We started out our journey flying to Utah for Rilee and Tommy's wedding in SLC. It was picture perfect, except for the snow, and she really did pull of a most beautiful wedding. Every detail was thought of and it went great. She looked great and we couldn't be happier to have Tommy part of the family now. The boys couldn't wait to see Grandpa and Grandma and most importantly, Erin. Cass and Scott came to the hotel and watched the boys for us while we went to the wedding dinner and then stayed to catch up. We love you guys! It's always fun and relaxed when we're together. I look forward to much more hanging out while we live in Vegas so you'd better be ready. Next we flew to Dallas to visit my mom and her....umm...."significant other" (that's for you mom). We stayed with them and had a ball getting to know Doug better and discovering Dallas. I didn't cook even one meal and can't say enough about that. Mental note: hire a cook. They can grocery shop also! Anyways, we found Dallas to be so vibrant and full of fun things to explore. We could have spent weeks just in downtown Dallas.
Mom and Ryan
This is at the water gardens. We took these stone steps that were a bit scary down to a pool and Ryan's face was in this same pose the entire time. He was quite scared and nervous. He looked sick and hardly cracked a smile! It's nice to think that some fear exists in that little one.
We went to another pool that was a beautiful teal color and it was a very quiet atmosphere. I think it was called a "meditation pool." You can imagine how great of meditation we had.
Raefsters big smile!
We also went to a very cool little place in Dallas(of course I can't remember the name of it) where it appeared we had time traveled. There was a cannon shooting every 10 minutes or so while all of the people were dressed in western clothing (revolutionary and cowboy) and there was food, mazes, exhibits everywhere. It was great. The boys were anxious and nervous to climb up on this huge steer but they stayed there long enough for the picture and then wanted down. Actually I was a little nervous too!!
This was a parade of the soldiers that walked through the town. We thought it was funny that they really never did leave their cover. Even while speaking to one another as we walked by, they were talking with a drawl and discussing the present war they were fighting in.
Of course there was a balloon man there and the boys were thrilled to get a sword and armored hat. The maze and the balloons were their favorite part of the day I think!
Then we headed to the Aquarium and found another reason we are jealous of the people in Dallas. It was really fantastic! We loved these little penguins and the boys giggled all day after they were pushing each other into the pool.
The fam!
There are sharks and fish swimming all around you in this tunnel. It was very cool.
Our next part of the trip was leaving the boys with Gammy and Doug and flying to Vegas for a few days. We spend the first two days looking for an apartment and discovering which areas were safe to live and learning about the schools. We met Trent's clinic director and took a tour and found out which zip codes we should be looking for housing in. That was great since none of the apartments we had decided on were in that area. Then we met a resident there who asked us about our housing needs and said we should go look at their house as they will be leaving to move to a new base and would love to help their owners out by finding residents for it. We were excited to find a house with a good price and possibly a yard even but stayed calm as we didn't want to get too exited! We went to Aliante, an adorable brand new community in North Las Vegas with amazing parks and schools and the mountains! yeah! And the house? It was perfect. I still can't believe how perfect it is. It is small but fits our needs just right. And there is a yard....with grass... and a cute little palm tree. Score! Then the residents wife gave us the low down on the program and the year which we much appreciated. We also found out the owners of the home live a few blocks from Trent's parents in IF. Crazy! Too good to be true right? I am still a bit panicky that it will all fall apart but so far all is good. We think that the Lord said, "okay, I know these last four years were rough for you concerning your home, so I am just going to get this done for you and that's that. Say thankyou and go have some fun!" So we did. We walked the strip and did some major people watching. We ate great food and then went to a Blue Man Group Concert that made us question if we had been drugged before we entered. It was crazy! We slept in, took baths, relaxed and enjoyed the view from our room(it was crazy windy out so no swimming allowed). It was just what we needed. Oh and we had the most delicious mango coke ever made at the Coke store that has ruined all coke now.
We flew back to Dallas to pick up the boys and do some laundry and squeeze a few more adventures in. The highlight for Trent was touring the Dallas Cowboy stadium. Raef ran the whole thing while making a getaway touchdown and then shakin' his thang!"
The next series of pictures make me laugh everytime.
They are pretending they are players walking out onto the field.
Still walking.
Still walking. So tough looking I might add!
Wait a minute! The players don't come out this way Dad!
Here we go! Now this is right!
The locker room! Pretty nice!
The locker room that they really wanted to see! Raef is posing like the cheerleader above him! They took more pictures in this locker room than the guys! The real players!!! The reason there is a stadium!! Anyways, after Dallas we flew back to Cleveland, well almost. The airport shut down for a lightning storm so we went back to Gammys house without any luggage of course and slept the night and tried again the next day. I spent over an hour standing at the ticket line as the lady tried to figure out how to get Trents luggage (which contained his Air Force uniform he was going to be commisioned a Captain in in two days) to Cleveland before it was too late. Well, it all worked out and we even had time to mow the 10,000 helicopter seeds in our yard and get groceries before everyone began arriving for Trent's big graduation day!
