretending to be a Blue Man...

We all loved the show.

Not even a Blue Man can make Corbin look at the camera. . . .

or at him. . .

Although I have to give him points for trying...

Overall we had a good trip. I was able to see BODIES the exhibit, which was fantastic. Brian and the kids went to the Natural History Museum. It was a short trip, but sometimes you just have to get away and I'm glad we did.

** Special thanks to my brother Jason, who gave us some pointers on Las Vegas and let us crash at his house in Cedar City for two nights.

Nya's Young Einstein Party

Today we celebrated Nya's 9th Birthday. She wanted to have a 'Young Einsteins Party.' The decorations and idea we got from Design Mom's Blogspot. What could be more exciting than a gaggle of girls (and one boy) running around with chemicals?

Those of you who know me best, know that I DON'T bake. This is my attempt at brain cupcakes...

Fake Snow. . .Brrr!

We had to send them home with slime!

The only photo of the Happy Birthday sign. (Of course it didn't turn out!)

Dry Ice bubbles. . .

Corbin LOVED them!!!

What would the party be without film canister rockets? (You fill the canister half full of water, then add half a tab of Alka Seltzer, put the lid on, and BLAST OFF!)

Waiting for launch codes. . .

Here are the goodie bags....

My photo skills at their worst. . .

New Niece

Here are some photos of our meeting with my new niece Aliya.....

A Mother on a Mission!

Many of you know that I have been taking Corbin to regular Speech and Occupational therapy. Each week we have the privilege of meeting with the most amazing specialists. I've been astounded by how much improvement I've seen in only a couple of months. At each appointment, I'm given practice suggestions for things I can do at home with him. Many of the suggestions involve games.

Unfortunately, games are not cheap. (Especially when coupled with $300 co pays each month!) I've collected what I can, but it's adding up quickly. In an effort to help Corbin, and not pay retail prices, I'm posting the remaining list of suggested games.

Hopefully one of the six people who read this blog will see the list and think "Hey, I've got that game out in the garage and we never play it." If any of you find that this is the case, and would be willing to part with the game at a reasonable price, please email me. Don't worry about missing pieces, I'm adapting some of the games anyway. For pieces on games that don't need to be adapted, I can easily contact the company for replacements.

Here's the list:

Cariboo (made by Cranium)

Colorama

Boggle Jr.

Upwords (Doesn't need to be Upwords Jr.)

Chopstix (I haven't been able to find this one anywhere! I'm pretty sure they've quit making it.)

My intention is not to be pushy here, but for so long I've felt helpless, and this has given me the chance to feel like I'm doing something. I'm just so impressed with how much these activities seem to help.

Soccer Photos

Nya started playing soccer this year. She absolutely loves it (when she's playing forward.) She's still not fond of being on defense. Anyway, I just wanted to share a few pics. Nya is #2. None of the photos are very good. I'm definitely not the best photographer. . .I'm just happy to have finally remembered my camera for once!

Today they played a team that hasn't lost a game in 3 years! I hear they practice 3 days a week. Several of the girls on that team play for U9, as well as Nya's age division, U8. (Some of them were monstrously huge!) Anyway, we were glad the girls only lost by 7 goals. The final score was 2 to 9.

I don't think I've ever yelled so loud in all my life! At one point during half time I found myself telling Nya "Those girls are rough! Don't be afraid to get in there and man handle 'em! If they shove you, shove 'em back!" Nya seemed pretty surprised to hear me actually telling her to rough somebody up. When did I become so violent??? However, the pep talk worked! The other team only scored 1 goal during the entire 2nd half! Nya was much more aggressive after that.Here she is playing defense. The girl next to her is the coaches daughter. Luckily it didn't start raining until right after the game ended. I had a few more pics, but they were all too blurry to see anything. Maybe I'll get a better shot at next weeks game.

And The Winner is. . .

I'm pretty excited, since I had this name (and logo) before. Here is a sample of my business card. It's been several years, and I still love it. All I had to do was tweek it a little. Thanks for all the opinions, it really helped!

Local News

Nya's class was featured on the weather portion of our local news. I wanted to post the video clip, which showed Nya front and center, but this was all I could find on the website. Nya is pretty excited though.