Unusual Images!

Had to post some of these photos from our little snow event a couple weeks ago. Defiantly not your typical Strip photos.

Thanksgiving

This year for Thanksgiving we stayed home and hosted. Mom and Dad came down, Heather was here and CJ and Diane brought their family as well. Emilee and Mom did all the cooking and it was delicious. It was nice to see everyone!

Our Cooks

The pool table worked out nice with a little handy work!

The Smith's.......

Don't forget the new guy. Roman

My Entourage! I pushed that wheelchair all the over the State! CJ was off fixin a doo-dee!

What a difference a month makes!!

Backyard on November 16th. About 80 degrees!

Flowers still in Bloom!

Except this one...Emilee HATES this plant! She yells at it for not growing or changing all summer. It was supposed to be a birds of paradise :(

Today...December 15th. This Stinks!!!

Not your typical Vegas Skyline View!

I refuse to give up my lifestyle...Lets BBQ!!!

November was awesome with highs in the 80's for half the month but look what happened. Cant imagine what the rest of you are going through living in Siberia USA.

Wah Wahh (Thats a cry) Summer is winding down.

A couple weeks ago Em and I decided to get in the truck and head for the far reaches of Lake Mead. We have explored the nearer side of the lake for years now but wanted to explore the inlet end of the lake and took a weekend in late October and decided to go check it out and say we have seen it it all. There is a little, remote marina about 80 miles from Las Vegas called Temple Bar that we headed out for and stayed the night in their little motel. It was so nice and peaceful out there and the lake is awesome in the fall. NO wind all weekend. We went as far as we could go towards the Grand Canyon but got stopped about 40miles short due to the low water. It is really cool where the cold water form the Colorado and Grand Canyon meet the warm lake water...it swirls and dives down causing a weird ripple of chop where they collide. It was neat to watch the water as it swirled and moved down beneath the warm lake water. It looked like clouds. You could really feel the difference between the two water temperatures. The lake was still at 70 degrees and the brown water felt much cooler. It always amazes me how places like this are only a little drive from Vegas and 19 out of 20 people here will know nothing about it if you asked them. We love exploring around Vegas! We covered a good 150 miles of lake that weekend and burned at least 50 gallons of fuel, (ouch, ya you do the math) but it was a good send off for summer. This is the Vegas Lifestyle!


50+ miles of crowded highways!

Luxury Accomadations!

Crowded Valet Only Parking!.... ok, ya get it? Its sarcasm.

The two waters meet here. If the water was higher we could go another 60+ miles.

Cool ehh!

Definatly camping next time. Probably 20 miles from anyone!

Chasin Ducks! They look funny when they run on water.

The Temple of Temple Bar

The Stats. Although I didn't see even a 2mph gust!

Emilee is my good trailer backer girl now!!! It took some practice :) but she learned from the best!

The morning water was a bit rough...

And stayed rough throughout the day! (about 50 miles from last shot)

Echo Bay Marina for Gas and Grub...somebody is excited! Yes, the water is that low...where we are walking should be under water, that's the ramp!

That's right, we are braking the law! (no 3rd person spotter) but how can you resist water like this?

Someone is getting better!

Ahhh.. may camp here next time!



Scenery.

I love these weekends...we're gonna miss summer!

Mooched a Vacation to Diego

A few weeks ago I had to go to San Diego for a seminar to get certified in water damage restoration...I know, what could be more exciting right. Well anyway, i was being flown down and had a nice room in La Jolla for three nights so I figured we could mooch of that and squeeze in a mini vacation for the wife and I and besides little sister Heather was nearly in tears for us to visit her in her awful little beach town. It was hard but we sucked it up and toughed it out by taking an extra Friday off and going down three days early to stay on Pacific Beach and hang with the little sis. It was a good time and nice to see that Heather is doing well. We spent a couple days just beach bumming and I took Em to the Zoo. I had no idea she had never been to a good zoo. She was like a cute little kid at the zoo! After that I went to my seminars and Em roughed it at the Hyatt health spa. We also got some great tickets for a Padres game from a work colleague in our San Diego office.

Stayed on da Beach of course

Heather and Emilee hangin out in the ghetto.

Thats Right! I can ride a bike and still take pics.

Who has the longest neck?...sorry, but all other giraffe pictures have to be censored. Those two in the back were acting a little to frisky for a family blog....if ya know what i mean:)

Make monkey sounds now!

Us again

She gets mad if I don't use pics of me so enjoy.

Em's first stadium brat at a ballgame! Go figure?

Box seats...over rated. Liked 1st base better.

The End of this blog but don't cry, I may blog again.

The Heart of the Desert

We came to the sad realization that the 113+ degree days are coming to an end for the season and thought it would be a perfect time to do a little camping with freinds. There is a beautiful less know lake below the Hoover dam that extends 70miles south to Laughlin. The water at the upper end comes out of the bottom of Lake Mead and is Cold (about 55degrees) all year. This stretch of the Colorado River is called Black Canyon and is pretty sweet and the water is so clear you can see right to the bottom on days where the current is slow. About 20 miles downstream the surface water warms back up from the sun and there are tons of sandy coves hidden within the rocky cliffs and rugged environment. This is a great place to camp. We had a great weekend at Mojave. Taking in the sights, cookin up some brats and doing some wake boarding. At night the water was flatter than I have ever seen with a full moon it was like having night vision and I have never heard an echo like the one we got from our campsite...you could hear your yell about 5 or 6 times before it was lost in the quiet night. It is amazing that such natural beauty is so close to Las Vegas and we saw maybe a dozen boats the whole weekend.

Our Stake for the Weekend!

View From Above Camp. The walls make crazy echo's at night.

Em checkin the view...and lookin out for Rocks!

A nice little cove for a swim and some fishing

Hellow from Lake Mojave

I just like this perspective. This is where you hide from the heat when it really hot! In the Water!!

Watch out...shes gettin crazy....right before head butting the water!

Our backyard playground