good friends + long weekend = lots of fun!

 Our friends, The Stones and The Hansens, were nice enough to drive down this weekend to spend a little time with us.  We were so sad that the weather didn't cooperate and we even gave them a chance to get out of coming to see us -- but they all said they'd take 50 degree weather over 30 degree any day.  We were glad to hear that!

Saturday we headed out to Red Rock Canyon just outside of Las Vegas.  It was super cold and windy so we decided to have our picnic in the back of our car.  We almost didn't do the small hike but Garrett and Ethan were determined (imagine that) and so we all headed in. 

 Turned out, they were right (once again, imagine that!  they are usually right if we listen to them)  It wasn't so windy once you got up in the rocks and it was really pretty.

 Garrett, Gavin and Traveler standing behind the little waterfall we hiked to

 Jocee and Libbie -- on the "clean rocks" as Libbie called them.  A lot of the rocks were white and Libbie said "they must be clean from all of the rain last night"   I LOVE kids perspective.

 Both Libbie and Ethan thought that the red bark on this tree was great.  It doesn't show up very well in the photo but I wonder what kind of tree it is -- it was pretty cool.

 I kind of like this guy.  He's pretty cute!

 Sunday before Church we headed around the corner to our park.  The kids had a great time playing and getting their wiggles out before 3 hours of sitting.:)

 This is my kind of playing at the park - chatting.:)

 Ethan and Jocee

 Clara has the posing part of the picture down, now we just need to get her to open her eyes.

 Chillin by the pool

 Clara also has the "keep the food away from the dog" trick figured out.

 Fun at our "little park" This one is in our neighborhood.  The other is a few blocks away. 

 Monday we had to say good bye to our friends.  The Hansens left a bit earlier and the Stones and Eborns headed to The District to shop and eat (whatelse is there?)

We had some yummy food at Balboa Pizza -- maybe I was hungry but I thought it was really good.

 I didn't get any pictures of one of the most eventful parts of the weekend.  Saturday night Kammi, Candace, Jocee and I headed out shopping and to see the fountains at the Bellagio.  We did all of the above and THEN came the fun.  We got stuck (yes I do mean stuck) sitting in the Bellagio parking garage for about and hour and a half.  WOW -- who knew you could have so much fun sitting in a car for that long?  I can't even begin to recount the humor that was flying in that car -- but I will say this.  When it's 10:30 (really 11:30 for them) you're stuck in a traffic jam in a parking garage and it's been a really long couple of days -- those women are FUNNY!  It was looking grim there for a while, especially when we had only moved 1 car length in 20 minutes, but we perservered and came out okay.  We're all pretty sure there 's a Sunday School lesson in there somewhere -- including the fact that we were in a pretty yucky place--we'll see which one of us comes up with it first.:)

 

Thanks guys for coming -- we had a great weekend!