A Wedding Story

Once upon a time....

There was a beautiful thirty-something woman

by the name of Keeley.

Who met a handsome, thirty-something man

whose name is Russ.

The attraction was mutual

so they decided they should spend some time together.

After a date to the M&M's store,

and after sharing a few dinner's together....

They asked their family to meet them in Las Vegas

so they could be married

By ELVIS!

Loving this woman Keeley very much,

and wanting to be at the wedding,

Hannah hailed a cab to get there.

While Russ, Brent, and Big Daddy, Mike all jumped in their personalized, formula one race cars and RACED to Las Vegas in order to make it to the wedding.

Those of us left, followed behind in a regular, no frills car.

Once everyone had arrived,

Keeley and Russ climbed into their beautiful,

white 'Elvis Chapel' limousine and headed off to be married

By ELVIS! The first order of business was to stop in the office of the 'Elvis Chapel' and have someone with authority actually perform the wedding. After the important stuff was taken care of it was time for the fun! Of course the Bride and her Daddy had to walk down the isle. Daddy had to check things out when he got up there; when he saw how happy the bride and groom looked (even through the fun of it all) he was satisfied.

Elvis sang

Posed for the camera

Had them repeat wedding vows - "uh huh"

Gave his little smirk while Keeley repeated her vows - "uh huh"

Exchanged rings "uh-huh"

then the beautiful bride and handsome groom kissed,

and then shared a dance while 'Elvis' serenaded them.

Elvis couldn't keep his eyes off of this cute little chick

who was sitting in the audience so he had to come down

and strike a pose with her.

The bride and groom were married

October 6,2008

and they will live Happily Ever After.

Congratulations Keeley and Russ

We LOVE YOU!

UH-HUH

ALL ABOUT FOOD

My biggest temptation, no matter where I am

is FOOD!

And while we were in Vegas there was

temptation everywhere we went.

In the food court:

GREEK SALAD - BANAN SPLIT

can you guess which one I chose?

NO! I was the strong one and had the salad.

Mike chose the banana split.

After the wedding Keeley chose the Seafood Buffet at the Rio. To those of you who love seafood - this is the place! There was a section for Mediteranian, Pacific Rim, Baja,

Crustations, and Fresh Fish dishes. This is what I started with.

And this is what I ended with. MMMMmmmm....

Yes, it was all delicious and so worth being

naughty over.

The MGM Grand Buffet is where we ate breakfast each morning.

There was a fabulous layout of food.

Belgium waffles, crepes, blintz, omeletts, fruit, etc........... all beautifully laid out and scrumptuously appealing.

This is the only picture that ended up showing the food!

Can you believe it?

A chocolate bar, bacon and scrambled eggs!

Well, I guess you'll just have to believe the description I gave you.

Or go there and check out the temptations yourself.

It was all so delicious........and expensive;

but SO WORTH IT!

A Few Hours at Universal City Walk

Thursday morning mother, Hannah and I drove to Universal City and spent a few exciting and memorable hours there.

When Hannah saw the giant guitar displayed outside the Hard Rock Cafe she decided it would work well for Paul Bunion.

Is that really the way his name was spelled?

Maybe he had serious foot problems because of his size.

There are so many different restaurants to choose from when you get hungry.

They're air conditioned and so refreshing to step into on a hot day.

We chose NOT to go to a restaurant.

Since it was a mere 100 degrees outside we chose to sit outside.

I looked around to find the best area with the most shade so we sat down with our food of choice:

Tommy's! One of the best chili burgers in the U.S.

With music playing so loud that mother and I had to say - huh - each time we tried to visit,

and wiping our brow instead of our mouths because of the heat we sat there and insisted we were enjoying our lunch.............it was kind of nice when the breeze came up.

After lunch we struck out to do some serious shopping.

Mother saw the Incredible Hulk in front of this store and I couldn't keep her away!

I pulled, scolded and begged her to not make a scene but she just HAD to run back and strike a pose with him. I decided she was a lonely, desperate woman, so I just let her enjoy the moment.

