Our Vegas Vacation

We had so much fun in Las Vegas last weekend! It was our very first road trip as a married couple, which was a lot of fun for us! We left Friday morning, Dec. 19, and we enjoyed driving and our time together. Wil and I even tried out some old car games we knew from when we were kids. They kept us awake and laughing most of the way home.

Wil and I met my college roommate Nancy and her husband Bryce and son Derek in Las Vegas and hung out with them most of the time we were there. Derek was fun to be around. He's walking and running and its fun to see his personality - he was determined to do things on his own and did not want help!

We stayed at South Point, which was a GREAT hotel that I would highly recommend to anyone going to Las Vegas. It had the CLEANEST showers I have ever seen!

Derek, Bryce and Nancy at the Las Vegas Pioneer Bowl

Friday night, we went to ESPN Zone, Bryce's favorite restaurant, for dinner and then explored the strip for a little while. We all had fun watching the Bellagio fountains.

Wil in front of the Bellagio fountains

Saturday morning, we went to the aquarium at Mandalay Bay. It was a nice aquarium, but a little smaller than we were expecting it to be. They had tunnels that you could walk through to see the sharks, fish and turtles swimming above you and all around you. There was even one place with a glass floor where they would swim under you. Wil seemed to be the only one not totally creeped out by walking on the clear floor. Even Derek wasn't sure he liked the idea - he kept pulling up his legs when Bryce would try to put him down on the floor.

In one tunnel, they were feeding the fish what looked like zucchini. It was cool to see the fish swim up and feed. They would take a quick bite, swim away and then come back for more.

Wil and me in front of the feeding fish

They also had a place where you could touch the stingrays, which was fun! Wil and I couldn't figure out how to explain how the stingrays felt - gushy keeps coming to mind, but it's not quite the right word.

Wil touching a stingray

I think Wil liked the jelly fish the best, and I really liked the turtles...and these weird striped fish that looked like they had mohawks.

Just me and a fish

After the aquarium, we walked around the strip some more and toured M&M world which is always entertaining - It still amazes me that they make so much M&M merchandise... I mean, who buys an M&M tire cover for the back of their car?

We had fun everywhere we went, but the Las Vegas Pioneer Bowl football game was definitely the highlight of our trip (which is good, since that's why we went to Las Vegas in the first place)!!! My college roommate Alison's husband Travis plays on the offensive line for BYU. It's always been fun to watch him play and to know someone on the team. This is Travis's senior year, so the Pioneer Bowl was his last football game as a Cougar.

Travis helped us get the tickets, so we got to sit on the eighth row at the goal line!!! They were AMAZING seats!!

Wil at the Las Vegas Pioneer Bowl

Me in our seats at the Las Vegas Pioneer Bowl

Bode and me

This is me with Bode - Alison and Travis's little boy. He was SO cute. I hadn't seen him since our wedding and at that point, he was just a little guy - so it was fun to see him a bit bigger. Nancy said he's as tall as Derek, who is about a year older. He's going to be a giant when he grows up!

Wil and me at the game

Travis waving from the field - he's number 74

A win was not in the cards for us at the bowl game, but the score was close enough through most of the game that we had a blast anyway! I even thought we were getting ready to stage an impressive come from behind, against all odds win...but not so much!

Derek, Bryce, Nancy, Alison, Me and Wil after the game

My roommate Angela and her boyfriend Phil were at the game, too. We met them for breakfast Sunday morning. It was great to see her and she seemed SO happy! Phil is a very lucky man!

Derek, Bryce, Wil, Phil, Nancy, me and Angela after breakfast Sunday morning

I had so much fun in Las Vegas and it was WONDERFUL to see everyone! I miss them more than I realize sometimes. Wil was great, too. It would definitely be hard to go on vacation and hang out with a bunch of your wife's friends that you don't know very well. Luckily, he had fun!

We did a bit more sightseeing before heading home Sunday afternoon. We even looked for a buffet to go to...but alas, we were too cheap to pay $23 per person for a buffet (I mean isn't the point of a buffet to be cheap?).

We were especially amazed by the bridge going up at Hoover Dam - we were able to admire the bridge for a long time on our way home Sunday evening, as the traffic moving over Hoover Dam could barely be considered moving! I forgot to take a picture, but it looked like they've still got a long way to go before it's done. I'll just have to take a picture on our next trip...

