Living an EXTRAordinary Life

Or, getting caught up on my crazy life.  I guess its not really so crazy, but it feels crazy to me! 

Last Friday, we attended my cousin’s Matriculation/Convocation ceremony at her university.   You are all probably familiar with Kayla by now.  Her university of choice is only one hour south of here, and we drove down for this rather quick formal welcoming ceremony.  We were looking forward to seeing her and seeing the school, as we have not been there yet.

It is dead smack in the middle of a little town.  Main roads run through it.  Yet it is still private and very beautiful.  Fortunately, it was hot in the gymnasium, so they skipped the opening speech and got right to it.  All 400 something names.  But it was a stroke of luck that we were sitting in the front row of the bleachers and one of the nurses opened the doors and we had a nice breeze coming in at us.  Ahhhh ….

Kayla then gave us a very quick tour of the campus and took us to her tiny dorm room.  So cute.  But it was nice.

I am very proud of that girl.  She has grown up into a beautiful and smart young lady, who is going to make a wonderful RN someday.

***
On the homefront, well, like I said, I feel like life is whizzing on by.  Is there any reason for that?  Well, maybe.  I call it responsibility.  And the beginning of training for a marathon.  I haven’t really been running much, but more than I have for a few months.  I feel like I am beginning again.  You wouldn’t think that six or eight weeks of low mileage with a few 7-days of no running stretches would do that.  But for me … deconditioning is so easy.  I have put on a few pounds, and that is contributing.  But so is the fact that I’ve been lazy about my running. Combine that with the oppressive humidity.  I am having all the usual doubts about me being cut out for running and all that.  But somehow, week after week, several times a week, I lace up the shoes and head out and do my run/walk.  I manage to improve each time.  Obviously, I can do this.

Other noteworthy things:
*Hallie gained a pound of weight.  Yay!

*I think I actually have a handyman to do our work.

*I discovered that I hate the Swiffer Wet-Jet.

*My dryer died.  Now I have to go to the laundromat.  I hate the laundromat.  The only advantage is the ability to do multiple loads at once.

*The owners of the condo we rented in Kauai have not sent us the important information that we were promised by now.  Naturally, this stirs up a lot of anxiety, as I worry that something went wrong and we really don’t have the condo.  Although the rental agreement is right here on my desktop.

*After the initial excitement of my weight workout, I have never done them again.  Each time I think I’ll start again, there is a trip in the way.  So now … I will say after I get back from Hawaii.  Maybe I’ll be ready to commit to those again.  I know I have commitment issues, despite being married and having a tattoo, but this is a 2x per week, 25 minute workout.  You’d think I’d be able to handle that. 

*Technology is starting to overwhelm me.

*These smileys show up in places I didn’t put them.  Drives me nuts.

I promised the cats that we could play with their new toy, so I should probably go attend to them.

Last weekend, Matt and I took Kayla to Las Vegas for her inaugural trip.  The trip was conceived due to the Criss Angel Cirque du Soleil show.  Kayla is a big fan of Criss’ and we thought she would love the show.  And we love her and Vegas.  So why not combine the three?  It was almost not meant to be, as that Kayla girl is a very busy girl.  But we finally picked a good weekend to go.

We arrive on Friday, hop in a cab to the Palazzo.  Which continues to delight.  Kayla reacted to the room pretty much the same way I did in March … complete with open jaw and giddy over the remote controlled blinds and curtains.

After we checked in to our room (that is 2 for 2 on the Palazzo having our room ready at 12:00), headed out for lunch.  We went informal to the Cyprus Market at Caesars.  Its maybe a half mile away, but it took us half an hour to get there.  It was so incredible to watch Kayla looking at everything.  She looked, she took a picture, she took a picture with her phone, texted it to someone, repeat.  It was funny.  That was pretty much the pattern of the weekend.  But it was okay, it was funny.  It took us five hours to go three miles down the strip.  Hey, you have a better way?  Didn’t think so!

