The Royal Court

A Desert Hike in the Snow

2010-12-09T00:00:00.000-08:00

Near the end of May one of my co-workers had been talking about a waterfall he had hiked out to in the nearby Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area. Thinking this would be a great expedition to go take Lexi on, I packed up lunch, Lexi and Sasha, and drove out to the park.

When we arrived we dropped into the visitor’s center and I asked one of the rangers if they could point me in the direction of a waterfall. I was told that I may have been a couple weeks late as many of the waterfalls that are scattered throughout the park had probably dried up, but my best chance for a waterfall would be at Lost Creek. With map in one hand and Lexi’s hand in the other we rushed back out to an awaiting Sasha still sitting patiently in the car.

Back in the car I told Lexi to climb up into the front seat with me for our little drive to the trail head. The road that circuits Red Rock Canyon is a one way 25 mph road that I thought would be ok for her to sit up front like a “big kid” for a brief stint. She got such a kick out of sitting up front and really enjoyed the view that she got from up there. I came to regret it in the weeks to months later when she would constantly ask me if she could ride up front again.

We pulled up to the parking area and piled into the trunk of my car for a quick picnic before going on our hike. It must have been a funny site to see. A then 5 year old girl sitting in the rear hatch area of a small 4-door hatchback with her 30 something year-old father along with their dog tied up to the door strike. Don’t judge us, we’re relaxing ourselves while enjoying our fine picnic cuisine.

With lunch finished we started up the short trail to go get us a waterfall. The hike wasn’t even a mile and was pretty easy, with the hardest part being some scrambling over some rocks. With our arrival I was disappointed in the pathetic sprinkle coming over the edge of the 30 cliff above us. Lexi on the other hand thought it was awesome!

After crawling all over the different rocks, we started our hike back to the car. Once we were rolling Lexi mentioned something about going up the mountain and it made me think, “Oh why not?” Instead of taking a right, I took a left and we set off to go up to the ski area up on Mt. Charleston.

Last winter the Las Vegas Ski and Snowboard had a record year. They were opened longer than they have ever been before. So I wasn’t all that surprised when we got there to still see a couple of large snow piles here and there all up the slopes. Lexi took to them right away and had an absolute blast climbing all over them. It is funny to be down in the valley wearing shorts then go up the mountain to play in the snow all in the same day.

Hangin' With Dad

2010-12-08T00:00:00.000-08:00

Beautiful late spring. At Lexi’s school they have a landscaping crew come by every week to mow the grass, trim the bushes, and other landscaping things.

On this particular day Lexi was playing outside rolling around on the grass with a rubber ball. Well she must have got some grass cuttings up under her shirt because her entire chest broke out with these little goose bump looking things.

Of course the school rightfully contacted me immediately and asked that I come pick her up. By the time I get there they are going down and are nearly gone, yet I decide to take her to the pediatrician anyway.

We arrived at the pediatrician’s office only to find they had closed for lunch. As we sat waiting for me to decide if we were going to wait or not I snapped this picture from my phone. I was sitting on a bench and she was climbing all over my back being a silly girl.

Seeing that the bumps had nearly disappeared by now I decided to just take her home and give her a good shower instead of waiting on the pediatrician. They never came back and she never reported any discomfort for the rest of the day.

Later that night I decided I would take Lexi to a movie. Not just any movie but a movie in the park. In Henderson there is an upscale mall called The District that during the summer months hosts movies they project on a large screen. I decided to pack up a couple lawn chairs and ventured out for a late night show. Here is a pic of the two of us enjoying our movie.

Mmmmmm Smoothie

2010-12-07T00:00:00.000-08:00

Around my birthday I took a couple extra days off, grabbed Lexi, and headed down to spend a few days with the in-laws. The time before this trip Lexi and Grandma had been having a blast making smoothies for a nice snack in the afternoons. So of course once we got there Lexi just had to demonstrate her superior smoothie making skills. Sometimes the simplest things bring her the greatest amount of pleasure, as shown in this picture.

Such a Big Girl

2010-12-06T00:00:00.000-08:00

I’ve been taking Lexi to the dentist since shortly after arriving here in Vegas. Each visit she progresses a little further and further along in the appointments.

Her first appointment went a lot better than I had expected. While she refused to allow the dentist’s assistant to take x-rays, she did allow the doctor to look into her mouth. At the next appointment she again allowed the dentist to look into her mouth, but only allowed the assistant one “picture” of her teeth. The following appointment she finally allowed the assistant to take “pictures” of her teeth only after daddy demonstrated exactly how the film would go into her mouth and the x-ray machine would work.

With this history in mind what happened at her appointment in February absolutely stunned me. We arrived like any other normal appointment without much fuss. It wasn’t long before we were called back to do the initial dental work. This was usually a brief conversation with the assistant followed by the x-rays and concluded with a conversation with the dentist after the x-rays came back. I was stunned when Lexi allowed the girl to take all the “pictures” she wanted of Lexi’s teeth, but that was just the tip of the iceberg.

After talking with the dentist we returned to the waiting room while we waited to do Lexi’s cleaning. Again the wait wasn’t very long and a nice assistant came out and called Lexi’s name. I got up to walk with her to the room and the assistant stopped me at the door and said, “No not you daddy, just her.”

I looked at the girl, looked at Lexi and just said, “Well go on with her and be a good girl!”

I sat back down in the lobby and in a few minutes I heard some crying and screaming coming from back in the office. I think some of the parents among you agree you just know when your child is crying or screaming. I thought for sure it was Lexi, but when I asked I was assured it wasn’t her. In fact they invited me to come around and get a quick look in on her. What I saw almost brought me to tears.

Here I was looking on while my kiddo was being so well behaved, at the dentist none the less. I was so so proud of her. I mean you can clearly see that this girl has the cleaning tool in there doing her job and Lexi could care less. It was heartbreaking. This is supposed to my little girl, my little pumpkin! She is supposed to need to hold my hand for everything scary! She’s not supposed to be independent and able to do things on her own! More tears started to well up in my eyes as it dawned on me that my little girl wasn’t so little anymore.

I’m sure there are those who won’t notice, but I figure I’d better say something up front. Yes I am fully aware that she is wearing two entirely different shoes. This was something special like a dress funny day at school deal. So we wore one of each shoe.

Lexi on Ice

2010-12-05T00:00:00.000-08:00

In late January of this year Lexi received her first invitation to a birthday party that was being held at one of the local ice skating rinks. It sounded like an awesome idea so we of course promptly RSVP’d.

The rink that the party was held at did a top notch job on the hosting side of things. The party was held in a room just off the ice. And when the party was over and it came time for skates, receiving a pair from the place was no issue. Dawn grabbed a pair of skates for Lexi and herself and got themselves all laced up and ready to go.

We initially started with skates for Dawn and Lexi because I had never been skating on ice before, but Dawn had in the past. After a few minutes on the ice, however, Dawn’s sore and cold ankles couldn’t handle the unsharpened blades and I swapped places with her. I would end up spending the remainder of the afternoon on the ice with Lexi. Her and I had an absolutely great time.

Welcome to the Family

2010-12-04T00:00:00.000-08:00

Heading into Christmas last year Lexi was in her prime saying she wanted everything she saw a commercial for on TV. Then she went and saw Santa with her Grandma, I believe. Afterwards, Grandma asked Lexi what she had asked Santa for. Lexi broke out in tears, crying and mumbling, “I want a real dog.”

Of course I heard this story and it absolutely broke my heart. At the same time, however, it also made me cringe. I mean a dog? Really? I was absolutely convinced that us getting Lexi a dog would be like the very worst of every Hollywood movie about getting your child a dog for Christmas. Well Dawn and I talked about it at length and we finally decided to pull the trigger on Lexi’s “Real Dog”.

We went to several different web-sites trying to find a breed of dog that would best match our lifestyle. After much searching and debating we finally agreed upon a Shiba Inu. With the breed picked we turned our attention to actually getting a puppy for Lexi.

Once again we turned to the trusty internet to locate a reasonable Shiba breeder. There were a couple locally, but none of them had any puppies, or older dogs, available. We expanded our search and finally located a breeder. We contacted the breeder and before we knew it everything had been arranged for our new family member to be flown to Vegas.

As things worked out the timing couldn’t have been more perfect. Dawn took Lexi down to California to spend a few weeks for Christmas vacation on the same Friday that our new puppy would be arriving. So while Dawn and Lexi were on the road to California, I was at the airport waiting for our new family member to show up. Thankfully the wait wasn’t too long and I was quickly on the way home with our little baby girl.

Dawn returned on Sunday after dropping off Lexi and we got the chance to spend some quality time with our new girl to give her a chance to get used to the house and us. We were allowed a couple days with her before the trip to California for Christmas with Grandma. The plan was to have Dawn and I drive down on Christmas Eve, arriving later in the evening after Lexi had already gone to bed. This would give us the change to surprise Lexi the next morning.

Come Christmas morning we all got up and started to go through all the different gifts in normal fashion, making sure to save the best for last. Once Lexi had gone through all her gifts we pointed out one last one she had “missed”. She opened it up and found a small, pink dog collar inside it with a name tag on it. We asked her what it was and at first she seemed kinda confused. We had to ask her what this collar was for and she had thought it was for one of her stuffed puppies. We told her to go start looking while we brought in her new puppy from out in the garage where she had been waiting. She was absolutely beside herself, so excited that Santa had brought her a puppy just like she had asked for. It was really great. Lexi put the collar on and we told Lexi her new puppy’s name, Sasha.

Here is a picture of the pair taken a couple days later.

Air Show Time!

2010-12-03T00:00:00.000-08:00

Late last year the small airport located in Boulder City opened its gates to host an air show. It was free and open to the public so I grabbed Lexi and brought her along. They had a handful of great aerobatic planes that put on quite an impressive show. Lexi seemed to really enjoy herself as you can see below.

Yeeeeee Haaawww!!!!

2010-12-02T00:00:00.000-08:00

Ahhh yes it seems that after every birthday post a Halloween post is sure to follow. Being one to not want to disappoint…

For 2009 Lexi was big into horses, as if the last post didn’t blue you into that. So we naturally wanted to take that to the next level and what better way than to make her a little cowgirl. I’ve really got to hand it to Dawn on this one. She picked out the costume and all the accessories and did a grade A job at it to boot. Everything looked outstanding on Lexi.

Here is mom getting Lexi ready for trick or treating in Grandma’s neighborhood like the year before. Amazing to see how much how much Lexi has changed in the past year.

One of the local schools was doing a trunk or treat where the school parking lot was filled with cars and you could go from trunk to trunk getting candy. The goal of the event was to be a safe alternative to trick or treating. It was really well planned out and even had someone there with their miniature horses which gave me this great pic.

Around the same time we welcomed a new member into the family. This is Lexi with her, then, brand new cousin Grace. Grace just turned one this past October and just loves her Lexi.

Happy 5th!

2010-12-01T00:00:00.000-08:00

For Lexi’s 5th birthday we did BounceU again. For those of you unfamiliar with BounceU it is a place that houses several different inflatable jumpers for kids of all ages. They have slides, houses, obstacle courses, and all sorts of different things. BounceU, or some variant, has been our de facto birthday spot for years.

This year was different in that my sister, her husband, and her kiddos all had the chance to come out and join us. This made things especially fun for Lexi. She doesn’t get to spend much time with her cousins, however it seems whenever they get a chance to get together they always have such a fun time and this time was no exception.

Here is a pic of Lisa’s youngest Alysha at the party enjoying herself a big piece of cake.

This is a pic of Lexi showing off her new scarf she received as a gift for her birthday.

Near Halloween pumpkin patches and various fairs start to show up in and around town. One just happened to open up before Lisa and her family had arrived the weekend of Lexi’s party. So the night after the party we took everyone out to one of the little carnivals that was setup in the parking lot of Galleria Mall in Henderson. They had plenty of rides for both young and old allowing all the kids to have a good fun time.

Here we have, from left to right, Dionna, Lexi, and JJ all at the bottom of one of those carnival slides.

I’ll finish this post up with a pic of Lexi riding one of the horses they had for the kids to ride. She is in seventh heaven when she gets a chance to ride a pony!

Happy Birthday Young Man

2010-11-30T00:00:00.000-08:00

Near the beginning of September of 2009 Lexi and I got the chance to head out to Farmington again for another major event in the family. This time we were celebrating the 80th birthday of my granddad. We had a great time and I snapped this great pic of Lexi with her Great-Granddad. It is funny that every time we go out to Farmington Lexi is so very well behaved. It is as if she picks up on the fact that her behavior while we are there is so important to me, which it is. I’m just so glad that I can get pictures like these while my grandparents are still around.

Time for a Quick Dip

2010-11-29T13:29:00.000-08:00

And we go from 8 inches of snow to hot summer days and quick dips in the pool. At the same time for some reason I failed to get out my camera in the 7 months in between pictures. I’m sure that school was the blame for that.

Regardless, here is a quick snaps of Lexi enjoying a quick dip in Grandma’s pool in July of ’09. It seems that each Spring/Summer we have to start over with her at square one to get her back into the pool. She always starts out the season so afraid of the pool, and water in general, and then warms up to it.

WHAT!? Snow in Freaking Vegas!?

2010-11-29T11:54:00.000-08:00

I think the title of this one pretty much says it all. Snow is rare in Las Vegas. The amount of snow we received in mid-December of 2008 was legendary. The news said the next day that the amount of snow received in Henderson, which is where we are, was a 30 year snow.

At the time Dawn and I were carpooling back and forth to and from work. Lucky us. Right after Dawn got off work she drove straight to my office, picked me up, and we drove to pick up Lexi from daycare. It took us over an hour to get from my office to her daycare, a normal 45 minute trip at most with heavy traffic. It was a preview of things to come.

We started up to our house and saw cars pulled over off to the side of the road. People venturing home would start up a hill, lose grip, and just pull their cars over and give up for the night. The main drag up to our house looked more like a parking lot than a street. Over three hours later we were finally safe and sound at home. Of course we didn’t have the heart to put Lexi straight to be without going out and playing around in it…

Of course being so late it makes for a very tired kiddo.

We woke up the next morning to our very own Winter Wonderland.

Of course I knew simply telling people we had 8 inches of snow would be unbelievable so I had to get my proof.

Funny thing is that I think the wife and I were the only ones foolish enough to actually try to venture into work the next day while all our neighbors were calling in. Then again I got a great picture for my trouble.

That's the Way Things Happen...

2010-11-29T11:30:00.000-08:00

On the Polar Express.

During Christmas season in 2007 Lexi was getting big into Polar Express. She absolutely loved that movie. That year we found a bookmark at Hallmark that looked exactly like the golden ticket in the movie. We gave it to her on Christmas of 2007 and told her it was Santa’s way of saying she would go on the Polar Express the next year.

Next year came and the timing couldn’t have been more perfect. Dawn and I planned a few days off to go to Farmington to see my grandparents. We timed it so on our drive back to Vegas we would; stop in Williams, AZ and take Lexi on the Grand Canyon Railway’s Polar Express trip, stay the night, and drive home the next day. We arrived in Williams and checked in to the hotel and got settled in. After eating dinner we changed Lexi into her PJ’s for her journey on the Polar Express.

Here’s Lexi presenting her special Golden Ticket in order to board. I have to say the all the staff running the show were excellent! The made sure to pay special attention to make sure things went smoothly. They were all tremendously friendly and never did we feel we were inconveniencing someone with odd picture requests.

Once we got to the “North Pole”, Santa walked the length of the train giving each of the kids their very own bell. This is one of my favorite shots of Lexi with her bell.

A Pair of Princesses

2010-11-29T11:00:00.000-08:00

Side note: I should say that going through all these old pictures trying to figure out what to post as updates is quite invigorating very similar to flipping through an old photo album.

Ahh yes Halloween 2008. Lexi was on her Belle from Beauty and the Beast kick. She wanted to be Belle more than anything. So we went through and got her the costume with all the fixings from the Disney store. Here are the results.

This is Dawn getting Lexi all dressed up and ready to go trick or treating throughout grandma’s neighborhood in California. I really love this shot of my two princesses. They are both just so full of childish excitement. Just looking at the picture makes me start to giggle with them.

Here is a quick snap from Grandma’s back yard. Lexi was just walking around doing a lap for us while I took pictures. I grabbed this snap by total luck. She pulled up the dress totally unprompted. When I got the chance to pull the pictures off the camera everyone really enjoyed this one.

Big Diamond Anniversary

2010-11-29T10:30:00.000-08:00

On September 6th 1948 my grandma and granddad decided to tie the knot in the little town of Lordsburg, New Mexico. As I alluded to in my last posting we had were on the way out of time when we received the keys to our new place for a family get together to celebrate the 60th anniversary of this occasion. We had a great time getting so much of the family together in one place to celebrate their 60th!

Here is a picture of the happy couple with their anniversary cake.

This is a group shot of the family get together at the park that is just down the street from their house. It was a beautiful afternoon which lasted most of the day, but turned nasty towards the end of the festivities.

Lastly, here is a pic of Lexi that her mom took while playing around out in the grass.

A New House for Lexi

2010-11-29T10:00:00.001-08:00

Silver Springs Park in Henderson is the park that I had been taking Lexi to while it was just Lexi and I. During the many visits I grew quite fond of the area and thought it would be a great place to look into once Dawn moved out and we entered the market for a home.

One afternoon after one of our trips to the park I decided to take a drive through the neighborhoods surrounding the park to see if there were any homes available. While there certainly were many available on the market there was this one particular house that always stood out in my mind, but it didn’t have any signage indicating it was for sale. Dawn contacted a real estate agent friend of a friend from her office, and before I knew it we were pulling up to the front door to take a look inside. After a run through it was quickly decided that this wasn’t the property for us however, it started us on the journey to home ownership in the Vegas valley.

So after what seemed like months we finally found ourselves the proud owners of three year old foreclosure. The day we received the keys we went over for a couple quick shots with Lexi before heading out to Farmington for a family get together.

A Day at the Zoo

2009-03-05T10:39:00.000-08:00

In early June of last year we, Grandma, Grandpa, Mom, Lexi and I, took a trip to the LA Zoo. Being that the trip was so far back I can’t recall a lot of the details. One thing I know was that Lexi had a really great time. She really enjoyed seeing all the different animals. Another thing I recall was that it was extremely hot that day, and that is coming from someone who lives in Vegas.

The zoo had a pretty good section which was specifically geared toward kids. Included in it was a petting zoo. So of course Lexi wanted to pet and touch any animal the staff would let her have her hands on.

After walking much of the morning it was time to take a lunch break. And what better to go with a hot summer day than an ice cold Icee.

A Day Out at the Track

2008-11-24T13:22:00.000-08:00

This year was the big one, the year that I hit the big 30. I really wasn’t looking forward to my 30th birthday. Then again I really don’t look forward to any of my birthdays. I will say that this one was a little different.

For months, at least since October, Dawn had been teasing me that she was going to make this birthday special. To be honest it was not something that I was looking forward to. The last thing that I wanted was to have a big hoopla about my birthday.

To make matters worse Dawn made it clear that her surprise was time sensitive. She had been poking and prodding me about my schedule around the time of my birthday. Similar to last year, this spring I was scheduled to attend a week long training class in San Francisco around my birthday.

Finally, the day comes and Dawn hands me this envelope with a Richard Petty Driving Experience logo on it. I tear into it and discover that Dawn had purchased an eight lap package at Las Vegas Motor Speedway!! This was truly an awesome present!! There was one problem however; I would have to wait three weeks before I could go!! Ohhh the agony!! Thankfully the three weeks passed rather quickly and it was race time!!

Talk about an authentic NASCAR race day experience, we even had jets flying over as we were about to get started. The speedway is located right next door to Nellis AFB and they were running training exercises that day and this is one of maybe a dozen jets we had flying overhead before our laps started.

The weather that day was absolutely beautiful. It was hot, but not unbearably so. I mean it was only 100 something degrees instead of the 110’s of degrees. However, the Richard Petty folks did their absolute best to make sure that we were as comfortable as they could make it. They had the huge portable coolers and plenty of water to go around. Furthermore, they did their absolute best to make things comfortable for the family of those who there to do laps. As I was watching some safety videos and doing some laps in a van discussing safety, Dawn and Lexi were busy doing their own thing. I was told later that at no time did Dawn or Lexi feel like they were either unwanted or in the way. As a matter of fact they even let the little kiddo pose for some pictures with her favorite car.

Overall, the experience was absolutely amazing. It was so nice to hear that Dawn and Lexi had as an enjoyable time as I did. Considering they were only there as observers, I can only imagine how much of miserable time they could have had if the staff present were unaccommodating. However, it felt as if they were trying to make it enjoyable for everyone involved, the participants and the observers.

If anyone needs a great gift idea for that special someone for a special occasion I hands down recommend this to anyone, NASCAR fan or not. I think this picture sums it up well.

If I had a chance to do it again I would not hesitate to do so.

Happy Birthday Grandma!!

