My thoughts on Colorado

I was born in Colorado Springs in 1983 and my grandparents still live in Watkins, which is about 20 miles outside of Denver.    I remember hearing about the fires and my first thought was, "how close are my grandparents?"  Thankfully, they are safe.  My grandma said she could see the smoke from their house. 

Aurora is about 12 miles from my grandparents house and when I visit them, we often go to Aurora as it is the closest city.  It is such a tragedy that this shooting has happened.

I am proud to say that I was born in Colorado.  Despite the fact that there have been two major shootings in the past 13 years.   Colorado will always be in my thoughts.

It feels like home

We've been in Vegas for about 4 weeks now and it's finally beginning to feel like home.  I am learning my way around and for the most part, I don't need to use the GPS on my phone.  I only use it when I go to a place where I've never been and I did that in Sacramento as well.

In Sacramento, the freeways run through the city.

The freeways are confusing here.  It's not like Sacramento at all.   They call it the spaghetti bowl.  If you look at the map, you can kind of see why they nicknamed it that.

In Vegas, however, they run around the city and don't often take you to where you want to go.  It's weird.

I am attempting to find a teaching job here in town.  I am in the process of filling out my paperwork to get my Nevada License.  They don't call it a credential here... but it's basically the same thing.  Thankfully the tests that I took in California will transfer over.  They only have the Praxis test in Nevada whereas we had to take the CBEST, CSET and the RICA.  Eventually I'll have to take a test on Nevada history.

Lesson's Learned

I learned today that I should never go to the strip alone with cash in my wallet.  I easily blew off $100 at Planet Hollywood.  You live and learn....

I did some research today about how they design casinos.  Did you know that there are no clocks in casinos?  They don't want you to know the time.  There are also no windows so you don't know the time of day or how much time has passed.

Vegas Interesting Facts
- There is one operating slot machine in Las Vegas for every 8 residents. 
- The strip is the brightest place on earth when looked at from space
- On average each visitor spends 4 hours each day gambling
- 89% of all visitors gamble with an average gambling budget of $500
-  Casinos are essentially giant mazes that are intentionally set up for you to literally get lost in. A sea of machines and tables create obstacles and barriers that keep the player from leaving.
- The four hotels at the corner of Las Vegas Blvd. and Tropicana (MGM Grand, Tropicana, New York-New York and the Excalibur) have more hotel rooms than off of San Francisco. 
- It is against the law to pawn your dentures in Vegas

 

What it's like living in Vegas

We can go to pool parties at the hotels (PS.  I cannot believe I put a picture up of me in a swim suit)

We can take gondola rides on the strip

We go to casinos for the 4th

When I go running, I can see the strip 

I was out at the school district today and drove by the strip.

It's hot... I took this picture at 7pm.

The Journey to Vegas

The movers came on Tuesday, June 26th.  That morning we shuttled the dog and cats off to Jason's parents house in Lincoln (we're going to miss having them close by).  The movers came at around 11am and it took them a few hours to load the truck.  After the truck was loaded, we headed back to Lincoln and stayed the night there.  I had dinner with some of my best friends at BJ's in Roseville.  I'm really going to miss you guys!!!

Ob Wednesday, we headed back to our house to do some cleaning.  The property management woman was coming over to inspect the house and when she came, she told us that they had found a renter.  We were so incredibly happy.

After we were done cleaning, we got our oil changed in our cars and then headed back to Lincoln to try to rest up before the big drive.  Unfortunately neither of us could take a nap... We went out to dinner with Jason's parents, gassed up the cars and then came back to the house to relax.  We left Lincoln at around midnight.  We wanted to make it to Las Vegas before the property management group left for the day.

It was a difficult drive but thanks to 5 hour energy shots, I stayed awake.  Thankfully we were in separate cars because I was singing the entire drive.  I began to get excited when I was about an hour from our house.  I pulled into the driveway at around 10am.

Master bathtub

Main room

Kitchen

Our bed for the first 9 nights

Prince liked sleeping on my clothes

YES!!!!! 

We have our stuff!!!!!

Master bedroom

Master bedroom

Walk-in closet.  Yes, my clothes are color coordinated and arranged by long sleeved, short sleeved and tank tops.  I also got Jason's clothes on plastic hangers.

Loving room... why do we have two TV's?  Well, the big one is for just regular TV and the small one is for video games.  Evidently when it's football season, we can watch two games at the same time.  I can't wait (insert sarcasm).

Moving to Vegas picture journey

Jason didn't think that my books would fit in my car!  They sure did.

The packing begins

Boxes upon boxes

My Safeway co-workers got me a cake!

We're really moving

The car is packed.  We stayed Tuesday night at Jason's parents house.

The elementary school I went to in Fresno

I look pretty good for being up for over 24 hours

Home sweet home