Say It Ain't So!

My favorite radio personality of all time - who I've mentioned previously on this blog - is Dave Pratt. Yesterday, the radio station he was on "parted ways with him." I'm pretty sure that's a nice way of saying they gave him the ax!

I am extremely disappointed, and I have no idea what I am going to listen to on my way to work. Hopefully, he will be signed by another radio station soon!

Wil and I are about to depart for our Vegas vacation (and we're only an hour behind schedule)! I can't wait!!! We'll be back Sunday, and I'll be sure to post some pictures of our trip!

HOORAY FOR VACATIONS!!!

my six quirks; finally!

So Jessica promised when she started this blog that I would be posting my quirks soon. Well, after much "encouragement" here they are, finally!

1. I can't start my day without pooping. I've tried and it's physically impossible. (I can't believe I'm actually posting this on our blog, so much for good wholesome reading.)

2. I don't like it when my pants touch my stomach. Let me explain. It bugs me when they touch my bare skin. I like when they are in order with the rest of my clothes. First my underwear then my undershirt, then my pants and then my shirt over. Everything has to be tucked in very neatly. Otherwise I have to readjust.

3. I tap my forehead vigorously with my fingertips when I get excited about something. (For example our Vegas trip this weekend.)

4. I am terrified of bees. I've never been stung and I think that's why I'm so scared of them. I don't run from many things, except bees or anything like a bee. That includes wasps, hornets, killer bees, and mutant bees.

5. If I were an animal I'd be a gorilla. I love gorillas.

6. The two nicknames I despise the most in this world - Willy and Bud! Free Willy, Big Willy Style or Willy Wonka- Well, you get the picture. My name is not William it's Wilfredo, that's all. Also only little kids should be called 'bud'. I'm not a little kid and probably bigger than you are.

There's a door there?

Last night, Wil and I went to my grandma's house to visit Elvis. My grandma and Wil's mom Elsa went to a Christmas concert at North Phoenix Baptist Church, so she wasn't home at the time. When we got there, we let Elvis out of his kennel and immediately took him and Oscar outside to relieve themselves.

Sometimes I feel a little guilty that this dog is intruding into Oscar's life, so I try to be extra nice to Oscar. Since Oscar was done first and Wil was out in the yard with Elvis, Oscar and I ran in the house and shut the sliding glass door behind us. We ran into the living room and I put Oscar on the couch to play with him.

All of a sudden, I heard the loudest thud as something hit the sliding glass door at full force.

Apparently, when my grandma lets Elvis out to use the restroom, she leaves the door open so he can come back in and without her having to go open the door - Oscar has a doggie door, so this has never been a problem in his life. Wil said Elvis finished peeing and took off at full speed; Wil wasn't sure what he was doing, but didn't think much of it...until we both heard him slam into the sliding glass door. Wil said it's the loudest yelp he's ever heard come out of a dog.

I'm sure it hurt, and I probably should feel bad for Elvis. But in reality - it's one of the funniest things I have ever witnessed! My grandma's going to have to stop keeping her sliding glass door so clean. My uncle suggested putting a dachshund sticker on the door so Elvis will know when it's closed!

Breaking Into Our Own House

This is an ordinary door. It connects our kitchen to our garage. I installed the door handle and deadbolt - look at that fine workmanship.


Today, at approximately 12:11 p.m., this ordinary door became the enemy!

I had to work this morning and came home as quickly as I could so Wil and I could leave for church - we start at noon. When I arrived home, I opened the garage door, walked inside, placed my keys on the table, changed my shoes and grabbed my scriptures. We then proceeded out of this seemingly innocent door on our way to the car. There was no need to grab my keys because I knew Wil was driving. Wil locked the door knob on his way out the front door and we were on our way...until we reached the car where Wil quickly discovered his keys were not in his pocket (you guessed it, they were inside). He asked if he could use my keys to unlock the door so he could go grab his. And, under any ordinary circumstance, he could have...except my keys were inside on the table. After several minutes of laughing at ourselves, we got to work trying to break into our own house.

First we tried this...

Here's a better look - there were screws on the outside of our sliding glass door that leads from the backyard to the living room. Odd...so we thought we would unscrew them and see if we could jimmy the door loose.