2008-09-30T15:19:00.000-07:00

Not a lot to say today really. Sadly, I’ve been real busy with moving, work, and school. I’ve managed to get just a minute to put something up real fast. Back in May we went to Grandma’s house to celebrate her birthday. Here is a picture of Lexi enjoying some cake!!

At the Pool

2008-08-12T14:32:00.000-07:00

In the evenings when I return home from either work or school Lexi and I normally walk over the office to check the mail. Along the way we pass the largest pool in the apartment complex. It is not uncommon to see it filled with kids that are playing, carrying on, and having a seemingly good. On several of these trips she expresses interest in going in the pool.

Now Dawn and I both know that Lexi is deathly afraid of water. She wants absolutely nothing to do with it in any way, shape, or form. I mean it is hard enough for us to get her to let us wash her hair in the bath. Also many times these walks back and forth to check the mail happen at almost nine o’clock at night, certainly no time for a quick dip in the pool for Lexi.

One Saturday we were walking home from our mail run and again Lexi said she wanted to go in the pool. I asked her a couple times if she was sure and she insisted that she wanted to. When we finally got back to the house Lexi and I got out swimsuits on and ventured out to the pool. Dawn joined us a short time later.

What you see here is a good representation of the extent that Lexi would go into the water. There was a couple times that she would sit her butt down on the second step, but those were few and far between. We had fun that day and it was early enough in the year that we didn’t burn up from the heat.

I Love to Tap, Tap, Tap

2008-08-11T16:02:00.000-07:00

Nearly a year ago I came across a sign-up sheet for a free introductory dance class at Lexi’s school. Having always been interested in getting Lexi into a dance class I signed her up. Naturally this introductory class blossomed into a full fledged weekly event. Every week an instructor from the dance school provides on-site instruction at Lexi’s daycare. This is really convenient for Dawn and I as we aren’t required to transport Lexi to and from a dance class.

After having her enrolled for some time we were notified that the kids would be having a recital. We all got so excited to be watching our little kiddo perform with the rest of her classmates. The whole event was an absolute scream. I wish I had a couple more pictures unfortunately the stage was really dark and made taking pictures difficult. That and I think my battery died. Can’t remember exactly now. I do have some video of her doing her performances and it was so cute. I do have some video of the event I will see what I can do to get that posted for everyone.

And I Shall Call Her Mini-Me

2008-07-17T14:26:00.000-07:00

In May I took the time to finally get a computer setup to connect to the television and other equipment in the living room. It is nice because I can use it to play movies, music, and surf the internet from the comfort of my couch. In the past I had wanted to setup a similar system yet there was always something holding me back. Typically it was the fact that I didn’t have a wireless keyboard and didn’t have a wireless connection for it. Thankfully with a Fry’s nearby I was able to get both.

After purchasing a wireless keyboard, Lexi was obsessed with it. She wanted to be like daddy and play with the new keyboard. So, I decided that I would cut the cord from an old keyboard I had lying around, and transform it to Lexi’s keyboard. After giving it to her, Lexi sat down on the couch, and started to be like daddy.

What makes this a little more amusing is the fact that I was rubbing in the fact that Lexi was acting like a computer geek and not a lawyer. Dawn and I have always joked and teased about what career Lexi is going to go into when she gets older. Of course with me being the techie I would like to see her go to MIT. On the other hand, Dawn wants her to go to some big Ivy League school and become some big wig attorney. So when Lexi started playing with this keyboard I had to rub it in a little.

Happy Birthday Grandpa!!

2008-07-14T15:41:00.000-07:00

It seems that some were confused by the recent Christmas photos that I sent out of Lexi. I must admit that I am really behind on my pictures of Lexi. I have new ones I just haven’t had the time to send them out to everyone. I am trying to fix that and thought that it would be best if I started from where I left off. Thus why the last pictures I sent were of Christmas even though they are six months old.

So a few months back was Grandpa’s birthday. Lexi was really excited to wish Grandpa a Happy Birthday. She would say in a normal voice “Happy Birthday”. Then switch to a low deep voice and say “Grandpa”. It was really cute.

Here we have a couple pictures of Lexi helping Grandpa with his birthday cake and ice cream. The first she is helping him blow out the candles. The second she was helping him eat all those sweets.

Of course all that excitement can wear you out.

Merry Christmas Lexi

2008-07-01T10:42:00.001-07:00

This year we spent Christmas with Grandma and Grandpa in California. Lexi was completely spoiled and had a blast opening presents. I wish I could remember more details but they are eluding me at the moment.

Busy, busy, busy.

2008-02-26T13:06:00.000-08:00

I can’t believe that I haven’t put up a post in nearly two months!! I am a total lackey.

Things have been really busy here lately. It seems like the past five months have been a complete blur: it started with Lexi’s birthday, next came our Thanksgiving vacation, Thanksgiving rolled right into Christmas, Christmas of course into New Years, January offered a little break, February with all it’s birthdays, and finally the beginning of March we are moving.

With all that going on it is hard to get time in to take a decent picture or find time to do something special. What is making it even more difficult is that in the fall of 2007 we decided that it was time for me to get back to school. I have been talking for years about going back to school to get a degree, but the timing never seemed to be right. After giving Dawn the time to get settled over the summer I started looking seriously into getting back into school.

I completed all the necessary paperwork and transferred what classes I could from the semester I took at San Juan College. The first semester, which was Fall ’07, I took three classes. All of them were at night and required me to be in class four nights a week. The hard work and long nights paid off and I passed the first semester. Here we are now already four or five weeks into the Spring ’08 semester and I am taking more classes then in the Fall. I am currently enrolled in four classes and am feeling pretty good about things. Thankfully I have Dawn to help keep me in line when it comes to the work I have to do. She keeps me positive, motivated, and on track with my school work. I don’t think I would be able to do this without her.

This is by no means my way of saying that I am not going to continue to post the latest and greatest family news on this site. Oh no far from it. I just wanted to take a quick moment out from my busy day to give everyone an update, and let them know they are loved and missed.

Thanksgiving Vacation Round-Up

2007-12-31T16:42:00.001-08:00

This year I again burned up some of my vacation time by going to my Grandparents house in Farmington. This trip to Farmington around Thanksgiving is starting to take the shape of an annual tradition. Trust me I don’t mind. Unfortunately, Dawn was unable to join us as she is still on probation at her job and is not allowed to take scheduled time off. This meant that it would be just Lexi and I this trip.

For the week or so that we were around we had a great time. Lexi really enjoyed spending time with Great-grandma and Granddad. It was really cute to watch her interact with the two of them. Also she could say Great-granddad but she like saying just Granddad better. Nearly all our time was spent at their house. Lexi enjoyed playing with Hapie’s blocks and the old toy garage that Grandma has had for years. It was strange to be lying on the floor with Lexi playing with the same toys I can remember playing with close to twenty years ago! Also Lexi and I would start to play the game of how high we could stack the blocks. Of course her favorite part was tipping them all over and watching them come crashing down.

One of the days that we were there we went out to my Aunt Paula’s house and spent the day. Lexi had a great time!! When we first got there Paula brought a very nice xylophone over to the kitchen table and let Lexi play it. It was funny watching how she would start to get excited and we would have to calm her down so she didn’t break something. Once we were tired with that we took Lexi for a short walk down the driveway and up and down the street a couple times. Paula allowed Lexi to be in charge of walking the dogs. I’m still not sure who exactly walked who that day. After our walk, Paula pulled out some of her precious stones for Lexi. Paula did a great job with her and had Lexi doing her best to count and name them before they were done.

I have to admit I am not a normal American man. I have no desire to sit back and watch football all afternoon while I drift in and out of consciousness after a nice turkey dinner. No I am a glutton for punishment!! After Thanksgiving was all done and over with I took Lexi over to the park. Besides how else was I going to get her to behave at the Thanksgiving table unless I bribed her with a trip to the park afterwards?? I got several pictures of her playing on all sorts of things like the slides and balance beams. Much of the equipment at the park is stuff that I can remember playing on when I was young. From that trip this is one of my favorite pictures. She was having such a fun time on that swing.

The morning after Thanksgiving we were greeted with a special treat. Rumors of snow were abounding for several days leading up to Thanksgiving, and I was really hoping that it would come. Lexi had never really played in snow before, at least not that she would really enjoy. We woke up early on Friday the 23rd and much to my delight there was a thin layer of snow on the ground. Lexi and I got up and dressed immediately. We went outside and after some coaxing she finally started to play with some of the snow. Here is a cute picture of her all bundled up playing outside with daddy.

Soon Saturday morning came, and it was time for use to hit the road. Another successful Thanksgiving vacation in the bag. When leaving I find myself asking the question, “Where did all the time go?” And sometimes I find myself yearning to move back to that little town and live out the rest of my days.

Another Exciting Day Out With Thomas

2007-12-27T21:04:00.000-08:00

This year we had the pleasure of taking Lexi to go see Thomas the Tank Engine again in California. Last year it was just Grandma, Grandpa, Lexi and I that got to go see the little blue engine. This year it was Grandma, Dawn, Lexi and I. Poor Grandpa had to work and missed out.

The setup was exactly the same as last year. We arrived early enough to go to a couple of the events they had scattered around the museum. The first thing that Lexi enjoyed was the hay bale maze. She really enjoyed it last year, but it seems that she had even more fun with it this year. I think she enjoyed it more because she was a little more confident on her feet, and was able to walk, run, and jump however she wanted without restriction or fear of falling. Here is a good shot of her rounding one of the corners.

Here we are with a shot of Lexi riding in one of the coach cars being pulled by Thomas. She was so excited to see Thomas again after a year. Earlier I had been worried that she wouldn't be as interested in seeing Thomas as she was the year before. Thankfully I was wrong and she really enjoyed herself.

When we were done with our train ride we went to one of the tents that was setup for face painting. As we were standing in line Lexi started doing rings around the group of us. It was funny watching her run around the three adults just being goofy. So I powered up my camera and pointed it at her. She immediately started laughing and started going in the opposite direction the camera was pointing. Before I knew it we were playing a game like the camera was trying to get her. Well as I was moving the camera all around 'chasing' her I sapped few pictures. After a little editing and massaging here is the result.

After our face painting session, we did a little shopping at the shop they had setup. We purchased a couple items, and made our way towards the exit. Along the way we came across a couple bounce stations that had been setup for the children. Of course we had to stop and Lexi take a couple turns bouncing off all that extra energy she had all pent up. Once she was done bouncing I snapped this picture as we were putting her shoes back on. Again I did a little editing and this is what I came up with.

With all the adults, and the kiddo, thoroughly wiped out we headed for the car and eventually home.

A Trip to the Valley of Fire

2007-12-13T16:14:00.000-08:00

During the first weekend in November I thought it would be a fun idea to head out for a little trip. Last time we did this we went to Mt. Charleston for the day. I didn’t want to do the same old thing; I wanted to do something different. I received inspiration from one of the photoblogs I read daily. This photoblog had recently showcased some images from the Valley of Fire State Park that is located about an hours drive to the north(map), and I thought that it would be a fun excursion for Saturday the 3rd.

Of course we didn’t get out the door nearly as early as I would have liked. Combine that with the fact daylight savings time had just ended made our trip feel really short, but we still had a good time. Here is a picture of Lexi and Dawn at the first place we stopped in the park.

Here is another picture of all of us on the same rock as pictured above.

We continued to go from area to area throughout the day. There was really some beautiful scenery throughout the entire park. One of the areas that we stopped at had some petroglyphs available for viewing. While I was on the valley floor snapping pictures of the various rock formations, Dawn took Lexi up this huge flight of stairs to take a look. Here is a picture of the two of them. I took this with my camera zoomed in as far as it would go, and you can still barely see them!

Overall I would say that we spent about 3-4 hours going throughout the park from formation to formation.

In Rowe tradition we couldn’t go back home the same way that we came. So in anticipation, I had decided that on the way home we would come back through the community of Overton(map). On our way there I told Dawn that I wanted to try to find a place to eat that wasn’t a national chain. Good thing because, when we got there, we didn’t have any choice. The only national chain available was McDonald’s, and that was the last place I wanted to eat dinner. Thankfully, we found a little place to eat dinner, and were pleasantly surprised by the good food and service.

The entire outing was a great success, and we found a new and interesting place to venture off to on the long boring weekends.

Pickin' Apples

2007-12-11T16:08:00.000-08:00

During our Halloween weekend in California, Grandma and Grandpa came up with a great idea for a little adventure. Nearly an hours drive due east there lies a little community in the San Bernardino Mountains named Oak Glen. The area itself is tucked up into a valley and surrounded by locally owned apple orchards. Grandma and Grandpa had thought that it would be fun to take Lexi and let her pick some apples straight from the tree.

We all hoped in the car, and made the quick drive and almost got turned around only once. Along the way we were proceeding up one of the roads and suddenly everything wasn’t familiar to Grandma and Grandpa so we thought we had made a wrong turn. I stopped at a fast food place and asked (I know imagine that) if we were on the right road and was told we were. So I jumped back in the car and away we went.

Arriving at the first area that looked like a place to stop we pulled over. When we got out and started looking around there were a couple shops and a restaurant. We took our time and made sure to take a look at everything. Unfortunately there wasn’t really much for Lexi to do.

So we all packed back into the car and continued up the road in hopes of finding an orchard that lets the public pick apples. We came across this little store and we stopped in to take a look around. It was a quaint little store where when you walked in you were greeted immediately and offered a piece of one of the many varieties of fruit they had available for sale. The entire time the people were friendly, and there was never any hint of pressure to purchase anything, like what you experience in other tourist trap type areas. Grandma and I purchased a couple things, and asked about an orchard that would suite our needs. We were told exactly where to go so we were off again.

We had finally found our destination!! After finding a place to park we proceeded to the entrance. The staff gave us all a run down of how everything worked and the rules and regulations of the orchard. Before long, we were off and cruising around the orchard looking for a good tree to pluck some apples from. Here is a picture of Lexi with one of her prizes:

Unfortunately all the adults in our party were apple picking illiterate. Luckily someone with the orchard was gracious enough to help us in our quest. In a matter of no time we had filled our little bag with apples and made our way to the exit. Here Lexi is waiting for the store area to clear out so we could pay for our freshly picked apples. I guess we are just boring her to death.

Once we were all paid for we piled back into the car and doubled back to the first area we stopped at to get a bite to eat. I don’t recall exactly what we all got for lunch but I will say that it was pretty good. The highlight was definitely dessert!! Next door to the restaurant was a little bakery that specialized in apple deserts and pastries. We stopped in and if my memory serves Grandma and Grandpa got pie and ice cream that they shared with Lexi. I got an apple fritter and a whole pie to take home to the little darling. All agreed that the desserts were grade A!!

With our stomachs full and legs tired it was time to get back into the car and head home. I don’t think we even made it back to the interstate before Lexi was fast asleep with Grandma and Grandpa following close behind.

Million Dollar Pumpkin

2007-12-07T18:43:00.000-08:00

Even though this is technically Lexi's fourth Halloween in a way it felt like her first. Let me explain. Lexi's first Halloween she was only a couple weeks old, and we really couldn't and didn't dress her up. The next year we dressed her up as a Hershey Kiss. Sure it was cute and all for the adults, but she really didn't understand what exactly was going on. Last year she was dressed up as a little witch. She did seem to grasp the concept a little more then the previous years, but there wasn't any anticipation of upcoming events. This year however that all changed.

This year we had decided that Lexi was going to be a Plum Fairy. Dawn had done all the costume searching, and that is what we decided we would dress her up as. Dawn placed the order, and when the costume arrived we made a big deal of it to Lexi. As with most new things, Lexi hesitated at first when we tried it on her. Luckily when the time came for us to go trick or treat she was ready to go. We had worked really hard to get her used to the idea that we were going to put the dress on and go out and have a fun time.

Since Halloween was in the middle of the week we decided to go to Grandma's house the weekend before so we could take her to a special Halloween fair and harvest the million dollar pumpkin. Earlier this spring Grandma embarked on a mission. The goal of this mission was to grow a pumpkin for Lexi. Along with several other vegetables Grandma planted exactly two pumpkin plants in hopes of having them develop a pumpkin. During the course of the year Grandma tended her garden and soon enough a pumpkin started to sprout up along one of the vines. About the same time some mildew and fungus started to sprout along the vine as well causing a trip to the plant doctors to get some medicine. So the joke is with the cost of the medicine, water, and time spent the pumpkin, when harvested, was worth a million dollars. I think that this picture shows that it was worth it.

This was taken right after we arrived for the weekend. Immediately after I finished unloading the car Grandma said, “Ok lets go pick the pumpkin,” and off we went.

The next day was the Halloween fair. We got up bright and early and got Lexi dressed up for a fun walk. After a short walk we came upon a group of people standing watching something. It wasn't until we saw all the dressed up kids walking by that we realized we had found the parade of ghouls. We quickly grabbed Lexi's hand and just jumped right in line with the rest of the kids. It wasn't very long before Lexi was asking for me to carry her. We had a great time the little fair and maybe we can do it again next year.

Here is Lexi all dressed up and ready to go. We had just arrived and were about to take our walk to find the parade.

Lining the streets there were several booths that were handing out candy. We stopped to take a break from the walking and Lexi wanted a sucker. While she was enjoying it I took the liberty to take this quick snapshot.

Happy Birthday Lexi!

2007-12-06T10:44:00.000-08:00

This year is the first year that we got to have a really nice birthday party for Lexi. We set out to find the best place to host the party and invite as many of her friends as possible from school.

I have been to a couple children’s parties at Chuck ‘E Cheese’s and I didn’t want to have a party there. It wasn’t that they were that bad as much as they weren’t that good. The two separate parties that I attended were nearly the exact same experience from my point of view: you arrive and deliver the child’s present, all the kids gather waiting on tokens, kids receive tokens and take off to play games, Chuck E shows up and mingles with the kids, we all eat pizza and cake, say our “Thank Yous” and “Happy Birthdays”, leave.

For Lexi’s party we wanted something different. Not just for us but for the kids also. We had talked with one of Lexi’s previous teachers about a place where they allowed kids to jump and play on a series of inflatable bouncers. Of course this conversation took place many months before Lexi’s party, and by the time her birthday came around we had forgotten the exact details of the place. However, as luck would have it we came across a place called BounceU that was along one of the roads that we travel often to go shopping. We stopped in and checked on party information, and our minds were made up that this is where we were going to have Lexi’s party.

Lexi’s party was great. Everyone that came had such a great time, including some adults. The kids ran and jumped and played the entire time that they were allowed on the equipment. It was really great to literally watch these kids work up a sweat playing on these things. Here are some pictures.

This picture shows Lexi at the top of a set of stairs for a giant slide. She is the perfect little traffic director. It is funny to note that when we first arrived Lexi wanted absolutely nothing to do with the slide. Luckily a staff member was with us the entire time and was already assisting other kids on the slide. We told her to just carry Lexi up and make her go down the slide on her own. After she went down once it was hard to get her to stop.

This is a slightly different slide then the first. To start with, this slide is much smaller then the first. The first slide was easily twenty feet or more. This one was along the lines of ten feet. Also instead of climbing up a set of steps off to the side, the kids climbed through a series of pillars, leading up to a ramp, and then down the slide. Poor thing is dripping wet. The kids were having such a great time running around the entire place. All together there were between six and eight pieces of equipment in each room.

After play time was over it was time to get the rest of the party underway. In the corner of the party room there was a throne for the birthday girl.

Here is a good shot of her enjoying her pizza. I think that pizza is the universally accepted children’s birthday party food.

Of course it wouldn’t be a birthday party without cake!

Lexi’s birthday party was a complete success. I was really glad that some many kids showed up. There was a time I was worried that no one would show up, and she wouldn’t have anyone to play with. Thankfully that didn’t happen.

A Trip to the Park

2007-10-09T13:56:00.000-07:00

When we were down in California last we took Lexi to the park. It is the same park that we always take her to when we are there. It was an absolutely beautiful day. It was just warm enough to not need a jacket; yet cool enough to not break out into a sweat walking from the car to the playground equipment. We probably spent close to two hours letting her run around and play on anything that she could put her hands on. Here are some pictures that I grabbed while she was playing.

These first two were taken with me lying on a platform that she was climbing up to. I feel really lucky to have snapped not just one good picture of her smiling but two! She would pop up and then see me and just give me such a huge smile!

Here she is swinging back and forth and Grandma grabbed her, pulled her in close, and laid a big old kiss on her! I have two pictures like this one, but this one turned out better in my opinion.

If you compare the second picture to the one with her face painted you can clearly see an improvement in her eye alignment. It seems that it improves a little more and more each day. We have another follow-up appointment on Wednesday, October 10th. The doctor had mentioned two weeks ago that she may change her lenses to remove the bi-focal.

Mater!!

2007-10-09T12:52:00.001-07:00

The weekend of Lexi’s surgery was the same weekend that the Super Run Car Show in Henderson was taking place. This is the same car show that I took Lexi to last year. This year was different since Grandma, Grandpa and Momma were around.

