Vegas Vacation

You may be conjuring up your favorite lines or scenes from Lampoon's Vegas Vacation, but let me assure you that Kevin and I were on our best vacation behavior. Although I'm sure there is a lot of trouble to be found in Vegas, I think this busy. bright. blazing. buffet laden at 3am city gets a bad rap. There are lots of things you can do that don't require gambling.  Its like anything else....you'll find whatever it is you're looking for. We saw Cirque du Soleil's Mystere show and Phantom of the Opera. We ate several awesome meals (no buffets for the Knights!) and generally had a great time people-watching. We also made the trek to the Grand Canyon. Check it out.....

 Walking back to Caesar's Palace....

 Walking toward The Venetian to see Phantom

 The Venetian

The Bellagio...our hotel of choice. We walked through all the others and highly suggest this one.

 Eagle Rock on the Western Rim of the Grand Canyon

 Its deep. And Kevin was too close to the edge. I was very worried that he would fall off the edge. No danger of me falling off. I don't like heights. 

 Pictures really don't do it justice. Its breathtaking.

 Guano Point offers a 360 degree view of the canyon. Worth the climb.

No, I did NOT like the fact that he was so close to the edge. 

The Hoover Dam is up next on our itinerary....

M

Big Sky Country

Kevin and I took our first vacation EVER April 10-15....


The first part of our journey landed us in Big Sky Country to visit the Tharps. Thrilled doesn't begin to describe how excited we were to see Tim, Tara, Lukas, and Emma....think more along the lines of 6 year olds if Christmas, Halloween, and birthday madness all coincided on one day. Super pumped! Tara and I were both counting the days since it had been about a year and a half since we had all been face to face. We saw some of the sights around Billings Montana but the Tharp family was our main attraction....

 We made it to Billings in time to attend church at Billings First Family on Sunday morning. There was some serious swinging going on at the playground afterwards. Kevin got an upper body workout.

 We did some hiking up above the Yellowstone River. Lukas was constantly on the lookout for snakes and spikey sticker bushes when he wasn't making me run so we could "win" and beat the sensible folks in our party who were calmly walking.  Emma was determined to walk aaaallll the way back to the car herself and almost made it except for the wind.

 E - Claire packing herself in our suitcase. Would have been fine with us!

 Some pool and hot tub time at the hotel while Mom and Dad were working.

 Visiting snowy Red Lodge, Montana. Skiing shut down just the week before. I think Lukas and Emma are going to be snow sport experts since their new home has snow for most of the year!

 Tara Tharp...best friend a girl could ask for...not to mention awesome wife, Supermom, and pastor's wife extraordinaire. 

Love this family. We pray for this family. We believe in what they're doing at Billings First Family and we're excited to watch their church grow. 

Las Vegas and the Grand Canyon coming your way soon....