We did the “Eiffel Tower Experience”.  I have always wanted to go up there.  It wasn’t that thrilling, but at least I can say I did it.  Dinner was at The Rainforest Cafe.  They seated us in the bar, despite being with a drinking minor, and after asking us if everyone was over the age of 21.  I was disappointed in that.  I really wanted Kayla to see the animals get upset when the thunderstorms started.

Criss Angel show was just okay.  Needed more music, less dancy artsy fartsy diabolical bunnies.  I suppose if you are a die-hard Criss Angel fan, then its the show for you.  I thought it was better than KA though.

Saturday was rides day.  We headed to the Stratosphere.  The first thing we rode was “Speed: The Ride” at the Saraha, as that is where the monorail drops you off.  That is the second best coaster in Vegas.   A short walk to the Stratosphere.  Kayla and I rode the Big Shot.  I really like that ride, I wish it held us up there longer so that we could see Vegas better. That is the highest view to see Vegas from, and its over in an instant.  Matt and Kayla rode X-Scream, which I opted to skip this time, as the first time was enough for me.  It really, honestly gave me a panic attack and made me cry when we rode it the first time.   Matt, my hero, didn’t chicken out and went on there with Kay.  He was close to not doing it, but he was very brave.  Insanity is not that scary, its actually pleasant, but since I get motion sickness and didn’t feel like spending the day nauseated, I opted out of this one too.

For the first time ever, we visited “The World’s Largest Gift Shop” so Kayla could do some shopping.  Headed to Circus, Circus to show Kayla that amusement park and Matt and Kayla rode the best coaster on the strip.  Too bad its in the worst casino/hotel.  Too many people, too many kids.  Inconvenient location.  I would probably battle the kids and ride the coaster every time we went if this was more centrally located.

Dinner at Stripburger. My favorite place in Vegas.  Where they make homemade veggie burgers and the fries come in such a large portion that you need to share.  They used to have “Cakes in a Shake” but they don’t anymore.  A shame.  It was fun to be drinking a shake and have a chunk of cake get stuck at the bottom of your straw.

Mystere was the show of the evening.  The best Cirque du Soliel show that I have ever seen.  Matt agrees.  It was just as good, if not, better than the first time.  Kayla said “wow” at least 50 times in the first 45 minutes.  After that, I lost track.  It is highly acrobatic, and I always want to join them on the trampolines.  That just looks like fun.  I would have to say if you have time/funding for just one show during your stay in Vegas, this is the one to see. Really.  It’s that good.

Sunday came too fast.   We ate at Grand Lux Cafe in the Palazzo, where I get this unique breakfast thing that I can’t remember the name of, but also has awesome pancakes, and we’ve here, French Toast.  Visited the Secret Garden (baby animals yay!), Madame Taussad’s Wax Museum, which we walked through twice, because we were at the end when Kayla realized she left her sunglasses with Hugh Hefner.  Nobody stopped us from walking back in there and going through backwards.  We were able to recover the sunglasses.  And you’d be surprised how long it takes to get through there if you stop and take pictures of three people at even half of the statues.

Kayla made a new friend of the Coca-Cola bear.  We didn’t buy any M&M’s at M&M’s World (yes, really).  Kayla and I rode the coaster at NY NY, which is just okay.  Its too rough to be good.  Headed over to the Rio, which is a really really fun casino over in Carnival World or whatever they call it …except for when the shows are dark.    We ate at the buffet, which we were told by one of the chefs is THE largest in the world.  It really is big!  And it has gelato on the buffet.  Since that stuff cost $10 a scoop elsewhere, you’d better get some while you’re there.  Penn and Teller were, as always, great.  They changed the opening.  I liked the older one better.  And Penn missed one of the psychic jokes.

At the Rio buffet, I asked Kayla how many pictures she took.  She was at 477.  I had nicknamed her Snappy the day before.  That is why.  And also why she’ll need a new memory card.     Matt and I have about 47 pictures.  And they are mostly of us at the wax museum.  Ha ha.