We arrived at the show and parked in the same place that we parked last year. The entire family unloaded and we started to walk the show. We started by walking up one of the side streets towards Water Street that served as the main drag for the show. When we came to Water Street we saw this and Lexi was so excited!!! I had to grab a couple pictures.

That is Mater for the movie Cars. Lexi really likes that movie so getting this picture was really great for her. She was really excited to see this it was so cute!!

After this Lexi, Grandma and Momma spent their time together while the boys, Grandpa and I, walked the show. It was a beautiful day compared to the year earlier. Last year the temperature was in the mid 100’s to low 110’s. We were lucky in that it was only in the low- to mid- 90’s. So Grandpa and I walked nearly the entire show. There was a small side street or two that we missed but we got to most of it.

Post-Op Update

2007-10-09T12:13:00.000-07:00

Well Lexi’s surgery on the 21st went off without a hitch. She did wonderful the doctor told us.

We arrived at the hospital early in the morning. Luckily for us we had already pre-registered earlier in the week so we didn’t have to fill out any paperwork. We signed in and waited. It seemed to take forever waiting to get called back. Looking back though it seems like it was maybe an hour and a half or so.

Once we were called back our entire clan headed back to get her ready to go. It was Dawn, Grandma, Grandpa and I waiting with her to get all prepped for surgery. An excellent nurse appeared and started to gather all the information on Lexi, like pulse, blood pressure, temperature and so on. She sat relatively still and allowed the nurse to really do whatever she wanted. Then they had the admissions bracelet that put around her ankle. She thought that was the neatest thing. Next they put an additional bracelet around the neck of her stuffed baby jaguar. I can’t express how good this nurse really did with her. I was really impressed.

Next with talked with the doctor and the anesthesiologist about the procedure and what was going to happen. To us everything was pretty much a rehash of the last surgery she had for her tear ducts. The time came for them to roll her away. We told her she was going for a ride with the nice nurse and to be good.

We all returned to the waiting area and then decided that we needed some breakfast. The information desk provided us with a beeper of sorts that allowed us to wonder around the hospital and they would notify us if we were needed. So we strolled over to the cafeteria and enjoyed a really impressive breakfast for being hospital cafeteria food.

After we were finished we returned to the waiting area. We waited for what seemed like forever and they finally called our name. I went ahead and let Dawn go back and hang out with Lexi as she was waking up. It took a couple hours but she eventually woke up enough that the doctor and anesthesiologist would let her go.

So we left and headed back to the house and hung out for the rest of the day. We really didn’t have any problems with her at all. We only had trouble after she woke up from a nap. She was complaining about her eyes hurting so we gave her some of her Tylenol 3 that the doctor had prescribed and placed some ice on her eyes to help the swelling go down. It seemed to help her out a ton.

Now here we are several weeks later and everything is great. Her eyes look a ton better and she none the worse for wear!!

I'm a Kitty

2007-09-14T16:11:00.000-07:00

Exactly a week ago when I arrived to pick Lexi up from daycare I am told by one of the girls, ‘Hey Dad don’t be too surprised she had her face painted today to look like a cat.’

So I am thinking to myself no big deal, just a little face paint. You know a couple whiskers maybe a cute little nose. I walk down the hall make the turn into her classroom and this is what I find.

I immediately burst out with laughter. It was just too funny to hold it back. Apparently one of her fellow classmates had a birthday party that day and had a face painter come to the school. I didn’t occur until after all the painting had been done that it might have been better to have the kids faces painted AFTER their naps. That is why so much of it is missing. Trust when I say we had an absolute blast getting it all cleaned up before bed time!!

Eyes Update

2007-09-10T13:33:00.000-07:00

I am sure that several of you may have noticed that Lexi’s eyes are still crossed even after months of treatment to try to correct the problem. Well here is an update as to what has happened thus far and what is going to happen in the next couple weeks.

Before Dawn left her job with the State of New Mexico I had been taking Lexi to a specific Pediatric Ophthalmologist here in town. When she left that position we transferred to the medical insurance provided to me through the State of Nevada. This had one unfortunate side effect and that was that the Ophthalmologist we had been seeing was no longer covered under my insurance provider. Regardless I had Dawn take her to the last follow-up appointment in July to see what the doctor recommended. It was at that appointment that he recommended that we look at surgery to correct her eyes.

Knowing that this would cost a fortune if we decided to get the surgery through a doctor that wasn’t a part of our insurance network I started looking into the two Pediatric Ophthalmologists that were covered under my insurance. I was lucky and got Lexi an appointment with the new doctor that was in a reasonable amount of time. The other doctor didn’t have a free appointment for nearly two months.

This new doctor had us come in and she took a look at her eyes and consulted the information from the previous doctor and agreed that surgery would be the best course of action for Lexi. The doctor wanted to schedule the surgery for Friday, August 31st. We were told that the surgery is an out-patient procedure and she would be going home the same day unless something happened during the procedure. We already had plans to make a New Mexico trip that same weekend and I didn’t feel safe traveling such a long distance from her physician right after surgery. I explained this to the physician’s assistant and she said no problem and she would get with me in a couple weeks to reschedule the procedure.

We completed our trip over Labor Day weekend and my thoughts went back to getting Lexi’s eyes fixed. I was lucky in that the physician’s office called and wanted to get everything scheduled. We agreed on a date and they explained to me the different appointments that I needed to attend and the documents I needed to gather before the operation. Here is the schedule of events:

Monday, September 17th: I take Lexi to an appointment with her Pediatrician in order to get a release that she is healthy enough for the operation.

Wednesday, September 19th: I take Lexi to an appointment with the Pediatric Ophthalmologist for a pre-operation consultation. We are going to go over the procedure and learn when we should bring Lexi to the hospital.

Friday, September 21st: This is the actual day of the operation. I don’t know the specific time for the operation but I was told that it normally takes 30-45 minutes to complete.

From my conversations with the doctor I am told that this is a pretty standard procedure and completely resolves the problem in 70-80% of the cases. If it doesn’t completely resolve the problem then she may need to go back for a follow-up procedure at some point in the future. However we won’t know for certain until that time comes.

Regardless of how ‘standard’ the procedure sounds it still doesn’t ease my nerves about the entire thing. When Lexi was younger we had to have her undergo an operation to clear the tear ducts in both of her eyes. That procedure was considered standard as well, yet I still found myself worried to death during the whole 30 minutes she was out of my arms. I have yet to experience a more gut wrenching feeling then to watch a nurse carry my baby away behind those sterile double doors to be operated on. I felt totally helpless. Looking back on that day everything was so surreal. I mean anytime you go under for surgery, regardless of age, there is always the remote possibility that something may go wrong. Yet here I was handing my daughter over to a complete stranger to do just that. Almost like I had placed her on the craps table, threw the dice and prayed I wouldn’t crap out.

Park Time

2007-09-10T12:48:00.001-07:00

A few weeks ago Lexi spent the week with her Grandma and Grandpa in California. From talking with Dawn’s folks it sounds like she had a really great time. Before little one knew it, it was time for us to bring her home.

The same weekend that we picked her up I had taken Dawn’s folks to the airport for a trip they were taking out of town. After dropping them off, that left the three of us all alone at the house with nothing to do. We took the opportunity on Saturday to lounge around the house and relax.

The next day we felt it would be a good idea to get out of town a little earlier then we normally do. Typically we leave Sunday nights late, around 7:00 p.m, but today we wanted to get back early enough to be able to get some things done at the house in Vegas before the work week started. But before we left we thought that we would take Lexi to her favorite park there in California. It is so hard to take her to a park here in Vegas during the summer. When we pick her up after school the temperature is usually hanging around 105 and stays there until two in the morning which makes taking her to the park just ridiculous. So we thought we would spoil her and take her before we left to come home. Here are a couple shots.

In this one she was mad at us for one reason or another. So I was teasing her telling her that she could make uglier faces then that. This is one of the clearest, ugliest faces she made. But as you can see she eventually got over it and was a happy Lexi again.

Lets Cruise

2007-09-10T12:23:00.000-07:00

With full bellies we left the Mt. Charleston Lodge and started the drive back to Vegas. Some of you may not know but I am notorious for not wanting to go home the same way I came. So instead of backtracking exactly the way that we traveled up the mountain I decided to take a detour and go over to the backside of the mountain and then proceed home. Does this make the drive longer? Yes. Is it more exciting because you get to see places and areas you never have before? You betcha!

We started back down the road we had come and I took a left onto a road named Deer Creek Hwy. This road twisted and turned over the top of the mountain. Along the way we passed several turn outs that were strategically placed for photo opportunities. It was truly a beautiful drive. We also passed a pair of campsites. Both of which I feel we will have to investigate in the future! By this time Lexi was already out for the count.

Deer Creek Hwy eventually dead ends into Lee Canyon Rd. Of course instead of taking the right that would lead me back to the main highway I took the left and we were off to the ski resort that is located at the end of Lee Canyon Rd. We passed a beautiful mountain meadow that looked like it was taken right off a Hollywood movie set. It must be a local favorite as there were several families out enjoying themselves with weekend picnics. Eventually we made it to the dead end of Lee Canyon Rd. and the ski resort. We stopped, got out, took a brief look around and proceeded back the way we came.

We made it back to US 95 and headed South back towards Vegas. When we started at the ski resort the temperature on Dawn’s thermometer read 80 degrees. By the time we were entering Vegas it had climbed to 105. So the high altitude was a welcome break.

Instead of going through town I decided that I wanted to take another detour on the way home. I hit the 215 beltway and started to round the west side of town. I came upon the exit for the Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area and thought it would be a pleasant side trip. It was really stunning. I have a great panoramic of the area that I will post later that really shows how beautiful this area is.

As we were driving along Blue Diamond we saw over to our right a huge green lawn and were immediately intrigued at what it could be. We hit the side road that lead up to it and were pleasantly surprised. We had actually stumbled across the Spring Mountain Ranch State Park. This area was really beautiful and if not for the heat you would not have thought you were anywhere near Vegas.

Here are some shots of the ranch house and barn:

Unfortunately for us the ranch house was closed for renovations.

Here is one of my favorite pictures from the area. This is the tree to the extreme left in the first picture above.

There was a beautiful field of green that was as large as a football field. Lexi really enjoyed just running from one side to the other. While we were there we ran across one of the park rangers and she mentioned that one of the horses near the parking area had an owner that was about Lexi’s age. She went on to say that if we were to approach the fence that more then likely Willow, the horse’s name, would come over. So while I was busy snapping pictures Dawn took Lexi over and sure enough Willow came marching on over. It was really cute. Each time Lexi would say, ‘Hi Willow’, the horse would bow. It was really a trip. The ranger had also mentioned that Willow was a show horse and that her owner would do barrel races and other exhibitions with her.

And that wrapped up our day of adventure. We tore Lexi away from ‘her horse’ and headed home. We had a great outing and had tons of fun. To give you an idea here is a link to Google maps that approximately outlines our entire trip. Google Map

Time for a Hike

2007-09-10T11:30:00.001-07:00

Back in July I had decided that it was time to venture up to Mount Charleston. Mount Charleston is the mountain just to the West of the Las Vegas valley. The length of the drive from the house to Mt. Charleston community is only about fifty miles yet the differences in climate are amazing. To give you an idea the house is at approximately 1700 feet. The small community of Mt. Charleston is at approximately 7400 feet. On the particular day that we went it made for a difference of nearly 30 degrees.

We left the house early and started our day by heading over to IHOP and getting a good breakfast. I had never been up the mountain before and I was unsure if there were places to eat or exactly was up at the top. So I figured a good breakfast wouldn’t hurt.

After breakfast we started the drive up the mountain. We quickly made it to the main turn off to proceed up the mountain. Up to this point we had experienced nothing but the typical desert landscape. This slowly started to give way to more mountainous features. The drive was quick and before we knew it we arrived at one of the campgrounds.

We decided that we would get out and start up one of the trails. The particular trail that we decided upon was in great shape and we pretty easy to navigate even with Lexi in tow. She was having a great time. We would come upon little rocks and she would make a huge deal of jumping off of them. It was really funny. We came upon this huge, twisted, fallen tree that was just off to the side of the trail. I thought that it was a great place to try to take a couple pictures of Lexi in the element. I sat her down and begged and pleaded with her to smile and look pretty for the camera and she responded!!

Having done my part to be evil daddy with the camera we started back up the trial. We didn’t go up to much farther because the trail was getting rougher and rougher and we felt it best to turn back. As we started to come back down I darted in front of the girls, turned back, and was lucky enough to capture several shots similar to this…

…but this is easily my favorite.

We passed our earlier photo location and I spotted another area that I hoped would be good for pictures. I was lucky in that I had the foresight to remember to pack along my mini-tripod just in case. Boy was I glad that I did. I mounted my camera to the little tripod and placed it on the end of the same log that I had used to sit Lexi on the way up the trail. I set the camera to snap a picture in 30 seconds, pressed the shutter button, and ran for dear life in hopes of getting into the frame and settled in time. Here are the results…

I was very happy with the results. Especially considering this was the only shot that I took like this on the entire trip. Also it was fun to get a good picture of the entire family out and having a good time.

We continued our climb back down to the car and passed another family heading back up the same trail. I witnesses as the wife was attempting to take a picture of her husband along with their kiddo. I turned around and shouted if they would like me to take a picture of them to which they responded a resounding yes. So I hiked back up the short distance to help them out with their pictures. I took a couple photos for them and then headed back down to catch up with Dawn and Lexi.

Once back to the car we took a much needed break and drank all the water that we had brought with us. We decided that it was a good time to go head back to the little town and grab a bite to eat. We drove the short distance back down the mountain to the Mt. Charleston Lodge and had a small snack/lunch.

Fourth of July

2007-07-25T16:33:00.000-07:00

The Fourth of July was an excellent time for Lexi, Dawn and I to get together with Dawn’s family. Because of Dawn’s new job though, we were unable to enjoy all the time as one large family.

After work on the third I had to take Lexi to a doctor’s appointment to receive the last of her shots until she gets ready to start school. This was just a regularly scheduled wellness check-up and there wasn’t anything wrong so nothing to be worried about. Her measurements for this appointment were thirty-seven inches tall and thirty-five pounds. Her height was in the top seventieth percentile and her weight was in the top ninetieth percentile. So she is doing real well and growing just like a weed should.

We left that evening and headed for grandma and grandpa’s house. The plan was to stay until the eighth. We arrived late on Tuesday but the drive was really good all things considered. I was worried that several other people would decide to take the long weekend also and that would result in heavy traffic. I was pleasantly surprised to find that traffic was no worse then normal.

Initially we had plans to go down to the beach during the week however the weather had other plans. A heat wave struck right in the middle of the week. It pushed temperatures into the lower one hundreds at the grandparents house. This made any outdoor activity just a miserable experience. So we decided to stay indoors.

On the evening of the fourth instead of going to a fireworks show we went to a BBQ at Freida’s house. It was a great time regardless of the heat. While there Freida decided to get out an inflatable bouncing station that she had from her own great-grandkids. We aired it up and after some convincing got Lexi in and jumping around. She wasn’t really keen on the idea of being in it alone so Grandma and Grandpa to the rescue. The got in with her and she just went to town jumping up and down. She had a great time.

The following day we enjoyed some leftover cake from the night before. Lexi really liked it.

Dawn finally arrived on Friday night after having problems with traffic on the way down. Since Dawn just started her new job she doesn’t have the ability to take any time off until she completes her probation. This meant that she couldn’t take the Thursday and Friday off like I had so she drove down separately.

Saturday night we attended Dawn’s twenty year high school reunion. Dawn’s old high school friend Larue was nice enough to offer to drive us all. So in all it was Larue, her husband, Dawn, and I all going to this reunion together. We started the night with dinner at Benihana’s. It was the first time that I had ever been and it was great. I definitely want to go again if I should have the chance. When we were done with dinner we proceeded to the reunion. It was being hosted at the Angels stadium in one of the sports clubs that is onsite. We had a great time and I guess they already want to start to plan the next reunion.

Overall we had a great Fourth of July weekend. I hope everyone else had a good holiday as well.

Time for a 'Big Girl' Bed

2007-07-09T16:18:00.000-07:00

So here we are nearly a month after my last post and things are starting to slow back down with the personal life but speed back up at the job. That is what happens when your job circles around a fiscal year. The funds for our department just came through and orders for replacement computers are coming in which means lots of work.

After Dawn moved out we thought that it would be a good idea to get Lexi into her own bed. We shopped around and finally found a nice on at Babies ‘R Us. It was just a simple bed that was wood grained and only required assembly and a crib mattress. Here is what we decided on:

After looking at the bed and the bedding we thought that it would be nice to try to surprise Lexi with her new ‘Big Girl’ bed. We timed it to where Lexi would stay at Grandma and Grandpa’s house for the week. While there we would get her bed setup and ready for when she came home. Also this allowed us to take apart and pack up the crib and take it down for storage.

While looking at the bed in the store my mind started racing with different ideas. I thought how cute it would be if we could get a bed that matched her dresser.

Her dresser you see is a piece that was given to us by a friend in Hobbs. When we first received the dresser it needed a little sprucing up. So Dawn and I went to Home Depot and purchased a couple quarts of paint, some new drawer rails and drawer pulls and went to town. We finished with a pretty nice piece.

Luckily for us we were smart enough to remember to keep swatches of the paints that we originally used to paint the dresser. A quick drive over to Home Depot and we were in business.

I took the time to work on the bed every night starting on Wednesday with primer and ending Saturday with clear coat. Here are the results:

It was a lot of hard work but I am very happy with the end product. As for Lexi she absolutely loves her new ‘Big Girl’ bed. Every night Dawn reads her a story before bed. Before she can go to sleep though she comes out and tells me, ‘Come tucka in me.’ It is absolutely adorable!!

Also before moving in her new bed Dawn took the time to hang up several of the pictures and other items we had in the house that needed to be hung. Several of these items are those types that would be found in Lexi’s bedroom if she had one. This way she at least has her own little corner of the bedroom for the time being. Here is another picture showing all the items that she hung on the wall.

Welcome Home

2007-06-08T14:52:00.000-07:00

It is with great pleasure that I can say that the entire Rowe family is now home in Las Vegas. After living and working here in Las Vegas without my wife for a year and three months we are finally reunited. It has been a long strange trip but after all the headache and heartache I can truthfully say that it has all been worth it.

The last update that I provided about Dawn moving out was she was in the process of interviewing for several different positions throughout the valley. Later in the week during her interviews she received phone calls from other positions that she had applied for who wanted her to come in and interview since she was in town. By the time that she flew out she had interviewed with two private firms (including a callback interview), the State Attorney General’s office and Clark County. Additionally she had a separate ‘meet and greet’ with the Clark County District Attorney’s office. So in total I count five interviews in one week. Not bad considering that when she left Hobbs she had only arranged three. Thankfully she had received offers from the two private firms and accepted one and agreed to start work on June 4th.

Dawn had also received an offer from the County doing exactly what she was for the State of New Mexico. The down side to the offer was that it was low. The offer she was given was more then she was making in Hobbs however it was considered base pay for what her position would be. This didn’t make any sense to either of us as she had about a year and a half of experience doing exactly what they were asking her to do. This lead us to agree that it wasn’t fair to her to get paid the exact same amount as a recent UNLV graduate with no experience would receive.

Sadly the 13th came much too quickly and it was time for Dawn to head back to Hobbs. Funny thing is that her leaving this particular time was the hardest for me. I think it had a lot to do with Lexi being there. If memory serves, all the previous times that Dawn flew home Lexi was at school. This time she was leaving on a Sunday which meant that Lexi was with us. She was just so cute. Dawn and I said our goodbyes knowing full well that this would be the last time we had to endure this. Then as Dawn started to walk away little one chimes in, “See you in two weeks mommy!” Funny remembering it now brings tears back to my eyes. It was just too cute and too perfect a moment. When I think back on it I almost believe that she knew that things were going to change and mommy leaving this time was different then all the times in the past.

The next two weeks for me were hard. I wanted nothing more then to call Dawn up and tell her to drop everything and come out now. It was just such a relief to know that after more then a year alone that I would finally have my partner back in my life. To know that Lexi would have the opportunity to enjoy her mother the same way that she enjoys me. In the past I had always noted a difference in Lexi every time Dawn would come out, typically for the better. I was just so excited to see what changes would occur with Lexi with Dawn being her all the time.

On the evening of the 24th I drove to Grandma’s house to leave Lexi for the weekend while Dawn and I would move her things to Vegas. When leaving the next morning Lexi came outside and saw me off. Before I left I had told her, “You be a good girl for Grandma and Grandpa. Daddy has to go bye bye. I have to go get the momma!” She seemed so excited at the thought that I was going to get her mommy. As I backed out of the driveway she waved excitedly from Grandpa’s hip and said, “Bye Daddy!”

