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So thanks to our bestest friends, Brooke and Aaron, we were able to go down to Las Vegas for an extended weekend....and it was FABULOUS!! I know that I really needed to get away for a day or two and this really was what I needed/wanted. A weekend with no children and good adult company.....how can you say no? I was so excited! I even bought a new little camera after Christmas on sale so I didn't have to lug around my bigger one. I love this little camera, it fit right in my pocket and I took it everywhere! Plus, Gary and I have never been to Las Vegas. Okay, we've driven past it a couple of times and stopped and had breakfast there with once with my sister 5 years ago....but it's not the same as getting to spend a couple of days there. So I was SO excited! 
So we flew out of I.F. on Feb. 4th, which was a Thursday night. Here we are at the airport ready to go. This pic was the best way to get all of us at the same time!
The next day, Friday the 5th (which also happens to be Joe's actual birthday, which is why we celebrated it early) we got up, went to breakfast at IHOP as we headed out to go see the Hoover Dam and the new road way and bridge. Gary and I have been here before with 3 of our kids, but it's a different experience without kids! We went and did the tour, which we didn't do last time. That was really cool. I'd like to take the kids to do that one of these days.
The new road and bridge look so nice. It was fun watching the guys working on the bridge. Gary was really wanting to go up there and help and see what all they were doing.....imagine that! ;-) 
Brooke and Aaron at Ceasar's Palace. 
This is the veiw from our room! It was amazing! We were up on the 13th floor and we are only a block away from the strip, so we can see a lot of it from our window. It was great!
So we/I had to go to the Vegas sign and get our picture taken....but when we got there we had to wait for about 20 minutes. Why you ask......well there was a couple getting married under the sign when we showed up! That's right, getting married! Who knew!
Friday we walked all over the place trying to see as much as we could. We LOVED the fountains at the Bellagio. 
We tried to see the prirate show at Treasure Island, but it was cancelled. Gary was wore out!
The next morning we went to the breakfast buffet at the Flamingo...it was pretty good. Then we went and walked and walked and walked some more! 
Gary at the M&M store. He walked right in front of me while I was taking the picture of the M&M and this is what I caught. I don't think it could've been more perfect if I was actually trying! Gary thought this was funny with him with the reject sign!
So the Main reason we went down there for the weekend was because George Strait and Reba McEntire were doing a concert together in Vegas that weekend. So Saturday night we spent hanging out at the MGM Grand watching an amazing concert....and maybe doing a little gambling in the penny slots. ;-) Oh, and Lee Ann Womack was their opening act! It was an AMAZING concert!
Here are Brooke and I waiting for the concert to start. I love this girl so much! We have been best friends since 4th grade. We know a little too much about each other some days! 
Lee Ann came out and put on a great show. She has great legs! Those are something I wish I had! Someday......Anyway, she did a wonderful job. I love her songs and her new one, "There is a God" really got me crying....it really touches me, especially since my dad passed away. She performed for about 45 minutes. There was a break for about 15 minutes so they could change things for Reba's turn.
When Reba came out on stage, Gary called Sierra on the phone to taunt and tease her and let her listen for a minute. We couldn't hear anything that she would have said on the phone, but it was enjoyable to us none the less!
Me and my sweetie!
Reba is pretty much AMAZING! She is such a wonderful singer....love all of her songs. She puts on a great show! She sang a duet with Lee Ann Womack with her song "Does He Love You"....awsome, awsome, awsome!!! I have a snipet of it below....check it out. The only thing was that Lee Ann stayed on the other side of the stage, so we never really got to see her during the duet, but it was still amazing!
Then Reba's friend, Melissa Peterman came out on stage! I am a big fan of hers too! If you don't know, she was on the show "Reba"...she played the girlfriend, then wife of Reba's ex-husband and they lived next door. That show is so funny! So Reba then sang the theme song from the show "Survivor" and Melissa joined in. She was very funny!