So that was basically our trip.  We look forward to our return in December when we will be running the marathon.  We are deciding between staying at Planet Hollywood, our original plan, and Mandalay Bay, which is the host hotel.  Normally, we wouldn’t consider Mandalay, as its at the far end of the strip, and we’ve been trying to stay central, but seeing that it is actually the finish line of the race, that makes it a big contender!  We’ll keep you posted!

Matt’s take:  http://matt.riffle.org/2009/08/11/las-vegas-trip-august-2009/

On Thursday,  I spent the day with Baleigh, my cousin on my husbands side of the family.  She is 12 years old and she is quite the young lady.   I drove to her house and picked her up, and that is a 75 minute drive, and I am not a fan of driving.  I did make a wrong turn and went into the next town over, but I easily rectified the situation.   Driving back towards this end of town however, I did miss my exit and had to go another way.  The problem with that was that I didn’t know how to get to the zoo from there.  So I grab the GPS and make her look it up.  She read me the directions and I said “Is there any mention of Route 28?” she said “No” and I said that the directions were good enough for me.

I knew the first part of the directions and I had a different way of getting there than the GPS and so we laughed at the GPS saying “Recalculating”. Its really funny how I swear that voice is showing beligerence when it has to “recalculate”.    We eventually make it to the zoo.

It was a perfect day for the zoo.  Cloudy and not too hot, so the animals were active.  And boy did we hit a jackpot year with all the baby animals.  We didn’t see the young tigers, or if we did, we couldn’t tell.  They were born last year.  We did see the two baby elephants, both girls, who were born last year.  I was surprised at how small they still were, but considering how big they have to get, I guess its not surprising.

My favorites though were the water babies.  The sea otters were rollicking in the water.  Rolling around, jumping.  So cute.  I think we watched them for a LONG time.  The baby beavers were cute too.  And there was the little sea lion.  She was born in mid-June and was still being nursed.  She was walking really well and swam really well, but she couldn’t get on the rocks in the middle of the tank.  She tried really hard but she just couldn’t make it up there.  I hear that she was able to do it today though.

Petting the kangaroo was a nice highlight too.  Every time I go to the zoo, I hope they are close enough to the path for me to touch, but never until this year.  I expected them to have wiry fur, but they were soft.  Baleigh crawed through the stingray tank and into the meerkat habitat.  She laughed at me when I ran from the “Bat flight” display.  But she was just getting even with me for laughing when she ran from the Hornbill.

After the zoo, we headed back to my neighborhood because it was the day for me to pick up my weekly vegetable box from the local farm.  While we were at the host house, we saw two domestic kitties.  The black kitty was owned by the family and he was really friendly. There was also a stray who was a buff tabby with white paws.  He was a cutie … he had the extra toes on each front paw.  The stray was also very friendly, and we don’t know what happened to his owners. I was talking to the neighbor there and discussed getting him neutered.  Cross your fingers that she does it!

Now it was time for dinner!  We texted Matt and then headed to Station Square and ate at the Hard Rock Cafe, where I forgot to order fries, as my other cousin says that they are the best.  I ordered green beans instead.  But then we had dessert.  I had a rum cake, and it was really tasty … and really small.

We rode the Monongahela Incline to the top and took pictures of the City and walked all the way up Grandview Avenue, and down the Duquesne Incline.  Then walked to the Station Square parking lot and came home.  I got lost in the parking garage.  Really, I did. 

We were all exhausted, we uploaded the photos, Bay and Matt watched Hannah Montana.  Eventually we all went to bed.  Matt and I (surprisingly for me) were up at 9:00 and Baleigh slept to 10:30.  I must have worn her out!

Friday morning, we dropped some paper off at the shelter and took the quick 10 cent tour.  She was invited back to hang out in medical another time.  We drove back to her house (why does that trip seem so much shorter when there is someone with you) and I came back home and was glad to not have to drive again that day.

I really enjoyed myself.  Baleigh is so smart and pretty and she is a joy to hang out with.  She helped to make my birthday week one of the best I’ve ever had!