I headed back to Vegas. I had a plane to catch. Earlier I had booked a flight from Vegas to Midland. The plan was Dawn would get me at the airport and the next day we would take the truck and drive to Vegas. I am sure you are asking yourself, “Why not drive to California and then to Vegas?” The primary reason was gas. During the drive the best mileage I was able to get out of the truck was 16 MPG. Well from Hobbs to Vegas is only 890 miles. From Hobbs to California to Vegas is almost 1300 miles. Not only is it farther I already had concerns about the truck making it mechanically the distance. I must say that the truck did us good and we made it without any problems at all. The truck drove perfectly the entire way here.

That weekend we spent getting started on unpacking some of Dawn’s stuff. Also we took the car down to Grandma’s house and picked up Lexi for the next week. During the week Lexi was at school while Dawn tried to get all her things put together and the house cleaned up. Ya know I was a bachelor for a year and she needed to put a woman’s touch into the place.

Also during the week something interesting happened. Dawn received a call from the County with pretty much a new offer to come to work for them. The offer was less then the position she had tentatively accepted however you can’t beat government benefits with a stick. After much discussion we decided that it would be best if she took the County job. She called the County back and told them that she could start work on Monday, June 4th.

So that weekend Dawn, Lexi and I went to Grandma’s house again! This time Lexi was going to spend a week with Grandma. This worked really good for Dawn to have the ability to work her first week without having to worry about getting Lexi ready every morning. Also gave Dawn and I the much needed time together to be ‘married’ again.

Well that is the story so far from my last post. Dawn has been doing great at her new job. Her second day they already had her doing hearings. She was told that she is replacing the attorney who has the heaviest case load who will be leaving on or about June 15th. Dawn has been so excited about this new job and seems ready to rock and roll.

That concludes today’s novel. Thank you for taking the time to read through it all and I hope that you enjoyed it. Until next time love and miss you all!

Happy Birthday Jon Jon!

2007-06-05T15:48:00.000-07:00

Here we are nearly a month after my last update and so much has changed. That isn’t why I am updating and I don’t want to make it the topic of today. I will be certain to go into it in more detail later.

Today I am bringing you pictures from the first birthday party that Lexi was invited to. It was the birthday of one of the boys at her school named Jon Jon. What made this extra special was this boy is one of two that Lexi talks about at home on a pretty regular basis. So it was nice that she was able to go. The party was on May 18th and was held at a Chuck E Cheeses after school. Lexi had a complete blast and was really good considering how easily she could have decided to be a pain in the back side. Hope that you enjoy and another update coming soon. Promise.

In this picture Jon Jon is on the left. Funny he was turning three and looks so small next to Lexi. She was being good and sharing her drink with him.

Here are the two of them playing in a little car ride that they had. I am standing almost right on top of them. I would keep banging on the ‘windshield’ and acting silly in order to get a reaction out of the two of them. This is one of the better pictures of her from the event.

Again another picture of the two of them on their favorite ride. This time got a good shot of Jon Jon yelling back at me after I was making a fuss.

This is a different ride that would take a black and white picture of the person driving. I think the point of it was to get a picture with ‘Chuck E’. Instead I managed to get the both of them on there at the same time. I like this picture because I imagine the two of them driving around and Jon Jon pointing at something and Lexi just freaking about like they are going to crash. Yeah silly but hey what are you going to do??

Well there you go everyone!! Hope that you enjoyed. I promise another update later this week!! Until then love and miss all of you.

Beautiful Spring Dress

2007-05-08T13:15:00.000-07:00

I suppose a more appropriate title would be ‘Beautiful Summer Dress’ considering that we are well on our way to summer temperatures here in the Vegas valley. I apologize again for the lack of updates in the past couple weeks. Things have been really busy at home and at work.

As most of you should already know Dawn received the results from her bar exam on April 18th. The great news was that she passed. The hardest part of getting her out here has been accomplished. Now we just need to get her a job which seems to have taken care of itself already. When I first moved out here I immediately started to look in the newspaper and other areas for attorney positions. I was surprised at how many I saw advertised. This led me to believe that once Dawn passed the bar exam finding a job wouldn’t be a problem. The events of this week seem to be confirming that suspicion.

Dawn has been applying for both public and private jobs since learning the results of her exam. Well she is here in Vegas this week doing job interviews with two law firms and with Clark County. The law firm jobs were yesterday, Monday, and I must say that I am impressed with how well she has done. One of the attorneys that interviewed her said to her, ‘We are going to make you and offer we are just unsure of what exactly that offer is going to be.’ So in my mind she is already out here just need to move some things. I am so excited to finally have her out here so we can both start to enjoy the city.

Time to move on to the picture of the day. This was taken right before we loaded up to go to school this morning. I came to a realization over the weekend that Dawn desperately needs to move out here because I always dress Lexi in jeans and a t-shirt. Last week I dressed her in a skirt and t-shirt and all the girls at her school thought she was so cute because they had never seen her in a skirt before. Talk about a bad daddy!! So this morning I dressed her up in a little spring dress that Grandma bought her. I didn’t get them in this picture but she is wearing a pair of white tights and sandals. Unfortunately the pony tail didn’t make it all the way to school. By the time I got there she had already removed the rubber band that was holding it in place. She was definitely a cutie!!

I'm At A Loss For Words

2007-04-23T13:20:00.000-07:00

Sorry no humorous title for this one when you see the pictures you will understand why. We were at Grandma and Grandpa's this weekend and on Saturday night Grandma got out some olives to eat. I think Lexi likes olives. Not really sure though. I can't determine if she likes them because of their taste or because they make great play toys. I let you decide.

Can you believe that?? One on each finger!! What a goof!! Here she is trying to get daddy.

I better be careful!! Better yet I had better patent this idea before some big Hollywood mogul sees the idea and turns it into the next Spiderman or X-Men movie. What should we call her? Olivehand...no, Olivefingers...no, Olivetips...no, got it Oliveclaw!!

I hope that everyone had a good weekend. I will do my best to keep the pictures and stories coming!!

We all scream for ice cream!!

2007-04-18T15:16:00.000-07:00

For those of you who may not have known yesterday was free ice cream cone day at Ben and Jerry’s. After picking up Lexi at school we went over to the Galleria Mall on Sunset to get ours. Talk about spoiled!! Ice cream before dinner?! Yeah I am a horrible father. Needless to say she enjoyed it.

Also in other news got Dawn the results from the bar exam that she took in February. SHE PASSED!!! I am so happy right now I am beside myself.

I have been lurking on the State of Nevada Bar’s web-site all day waiting for the results to be posted. Well they finally were around 2:00 this afternoon. Immediately after reading Dawn’s name my phone rings and it is her calling from her cell phone. I answer and she is crying. We talk for a couple minutes and I can just hear all the stress pouring out of her. Today is definitely a good day for the family!!

Sleeping with New Babies

2007-04-17T14:21:00.000-07:00

For Easter Lexi received a ton of goodies ranging from candy to babies. Of the babies there are two that Lexi has grown attached to. They are nearly identical stuffed rabbits. They are both wearing hats and shirts, on one the clothing is red and the other blue. She has been wanting to carry these guys around ever since I took them out of the basket that Papa T got for her. I even ask her, “Who got those for you?”

To which she replies, “Papa T!”

It is really cute. So the other night we were laying down for bed and she crashed out. As usual I stayed up a little later to watch TV and get some around the house stuff done. I gently got up and when I turned around to check on her this is what I saw. Of course I couldn’t resist and just had to take a picture for everyone to see.

An Afternoon at the Park

2007-04-16T10:23:00.000-07:00

As promised here is the post that was originally going to be put up on Friday. Let me begin with an update on Lexi. She is doing fine. I don’t know what was off with her on Thursday but she eventually woke up and became active around 8:30 in the morning. Then the rest of the day was pretty normal. I guess she must have just had a really long week and needed a three day weekend.

After school on Tuesday I thought that I would take Lexi to the park before doing all the other after work activities that were going to be done. Lucky for me I remembered to take my camera with me and was able to get some pictures. She had a great time. We arrived around 6:00 and stayed until 7:30. Afterwards we went to the store and finally got something to eat before going home. She was a good girl the entire night.

This is the second largest slide that is at this park. She decided that she wanted to go down head first. Who am I to stop her?? After this and a couple other trips down a slide I decided to take off her glasses and hat.

I don't know what she was thinking here but I just had to get a picture. She looks so comfortable.

She has so much fun swinging on this bar. Just about gives me a heart attack though.

I must say that I got really lucky to catch this picture. This is one of the two things she loves to climb on. Of course she hates it when I try to help her. Again another heart attack just waiting to happen.

This was taken at the bottom of the largest slide at this park. She loves to run up to the top and come down just hollering and laughing all the way down. If you look closely, or enlarge the picture, you can see that the static electricity is causing her hair to stand straight up.

Well that about does it for today. Everything is going good and I already have some more pictures for tomorrow. Not many but some.

Also I should mention that I had a small scare while at the park this day. She was climbing on another one of the jungle gym pieces and actually fell. I was lucky in that I was nearby and saw her loose her footing. I ran over and tried to grab her. I got just enough of my hand under her butt to slow her fall to a slow thud on the ground. Luckily she didn’t hit anything on the way down and was back up and playing less than a minute later.

No Pictures Today

2007-04-13T07:36:00.000-07:00

Sorry everyone looks like I am going to be unable to post pictures today like I had planned earlier in the week. Grandma may already know the reason why.

Yesterday I picked up Lexi from school and headed to the gas station to get some gas for the car. By the time I finished filling up and got back into the car Lexi already had her eyes closed and looked like she was going to pass out. We left the gas station and went straight home. The station isn’t very far from the house and I only made one stop and that was to check the mail. I went to get Lexi out of the car and she was asleep. I picked her up, took her up stairs and she remained asleep the entire time. I decided that I would lay her down in my bed and figured she would wake up. A few minutes later I realized that she was out for the count. I decided that she wanted to sleep for a reason so I felt it best just to let her go.

Earlier this morning she woke up just enough to cry to me to get her out of bed. I picked her up and put her in bed with me and she wanted nothing more then to just lay down. After cuddling for a couple minutes I brought her into the living room to watch a movie while I took a shower. Well she laid right down on the floor and wanted to get all curled up into a ball and looked like she was going to go back to sleep. I know Lexi and it isn't normal for her to want to sleep for more than 12 hours in a day. It was at this point that I decided that I would just call in family sick and spend the day with little one.

Unfortunately my camera and all my pictures of Lexi are at the office. This means that I don’t have any pictures to include with this post. If she starts to feel better later in the morning then I may go ahead and take her to school and go in to work. If that happens then I will make the post that I had originally planned on making. If not then I will make my planned Friday post on Monday. Either way I promise more pictures!! I hope everyone has a good day!!

Easter Bunny Brought Candy and Eggs

2007-04-12T14:28:00.000-07:00

Well that is what she kept telling us all day on Easter. Lexi was so excited about Easter. It was a fun time to see her starting to get excited about holidays. I feel this is the first holiday that she really got excited about. Sure she was excited about Christmas but just not in the same way.

Easter was all planned out. The plan was to do a couple egg hunts with Lexi before everyone arrived. Then we would eat lunch/dinner with company when they came over. Everything worked out pretty well except the weather. It seems that sunny California decided to not be so sunny this particular weekend. The skies were cloudy and overcast the entire weekend. It was too bad but definitely cooler then normal. Add to that light rain and mist you would think the whole world was against this weekend. We persevered though and Lexi had a great time searching the back yard for the eggs the Easter Bunny left her.

This first picture is Lexi running to go pick up an egg. Even though it is blurry because she is running and slightly out of focus I wanted to include it here because of the great smile that I see on her face. She had this same smile on her face the entire time she was hunting eggs.

One thing we had to be aware of was not hiding the eggs to well. I mean Lexi is only like three feet tall. Can’t hide anything up to high or she won’t see it. This particular egg was sitting on a counter in the back yard that is used for barbequing. There is something about this picture that just grabs me. I am not sure exactly what it is. I just can’t put my finger on it.

Here is Lexi sitting on one of the barstools near the kitchen. There are two markers in front of her, one blue and one pink, that are were used to paint a couple edible bunnies. She was taking a little break and enjoying some peanuts when I snapped this picture. One funny note: In order to get her to smile like this I can’t tell her to say cheese. If I tell Lexi to say cheese she swings her head back and almost looks straight up while saying cheese. If I tell her I want to see happy Lexi this is the result.

This family get together was about more then just Easter. We were also celebrating a couple birthdays, specifically Uncle Dame’s and Grandpa T’s. Of course if you have birthdays then you have cake as well. I have a couple pictures of Lexi with her mouth wide open taking a couple bites from Grandpa T. I wanted to include this one however because I like the way that she is standing on her tip toes in order to get her bite. She didn’t have to do it, she wanted to. Also it gives a great shot of her in one of her two Easter dresses. We only placed her in the dress when she was indoors because of how cool it was outside. We don’t want the poor thing to freeze do we??

Hope everyone likes the Easter pictures. I am going to be putting up some more pictures tomorrow from a trip to the park we made a couple days ago. Until then love you all.

A New Pair of Specs

2007-04-11T16:43:00.000-07:00

Almost failed to make my promise for a post each day this week.

A few weeks after Lexi was born we noticed that she had problems with her eyes. Nothing really bad she just always had a build up in the corners. Some days it would be just a little in the corner and others she would wake up in the morning and her entire eye would be covered over. We let this go on for a while because we thought that she had allergies or something like that.

After some time we realized that this wasn’t normal and we asked our local doctor about it. He thought that it could be blocked tear ducts. He gave us some eye drops for a possible infection and gave instructions on how to attempt to clear them ourselves. After trying to get them cleared ourselves we were finally referred to an ophthalmologist to have a look at her eyes.

When the ophthalmologist took a look he agreed that her ducts were blocked but he also mentioned that she was farsighted. He went on to mention that when she got older that she would need glasses and also go crossed eyed. In closing he gave us additional information on attempting to clear her tear ducts as she was too young at the time to have them surgically cleared.

We took Lexi home and started working on clearing those ducts so to avoid surgery if at all possible. Months came and went and it seemed that we were able to get one eye clear but not the other so we bit the bullet and scheduled the surgery. Thankfully everything went ok and her eyes were normal like a regular little girl. No more having to deal with daddy holding her and trying to clear all the crap out of her eyes.

Fast forward to December of 2006. Grandma, Grandpa and I were all starting to notice that Lexi appeared to be crossed eyed when looking at objects some distance away. Remember what I had heard from the ophthalmologist nearly a year ago I figured that I had better make some appointments to get her eyes looked at. Unfortunately this was all coming forward at the worst part of the year as I have mentioned previously here.

Well I finally got Lexi to an ophthalmologist here in Vegas to look at her eyes. Looking at the time period I can’t believe it was now two weeks ago. We went in on 3/20 and had our appointment for first thing in the morning. After a couple hours of tests we discovered that for sure she is farsighted and needed glasses. The doctor gave me her prescription and we proceeded to the optical center they had at the front of the office and started looking for glasses.

Luckily the folks running the optical side of things really knew what they were doing. I honestly had no idea what kind of lenses or frames I was going to get for her. This nice lady working their helped me pick out a set of frames that would work good for her considering her age and build. I was then told that they don’t cut lenses at the office and all their work is sent out to another optical lab and the glasses would be ready in a week.

Well before I knew it a week had come and gone and I was getting a call that her glasses were ready. I went and picked Lexi up and the two of use went to the office to get them properly adjusted for her face. I was happy to find that she liked them a lot and I could tell that she was able to see better.

The next morning is when the following pictures were taken. I took them right as I was dropping Lexi off for school. That pair survived until the next day when they were completely destroyed. I was so upset with Lexi at first but then came to the realization that I was getting all irate about a couple pieces of plastic and metal. I took what was left of the frames and lenses back to the optical office on Friday the 30th and had a replacement pair ordered. Luckily they allowed me to cover the replacement pair under the warranty.

Well a week later, 4/6, her new pair arrives and I make sure to pick them up before going to Grandma and Grandpa’s house for the weekend. After picking them up I put them on her and she seems happy to be wearing them. We go nearly the entire weekend with her wearing them and it seems to have paid off. I have heard she had been real good with them at school and have survived to yesterday at worst.

Without any further ado her are some pictures of the new Lexi with her new glasses.

And even more rides

2007-04-10T10:22:00.000-07:00

As promised here is the second of four posts to my blog that are going to be put up this week. Hope that you all are enjoying the pictures and updates.

The day after going to Castle Park we drove to Corona and went to Tom’s Farms. Tom’s Farms started as a local produce stand that eventually became what it is today. From their web-site:

In 1974, Tom opened a 3,500 square foot product stand. In 1977, a hamburger restaurant was added, and the opening of Interstate 15 in 1978 provided easy access for visiting tourists. Today, the property has expanded to include a wine and cheese shoppe, duck pond, country furniture store, and Mexican restaurant.

The main reason for going was they were supposed to have some rides similar to Castle Park and the duck pond. We even went so far as to bring some fresh bread crumbs for Lexi to give to the ducks.

When we arrived it became clear that we were in the middle of a biker rally of some sort. There were plenty of bikers all over the place. No big deal really they weren’t being unruly, just hanging out on a Sunday afternoon.

We proceeded towards what appeared to be the center of the area in hopes of finding the duck pond as well as Uncle Dame and Grandpa T. We had talked to both of them prior and arranged to meet up with them. We tracked them down and we proceeded to the duck pond. I guess it must have still been too early in the year as there were no ducks to be seen!! All wasn’t lost though. A few steps away there was a water feature that had several large goldfish swimming around. Also they had a machine available that would dispense fish food for you to give to the fish. We gathered our handful of fish food and gave Lexi one pea sized piece at a time to throw to the fish. She got such a kick out of watching the fish come to the surface, open their mouths, and eat up the food she had thrown.

After running out of food we proceeded to the carousel. Talk about spoiled she was able to ride two carousels in just as many days!!

Next event was the little train that ran across parts of the property. Lexi loves her trains and this one was no exception. Grandpa and Grandpa T were the lucky chaperones for this trip. I just love the look on her face in this picture.

Well that was about all the rides that they had in the area. They did have a petting zoo where she could have ridden a pony but I thought that we might save that for later. Also was worried that she might get nervous as it is an animal and not a ride. I am sure that I am over reacting to the whole idea but better safe then sorry. This last picture was taken as we were walking around. This is one of the better pictures that I was able to get with the two of these jokers. Lexi really likes spending time with her Grandpa T. I have a couple more pictures of him from this past weekend, but you are going to have to wait!!!

Rides, rides and more rides

2007-04-09T14:31:00.000-07:00

I started looking through my pictures saved on my work computer and realized that I hadn’t update my blog in several weeks again. I feel that now is a good a time as any to try to get caught up. I am going to put up 4 posts this week ending with Easter pictures. I know I am just horrible teasing you all like that.

Before my last trip to California two weeks ago Grandma called me wondering if there was anything particular that I wanted to do when I cam down. Naturally I really wasn’t concerned about what we would do. The main reason I go down is to let Lexi spend time with Grandma and Grandpa. If we go out and do something it is like getting cake and ice cream instead of just cake.

Thankfully Grandma had done some looking around and found a couple local things that we could go out and do. The first was a local amusement park named Castle Park. It is nice in the fact that it is smaller and local. It only took us thirty minutes to drive and was worth every minute.

The following is Lexi with Grandma on a carousel. In times past Lexi was usually nervous when it came to climbing up on one of these horses. She actually had a really great time one this one. She would go racing by and yell and holler at me. It was really cute.

I included this one because how much Lexi and Grandma are really alike. I think they are even more alike when you get glasses on Lexi, pictures of that later. Here they are waiting for the train to get going. This particular ride took them around parts of the park. She really enjoyed it as she loves the trains!!

Here Lexi is trying to be like Grandpa!! She had a lot of fun with this little ride. She was smiling ear to ear going around. She must have thought she was a big shot riding around on a motorcycle all by herself.

Sorry for the glare on this picture. Another one of the things that Lexi likes are helicopters. She sees them fly over the house every morning on their way to the Grand Canyon. She almost always stops, looks up, points and says, ‘Copter!!’ This was her chance to fly one.

Fun with color

2007-03-13T10:54:00.000-07:00

As I started dinner last night Lexi came my way and wanted me to do something but I couldn’t understand exactly what. I told her that I was working on dinner and usually that is enough to have her leave me along while I finish. She got upset so I asked what was wrong and what she wanted. Well she says that she wants to look at the fish and points to an automated aquarium that Grandpa gave me before I left on Sunday.

I get the thing out of the box and put it down on the floor, lean it up against a table, plug it in and turn it on. Unfortunately this thing has no type of stand or anything similar so this will have to work for the time being. She absolutely loves it. I take a break from getting dinner ready and sit down with her while she watches these little fake fish swim back and forth. She would see the yucky one, point, scream and laugh. Next she would look for Nemo. She really had fun with it.