Next, we tried this...yes, that's the big window into our bedroom. That didn't work.


I should mention that at this point I had to use the restroom nearly uncontrollably. I rang the doorbell at our next door neighbors - but they weren't home. The two families we know across the street were also not home. It was so bad I thought about walking to the park, which is relatively close, and using the restroom there, but I wasn't sure I would make it. Finally, I tried the neighbors across the street that we do NOT know! I was practically doing the potty dance on their front step as I listened to their dog bark and a little girl saying, "mommy, it's a girl...it's a girl mommy." Then there were muffled voices, the barking got further away and all sound ceased.

Let's take a small trip into my head at this exact moment in time. "They're not going to let me in...what if they don't answer the door...PLEASE ANSWER THE DOOR, THIS IS AN EMERGENCY AND YOU HAVE TO ANSER THE DOOR...WHAT AM I GOING TO DO IF THEY DON'T ANSWER THE DOOR!"

Finally, a man answered the door. I sheepishly (and quickly - I had to go really bad!) explained that I lived across the street and we had locked ourselves out of our house and no I didn't need to use their phone because we had our phones because we were leaving and had everything (including the camera, thanks to me taking it with me to work this morning) except the keys to our house that was currently locked and could I PLEASE use their restroom, PLEASE!!! This part of the story ends happily, as they let me use their restroom and I could go back to documenting the entire experience with our camera for this very blog!

Then, we tried the one of the small windows into our bedroom. This window is kind of tweaked so we thought it would be our best bet to get one of them to open. Nope!


Then Wil had a master stroke! The attic. We have TWO entrances to the attic - one in the garage and one in our hall. He could climb through the attic, get into our house through the hall attic and then unlock the door. He went up, he looked at the eight foot drop and decided that he would have a very difficult time unlocking the door if his body was broken.


Finally, we decided to focus our attention on the offending door!


We tried wires and pocket knives and bobby pins (I actually thought I might be able to pick the lock - it's not nearly as easy as it looks on TV!) and this little saw, ruler thing that Wil had in the garage - I'm still not sure what it was. After about twenty minutes focusing on the door - and more than an hour locked outside of our house, Wil opened the door! We happily closed the garage door and walked into our house through the now unlocked door. We are still laughing at ourselves!

Oscar Will NEVER Forgive Us!

One of the loves of my grandma's life is her pleasantly plump dachshund Oscar (like Oscar Mayer Weiner, get it?). He is glued to her side whenever she is home. When she eats, he eats...if she gets people food, he gets at least a little people food...when she sleeps in her bed, he sleeps in her bed...etc., etc., etc.

Last night, Wil and I broke Oscar's heart by bringing another dog to my grandma's house. That's right, Wil liked Elvis a lot! One of the funniest things about Elvis is that he balances on his back two legs and stands straight up. He seems to enjoy hanging out on only his back legs. It's funny to watch, but causes two main problems. 1. He is tall enough to put his front paws on the counter and 2. when you push him down, he doesn't fall. A normal dog would fall because it can't balance on its back legs, so if you pushed its front legs off the counter it would subsequently drop to all four legs. Not Elvis. He can balance on his back two legs, so you try to push him away and he just stands there front paws high in the air and waits until you move far enough away that he can safely place his paws back on the counter. URGH! Wil will have to read that puppy book again to find out how to train a dog to stay off of the counter!

Elvis is a Coon Hound. We read all about Coon Hounds last night on Wikipedia. One interesting fact...Coon Hounds are generally nervous around other dogs...and it's probably a good thing, at least for now! Elvis is downright scared of Oscar. When my grandma brought Elvis home from getting his shots today, she had to pick up his front legs to make him go in the house...Oscar was standing by the door, so he was scared to go in!

It's actually a good thing Elvis is scared of Oscar...or I am relatively certain there would be a war. Apparently the way it works now is that Oscar sits on the couch by my grandma, Elvis starts to head that direction, Oscar flashes his pearly whites in a menacing way and Elvis heads the other direction to sleep on the exact opposite side of the couch.

The vet told us that since Elvis got his shots today and we had a dog with parvo less than six months ago, we have to wait three weeks before we can bring Elvis home. THREE WEEKS! Poor Oscar...I don't think he will ever forgive us for ruining his happy home!

