Lake Meade, Hoover Dam & the ram (Aug. 21st)

On our way down the hill on our way home from Vegas, we saw this beauty. This happens to be part of Lake Meade & what a gorgeous view!

We then came upon the Hoover Dam area again & decided to stop to check it out a lil better. The water level was low, but it's still pretty amazing to see. Here we are in front of part of it.

Sooo pretty!

This is a view from the look-out area we stopped at (there were lots of them).

I looked over & saw this one couple looking towards the mountain w/a camera, but couldn't see anything that they might have been looking at, until I put the large zoom lens on our camera & checked it out. To my surprise, this is what I saw. I was soooo happy & excited to see a ram! The whole time driving through the mountain areas there I kept saying to Mark that it'd be so awesome to see a ram, but we couldn't find one...until we stopped here.

It's kinda hard to see in the pics here (unless you click & make them larger), but it was such an awesome sight to see this ram standing there so proud! He just looked down at us like, "what are you people doing here?!?" He gave us such great shots too!

So that made our day & the rest of the ride home better. God's creatures & nature are so amazing! We're really pretty blessed to be able to live in a country like this & be able to see such things.

On the way to Vegas & Mark's 1st time at the Rainforest Cafe (Aug. 20th-21st)

The country is sooo pretty out here, it amazes me. Here are a few pics of some scenery on the way to Vegas & the Hoover Dam.
Too bad these pics don't look near as good on here as they do for real & enlarged though.

Here are some views of Lake Meade:

And of course, we had to get the "Welcome" sign.

I knew that there was a "Rainforest Cafe" on the Vegas strip & that Mark's never been to one, so I really wanted to go so he could experience it. So we decided to walk down the strip Sat. afternoon to get there & an hour & 15 mins later, we arrived! Our hotel was at one end of the strip & this was at the opposite end. The meal was awesome though & we got some good exercise, so it was worth it.

It was in the 100s temperature wise, so that's why I look red & tired. That was one LONG walk w/in lots of other people & passing over the strip multiple times up & down stairs & such.

It's kind of hard to see it here, but there are mechanical animals throughout the restaurant that move & make noises when the "thunderstorm" starts. They do a thunderstorm scene every 20 mins.

Lil Vegas Trip (Aug. 20th-21st)

My one friend Miah was playing in a big pool tournament in Vegas, so he wanted us to come out & see them. It was fun & they did pretty well, considering there were like 400 teams. This was my first time to Vegas, but hopefully not my last. We wanna go some other time when we have more time & money to go to some shows & explore more. Anyway, some pics of the weekend. This is the hotel where we stayed & where the pool tournament was:

Yes, that's a real roller coaster in the middle of the city!


I never even realized this guy was standing there & posing for the pic when I took it, haha. Mark said he even waved at me, but I was clueless!



Just had to take this one for my Mom. We didn't go in & check it out though. That'd be a dangerous place for her!
This is at the MGM Grand hotel.

Our very own lil garden!

Mark decided he wanted to plant some veggies & I wanted some flowers, so since we have a balcony now, we got some pots & started planting. We started these the first week we were here. Here they are about a week after they were planted. We were all excited to see the lil sprouts already. We have lettuce, peppers, carrots, broccoli, & a mixture of flowers growing.

I just had to add this pic here. This is one of our cacti variety plants. Isn't it cute??

And here they are tonight at about a month old. We had to bring them inside for a lil while, cuz it gets too hot for them during the day. They love the sun though & it's kinda comical...they lean & reach for the sun coming thru the window. We have to rotate them, ahah.

Bountiful Basket! (Sat, Aug. 14th)

There's a food co-op thing out here that makes it cheap & easy to get lots of fresh fruits & veggies for a small price. Some of the girls out here I met had been talking about this for quite a while & were saying about how great it was, so I was excited to check it out once we got out here. You get 50% veggies & 50% fruits. There are also things that you can add on, like boxes of certain fruits, loaves of bread, granola, etc. & it's all supposed to be from local farmers (in Mexico, AZ or CA). So our 2nd weekend here we got up bright & early to go get our bountiful basket! See the excitement on Mark's face at 7am, haha?!?

Here is all the stuff from our first "basket":

We have gotten it one time since this one here & we're loving it! It's just too much for the 2 of us, even to do it every other week. We're trying to eat a lot healthier & be more creative w/cooking at home, so it's been fun trying to come up w/stuff to make. It's also a nice surprise that you never know what you're going to get. It's different every week, but everything's so fresh & crisp!

Isn't it crazy to get so excited about fruits & veggies?!?