After a couple minutes I told her that I was going to work on dinner and that she could keep looking at the fish. She was ok with that for maybe 2 minutes. Next she found a box of crayons over on the kitchen table. She took them into the living room and dumped them out all over the floor. No big deal really.

Well she starts calling me and wanting me to help her put them away. After the weekend at Grandma’s house I realize that this is a fun game for her. She dumps out the crayons and then puts them back in the box. I tell her that I will help her in just a minute. I finally get dinner in cruise control status and head to the living room to play with her.

As she is putting the crayons back in the box I try to get her to start counting them with me. This works maybe twice at most and she starts telling me to not count. Guess she won’t be attending MIT like I had hoped. After a time I take one of the crayons and put it behind my ear like a pencil. She sees this and wants to do the same thing. I place one and she gets this look on her face as she can feel it but can’t see it. Really hard to describe put I grab the camera and snap this picture.

All that story for one picture. If you look closely you can see the blue crayon behind her ear. Regardless have a good one everyone!!

Something's Fishy!!

2007-03-12T09:33:00.000-07:00

Fishy!?!

No fishy!!!

Ok I know that was a really bad one. Couldn’t help it I guess.

We had a rather exciting weekend. Lexi had been with Grandma and Grandpa all week long and it was time for me to head to their house to pick her up. Before going down Grandma called and asked if I thought it would be a good idea to go to the Aquarium of the Pacific located in Long Beach. I thought sure why not?

On Saturday we left the house and set course for the aquarium. It took about an hour and a half to get there which wasn’t really that bad. Luckily for us Lexi took a little nap on the way. This would mean that she would have more fun since she wasn’t fighting the lack of sleep the entire time.

We went through the entire aquarium and spent a total of about three hours going through all the exhibits. Lexi had an absolute blast. There were plenty of ‘woahs’ and ‘wows’ to go around that is for sure. It is really hard to say exactly what her favorite part was. I would gather that she liked the sea lions the best. The sea lion display was a cylindrical tank that you would walk through and it was clear on both sides. One nice touch was that the sea lions could swim both above and below you. Granted you could only see them through the sides as the top and the bottom weren’t transparent. However Lexi would just look for them to swim up and out from underneath her. Then she would get all excited and start running and screaming. It was really cute and a sight to see.

Before we knew it we had gone through the entire thing and it was time to go. Of course we made the required stop in the souvenir shop to pick up a couple things and then headed home. It took us a little longer to get home because of some traffic tie ups but it was still a nice drive. Little one slept nearly the entire way.

Enough of my blabbering and on to what you all really want to see.

The picture above, along with the next two, were taken at the sea lion exhibit. Personally I think they are the better ones as her body language and what little bit of facial expression you can see really show how much she enjoyed the entire experience.

This one you may want to click on to see a bit larger. If you look really hard at her cheek you can tell that she is smiling.

This is one of my favorites. Just something so innocent about it.

This one maybe a little dark for some of you to see. If you are reading this via email go to the web-site and click on this image to see it larger. Unfortunately feel that no matter which way you look at it, it may not do it justice. I printed several of these images and they turned out great, including this one. Grandma and I agreed that it was hands down the favorite out of the stack. Just the way Grandma is pointing and Lexi appears to be looking exactly where Grandma is pointing. Similar to the previous picture, there is something innocent about it.

Well I hope that you all enjoyed!! Until next time love and miss you all!!

Something Wicked this way comes

2007-03-07T13:32:00.000-08:00

Near the end of my novel yesterday I had mentioned that Dawn and I had a special date this past weekend. Well I am back to fill you all in on this little adventure.

In the past times that Dawn has come to Vegas we traditionally go to LA for her to have the opportunity to visit with her parents. Additionally we seize the opportunity of having Grandma and Grandpa watch Lexi so the two of us can go have a grown-ups night out. In the past these dates consisted of driving down to Redondo Pier and having dinner at Tony’s sometimes followed by some other event.

To be honest before Dawn had arrived I hadn’t but to much thought into what we would do for our date. As mentioned in my post yesterday I had other things on my mind. Well once she arrived I suddenly realized that I had absolutely nothing! This wasn’t good. Especially considering that I had pulled a hat trick when it came to remembering the important dates or doing something special for them. I had failed in the greatest possible measure of a man and husband! She was forced to miss out on our Anniversary, her Birthday and Valentines Day.

Yeah I suck.

With this thought in mind I knew that I had to make it up to her, but how? Come on trusty internet don’t let me down now. I started to search and search for things to do on the weekend that we would be down. What made the search even harder was that the event needed to take place on a Friday night as we were going to be driving back to Vegas on Saturday night so she could catch her flight on Sunday.

As I searched the best thing that I had found was a comedian playing at a club near Redondo. Unfortunately I had never heard of the guy and only knew that he had won one of the runs of ‘Last Comic Standing’. Luckily on the same sight that I saw this performance I saw the following image.

I immediately recognized the name of the musical and remembered that it was one of the two musicals that Dawn had wanted to see. This was even truer after a friend of hers had seen it in New York. I sprang into action in order to get tickets to this event. After some long hard searching I was able to secure two tickets to the event for Friday evening. Of course being the kid I am I couldn’t keep a secret and spilled the beans that I had the tickets and that we were going. She was so excited!

Before we knew it the night of the show had arrived and we set off for Hollywood. Once we arrived we proceeded to the theatre and went inside. It was absolutely beautiful. I wish I had brought my camera in order to take some pictures. I mean any words I type in won’t do it justice. After purchasing a couple souvenirs and hanging out in the lobby we proceeded to our seats. The theatre was absolutely amazing!

I must say that the entire show was just great. In a nutshell the entire premise of the show is that the wicked witch of the west was framed. After watching the performance I must say that I will never look at the Wizard of Oz in the same way again. I highly recommend everyone go see it if you ever get a chance!

Well that concludes today’s post. I mean to get it in earlier however lunch and some other items came up that interfered with my writing. For more information on Wicked the musical please click here. Until next time everyone take care!

My February

2007-03-06T15:04:00.000-08:00

In the past couple posts I have been alluding to the fact that February was a really busy month for me. Yet each time I have failed to go into specifics as to what happened during the month to make it so busy. Well here I am to give you all the skinny. Please forgive me for the length of this post. There is a lot of information here and I hope that you all enjoy.

It all centers around the fact that with my new position with the state that I am allowed to participate in a certain amount of training annually. Last year I was given the opportunity to attend a certification training course in order to obtain my Microsoft Certified Desktop Support Technician (MCDST). This course was a week in length and was offered by one of the training providers here in Vegas. This made the whole process easy. There was a disadvantage however. That was the fact that the tests that you are required to take and pass in order to gain the certification were not included in the cost of the training course. This meant that I had to pay for the actual tests out of pocket.

This year I was given the chance to attend a CompTIA A+, Network+ and Security+ Training Bootcamp. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the term Bootcamp it is meant to be similar to a military bootcamp. The goal is to cram as much information regarding these three subjects into your brain as fast as possible in order to give you the ability to take and pass the necessary tests on the first go around.

CompTIA stands for the ‘Computing Technology Industry Association’. From their website, ‘CompTIA is the leading association representing the international technology community’. Each on of the certifications I was studying for involves a different part of the information technology industry. A+ ‘confirms a technician’s ability to perform tasks such as installation, configuration, diagnosing, preventive maintenance and basic networking’. This certification requires that you pass two exams. Network+ ‘validates the knowledge and skills of networking professionals’. This certification requires that you pass only one exam. Security+ ‘validates knowledge of communication security, infrastructure security, cryptography, operational security, and general security concepts’. Similar to Network+ this only requires passing one test.

This training bootcamp was going to be a lot different then the training course I took the year earlier. To start with the training center was located in Fremont, CA which is approximately 40 miles south of San Francisco. Also the training was going to be provided by a company named Unitek. This particular company was recommended by one of my coworkers as being the best place to go. What made it even better for me was that the cost of the exams was included in the training package. This meant no out of pocket exam expense. Additionally instead of being a week long the course was set to be nine days, starting 2/5 ending 2/13 including Saturday and Sunday. If all went well then I would have 3 more certifications to put at the end of my name on all my emails.

Now in order for me to attend this training required that I do something with Lexi. I mean she is a good girl and all but I don’t think that it would be appropriate for me to take her with me to sit in all my classes. So having known that I would be taking this course several months in advance we worked it to where Lexi would stay with Grandma and Grandma. Instead of flying I decided that it would be easier for me to just drive to Grandma’s house, drop off Lexi and drive to Fremont on 2/4. I will say that the drive wasn’t that bad and I did get to see some beautiful country along the way. I would love to take the drive again when I am not in such a hurry to get somewhere.

I arrive at the hotel on 2/4 around 6:00 in the evening. Everything goes off without a hitch. I get to my room and I am blown away. This particular hotel has partnered with the training center to provide rooms for its students. Now the room wasn’t really a room as much as it seemed like a nice size studio apartment. It had a full kitchen, living room, bedroom and bath. It was really great. Too bad I didn’t spend more time in it.

I’m not going to bore you all with the nitty gritty details of the entire week. I can sum it all up for you, hard work and long hours. Most nights were spent studying with other students usually until 10:00 at night and then another 2 hours of self study time back in the room. This was followed by waking at 6:00 in the morning in order to get ready to catch a van to the classroom in the morning. All this hard work paid off in the fact that I passed all the necessary tests and became certified.

During this study time I met several individuals from throughout the country. All of these people were great and it was a pleasure to have the ability to study with them on a nightly basis. These folks hailed from; Buffalo, NY, Syracuse, NY, Portland, OR, Ketchikan, AK and Edmonton, AB. I know that without their help I may not have passed one of more of the tests.

With class over it was time to travel back to Grandma’s house. I decided to leave the afternoon of the 13th and arrived around 10:00 in the evening. I had already arranged to have the remainder of the week off in order to recover and I simply didn’t want to go right back to work after all that studying. I mean my brain was barely solid enough to allow me to drive! This meant that I didn’t return home to Vegas until the night of 1/19 since as a state employee I had the 19th off.

Also during all this training I had other pressing matters. Previously I had posted about the fact that I had decided to sell the house in Rio Rancho finally. Well while I was in training the sell went to closing and that distracted me somewhat from my class work. Thankfully not enough to cause me to fail any of the tests. I want to say that I was called on the 9th by the title company which needed me to complete the closing paperwork. Thankfully the training center had a public fax machine and I was able to receive all the paperwork. After finding a notary I signed all the paperwork and sent it back to them overnight. I can now report that the house is all done, taken care of and out of my hands. It was a great house, I am sorry to see it go but I realize that it was for the best.

So after getting back to Vegas I had four short days to prepare for the little darling to come out and visit/take the bar exam. Wow how that week just seemed to fly by. Before I knew it I was waking up on Saturday morning to go to the airport to pick her up. It was great seeing her again. It felt like it had been forever since I had seen her last. Dawn’s test started on 2/27 and went through 3/1. Luckily she only had to test for half a day on Thursday which gave us the ability to leave early and head to Grandma’s house for the weekend.

The weekend at Grandma’s house was great. Dawn and I got to go on a very special date, more on that tomorrow, and she was able to spend some time with her family. Sadly the weekend went way to fast and before we knew it, it was time to pack up and leave for Vegas. We decided to leave Lexi with Grandma since she was off the following week and I would return the following weekend to pick her up. This was nice as it gave Dawn and I the ability to go have one more special night before she had to fly back to Hobbs.

So there you have it. That pretty much sums up the month of February. Reflecting back on everything I just typed out I am surprised that so much can happen in such a short month! I hope that you all enjoyed my little novel. I miss you and love you all so much!

Nuts for Knott's!

2007-03-05T15:31:00.000-08:00

Thank goodness February is finally over. For being the shortest month of the year it sure was a busy one. I will go into the month of February at a later date I wanted to get some pictures up today for someone that I told I would.

Several weeks ago, actually before I left for my training in San Jose, Lexi, Grandma, Grandpa and I all went over to Knott’s Berry Farm. While looking at my blog this afternoon thinking which pictures and stories I would post I came to the realization that I never sent anyone any information about this little trip. So that is what I will go over today.

Talking with Grandma and Grandpa we had all agreed that we would wait for Lexi to get older before taking her to Disneyland. Now days you have to setup a ‘Go to Disneyland’ fund for your kids if you really want to go. With this in mind we decided that Knott’s would be a better starting place for Lexi’s amusement park experiences, and we weren’t disappointed.

At Knott’s they have an entire section of the park dedicated to younger children Lexi’s age. This made out trip a lot more fun for us as well as her as we weren’t spending our time wondering throughout the park looking for rides that we sized for her. There were a couple rides that we felt confident in letter her ride along and others that she went on with Grandpa. She had an excellent time and appeared to be glowing with excitement before, during and after.

Now without any further a do here are the pictures.

This is the first ride that Lexi went on. This was taken right before it started and she was just so excited. Just a simple red plane that went around in a circle and the kiddos could maneuver it up and down using a stick control inside the ride.

This picture is somewhat hard to explain. They had an island setup with a cave that in order to get into you had to go across a bridge that was floating over some water. Once across the bridge they had a waterfall that you could look through and other little things. Well once we were done and came back across the bridge Lexi wanted to go straight up a rock face they had created. This was taken once she reached the top.

After a couple rides us old folks needed a bathroom and a stop at the water fountain before continuing. While waiting for Grandpa, Lexi just got in the mood to start dancing around spinning in circles in place. I think this picture really show how much fun she was having.

Ok last one for today. This wasn’t really a ride per say. This was a huge bounce station that was shaped like Snoopy. I would estimate the entire thing was 20-30 feet across. This is another picture that I think really shows how much fun she had that day. She really enjoyed this bouncing and jumping like a total goof!!

Hope that you all enjoyed. I am going to try to do another update either tonight or tomorrow with more details about my busy month. Until then love and miss you all!!!

Happy Lexi

2007-02-17T21:20:00.000-08:00

Wow talk about a busy February. Sorry for the lack of updates everyone. I spent the past week and a half in the San Jose area. I will go into that more in a couple days. More then likely when I get back to Vegas.

For now here are some pictures of Lexi. While I was in San Jose, Grandma and Grandpa managed to get Lexi addicted to Monsters, Inc. She absolutely loves that movie. They ask her if she wants to look like Boo, the little girl, and she nods yes. So grandma puts her hair up in little pigtails and she just looks so adorable!!

Another new thing is we can ask her, "Where is happy Lexi?" and she will give you a smile like the one in the middle picture. Even when she gets upset asking her to show us happy Lexi she will do her best to crack a smile and be happy.

Tonight we decided to go over to Victoria Gardens and get her some new shoes. I am really glad that we did. We measured her feet and she was a size 8.5 and the shoes she was wearing were 8.0. It was definitely time for a new pair. After purchasing her shoes we went to the Thomas Station store that was right next door and let her play with the toys there for a good 15 minutes. Next thing was the little train that they have running around the area. She absolutely loves riding it. This time we let Grandpa ride with her this time instead of me. That is what she is in line for in the middle picture and what she is riding in the last picture. The crown she has on was given to her at the shoe store. She was such a good girl the entire night!!

Sorry for the poor quality of the pictures. These were all taken using my camera phone as I had left my regular camera at the house.

A fun lazy day

2007-01-27T22:36:00.000-08:00

We had a lazy day today. It started with us watching movies almost all morning. That was followed with a 2 hour nap. Next I decided that we had enough TV for a while so I put in some music and we hung out on the floor playing with a puzzle. She took that thing apart and put it back together all by herself several times. I was truly amazed at how well she was doing putting all the pieces together. It is funny to watch how methodical she is. She wasn't happy with just grabbing any piece and placing it. It seemed that she always knew exactly which piece she wanted and wasn't happy until she had it placed where is belonged.

As time passed her interest in the puzzle waned and I had to think of something else to do. While watching her I just couldn't help but wish that I had the ability to take pictures with my eyes. There are times when I gaze at her and she just has this look about her one of wonderment and amazement as what appears to me to be rather mundane. I guess kiddos are like that.

Well along with the picture I just published a few minutes ago one of the things we did you pass the time was rough house a little. I climbed down on the floor and we just started being silly. I grabbed the camera and just started shooting pictures kinda at random. Overall I would say that I took close to 50 pictures and I think that the following are the best of them all. Additionally I have come across some photo editing techniques and thought that I would give them a try and this is the result. I must say that I am pretty impressed with the results.

Well Duhhhh

2007-01-27T22:29:00.000-08:00

Maybe that isn't exactly what she way saying but I just couldn't resist. Sadly this picture points out the obvious problem that is starting to show with her eyes. When time permits going to have to take her to get some glasses so she doesn't get any worse.

Awesome sunset

2007-01-23T22:45:00.000-08:00

Thought that I would share this image with you all. I took this picture on 1/19 immediately after work. I walked out the door to the parking lot where I and this is what I was greeted with. Unfortunately this picture really doesn't do it justice. In hindsight I wish I would have stopped and retrieved my tripod from my car, set it up, and taken several pictures with different settings on my camera. Maybe next time. Just to set this up the building in the middle of the picture with the upward curved roof is the Wynn Resort and Casino located on the strip. If you want to get a better view click on the image and it will open in a larger resolution.

Bad month, good month and sleepy baby

2007-01-23T22:42:00.000-08:00

Well the month of January has been nasty to me and my family. Talk about a horrible way to start the year. I guess I had better knock on wood as there are technically 8 days left in the month.

Lets see where to start...

I would say that it started on 1/10. Mid morning I received a phone call from the person renting my house that they were going to be moving out effective 3/1. For those of you who don't know here is a small back story. Dawn and I purchased a home in Rio Rancho nearly 7 years ago now. After living in it for less then a couple months Dawn got a job with the District Attorney's Office in Lea County and had to move to Hobbs. Six months later, after finding a job, I moved to Hobbs to join her.

This was really good for the both of us as we were both making significantly more money then our previous jobs. Unfortunately this left us with a newly purchased house that we were 'up-side-down' on. Luckily for me I had friends at my old job that needed a place and agreed to rent the house. This was the start down the long road of 'investment property' ownership.

Long story short I found myself in an all to familiar situation of needing to find another tenant to move in. To add to the already stressful situation I am now living in Vegas and Dawn is still in Hobbs. Neither of use have the time to travel to the house to get it ready to rent. All these issues combined to drive me to the decision to get rid of the house. When I say get rid of I mean literally. I contacted one of those 'WeBuyUglyHouses' outfits and have them started on the prospect of buying the place.

Next piece of news came from my cousin Kenny. I had received a call about the news the day before but I will allow his email to speak for itself...

Hello all. Just so everyone knows, I was injured in a road side blast, I am doing good, in the hospital, on my way to Germany. I think this is going to be the last I see of Iraq, I dont know, cant say for sure. General Johnson gave me the purple heart last night. Hopefully I'll be home soon to see everyone. I'll be in Landstuhl tomorrow night, I think I'll stay there for a few days. Take care, see ya'll later.

Good news is that in the follow up emails it appears that he is doing good. Just want to give him a shout out and let him know that I am thinking of him and that he is in my thoughts always.

Final thing to go be negative this month is that little one got sick around the 16th. The following picture was taken the night of the 16th. It was an interesting night for sure. It started with little one wanting to just lay down right in the middle of the floor. This is particularly strange and she normally sits in her chair all night. Well I setup a pillow and her blanket so she could be as comfortable as she wanted.

Later that night, or should I say early next morning, Lexi woke up around 4:00 a.m. I picked her up out of her bed and placed her in bed next to me and we both fell back asleep. About an hour and 15 minutes later she awoke crying. Now there are times when she wakes up in the middle of the night crying and I can tell the difference between waking from a bad dream, crying in her sleep and a cry of pain which this one was. It was so different that I threw on the light and started asking her what was wrong. She replied, 'Hurt, Ouch'. I followed this by asking where she hurt and she pointed to her ears. I went ahead and checked her temperature and sure enough she was around 100°, nothing to serious. Initially I thought she was running hot because she was in her total body PJ's, snuggled up next to me and lying under the covers. I decided that I would go ahead and give her some Childrens Tylenol and take the covers off her to see if it would break by morning.

Morning rolled around and sure enough she was still running a fever. Instead of taking the risk of taking her to school just to have her get worse I took the entire day off. I took her to the doctor and sure enough she had the beginning of an ear infection. Luckily we caught it early and I can report that she is doing great.

Even with all these negative things occurring there have been positives as well. One of which happened tonight.

To start Lexi finally took her first shower. I know that this may sound insignificant however for me it was a big deal. I was taking a morning shower and she was watching me and I asked her if she wanted to get in with me. She nodded her head yes. So I went ahead and stripped her down and brought her into the shower with me. She did really well. She wasn't too excited about the water spraying directly on her however. We ended the event by turning the shower off and playing/getting clean with the water coming out of the faucet.