Is The Third Time A Charm?

Wil and I have wanted a dog for months! However, we haven't had the best luck with dogs...

We've even found a dog and brought it home - TWICE. But how many dogs reside in our house (or backyard) currently - ZERO. This is a post dedicated to the unluckiness we have had so far, and hoping that the third try for a dog is about to be the charm!

First, dog number one...we called him Buster (that is, we called him Buster for the less than 24 hours we owned him). Sydney Bosen named him for us...she and Kendall were spending the night the night we got him. We got Buster at the Humane Society.

We went to the Humane Society wanting a dog. We looked, and looked, and looked some more. When we were about to leave dogless, I walked by a cage and one of the dogs went running (well, as much as you can run in a Humane Society cage) to get his toy and came back squeaking it like crazy.

Dog #1: Buster

"This must be the one," I announced. So we took him out and played with him. He was a puppy - about 7 months old, but he was already big. We asked what kind of a dog he was and we were told he was a black lab mix. He was cheaper because he had been at the Humane Society so long...suspicious - we asked why a 7 month old puppy had been at the Humane Society so long. We were told people don't like black dogs, they think they look mean. OK, we don't have a problem with black dogs - we're good so far.

Also, some people think he looks like a pit bull and people don't want pit bulls - to which I responded, is he a pit bull (we had made the agreement that pit bulls freak me out and that we would not get a pit bull)? Well, there could be some pit bull in him or some boxer, it's really hard to tell but his tag says black lab, so he's mostly black lab. OK, we can live with that. We took him happily home, excited about the new addition to our family. We picked up Sydney and Kendall on our way home to spend the night and while I had fun painting with the girls and playing with our new puppy, Wil went to get dinner. That's when it happened - Buster growled and barked at me weird.

Wil and Buster

If you know me, you know I'm not scared of dogs. I've grown up around dogs, my aunt and uncle have big dogs and I've never been scared of them. But something in the way he barked/growled at me scared me - and I mean, I was afraid to be left alone in the house with him type of scared me. After that all I could see when I looked at him was pit bull ready to attack. So after discussing and feeling super guilty for returning a dog that we had had for less than a day for no apparent reason other than it scared me, we took Buster back to the Humane Society.

A couple of weeks later, we decided to try the pound. We fell in love with a small black lab puppy - he was adorable! As the pound worker pulled him out of his cage she said - "what a little bruiser." That's all it took - we had to have him and we HAD to name him Bruiser. He was all puppy - and young puppy at that! He would drive me crazy when Wil was at work - it was almost like having a child. Anytime I wasn't watching, he was peeing or chewing...but he was so cute, so it was alright.

Bruiser sleeping on my lap.

I took him on walks nearly every night - I thought they were long walks for a puppy, but we would walk into our house and he would go bounding across the room to pounce on his toys and chew and pee some more! One night I couldn't take it anymore so I took him on a LONG walk - and I kept walking and walking and walking until he finally laid down on the grass and wouldn't move. That's how I knew I could safely take him home.

Bruiser with my aunt and her neighbor's horse Goldie.

Unfortunately, this puppy came to us with parvo. He had lived with us less than a week when we first noticed the signs - but we didn't know what was wrong. We took him to the vet, but it would have been much to expensive to treat him, especially when they couldn't guarantee he would get better. We, and by we I mean Wil, took him back to the pound to have him put to sleep.

Ever since we've been bleaching everything - trying to get the parvo out of our house so we could try again.

We've been told by friends that we're just not meant to have a dog. One recommended downsizing to a gold fish and another recommended a child as an alternative. But our hearts really are set on a dog.

Yesterday, my uncle's co-worker brought a dog to work that he had found abandoned in the desert. It's part hounddog, part doberman. He's a super cute and well behaved dog - according to my uncle. My uncle even affectionately named the dog Elvis (ain't nothing but a hounddog, crying all the time) because its a hounddog. Wil is going to look at this dog tonight, to see if he's a keeper. And while he's looking, and I'm waiting for my visiting teachers to arrive, I thought I would write a post about our dogs.

The picture of Elvis my uncle sent yesterday to convince us we needed him!

If Wil decides Elvis is a keeper, I'll be sure to let you know...