After Reba was done the first time, she came back for her encore.....it started with them showing the beginning of her music video for "Fancy", she then comes back into the stadium in a taxi cab and comes out in this fabulous red dress and sang "Fancy". It was a great ending to a great show. She was out on stage performing for about an hour and a half! It was so nice....I have always thought that most concerts were not long enough, but not this one.....by the time it was all done, you definitely got your moneys worth
After the Queen of Country, Reba was King George! I love, love, love George Strait. He's not quite the performer that Reba is, but he doesn't need to be. He just moved around the stage playing his guitar and singing, and that is really all he needs to do! It was great! He sang a bunch of his songs and came back for his encore and did some Johnny Cash. That was so cool! He could really sing those songs! He also was on stage for about 1 1/2 hours! All in all, we were at the concert for about 4 1/2 hours. WOW! I had such a great time! It makes me smile now just thinking about it. Sunday, we had an afternoon flight so we took our time going to get breakfast. We went to Sunday brunch at the Bellagio. It was really nice! My hubby liked that he always got to eat prime rib, no matter what meal it was....he always had the option, especially at the buffets we went to. It was a great time! I'm glad that we were able to go with our good friends and without the kids! I know that I'll probably never take my kids there, ever.....until they are all adults! But for us....it was great!
January was a pretty quiet month. We all spent a lot of time together as a family. We spent a lot of time with my mom and at her house helping her clean things up and get some things organized. The storage room under the garage got completely cleaned out and we took a big trailer full of garbage to the dump. That was great! Then Gary and I....especially Gary, tackled the shed and all of dad's stuff out there. We took another 2 trailer loads to the dump (all 3 of the loads were around 1 ton of garbage!), we burned a lot of crap and cleaned and organized the rest. There are still odds and ends to do out there, but the majority is done. Then we got to the end of January when Sierra went snowboarding for the very first time. On January 20th she went with the school ski program and was fitted for a board, she was taking her mandatory lesson and they were headed up on the ski lift for the very first time......when she got to the top, she stepped off onto her board and went down. She had a freak kinda of accident and stepped wrong onto the snowboard and broke her tibia and fibula. The fibula just had a small little hairline type fracture in it. The tibia is a whole other story! As you can see in the x-ray, it's a pretty bad break. I'm surprised that that she didn't have to have surgery on it. It was because it was a clean break that she lucked out there. But that meant she has to spend a LOT of time in a cast to get it to heal just right. She was so brave through the whole thing. I got a phone call that night around 6 p.m.
They told me they were pretty sure that she had broken her leg and needed me to come up and get her. I was just pulling out of the drive way when Gary was pulling in, so I told him what was going on. He stayed home with the kids and called his dad to come stay with them so he could come help me with Sierra. I had help at the ski hill with the patrol to get her in the car and then Gary met us at the Community Care and helped me get her into a wheel chair and take her in to get her leg x-rayed. So she went down on the ski lift around 5;20-5:30. I picked her up about 6:30. Got her to Community Care just after 7. We x-rayed her leg, saw how bad it was and they told us we needed to take her to the hospital to have it set. So they stabilized it with a splint for her and then she was finally given some medicine for the pain. Up to that point she hadn't had anything! She never cried, nothing! She is one tough cookie! So up to the hospital we went. Dr. Lee got her leg set for her and we got back home around midnight. It was a long night.
The break was bad enough that she had to have it casted clear up to the top of her thigh. She had to stay in that cast for 6 weeks! Everyone wanted to sign it and they did. There were signatures from her toes to the top of her cast and all the way around.
After the six weeks they took of the big cast and downsized it to a regular calf-length cast. That was nice. It was a LOT smaller and easier for her to move around, that is after the swelling and stiffness worked it's way out of her knee.
She had to wear the smaller cast for 4 weeks. Yesterday, Friday April 2nd, she got the smaller cast off and now has a walking boot for at least another 4 weeks! Poor kid! But it's been okay doing it now.....better than this summer!