Next event was, with a little nudging from her daycare, we have started toilet training. This week started the second week of her going to school without diapers. I am proud to report that she has only had one accident from all last week until today at school. Of course this means that I need to reinforce this at home as well and I can say that she has been doing a great job. After hitting a couple bumps the first couple days we have a breakthrough over the weekend and it feels like we may be approaching cruise control with her.

This leads into the third and final event so far this month. Tonight I went out on a limb and took her out without a diaper on into public for the first time. We left the house at 6:00 and had to go grocery shopping. Lexi was an absolute dream and such a good girl the entire trip. I made sure that before I left the house that I had her diaper bag and a extra pair of pants in the event that she had an accident in the store. She did great and made it all the way home without having to go potty and not having an accident!! To make things even better right before putting her to bed she told me she had to go and she did just like a good girl. So she has now had her first public outing without wearing a diaper.

I can definitely say that this month has had its ups and downs. With everything being so busy I just have to remember to take the time to stop and enjoy the ups while they last. Also the last picture here is of her with some pigtails that the girls at school put in. Yeah she is in her birthday suite since she had just finished going potty and we were going to go get ready for bed.

Time for school

2007-01-23T15:48:00.000-08:00

This picture was taken on 1/16 before leaving to go to school. She was in a really good mood that morning. I decided that I wanted to try to put her into another jacket that I had nearly forgotten she had. My Aunt Paula, her Great-Aunt Paula, gave this to her a while back. I held on to it waiting for the day that she would fit into it. If memory serves correctly this was received when she turned 1 and was a size 2T. Well she is finally 2T and this fits her perfectly. Unfortunately it has been colder then this jacket will allow so it is going to be put away until it warms up some more in the next month or so. She really did seem to enjoy wearing it though.

Grampa is comfy

2007-01-23T15:24:00.000-08:00

Wow it has been a while since I have added any updates to this page. I need to try my best to get back into things and get these updates out to everyone. Well this past month has been really busy with the holidays and all coming to a close.

This picture was taken on 1/13 while staying with Grandma and Grandpa for the weekend. She had a very busy day on this particular day. She had stayed up and fought taking a nap for the entire day. However eventually she lost the fight. We slipped in one of her movies and told her that she needed to sit with Grandpa. Being the good girl she is she climbed up on the couch with her Grandpa and started to watch her movie. If I remember correctly less then 15 minutes into it she was passed out. I just couldn't help myself and had to take this picture. I have to admit though the picture wasn't originally my idea. Grandpa had to point out the photo op for me. Good call Grandpa!!

It's been a long time

2006-12-15T15:57:00.000-08:00

I did something the today that I haven't done since high school. It took a lot out of me for sure. I mean I had to twist and contort my body in ungodly directions. When I was done wow did I feel better almost giddy. There was a moment when I thought for sure I had forgotten what I was doing and was doomed. I stuck it out though and ended up successful in my adventure!!

You guessed it!! I put hair in a pony tail!! To be honest this is the second day that I put one of these little jobbers in her hair. The picture today just seemed to come out better. She seems to be getting used to them and enjoying them at the same time. Now if I can just get her to hold her head still while I try to put it in then it would make life so much easier!!

Here is another picture I took right after the one above. It is hard to see in this picture but when her hair it tied back like this it totally changes her look.

It's as big as she is!!!

2006-12-12T14:12:00.000-08:00

Looks like my mock Christmas tree did its job. I would hope that everyone knows me better then that. Here are some pictures of the real tree that I got for her. It started life as a 3 foot pre-lit tree. When I purchased it I had bought an additional 100 light string to go on it. After getting it home and opening it I discovered I was in trouble. All the branches toward the top of the tree were hopelessly tangled with the lights. While Lexi was asleep I went through the painstaking process of removing the original lights. Then over the past couple days I have gone through and added a total of 300 lights to this little tree. Lets just say that it really lights up the house. =)

When I first lit up the tree she was so excited. She started jumping up and down all over the place it was just too cute!!

Charlie Brown Christmas

2006-12-11T16:13:00.000-08:00

Wow it has been a couple weeks since I posted last. I can say though that there hasn't been much going on in the house. Lately we have been just trying to hunker down for the remainder of the holiday season. It seems that the end of the year is going to get pretty busy with trips between Vegas and LA should be fun.

Last time I was down in LA I was charged with getting a Christmas tree for Lexi. Some of you may already know that I can at times be a Scrooge when it comes to the holidays. I don't know why but I just am. Of course Dawn's parents know this and they wanted to make sure that I took the time to get a tree that little one would enjoy. Well I bit the bullet and here is what I got her...

I promise it is in there. Look between her legs and you will see it. I said that I would get a tree and I did. Therefore I have fulfilled all my obligations to the holiday. She seems to really enjoy it. I had to take it out of her hands this morning as she wanted to take it to school with her and well I just couldn't have that.

So that just about sums up everything for the past couple weeks. I am going to try do a couple things around town that are Christmas themed for her and see what happens. Hopefully they will go off without a hitch.

Now where did I put that mace to keep the carolers at bay??

A thief, a gymnast and a dancer...

2006-11-27T16:53:00.000-08:00

...all rolled into one. Here are some additional pictures from over the week at my Grandparents house. Most of these are Lexi doing one thing or another.

I can honestly say that I have absolutely no idea what she is doing here. I know that we are in the living room and she was just being goofy.

Here Lexi is dancing for all of use. All I have to do is tell her, 'Shake your booty' and she starts swinging those hips left and right. It is just a scream to watch.

Here she is trying to be a little thief. We were playing and she wanted to play with my wallet. While we played tug-o-war with it I snapped this picture. Not even 3 and she is wanting cash and credit cards. She must take after her mother!!

Here she is being a little gymnast. My Grandma does a lot of clothes ironing on the side and this is one of the racks she uses to hold clothes on. Well my Mom and Grandma decided they would see if she would reach and hold on to the pipe. Of course she did and immediately lifted up her feet and started to swing ever so slightly forward and back. Naturally the rest of the time was spent telling her to climb down since there wasn't an adult nearby to help her in case she fell.

Ok last one. My Grandma has a coo-coo clock hanging up on the wall in the living room. It is one of those things that I have always heard when I was there and it is a welcome sound when I visit. Here we are playing around while waiting for it to chime the next hour. She loved that thing once we restarted it. She would hear it go off across the house and just run in order to hear it before the little bird disappeared. Then while laying in bed waiting for her to fall asleep it would chime off 10 o'clock and she would just look at you and whisper, 'coo coo'. It was so cute!!

“Family is the most important thing in the world.” ~ Princess Diana

2006-11-27T16:32:00.000-08:00

After this past week I can truthfully say that quote has some meaning in my life. Here are some of the great family pictures that I was able to capture over this past week with Lexi and the rest of the family.

This picture was taken in the living room of my Grandparents house. Of course that is both of them there. This is Alice and Frank Gibson. I don't know how I managed to get this nearly perfect picture but man am I glad that I did. The thing sticking out of the back of Lexi's head is a walking stick that normally sits behind the chair they are sitting in. In the final version that I printed out I was able to remove it. I just forgot to upload that version here.

Here is a picture with Grandad. This was taken in the morning in the kitchen. This window faces out to the backyard. She was being adorable that day.

Ok this is the last of the 'family' type pictures that I have to put up. That is my mother and I in the back row and then the Grandparents with Lexi in the front. We took a couple different pictures in this pose. This is the one that I think that turned out best of them all. The others had Lexi in a different dress that is somewhat a family heirloom. My Grandma has pictures of several of her kids, grandkids and great-grandkids in it.

Looking over the past year I must say that at times I have put my family on the back burner to other things that are going on in my life. I know that there were things that I had promised to deliver on and then fail miserably, particularly in regards to my Grandparents. Call this an early New Year's resolution but I am going to make a conscious effort to make my family a higher priority in my life in the next and following years.

What do you call...

2006-11-27T15:42:00.000-08:00

something that takes 33 hours to finish and is almost 2000 miles long?? Well a vacation of course!! As is annual Rowe Thanksgiving tradition it was time to venture back to the homeland to visit all the family. The route traveled was much longer then it has ever been in the past. In hindsight I must say that it was well worth it.

The trip started on Thursday 11/16 @ 2:30 p.m. in Las Vegas. I was lucky enough to get off work a little early after working extra the beginning of the week. Fortunately I had been packing the car on and off throughout the week so there was little to pack. I did have to go to the house before getting Lexi in order to get some last minute items that I had forgotten to pack. After gathering the last minute items at the house I picked up Lexi and we were on the road by 3:00 p.m PST. 9 hours and nearly 600 miles later I arrived at my parents house in Tijeras, NM for the evening.

Next morning I departed for Hobbs, NM at 10:30 MST. 4 hours and nearly 300 miles later I arrived at Donella's work and she was reunited with Lexi after not having seen her for what felt like several months yet had only been 4 weeks. The visit started with Donella finishing up some last minute paperwork for a case she was working on. This was followed by general introductions and hello's to nearly everyone in the office. Afterwards we left and headed for dinner at one of the three restaurants that I had in my mind that I wanted to visit before leaving.

The remainder of the week in Hobbs went pretty fast. I must admit that I spent much of the time trying to balance visiting old friends with trying to relax. On Saturday(11/18) we went to a Teen Court training and had the opportunity to visit several of the kids that were still involved with the program. It was great to be able to see them all again. Saturday night was filled with UFC on pay-per-view. Sunday(11/19) was spent watching the NASCAR race with the wife followed by dinner with my ex-boss/friend and his wife. Monday(11/20) was lazy for the morning followed by heading in to downtown Hobbs to go to lunch at another one of the restaurants that I was looking forward to. Then back to the wife's office to do more meet and greet with all her co-workers that we missed on Friday afternoon. Tuesday(11/21) was a lazy day only venturing outside the house to visit my old office/work to catch up with all the people that I used to work with before moving to Las Vegas. That night however we packed up the car again and left for my parents house in Tijeras again.

We arrived at my parents house at around 11:00 p.m. MST, if I remember correctly. We unloaded everything that we needed for the night and went to bed. The next morning we enjoyed the company of my folks while they got ready to meet us up in Farmington, NM later that day. We left the house and headed for my sisters in Albuquerque, NM. We hung out there for a hour and a half to two hours enjoying her kids and watching Lexi run and play with them.

From my sisters we left to go to my Grandparents house up in Farmington. I remember calling them from Bernalillo, NM at around 3:00. We arrived at their house nearly 3 hours later. We spent the remainder of the time(11/22 - 11/26) with them. It took Lexi all of maybe an hour to warm up to everyone and then she was just in her own element. It was great to see my Grandparents again I only wish that I had more time to get to see them then I did. We did have a great time though.

Thanksgiving dinner was a traditional turkey and stuffing dinner. It was great to have everyone around enjoying each others company. One notable event was my cousin Jeannine and her husband also happened to come down from Denver, CO. That brought the guest count to a total of 9 people. Dinner was great as it usually is when at my Grandparents place.

Friday(11/24) was of course the day used for recovery from all that Turkey. Donella, Lexi and I ventured out to the local mall for a short shopping trip. We weren't really participating in the entire 'Black Friday' thing. Mostly wanting to get out of the house for a short period of time. I must say though having not been in the mall in Farmington in several years how things have changed. Looking at the stores that are located there now versus when I was in high school how things have changed. There are stores in there that I would have never thought would ever come to Farmington. It is amazing to see how much things have changed in only the past 10 years. I can't even begin to image what that town is going to look like in the next 10 let alone 20 years. Friday evening Donella and I left Lexi with my Mom and Grandparents to watch while we went out on a 'date'. We went to see 'The Santa Claus 3'. I must say that it was a pretty nice movie. You don't have to have had seen the first 2 but it does help.

Saturday came and most of the morning was spent visiting and talking with family. I printed up several pictures at the local Walgreens for the family. Also this was the day that Donella was to leave for Hobbs. Donella's friend Erica was kind enough to drive all the way from Hobbs to Farmington in order to take her back. One good thing was that she arrived in Farmington in the middle afternoon. This allowed Lexi to spend almost as much time as possible with her mom without Donella and Erica having to drive to much in the dark. This is especially important considering how unsafe the roads in that part of the state are on the weekends and after dark.

The trip concluded on Sunday with the typical packing, love you's and until next time's. We loaded up and shipped out for the trip back to Las Vegas. The trip back was uneventful and just long. Lexi was great the entire drive though. Only thing was she kept on doing the, 'Daddy' this and 'Daddy' that from Gallup all the way home. I hate to say it but man was that getting on my nerves! She did do good though considering how long the trip was. She slept from just South of Shiprock, NM all the way through Gallup, NM. We stopped at the NM/AZ border rest area and stretched out legs. Next we drove from there all the way to Flagstaff, AZ in one fail swoop. We stopped in Flagstaff in order to refill all the gas tanks, both the cars and ours. We loaded up and made the long shot all the way into Vegas without having to stop!! She was so good I can't believe that she wasn't screaming and yelling at me.

Well that about sums up the entire trip. I am going to be posting some more pictures here in a moment I wanted to get all the gory details out of the way first so you can enjoy all the pictures. Also here is a map from MapQuest of the entire trip. They quote it as...32 hours, 25 minutes and 1928.82 miles.

Dr. Jekyll and Ms. Hyde

2006-11-15T15:28:00.000-08:00

Don't have a whole lot of time today to spend writing. I thought that I would just go ahead and post this pictures for you all to enjoy. I am sure that I am going to get in trouble with a certain someone for posting one of these.

Here we have the sedate and wonderful Dr. Jekyll. Isn't she nice?? You must always be on your guard though because at a moments notice she may turn into...

the diabolical Ms. Hyde. When you see her coming all your thoughts turn to death and despair.

Thomas The Tank Engine

2006-11-14T14:37:00.000-08:00

I have decided I am going to do things a little different with this post. Since I have more pictures to share then I normally do with a post I am going to do all my writing then add the pictures.

There was no posting from 10/30 - 11/3 because Lexi was staying with Grandma and Grandpa. It was a much needed break on my part. I love that little girl but there are times when even I need a break. One interesting point was on my way to pick her up I thought to myself, 'I've been so busy this week I really didn't miss her all that much.' It is funny that in hind sight I will say that is true. Once I got to Grandma's house however that all changed. I was so excited to see her and she was excited to see me. Also every time she spends a week with her grandparents she always looks so different to me. Now I know how they feel when they see her every other week.

So after going down on 11/3 we had discussed me coming back down the following weekend since it was a three day weekend, Veterans day. While we were discussing this idea we talked about what we were going to do. Well once back in Vegas I took to the task of finding something to do. I stumbled across a web-page affiliated with the LA Time that provides various community events. Once of these events I couldn't pass up it was named, 'A Day Out With Thomas'. With Lexi's new found interest in trains and specifically Thomas this was an opportunity I just couldn't let go. I contacted the grandparents and we all agreed that it would be a great time.

We decide that we are going to go on our adventure on Friday. Our thinking was that it would be less crowded as some people would still be working on the holiday. We arrived at the Orange Empire Railway Museum at around 12:30 and didn't leave until around 5:00. Overall we had a great time and I must say that the museum did a great job at providing entertainment for all the kids. They had entire Thomas table-top toy sets setup for kids to play with, a maze made out of bails of hay, and the entire museum was open to the public as well.

This was a small kid size trolley car they had setup in one of the courtyards. Lexi got in there and was being really good. Here she is ringing the bell they had placed on the front of the car.

This was taken on the coach car they that was being pulled by Thomas. She had such a great time. They had Thomas pulling 4-5 coach cars that day.

Here Lexi is sitting on a 1937 streetcar. We were waiting for a ride around the museum grounds when this picture was taken. Here Thomas had just returned from one of this trips and was pulling forward to unload his current passengers and load up for another trip. This kinda gives you an idea of what they had setup that day. I must say that I was impressed with the workmanship displayed in the Thomas mock up.

Lastly there is a picture of my little darling having fun in the grass they had in front of the museum. We had been playing back and forth just before this was taken. She started to fall down and then she would want me to help her up. I snapped this as she was actually saying please for me to help her.

We had a great time and a great weekend.

What do trains say??

2006-11-02T17:04:00.000-08:00

Chooo Chooo!!

Last weekend we traveled to Grandma and Grandpa's house. One thing that made this trip especially nice was that it was a three day weekend for me. Since I work for the State of Nevada I was given 'Nevada Day' off. Nevada day is the last Friday in October. Due to this little fact I was able to leave for California on Thursday evening instead of my regular Friday evening departure.

This wasn't all good however. As I traveled south on I-15 I encountered a really bad traffic backup starting what felt like a couple miles before the produce checkpoint North of Barstow. When I first started slowing down I figured they were simply checking vehicles this time at the checkpoint. However as I passed the checkpoint by I realized that I was severely mistaken. The stop and go traffic continued almost all the way to Barstow. All of this was caused by the fact that Caltrans had decided to close one of the two lanes. It just so happened that as I was passing through the construction zone workers were busy pulling up the cones that indicated that the lane was closed. Talk about bad timing on my part. I knew that I should have stopped and got something to eat before leaving Vegas.

I continued on my merry way towards Grandma's house. Only again I hit more construction traffic. This time the traffic was towards the bottom of Cajon pass. Now I have known for a while that this construction was going on. Just this is the first time that I had traveled through the area and actually run into any type of problem. They had closed the freeway from 5 lanes all the way down to 2. Again stop and go traffic was the name of the game. It wasn't so bad this time though, only stop and go for 2-3 miles. Cleared the construction and headed off for Grandma's house which was only like 15 minutes away. Once we arrived I started eating the dinner I had picked up on the way to the house and Lexi started playing with Grandma. We did out typical hang out thing for a couple hours then headed off to bed.

The next day, Friday, we really didn't do much. One nice thing was that Grandpa was home for the day and we just hung out. Guess you could say we were saving our energy for the next day's activities.

On Saturday we all decided that we were going to go on an adventure. Several years ago we had gone to Griffith Park and stumbled across the Travel Town Museum. This little museum and park has a fairly decent display of steam locomotives. The only thing really wrong with them is in some spots they are a little worse for wear. This is where most of these pictures are from. She had such a blast!! She just loved all the trains. They had a little train that they were pulling around the outer perimeter of the park that we took her for a ride on and she just loved it.

After we had gone through all of Travel Town we decided we would take a trip over to the Merry-Go-Round they have at the park. On the way down the hill to the ride she seemed excited enough. However once she got on it was an entirely different story. She didn't want to sit on a horse so Grandpa placed her in one of the carriages instead. Watching them go around was just priceless. Lexi was just clinging to Grandpa, eyes closed for dear life!!

When Grandpa and Lexi were done with their ride we decided it would be best to start heading home as it was getting late into the afternoon and Lexi still hadn't had a nap. We piled into the car and we were off. It wasn't maybe 20 minutes later and Lexi was passed out. Once we arrived back at the house I gently got her out of the car and placed her in bed to finish her nap. Overall the day was great and she had a really great time.

Extremely overdo post

2006-11-02T16:37:00.000-08:00

Wow this post goes right along with my last posting. How time seems to just fly by. I was thinking today that I should post some pictures of our trip to Travel Town in Griffith part in LA. When I took a look at the blog I realized that I still hadn't posted any pictures of Lexi's birthday and that has almost been three weeks past!! So here I am going to start today's activities with her birthday pictures.

Here is a picture of her cake. She loves Elmo!! The cake turned out ok for the most part. One issue was that the filling in between the layers of cake was supposed to be raspberry when they in fact made it with chocolate. This wasn't to bad of an issue however the wife reported it to the store and they invited her in to take her pick of the case for a replacement. I love it when a store takes some responsibility and makes sure that the customer is taken care of.

Overall the even was a great success. Had the close family come which was really nice!! Let's see if I can get them all right. We had: Mom, Grandma, Grandpa, Uncle Nick, Uncle D, Aunt Holly, Melanie, Russ, Frieda and Grandpa T. I don't think Lexi knew exactly what to do with all those people there. She was very well behaved though. We also had some family friends over but to be perfectly honest I didn't get any names. I know I am a horrible person.

She received many great gifts from everyone that came. To those of you who came and are reading this thank you for showing up and bringing something for her, I really appreciate all the support you showed for her big day!! I know that she enjoyed it!!

They grow up so fast

2006-10-24T12:43:00.000-07:00

There was a time and place when I didn't understand that line. Now here I am using it in casual conversation. How time seems to fly by. It feels like just last month Lexi was born, last week she started walking and yesterday she starting going up and down sets of stairs. At this rate tomorrow she will be starting kindergarten, next week she will be graduating high school, next month she will graduate from college and next year I will have a grandchild. It is almost a frightening thought.

Well here is where I am going with all this. After picking up Lexi from daycare yesterday we needed to go to a couple stores in order to pick up some items. First stop was Babies 'R' Us for diapers and wipes. As we drove down Sunset I missed the Stephanie turn and had to continue on Sunset in order to go around the block. This forced us to pass by Sunset Station casino where they had a pumpkin patch, similar to the one we went to with Grandma, in the parking lot. Of course Lexi caught sight of this and just started screaming and hollering. Being on a mission, we just kept on going so I could get our shopping done.

