The Dam and The Strip

Tuesday night Sam and Chris (her boyfriend) came to Vegas. They stayed til this morning, then left for Missouri to begin their travels around the world. I got to have Sam here for a whole day yesterday! It was really great!

(Chris making a weird face and Sam being her beautiful self)

We all slept in (even Landon) and we decided to go to Hoover Dam. That was really cool. We didn't pay for the tour or parking, so we just walked around and took pictures. There is a suspension bridge going up to bypass the dam and it looks way crazy!

(below is a picture. To put it into perspective, we are at the top of the dam looking west toward it and it is several hundred feet above that. There were working on there too! It was scary!)

It's also really sad because the water level is so low behind the dam. It makes me sad. I have never been to the dam (except to cross it when we went to Arizona to visit Annette and Jana. Fun times!)

(the white is where the water level used to be... really sad!)

After we go home we all relaxed for a while. Then Mike (Jeff and my long time best friend) hung out with us. We went to Claim Jumpers and then to the strip. I am depressed to say that I forgot my camera! :( We didn't leave until around midnight but we had fun! We looked at the gardens at the Bellagio, and saw the water show, and went to the Mirage to watch the 'volcano' errupt. (it was revamped, but the old one was better.)

We walked over 3 miles yesterday! We all zonked out pretty much as soon as we got home. It was a long but glorious day with friends! Jeff was able to hang out with us all day and wouldn't have otherwise, so that is positive thing about him not having work right now. So I told him that Wednesday was a good day for him not to have work, but that someone could hire him and he could start work next week and I would be a happy wife... what can I say, I'm a positive thinker!

(Jeff, Landon and me with the dam in the background)

Jobless

So Jeff calls me this morning and tells me that he got fired. Apparently where he works you can't have 1 mistake after 4 or 6 weeks working there. A couple of weeks ago he was told that, but also told that he wasn't in trouble or anything, he just needed to work on getting zero mistakes... well, today he found out that he made one or two mistakes, so he was called into an office and fired. Just like that. He had absolutely no idea that there was a possibility of getting fired or anything close to that, and he had been getting mostly 100% on his drawing, with every 5 or 6 drawings coming back with one or two mistakes, but I guess that's just not good enough.
To make things worse, Jeff went to the supervisor Tom last week to talk to him about getting things up to date (they are working on way out of date programs) and to make things a lot more efficient. Tom was on board for that and they were scheduled to have a meeting in Jeff's office TOMORROW. I find it odd that they fired him the day before he was going to show how much more efficient they could be and how great he is at his job. He is one of the only, if not the only one who is studying or has studied to be a CADD tech or civil engineer. Everyone else is on-site trained and only know the programs of this company. He is over qualified, and I think they saw that and were threatened.
If it weren't for the economy, I wouldn't care as much, but it's extra frustrating when we are already living with my parents as it is! So today has been a bad day. And Jeff got fired for the first time in his life from a company that was intimidated by him. HOW RUDE!

The Mom State of Mind

As I began this blog, besides thinking about writing down my thoughts and adding pictures of the family and my hobbbies, (still to come) I always come back to my son. When you are a stay at home mom, your life is, of course, your child/ren. So being a 1st time mom, I am realizing the state of mind I am always in. Places I go, things I talk about, how I act when I'm around others, even around my husband... all things I think about or talk about or how I act have to do with how I would be with Landon around. It's pretty amusing if you really think about it. They are so dependent on us, but really we become dependent on them as well. We live and breathe each other.
It's really quite amazing! I literally live for my son, and he's alive because of me! So my state of mind is always in the 'Mom' mode, even if it's toward someone else I'm not even related to, but that is completely fine with me! I love being a mom! Plus anyone who views my blog will get to know my son really well, because he will probably be 90% of it!

Twilight Movie Truth

I really love the books, and I need to read them again, but I have to say I'm not extremely impressed with the movie. I saw it in the theaters and thought that maybe I didn't like it all that much because we had to sit so close (there was a birthday party and a ton of teenagers there... of course almost all were girls!).
Anyway, I'm not impressed with the acting mostly. Some of the way they said things bothered me. Like 'Bella' says things way too fast sometimes without any expression. That kinda ruined it for me. I like her as an actress, but I wish she would get more into character.
Did anyone else feel that way?? I did buy the movie, but it's like the Harry Potter movies; they don't do the books justice, but they are still fun to watch to be able to visualize what you read.

Cute Man!

So Landon looks so cute in these suspenders that I just had to take picures and share them!

He learned to climb on Grandma Rowley's rocking chair today and loved it! He is also really into his 'surprise' face. And of course there is his fettish with eating shoes. He's just so darn cute! I didn't realize how adorable suspenders would be on him or I would have had him wear them a long time ago!

New Recipe

So I was making cookies when I got home from church today and I couldn't find any all purpose flour.... so I decided to use my wheat flour! So I decided to share this recipe because they turned out really yummy and their healthier for you too!

Oatmeal Scotchies
1 1/4 cups wheat flour 3/4 cup sugar (plus a little more)
1 tsp. baking soda 3/4 cup brown sugar (plus a little more)
1/2 tsp. ground cinnamon 2 eggs
3/4 tsp. salt (just go with me) 1 1/2 tsp. vanilla
1 cup (2 sticks) butter 3 cups oatmeal
3/4 pkg butterscotch chips

Preheat oven to 375

add dry ingredients together in a bowl. in a separate bowl mix butter, both sugars, eggs and vanilla together until smooth. slowly add dry ingredients. then stir in oatmeal and chips.

spoon onto cookie sheet and bake for 7 to 8 minutes.


SO GOOD!

It's About Time!

So I finally did it! I started my own blog. I'm slow, I know, but here it is!

I am going to try to add drawings, pictures, comments, and things about my life as I begin life as a blogger. Enjoy and feel free to give me suggestions as I learn, or try to learn what there is to know about this!