By the look on her face - she's really enjoying the moment! Don't you think?

After I finally pulled her away from Mr. Incredible we walked along enjoying each others company and the various shops.

Until mother spotted this prize. If I remember correctly she told him he might have a chance if he would quit smoking, wash his face and do something about that missing hand. He ignored her completely so she moved on. When she saw this cute little man she went right over to him and began flirting again! He just stood there quietly, seeming to enjoy the attention from this attractive red head; so mother took it one step further to the touching phase!!! He must have been extremely shy because he never said a word - even when she put her hand on his so she gave up on him and we moved on down the walkway. Suddenly, King Kong came swinging down from a tall building just behind us. When Hannah turned to see what the commotion was, she was startled by the HUGE ferocious beast and began screaming. Everyone else didn't seem to be too frightened, they just continued on as if there was nothing to be scared of. Poor little Hannah. To get away from this frightening beast we ran into the closest store. OR To get away from the fierce, beastly heat we ran in to BEN & JERRY'S. Isn't it amazing what ice cream can do to restore everything back to being tolerable? Hannah and her newly adopted friend Otis shared a cup of chocolate brownie with me. MMMMMMMMmmmmmmmm........... it was so cold and refreshing AND chocolaty.

Mother chose a waffle cone with Cherry Garcia and a chocolate concoction combined.

She said it was really good - of course it was - it was BEN & JERRY'S, what could go wrong?!

Do you know how some people can eat ice cream and look so suave?

I decided to take pictures of mother while she was enjoying her ice cream.

Tell me how you think they turned out. Do you like: The one above????

This one?????

Is it better without the ice cream in her mouth???

How about this one????

Do you think she got drunk on the Cherry Garcia!!

Maybe if she took her hat off it would turn out better. NO, we decided we'd better keep the hat on since it was such a hot day and her head had absorbed all of the heat!

We finally got to laughing so hard about it that I quickly snapped a picture as she was laughing.

I think I like this one the best. Really. What about you?

Before we left to come home Hannah enjoyed the spray from the sidewalk and then we were back in the car fighting traffic on the 101 and 5 freeways in order to get home.

It was all worth it though because I had such a nice day with mother and Hannah.

Desert, Indio & Friends

Last Friday Hannah and I headed down to Indio which is a little bit east of Palm Springs.

As we passed these windmills I couldn't help wondering .............. what if aliens came to our planet and saw these - would they wonder what they are?

Would they know we are generating power - or would they think we are gathering propellers from abandoned aircraft because we like to watch them spin? After we passed the windmills and came into Indio I got off of the freeway and began to look for a place to stay.

We were just spending one night there;

all we needed was a decent, clean looking place in a safe looking area with clean bathrooms, clean carpets, walls and linens that also had little bottles of shampoo and conditioner because I had left mine at home.

Do you think I was expecting too much?

As we drove all around the city of Indio I did not see ONE place that fit into that category. Everything looked old, run down and I could envision a parking lot full of strange people later that night.....not a pleasant thought.

So I got back on the freeway and backtracked a couple of miles to 1000 Palms where I found a Quality Inn and Suites.

This is not the Quality Inn and Suites.

It was the resort where the Claunches were staying and they invited us to come and spend the afternoon/evening with them and swim in those beautiful pools.

So that's exactly what we did!

This is Becky and Don's grandson, Caleb. He and his sister Chloe showed us the pools since they were able to swim earlier that day.

This is Chloe and her mommy, DeeDee.

DeeDee's the one inside the tube ;0)

Later in the evening, Don and Becky bought pizza for everyone and we sat outside enjoying the evening breeze as we ate.

I couldn't help snapping this picture of Don because I loved what his hair was doing.

HaHaHaHa........I thought it was funny.

He's a good enough sport to where I know he won't mind me sharing this with everybody.

This is what Hannah and I were doing while we were waiting for the pizza.

It was called the 'Lazy River' and it was so relaxing.

We had a wonderful time swimming, but we especially liked spending time with the Claunches.

Thank you Becky for inviting us. We LOVED it!