After finishing up at Babies 'R' Us we needed to go to Wal-Mart in order to get groceries. Instead of going straight there I decided that we would make a stop at the pumpkin patch we had passed along the way. Remember I had to go around the block in order to get back to Babies 'R' Us. Once we pulled up and stop Lexi started going nuts again at the sight of all the lights. We got out and she just started taking it all in. They had pumpkins, rides, jumpers and petting zoo. We walked the entire show in order to take in all that was available. Normally I wouldn't entertain the idea of paying actual money to throw away on such thing, however as many of you know I am chump when it comes to my baby. So I grudgingly paid the attendants money for tickets to enjoy all there was to enjoy, everyone has a scam but me (wink).

With tickets in had we set off to explore and have whatever fun there was to have. I decided I would start off at the petting zoo. At first Lexi was somewhat afraid of all the animals. They had 4 goats, 2 chickens, 2 ducks, and 3 rabbits. It was funny to watch her just look and look but the minute that one of the goats would start coming her way she would start to get scarred and come running into my arms. This continued for nearly 5 minutes. As I started to demonstrate how it was alright to touch the animals she began to warm to the idea. It was just adorable. She was so gentle when it came to touching them. After being in the pin with these animals for nearly 15 minutes I decided that it was time to continue on. Great thing was right next door they had 5 miniature ponies they were using to give little kids a ride on. She thought that it was just great. Having seen her reaction to the goats I decided that it would be best to let/force her to pass on a ride. However the girl running the pony rides was nice enough to let Lexi and I go in and give them a nice rub. Again Lexi just loved it. Having finished with the animals we ventured out to the rest of the pumpkin patch. One nice feature of the animal features was at the edge of the tent they were using they had several instant hand sanitizers available for your hands. This was a god send as I just can't seem to keep Lexi's fingers out of various holes in her head.

The next stop was the choo chooo!! They had a riding lawn mower done up like a steam engine at the entrance to the pumpkin patch. Lexi had seen it earlier however at the time we passed it, it appeared that no one was running the thing. Because of this we decided to move on to the petting zoo. Well now we were back and I wasn't leaving until my little girl got to ride on the choo choo. What helped my cause was that I wasn't the only individual with a kid waiting to ride the thing. After about 5 minutes a gentleman appeared asking if we were waiting for a train ride and we all said, 'Yes'. So we hopped on board and proceeded to ride the choo choo around the entire outer perimeter of the event. Lexi was just having a blast. I continuously told her to wave and say hi to everyone that we saw as we passed them by. She was great the entire ride, never stood up, never squirmed around just absolutely perfect.

The next ride that she insisted on was one which had several little cars that went around in a circle. Looking at these cars I knew there was no way that I was going to be able to physically get into one. I figured that I would take Lexi over put her into one of the cars, strap her in, start to walk away and she would immediately start crying and I would have to retrieve her. What the heck though lets give it a whirl. I gave Lexi three tickets and told her to give them to the nice lady and she would take care of her. So she did exactly as she was told. She took the tickets in hand, walked over to the nice lady and handed her the tickets. The girl then walked with Lexi until she stopped at a car and wanted to get up. Next the girl helped her into the car and made sure that she was all buckled in safely. To my amazement she just sat there. No crying, no wanting out, no...wanting...Daddy?? For a moment I was heart broken. This sadness was immediately replaced by uncontrollable laughter as the ride started moving. She was so excited!! She was driving that car with all her heart. She was go zooming past with just the biggest smile on her face!! Unfortunately for Lexi all good things must come to an end. Once the ride stopped she sat perfectly still until the girl came by, unstrapped her and helped her down. Once she was down on the ground she came and walked right over to me with her head held high and her shoulders thrown back. She was a big girl!!

You know what they say about adrenaline, it is a drug that is easy to get addicted to. Well isn't that the truth. After the cars we walked around some more and saw another ride. This time it was one that had the swings that would spin around. Again my thoughts were I would take her in there, try to strap her in, start to walk away and she would start crying. Well she wasn't going to have anything to do with that. She just sat there and was all ready to go. As I finished strapping her in I told her, 'Now you hold on to this bar baby and don't you let go.' As you can barely see in the picture she didn't. Actually the entire time that she was on the ride she never did. She did such a great job with this ride as well. She went round and round with just a smile from ear to ear on her face. Once the ride came to a stop she waited patiently for me to come get her.

Once we were through with the swings we had a couple tickets left enough for one more ride. I decided to let her go on the cars again as she seemed to have so much fun on them the time before. We finished the car ride and it was time to go. Of course that was a little fight as she didn't want to leave. Can't say that I blame her much as we don't get the opportunity to go out and do things like this often enough. However after a talking to she settled down and we headed off for Wal-Mart in order to finish our shopping. I looked at the clock on my phone and realized that it was nearly 8:00. While at the store we called momma and told her about all the fun that we had.

About time I wrap this up. So here I am sitting here at the office when my phone rings. I take a look down at the screen and see, 'Childtime Center'. Immediately thoughts start racing through my mind: 'Did she bite someone?', 'Is she sick?' or 'Did she crack her head open?'. 'Mr. Rowe this is (so and so) with Childtime we were calling to let you know that we have been placing Lexi in classroom 3 the past couple days to see how she would like it. It seems that she is doing good so we have decided to go ahead and move her up and we were calling to let you know.'

They grow up so fast.

Eeeeeekkkkk!!! A Mouse!!!!

2006-10-23T13:46:00.000-07:00

I decided on a short and sweet post today to reflect the weekend. Didn't do much of anything except sitting around and playing with Lexi. When did our normal Saturday morning and once we got up and moving she kept bugging me about a 'tail'. Then she would run over and pick up this outfit and just insisted that I put it on her. She ran around in this thing for better part of the morning. Eventually she grew tired of it and wanted to get in her orange and black Halloween clothes. But not before I could grab a couple snapshots. I only wish she would have put her cup down if only for a second.

She's in there somewhere

2006-10-19T12:31:00.000-07:00

This past weekend was really exciting. To start with Momma came out on Thursday and got to visit. We also went to California in order to celebrate our 2nd birthday!! We had such a great time and she was an absolute dream, especially during the times where she hadn't had a nap for most of the day. I want to thank everyone for coming out and spending time with us. I know that Lexi really appreciates it. I will be posting some pictures from the event later on in the week.

I took this picture this morning before we left for school. I swear that she is in that mess of love somewhere. When we got to school she got mad at me because Blue had to stay in the car and wasn't allowed at school. Just breaks my heart when she gets mad and starts crying like that. Once we got inside and she saw all her friends she was ok.

Wwwwweeeeeeeeee!!!

2006-10-10T11:16:00.000-07:00

Last week was really hectic here at work. Had a ton of work to take care of and it just didn't seem to want to stop. All of it came to a head on Friday though. I was sitting at my desk when I heard a loud 'pop' noise immediately followed by my computer shutting off. I looked around my desk and found that my computer didn't blow up but the power to my desk had gone out. I located the building and grounds guy that works at the office and told him what happened and he instructed me to talk to the electricians, who were about to leave, about the issue.

They came over and took a look and started pointing fingers to things like our refrigerator and microwave as a possible cause. The electrician then took a look at the breakers and found that three breakers had been tripped. Again they initially thought that the problem was being caused by us having too much equipment hooked up to the circuit. We then explained to the electrician that we have had this setup in its current configuration for more then two months and that this was the first time we have had any problems.

The electrician then had an assistant turn on the breakers and waited to see what happened. He heard the same noise as I had heard previously. We then decided to disconnect all the electrical and try the breaker again to make sure that we weren't drawing to much power. After that experiment failed we grabbed the electrical paperwork to discover where the electrical connections were.

You see we have a false/raised floor in our office area. This consists of carpet tiles that are glued to floor tiles that sit atop a grid work which keeps the entire show about 2 feet about the concrete pad. It was done this way in order to help in the running of electrical, data, heating and cooling.

After consulting the electrical diagrams we started pulling up the necessary floor tiles to attempt to diagnose the problem. Once the first floor tile was pulled up the problem was pretty apparent one of the electrical connections was sitting in a puddle of water. It seems that the rain that we have received over the past couple days had started to seep into the building. This caused a pool of water nearly a half inch deep, in spots, to be under the floor of our office. We proceeded to pull up several floor tiles in our office in order to allow the pool to dry out over the weekend. Came in Monday morning and everything appeared to be dry.

So finally got my computer back up and running yesterday after lunch. Unfortunately I was busy getting some cleaning done in some other areas of the office and didn't get a chance to finish this posting. So here I am this morning trying to wrap everything up.

On Sunday morning Lexi woke up early as usual. She just loves to wake up at around 7:30 in the morning. Normally I pick her up and put her in bed with me and we hang out for an hour or so before we finally get up. This past Sunday was no different. After getting up we went ahead and had some cereal for breakfast and hung out. Lexi started getting all hyper, excited and was running all over. This gave me the idea to take her out to a park. I grabbed her bag and a couple bottles of water and we left for a park over on Russell Rd (map here).

As we pulled up to the park she was just looking out the window taking it all in. Once I parked the car she really started to get excited. She was pointing out the front window and bouncing up and down in car seat. So I hurried and got her out of the car and we started towards the playground equipment. This little turkey just starts running across this field of grass heading in the direction of the playground. It was so funny and she was just so excited. We played on the slides and climbed over everything for nearly an hour and a half. Another nice thing was a couple groups of kids that came and went for her to play with a little. It was a great time.

After the park I decided to go over to a Toys 'R' Us on the other side of town (map here) looking for her Blue. I was in luck as they had three available. So I choose the best of the three for her to take home. While I was there I also picked up a replica of her first Elmo in the event that the original is every lost or worse. The doll is 23 inches in length, pretty large even for her. She loves it though! Once finished at the store we headed home and watched the NASCAR race.

Smiles and kisses for all

2006-10-03T14:24:00.000-07:00

Well as previously mentioned went to California this weekend. Didn't do much but what we did was fun.

We arrived late Friday night as usual. Lexi woke up just as we started pulling up to Grandma's house. She was so excited to see Grandma. While I was carrying her in she starting waving her arms like she usually does when she gets all excited at just the sight of Grandma. As I approached her, Grandma, Lexi started reaching out to have Grandma pick her up. It was so cute. A short time later Grandpa came out and she immediately wanted to jump into his arms. It was a sight to see. She just loves getting to see the two of them every other weekend.

Saturday woke up relatively early for a weekend. I guess going to bed late the night before didn't faze Lexi at all as she was up at around 7:00. So I picked her up and put her in bed with me and we played around a little until Grandpa was up and moving about. We hung around the house pretty much the entire day.

Then it was decided that we were going to go to a pumpkin patch that was open down the way. We packed up and headed over to this patch/stand. For what it is worth it was pretty nice. I mean they could easily just have a pile of pumpkins lying around. They actually took the time to bring out bales of hay, a couple amusement rides, a bounce station, inflatable slide and some wagons to help with your shopping. The four of us just meandered around looking at all the pumpkins while I took as many pictures as I could.

Grandma then decided that it would be a good idea to let Lexi jump in the jump station they had available. After purchasing our tickets we threw Lexi in. She wasn't exactly thrilled at the idea of being in this big box all by herself. Of all people Grandma climbed in with her so she didn't feel alone. They played in there for easliy 15 or more minutes, all the while I was able to get some great pictures of them laughing, smiling and being just plain silly.

After the bouncing and jumping we needed to get a pumpkin. I mean who are we to take all these great pictures and not leave with a pumpkin? We grabbed two Lexi sized pumpkins and left.

We proceeded to go eat dinner at Applebee's. It is so nice to go out to eat and let Lexi do whatever she wants. When we go we always ask to be seated in the patio area. This way Lexi can run around with out affecting anyone else. Make for a less stressful evening. Once done with dinner we headed home for the night.

The next day was a lazy day if I have every seen one. The sun never really came out the entire day and I think that didn't help matters any. It was just overcast enough that you never wanted to get up and get your day started. I know that I didn't get dressed until nearly 5:00 in the evening. At one point I think that everyone in the house was taking a nap. It was really quite nice to have a day where you have absolutely no responsibilities that need tending to.

Another good part of the day was that Uncle Nick came over. It was good to see him as Lexi warmed up to him nicely in a short amount of time. This gave me the opportunity to take some good pictures of Nick and Lexi hanging out in the back yard taking a look over her bike.

After Nick left it was time for us to go out to dinner again. This time we decided on Coco's down the street. We all ate and had a good time. Lexi was again just perfect. I love it when she is so good.

Once finished with dinner we headed for home. When we got there I proceeded to start packing the car for the drive home. It didn't take that long as I had already gathered nearly everything before we left for dinner. We left the house at around 9:00 in the evening. We arrived home, after stopping to get gas for the remainder of the week, at 12:30 in the morning. For sure though it was a great weekend!

Hmmmmm...

2006-09-29T12:44:00.000-07:00

...can't think of an appropriate title for this post. I just have so many I can think of. Like these:

Finally!
The squeaky wheel...gets the grease.
Just for you Grandpa.
Everybody's working for the weekend

I'll explain in a sec.

We are heading to California for another great weekend at Grandma and Grandpa's house. I crashed out early last night and didn't get a chance to back any of our bags so I did that first thing this morning.

With most everything packed and ready to go I wanted to get most of the stuff into the car early this morning. This way when it is 95+ degrees this afternoon I have all the heavy lifting done. This is a picture of Lexi helping Daddy with the bags. While walking from the house I had her 'help' me pull the bag along. She was holding it from one side and I was holding it from the other. Then once we got to the car I let her hold it all by herself in order to take this picture. Once I grabbed a picture that I was happy with the little turd wouldn't let go so I could put it in the car!

So today at school they are doing a special picture day. They are doing classic/vintage style photos. They photographer is providing the clothing and everything else. Just for signing up to have Lexi's picture taken I will receive a free 5x7. Of course if I like what I see I can always purchase more. Speaking of pictures. The ladies at Lexi's daycare also mentioned that in the next couple weeks that Lifetouch photography will be back in to do pictures again. I guess they come and do pictures every 6 months. That seems rather frequent but I like it that way. You see one thing they also provide free of charge is child id like card. This of course has her picture and the date it was taken and such. Great if she were to ever be kidnapped I would have a picture of her taken within the past 6 months. I know that I take more pictures of her then that but some of my pictures don't get a really well lit shot of her face. This card does just that.

For the second part of this post I present this picture. Yes I know that it is just a beautiful picture of the little girl, but look deeper. Not too deep though you might just miss it. Right behind her. What is that? Can it be? Yup it is! Finally got a screen door for the balcony. I knew that I had to take a picture or Grandpa would never believe me. So here it is. Since Sunday the 24th I have been going to the office every other day to ask about getting a screen door. It is starting to get nice here in the evenings and I would love to open my slider without the fear of some insects getting into the house. Well they finally delivered! I came home last night and looked up on the porch and saw it right away. Went to the front door and there was a little note stating that they had been by and entered the house to deliver it. So there ya go Grandpa. We will see you all later tonight.

A little reading and a litte love

2006-09-27T12:23:00.000-07:00

On Monday after work I had some shopping to do for the rest of the week. I started by heading to the house and removing Lexi's stroller from the trunk in order to fit groceries in it later. Next I went to daycare and picked up Lexi and we were off to the races.

We started by going to Toys 'R' Us. I went by there to see if I could find her something for her birthday. I was looking for the new Tickle Me Elmo that they just recently came out with. Of course they were all sold out. Before anyone goes out and buys her one I want to just look at one. I don't want to get her one if the thing is just a hard plastic box with fur around it. I would rather the money be spent on a good stuffed animal instead. I actually saw the perfect thing for her. They had a stuffed Blue from Blue's Clues. She loved it as it was nearly as big as she is.

Having found nothing at the toy store I left and headed to Babies 'R' Us. These two stores are within 2-3 blocks of each other. Oddly enough the Toys 'R' Us still has a Babies 'R' Us section inside. Well we went over there because I had to get some more diapers and sippy cups. I just can't seem to keep a track of those little buggers. While I was there I took a peak inside the book named 'What to expect the toddler years'. I looked at a couple things that I was running into with Lexi and the advice given helped somewhat.

We departed and set course for Lowe's. I was in desperate need for replacement charcoal filters for the air filters in the house. While cleaning over the weekend I had removed one of the charcoal pre-filters from the living room machine and it was completely white from all the dust and stuff in the air. I cleaned it the best I could just to get it to last until later in the week when I could get a permanent replacement. So going through Lowe's I mentioned to Lexi, 'If you are a good girl and stay seated I will get you French fries and chicken nuggets for dinner.' This is one of the things that I picked up in the book at Babies 'R' Us. Make deals with kids to help with their behavior.

Having purchased our filters I headed off to Wal-Mart to get all the grocery shopping done. Lexi was great the entire time. Once finished we went to Wendy's and I got her french fries and chicken nuggets. She just enjoys French fries so much. They don't even have to be fried. She enjoys the baked ones as well.

So here we are today and I took these three pictures. The one above is another candid photo. I was in the kitchen making dinner when I looked in on her I saw this. I carefully grabbed the camera and snapped this picture before she knew what happened.

The last two pictures are from me dropping Lexi off at school this morning. It is nice to know that she likes school.

The group hug was snapped right before the entire group bit the dust. Lexi started crying when she fell. She didn't really hurt herself she just didn't like the fact that she fell.

This second picture is with an unknown little girl and her teacher. Now the unknown little girl here is one of the two above. The third child is the teacher pictured here's daughter. Ms. Jennifer, her teacher, says that the two of them are good friends and get each other in trouble.

Too much excitement...

2006-09-25T14:10:00.000-07:00

...does strange things to a mind. After our exciting I decided that I would try to relax on Sunday. Boy was I wrong.

The main thing that I had to worry about on Sunday was the fact that I haven't had the chance to really clean house in a couple weeks. This is normal when I travel on the weekend. Normally I use the weekend to clean house, do laundry and other chores. Well the past couple weekends I was out of town and only the essential things got taken care of. Yes clean underwear was one of them.

Well cleaning had to wait for my normal weekend event. Had to watch the NASCAR race on Sunday. I must say that it was a good race, especially the end. Granted Kahne ended up out early, sorry hun, and Earnhardt was out of the top 20 but the end of the race was great. Watching Burton and Kenseth go at it was just awesome. I haven't seen such clean and tight racing in a very long time.

After watching the race I got to work on the house. I started by cleaning all the dishes in the kitchen and getting the dish washer started. Followed that up by cleaning up all the kitchen counters. After those two tasks I was somewhat tired. Thankfully so was Lexi.

I grabbed Lexi and held her for a while until she finally dosed off. I then took her into the bedroom and laid her down in her bed. I do this on the weekends so I can vacuum. She absolutely hates that machine anymore. So got the living room and dining room all vacuumed and looking pretty. This of course involved also moving all Lexi's toys back to her little toy box. Once I was done with that it was time for lunch.

While I am sitting there eating I start to hear some crying. Yup, Lexi was up. I went into the bedroom and she was crying. Must have had a bad dream or something. So I picked her up, cuddled her and took her into the living room with me. So she sat in my lap for about 10-15 minutes and then I placed her on the floor on her blanket. She was in and out for another 30-45 minutes. She needed the extra rest though that is for sure.

I decided that I also needed to vacuum the bedroom since the carpet in there was starting to look scary. Of course I can't vacuum in there when Lexi is sleeping. So I started up Elmo and let her watch that while I did the bedroom. She was actually ok with that. Then I went ahead and changed all out sheets and got them ready for the laundry as well. I will get those taken care of later this week.

So I am finished finally!! Oh wait what about dinner!? I went ahead and took the lazy route and made fish sticks and fries. She just loves that combination. She likes the fries more then the fish sticks it seems however. Well while I was getting all that prepared is when I decided to snap these pictures.

I was getting stuff ready when I looked into the living room because it suddenly became really quiet. Well anyone with kids knows that when they get quiet that usually means trouble. So I looked up and this is what I saw. Grabbed the camera and here ya have it. The second one she actually saw me with the camera so I told her to say, 'cheese' and here ya go. I can't help but laugh every time I look at this picture. Such a goof. Finally she got out of the basket and came running over. Then I growled at here making like I was going to get her and the result is picture number three. She actually ran over to the couch and jumped up on it in a way. Her legs sticking out like that are from her leaving the ground. Not her trying to get back down.

Well that is about it for now. Hope you all enjoy!!

Who said chicks don't like cars?

2006-09-23T23:24:00.000-07:00

I mentioned previously after leaving Balloona Palooza we headed off for another adventure. We had a car show to go to! To begin with I wanted to take the opportunity to explore a little more of Las Vegas. It seems that I only spend time in my little 5 mile by 5 mile area of town. So instead of driving East on Craig road to connect with I-15, I decided to travel West to attempt to hook up with the 215. So I proceeded to drive West on Craig until it dead ended into a park. I took a left, then a right and poof!! There is was. Lucky me. It appears that the 215 stops at the exact spot where I got on.

So we proceeded on the 215 to loop all the way around Las Vegas back over to Henderson. It was a pretty long drive however it was well worth it to get to see another part of the town. Poor Lexi fell asleep before we got there. I think she fell asleep around Flamingo. She slept until we finally arrived in Henderson.

I found a parking spot right away. I unpacked the stroller and we were off to look at all the cars. We walked about a block through some cars and I became conscious of the fact that it was getting warm and sunny. I stopped long enough to get some sun block on Lexi. Funny thing was that Lexi took off her shoes while in the car. So instead of putting them back on I decided to just go without them. So I had to make sure that they had sun block as well.

We walked the entire show in a little more than an hour. They had some pretty interesting cars. I have to say though that compared to Route 66 in San Bernardino this thing was nothing more then an informal get together. Don't get me wrong. It was a nice show for its size.

One thing that I found annoying was the number of cars for sale. Unfortunately they weren't discretely for sale either. Let me explain. At Route 66 large 'For Sale' signs are prohibited. You would see maybe a small bit of text stating 'For Sale' along with a phone number which was allowed. Nice thing about doing it this way is that poor people like me can attempt to take great pictures of cars we can only dream of. Well in Henderson, there were several cars with huge 'For Sale' signs in the windows. You know the ones I am talking about. The loud ones that you can pickup in your favorite super center. It was unfortunate as they take away from and cheapen any pictures taken that have the sign in them.

Now for my two choices of the show. I must say that they both are pretty sweet rides. Some of you may think that my second choice may have been chosen due to a certain outside influence however I assure that this car was truly awesome. Also I learned a valuable lesson from my trip to Route 66. If there is an interesting story posted on the windshield take a picture of it for future reference. Well guess what I did. Enjoy!!

1957 Porsche Speedster Custom - Originally owned by and built for Alice Cooper. This car has been drive less than 600 miles since construction and customization in California. Built on a vintage chassis, the engine and most components are brand new with no expense spared to create this one-of-a-kind custom car. - For Sale - $42,500.

1966 Corvette Convertible - 327-300 HP, 4-speed, numbers match. Milano maroon paint (988) with black interior and white soft top. Body-off restored to original (show ready) condition. Optioned with power steering, power brakes, power antenna, 3.36 rear, SS brakes, AM/FM radio, back-up lights, tinted windshield, hubcaps, and white stripe radials. Most all factory correct type components including the spare, jack, jack tools, seat belts, washer system, shifter, shielding, air cleaner, and sales brochure. Documented with the original owner's manual, warranty book/P.O.P. and dealer invoice.

Copter! No baby balloon!

2006-09-23T22:36:00.000-07:00

After having a wonderful time Friday night we awoke early this morning to head off to the mass ascension that was scheduled to start at 6:30. This required me having the alarm set to go off at 5:00. I know an alarm clock on a Saturday and I agree. It should be against the law. I should call my congressman. Of course I snoozed until about 5:30. I turned on the TV and noticed the winds were up to about 10-15 mph. Immediately I started thinking, 'Well they aren't going to fly today so I will just go back to sleep and go tomorrow.' These thoughts were followed by, 'If I don't go then I will always regret it.' You know which side won.

I gathered myself up and got completely ready to go for an all day thing. Nice thing was that I had most of Lexi's stuff already packed from the night before. Once I was completely ready to go I woke up Lexi and got her ready to go.

The trip to the park was much quicker then the trip on Friday. We arrived bright and early at 6:30. Nice thing was that none of the crews weren't even setup yet. So Lexi and I wandered around the three different launch areas they had setup. Eventually we arrived at 'Launch Zone 2' where the first picture here was taken. She is looking awfully chipper for 7:00 in the morning. As you can see she fits her new little jacket perfectly.

During this time there was a couple getting married in a gondola of one of the hot air balloons. They lifted off just briefly. This of course is due to the winds again rearing their ugly heads. This caused most of the balloons to inflate just enough to stand completely upright then being taken back down anywhere from 5-10 minutes later. Watching these balloon crews it is totally understandable. The winds at times were getting pretty tricky and the balloons would start to lean at nearly a 45 degree angle. It was funny to watch all these people scramble as the balloon would slowly tilt their direction.

We continued on to another launch zone where we came across these additional balloons going up. I decided I would take a break to watch the balloon crews and snap a couple more photos. She is starting to get more and more photogenic. The second picture here I actually told her to look at me and say, 'Cheese.' Well she did and this is the result. I attempted to get her to take a couple more but I think this is the one that turned out best.

After sitting in her chair watching the going ons I decided I would get her out to stretch her legs a bit. Also I had an idea for a great photo op. There were a couple tree stumps near the area pictured here. I tried to get her to sit down on the stump while I took a picture. Well she didn't want to have any of that and stood up and started charging me!! To go along with what I mentioned earlier about her being more photogenic. In this last picture I didn't tell tell her anything, she saw the camera and just started smiling. She just thinks the camera is a great thing.

After the balloons went up and back down we headed back over to yet another launch area. Actually I think this would be considered more a stage area. You see there are several concert events scheduled to take place during this event as well and they had a full concert stage setup. They had a couple more standard balloons going up in this area as well. Additionally I took more photos however, I don't feel any of these turned out nearly as good as the ones I have presented here. She was just so good the entire time!! She would just look around and point and smile. It really was a great, good fun time.

On the opposite side of the field they had the only special shape balloons that I saw at the event. Lexi couldn't get enough out of them. It was pretty impressive to see the crews keep these balloons up for as long as they did. I think they stayed inflated for over 15 minutes even with the relative high winds. I doubt any of these crews will ever come across this page. If they do however I just want to let them know how much I appreciate them coming out to just inflate and deflate. I can only imagine the amount of time and money it requires for these teams to come out to an event like this. All that to get here and have the wind not give you the opportunity to fly.

Back to the show. After watching the little bees go up it was time to get some breakfast. The local Elk's lodge was putting on a pancake breakfast. I ordered breakfast and was told, 'When they are ready they will call your name.' I figured no big deal it shouldn't be to long. You see Dawn and I would regularly go to pancake breakfasts in Hobbs and it in, get your food and eat in no time. Here though it was nearly 10 minutes before I heard the next name called. About 10 minutes after that I decided that I didn't want to wait 2 hours to eat breakfast. I am sure that Lexi wouldn't have let me get away with it either.

I decided it was time to leave and get some food. We headed up the street to an IHOP and had breakfast. Lexi was great and relatively well behaved. After breakfast we headed to our next adventure.

Fire and lights on a Friday night

2006-09-22T22:00:00.000-07:00

Well we had a great time at Balloona Palooza Friday night. The only down side was that the winds decided they weren't going to cooperate with the scheduled events. Scheduled to occur at 7:30 was a nighttime balloon glow. Unfortunately it seems that they had only a half hour of wind free time in order to do the glow. Of course this was a half hour before we arrived. So we missed out on the actual balloon glow.

Even though we missed the balloon glow the balloon crews were still around and not wanting to disappoint they were firing it up. We were pretty close as you can somewhat see here. Close enough to feel the heat though that is for sure!! Lexi just loved it. I actually got her saying, 'Fire!' Then once it was gone she would say, 'All gone.'

On the plus side the balloons weren't the only thing going on. Also available was a small carnival which is where I snapped this picture. This one took several attempts to get just the way I wanted it. I ended up taking a total of 6 pictures similar to and including this one. They were taken by telling the camera to keep the shutter open for 30, 10, 7, 4, 3 and 2 seconds. The one shown here was the 7 second exposure. Poor Lexi started getting impatient while I was waiting for the operator to unload and load passengers. I ended up waiting I would guess 15 minutes along waiting for wheel to get spinning again so I could get this picture. Also I observed 2 other individuals attempting to take a picture similar to the one I have here.

So after wondering around for better part of two hours I decided it was time to head home. So we left and headed for the nearest fast food joint. I know I should have enjoyed the great carnival food but I didn't want to wait in line. Well we arrived at Wendy's and I ordered some chicken nuggets for Lexi and just some fries and drink for myself. Then we headed for home. Of course I was giving Lexi nuggets and fries almost all the way home. I went to hand her a fry and she was just taking her time taking it from me. I looked around to take a look at her and she was out. Poor thing had a very busy day. Here are the results.

Busy and exciting weekend

2006-09-22T13:34:00.000-07:00

Well it donned on me the other day that I really need to try to work more on my MySpace stuff. I logged in and found several unread messages awaiting me, one from a previously unknown step-sister and another from an old friend in high school.

Adding to this epiphany is the fact I regularly send email updates to my family regarding little one and I. So it occurred to me why don't I place these things into a blog. I went on to realize, duh, you already have one.

So here I am trying to make an effort. I don't know how much longer I am going to be posting on MySpace however as it appears to be limited in the number of pictures you are allowed to have online at any one time. The problem with this being that I am always taking pictures of Lexi and sending them via email to my family and I would love to have the ability to just post to a blog and have that send out to everyone automatically. Maybe that is a change I will make at a later date and time.

Now on to the weekend. Looks like Balloona Palooza is going to start today @ 5:00 in North Las Vegas. They are scheduled to do a balloon glow this evening at 7:00. I am going to get Lexi and we are going to head out there and have some fun!!

Then tomorrow morning they are going to be having a mass ascension along with a pancake breakfast presented by the Elk's lodge. Going to take the camera and am going to take a ton of pictures!! I am sure that Lexi is going to have a blast.

Today I received an email about a car show going on in Henderson this weekend as well. I think that after we do the balloon thing tomorrow morning I will drag her out there to take a look around. Hey if it is better then the car show that is normally put on in Lovington, NM then I will be happy. I am sure though that it will be nothing compared to Route 66 down in San Bernardino!!

The Fit is Go!!!

2006-06-22T14:54:00.000-07:00

Well figured I had better post an update to my now concluded saga.

Ok so starting where I left off. I went to the tow yard and looked at the car. All in all it looked like it was in good shape. So I went ahead and wrote down a nice list of everything that appeared to be wrong with the car since it was stolen. I then returned to the front office of the tow yard and paid them for the impound and to tow the vehicle to a repair shop. Total cost - $220.

So the car gets to the shop and I inform the insurance agency where it is located. I also tell them that I left a list of issues with the shop so when the adjuster arrives he knows what to look at.

A couple days go by and I decide to call the insurance company. I talk with someone who tells me that the adjuster looked at the car and that the total amount of damage is estimated to be $3700. That is only for the problems that I directly saw to the car. That isnt including any possible mechanical damage. I am then told that I would be hearing within the next day or so what they are going to do.

So before I hear all this I make plans to go see the in-laws in California for the weekend. Well on my way home from work I get a call from the insurance company. They tell me that they have decided to call the car a total loss and will be settling with me for $4900. Which is really good considering that I figured the car, on trade in with a dealer, would only be worth $2000 - $2500.

So that weekend I head on down to California and take a look at a couple Honda dealers looking for a Blue 2007 Honda Fit Sport. I go to 3 different dealerships and no one has what I am looking for. I decide to call Honda West in Las Vegas to see what they have on the lot. I am told they have a Gray car available and they are selling it for MSRP. So I tell the salesman to hold the vehicle and I will be in first thing on Monday to pick up the car.

Monday comes and I start by heading to the insurance company to get my settlement check. They give me $4400, had to take the deductible, and an additional check for the $220 for the towing that I paid for. Once I am done there I head to the dealership to pick up the car. Well this is when things start to go wrong. I am told by the guy that the car was pre-sold to another person for $4000 over MSRP and in order for them to break that contract with the other person I would need to pay $2000 over MSRP for the car. Well that is just jacked so we go back and forth about what vehicle I want and whatever. I eventually decide that I have had enough and leave.

I then go to the 2 other Honda dealers in Las Vegas and only one has the car. Well while going from the one with to the other dealer it gets sold. So now the only car that I want, that is available in Las Vegas is being held by some jerk who is trying to pull a fast one on me.

At about this time that I decide that I need to take matters into my own hands. I decide to contact the credit union back home and find out what kind of financing they can get me. While I have them working on that I start calling/emailing dealerships in southern California looking for the vehicle. While looking I find only one dealer who is open to trying to locate the car for me and have it transported to their showroom. So while they are working on that, the wife calls a couple dealers located in Albuquerque and low and behold they have EXACTLY the car that I am looking for.

So I keep waiting to hear back from the California dealership. All the while having the guy in Albuquerque hold the car for me until the following Saturday. Well the California thing falls through. At the same time I get word from the credit union that I am pre-approved for a car loan for between $15000 and $20000 for 6 years. So I call the Albuquerque dealer and let him know that I am going to be there Saturday afternoon to pick up the vehicle and that I am bringing my own financing.

Friday comes and my mother-in-law comes up to pick up the baby and take her back to California. I then fly out of Vegas at around 8:30 heading for Albuquerque. There the wife meets me at around 11:00 and we head out to get a bite to eat. Once done with dinner we head to a friends house for the night.

Next morning we head to Starbucks and get a cup of coffee to start the day. We then proceed straight to the dealership. On the way I get a call from the salesperson asking if I was still coming. I then tell him that I am less then 10 minutes away and would be there around 9:30 a.m. That is about 3-4 hours before he was expecting me. We get to the dealership and everything goes flawlessly. It is so nice to know exactly what you are paying for and all the terms are already to your liking. We are easily done by 11:00.

So the wife and I head out for breakfast. Once done with breakfast we head over to a auto parts place to get a security device for the car as to hopefully prevent the car from being stolen again. This time the wife drives. See the wife had never seen or been in this car before today. She was allowing me to buy a car sight unseen. It was ok though because she absolutely enjoyed it! After doing our shopping I decide that it is time for me to start heading back. So I leave Albuquerque and start driving towards LA. It takes me a little over ten and a half hours to get to the in-laws house. However the car handles perfectly and everything is grand.

The next morning we have an awesome day and I head back to LV!!

So here we are now the next week and everything is finally finished. I have the car and am enjoying it immensely. I am going to up a picture of it once I get this posted.

Bad weekend

2006-06-06T08:31:00.000-07:00

I had the wonderful opportunity to experience something completely new this weekend. My car was stolen!!

I last saw my car when I got home from work on Friday, 6/2, and put the car to bed and got myself ready for a nice weekend. You see a normal weekend for me is doing nothing but hanging around the house with little one. Well on Sunday morning I needed to go to the store to get little one some milk for breakfast and other stuff. Well I got her all ready and got ready to go. I go out to where the car is supposed to be and it is gone!! I made a complete double take thinking that I was seeing things and that I was just looking in the wrong place. But no it was gone.

So I promptly call the police and report it stolen. Call the insurance. Of course I ask the insurance guy if he knows anything about a rental car and he has absolutely no clue. Then again no surprise as it is a Sunday and nothing is open. So after getting all this taken car of I walk the couple blocks to the grocery store to get a gallon.

So first thing Monday morning I am on the phone to Hertz to get a rental car. If anyone is reading this as far as I am concerned they may be a little more expensive but the are now my favorite. I was lucky in the fact that they had a child's seat that I could rent with the car as my was in the car when it was stolen. Additionally they came and picked me up with the car seat in the car. So yeah Enterprise makes a big deal about them picking you up but Hertz does as well and additionally they do car seats where Enterprise told me they needed a 24 hour lead time before they could do it and even at that it was handled by another company. So two thumbs up to Hertz from me. After all this I finally get to work at around 10:30 in the morning.

So I start calling the insurance company, State Farm, and start the ball rolling on the claim. Finally get to talk to some people that actually act like they care about me as a person and not just a source of income. After answering all the questions and getting all the information I need he asks about a rental car. I inform him that I already acquired one. He then asks me through who and what their number is. I give him the information and he then tells me that HE will call the rental company and HE will get the bill transferred over to State Farm to be paid for!! Finally an insurance company that will help me by doing some of the work and not just placing it all at my feet. Another two thumbs up this time for State Farm.

I continue my day at work trying to keep myself busy as to not think about everything that has happened this weekend. I am about to leave for the day when I get a call from Metro PD saying that they found my car!! Oddly enough they find it less then two miles from the house!! I am so excited yet at the same time I am not sure exactly what to do. I tell them to go ahead and tow the vehicle as it isn't drivable anyway since the ignition was popped. I start home with the plan of driving by where they found the car to see if I can happen to get a look at it. I get there just as the tow truck is getting ready to leave. I get a look at the car only in passing and see that it is in great shape and appears to have little or no damage.

To bring this to an end for now, I need to get some time today to head over to the tow yard to find out the extent of the damage to my vehicle. Then I will need to get the car towed over to a repair shop to get the ignition repaired. Once that is done then I will get my car back!! Additionally I get to keep the rental until such time that the repair work on my car is complete.

Late night and a pile of bills?

2006-05-20T23:12:00.000-07:00

I am sure that the subject of this message is going to be lost on some. But you guessed it just finished writing a stack of schecks to pay a ton of bills.

So the wife was out and interviewed for a job. Haven't heard anything about it yet. I still have my fingers crossed. I want nothing more then her to get out here ASAP. Unfortunately this time while she was out we didn't get to go out and do anything.

See last time she was out, approximately 2 weeks ago, we went downtown to Tony Roma's at Fremont Street. We had a blast and then went over to the Bellagio to see the art gallery. The art gallery is hosting a special showcase of Ansel Adams art. It was way cool to get the chance to go over and check out all the great art work. Then once we went through the entire gallery we went out front and watched a couple of the fountain shows. It was a truely awesome night.

This most recent visit however we didn't get the chance to do much. It was good though because she got to spend a lot more quality time with little one.

So now we wait to hear anything from this new position that she was trying to get. I personally think that if she doesn't get this position that the people doing the hiring are just plain out of their minds.

It seems that the banquet went off without a hitch on Thursday. I really wish I had the ability to be there but unfortunately the new job won't let me take time off for at least 6 months. So I still have a while before I have the ability to take any vacation. It was realliy nice the be honored even though I wasn't present. I heard that even the wife got all choked up. =)

Well I would guess that is about it for the time being. Getting late and I think I hear my bed calling my name.

B-Day

2006-05-10T10:52:00.000-07:00

Well yesterday was my birthday. Hit the big 28. Jeez I feel like I am getting old. Scarry. Didn't really do anything special.

Got a call last night from a bunch of odd ball kids last night though wishing me a happy birthday!! You all know who you are. That is one of the sweetest things that I have had done for my birthday in a very long time. It was definately a good pick me up.

Earlier in the day one of the big bosses here sent an email out to the entire IT staff declaring:

Elvis is in the house! And... it is his birthday...:)

Which of course opened the flood gates for incoming messages/emails wishing me a happy birthday. It was kinda nice.

High School Reunion

2006-04-26T15:20:00.000-07:00

So it appears that my class is getting together for its 10 year reunion. When I first got notice that it was getting put together I was somewhat excited. As everything kept getting put together I started to realize something. The people that were in charge of putting this whole thing together I had absolutely nothing to do with when I was in high school. When I was in high school my friends were either in the class before me, the class after me or were in my class however they never graduated. I started to wonder why I would even consider going. To go sit in a room of people that I didnt want to have anything to do with before and more then likely dont want to have anything to do with now.

Heck reunions are only to show off how well your life is in comparison to everyone elses right? Sure I could show up and brag that I am living in Las Vegas. Sure I could take Lexi with me and show off how wonderful of a daughter that I have. I could drag the wife along and showcase how smart she is being an attorney and all. Then again all this would be to impress a group of people I could care less about.

So after all of this thinking I have decided that I am not going to be attending my 10 year class reunion. Now for everyone that is reading this by all means dont let my thoughts change your mind about your class reunion. If you have/had a lot of friends in high school that graduated in the same class as you then by all means go. I am sure that it would be a blast.

The Internet is alive!!!

2006-04-20T08:30:00.000-07:00

I am convinced the Internet is a living breathing being. And as such it is trying to kill me. Having a high speed connection only makes the pain worse. It never fails I get home at night convinced that I am going to bed early only to get on the infernal computer and stay up past 11. I mean the things I am doing online are just completely ridiculous. Last night I was downloading some ebooks that have to with everything Microsoft, from Visual C to Excel 2000.

Well after getting everything setup yesterday seems I got a couple of you all setup and receiving me correctly. Now for some answers to your questions.

Stace - Yeah I have been moved for almost 2 months now. We arrived around February 18 and Donella flew back to Midland on February 21st or 22nd I dont recall. My first day at my new job was February 27th. And yes I am enjoying the city immensely when I get a chance to enjoy it. With only Lexi and I, I dont get much opportunity to get out and do things. Mostly just work, home, and sleep.

Ash - Loving the new place. It is a lot smaller then the old place but it is just perfect size for Lexi and I.

So that sums up my first blog entry. I am hoping to make regular comments and regular picture posts and if I get the time I hope to upload a vide or two as well.