Here's to our new life in Vegas

A lot of changes are happening with us lately and I can't tell you how excited we are to finally settle down.  To unpack those suitcases.  To have a place we can call home.  Our home.  Matt has been in training this last week with a couple more weeks to go.  We won't be moving into our house for another month, so in the meantime we are staying with a family friend here in Vegas.  I can't tell them enough how grateful we are for them and their kindness.  Seriously.  They are awesome.

And what have I done with all my spare time you ask?? GOOOD question. 

• Searching and applying for jobs 
• Enjoying my mid-morning naps
• Finished reading The Hunger Games
• Enter every contest possible to win furniture/cash/anything really. (After the contests I have won this last year, I'm a total believer in winning.  Being in Vegas-  I hope to keep the luck as long as possible)
• Volunteering.  And sometimes volunteering Matt :)
• Talk to my family on skype.  Love singing songs with the kids and coloring.  I hope by keeping this up, they will remember me.
• Interviewing.  I dislike this one.  Somehow, I've been so lucky in my life to have most my jobs practically handed to me.  I'm hoping this won't go on for long before I find one I am happy with (and visa versa).
• Temple work.  This is one place can feel my time is worth something.  And what a beautiful  temple we have here!
• Dream of our new house and check on it frequently. (The flooring is now in!)
• Go to Nordstrom Rack and look at all the things I can't buy.  This is depressing really.
• Research the nursing programs around here.  Crossing my fingers that my credits will transfer okay.
• Stalk blogs while having one eye on The Food Network
• Wait for Matt to come home

Honestly, I have felt so lazy and worthless.  Not having a job makes me feel this way.  Maybe if I was in my own house I would have more to do?  Matt tries to remind me that I am making progress with the job and school search.  But, to me, it seems so miniscule.  I know I'll kick myself later for not just relaxing now- while I'm not super busy with life.

Honeymoon!!

Okay so it wasn't the day after being married... and honestly, it didn't feel like we were on our honeymoon.  But, that's not to say it wasn't tons of fun and we can't wait to go back!  Seriously.  If we hadn't just bought a house, we would have bought a dozen weeks at this resort.  It was awesome.  From the all-you-can-eat restaurants and drinks to all day activities and shows.  There really isn't any reason to leave the resort.  It's a "cruise on land" and I'm convinced it's even better (if we're talking Mexico).  Guess I should mention we went to the Riviera Maya(Cancun) & stayed at an all-inclusive resort called El Dorado.  Here's a look at some things we did:

Lots of this...

Even more of this...

We made up for the free alcohol by eating ALL the food we could. There was such a variety of restaurants and it was so fun(yummy) to try them all. There are people walking around the pools and beach offering drinks at every turn. LOVED it. And just when we think we can't eat anymore... we order late night room service :) It makes me sick to think about how much we consumed. Oh well. We were on vacation, right?  P.S. those mango daquiri's(top right) are SO delicious!  In fact, I could use one right now...

There was also a little of this...

We did leave the resort once to take a Book of Mormon tour to Chichen Itza & Ek Balam.  Top left you can see our tour guide, Nephi.  That's right.  His dad is Heleman, cousin Lemuel, and so on.  He was awesome and we learned lots of interesting things about the Mayan people here. Only I wish I would have recorded it all.  Bottom right is looking down on a baptistry.  There were many temples and speculations of what they were all used for.

Many of these people twisted the commandments and did strange things to offer sacrifice.  One them was by offering a "broken heart and a contrite spirit".  They would literally cut each others heart's out, lay them on an alter(middle), and set them on fire to do this. 

There was one temple in Ek Balam we were able to climb.  Don't let the pictures fool you.  These stairs are steep and narrow!   I was so nervous going up that I didn't think how I would get down! And, well, this was the only way I could come up with...

 

Matt said at the top was a cool view of all the other ruins- many that had not been uncovered.  I'll take his word for it.  I was busy devising my plan to get down. 

Then back to the resort for some activites...

Someone is feeling mighty fine here!  It's hard to see, but Matt is showing off his triple bullseye.  And while we're bragging, I got a one on my first round too!  Only, my game went downhill from there...

Other activites included beach soccer, volleyball, ping pong, chasing aguanas, tennis, checkers, etc.  You can ask Matt who dominated these games, but I doubt he tells the truth.  There were shows in the evening and, well, it was something to shower for after a long day.  Funny story:  Since I won the vacation, it was booked under my name.  Therefore we become Mr. and Mrs. Vandegrift :) I think Matt appreciates his four-letter last name a little more.

It was so sad to say bye.  But we were ready to get home and start some kind of a diet.  (Okay, that we're still working on).  Our last day here we got a massage on the beach(top left).  It was awesome.  I don't know that I'm mature enough for them though.  I almost kicked her in the face for touching my feet.  And for some reason my hands are so ticklish too.  Besides that, I would hire her any day.  It was a great way to end our stay at the El Dorado Royale.

*Side note*  The week we came here was random and really just the only time that would work. We figured out, however, that it was actually our 6 month anniversary and our 2 year since we met/started dating.  Crazy.

Pre-Vegas

If you didn't already know, Matt accepted a job in Vegas flying for Maverick helicopters.  A full-time job in fact! :)  The job starts in mid-October and so we were on the hunt for a place to live.  We flew down this week for just a few days to do just that.  You probably know also that the economy's not too great there and you can buy houses for dirt cheap. And that's just what we planned on doing.

We searched for houses the first day and got a good idea of the Vegas area and what we wanted.  Mostly we just wanted to be in a nice area, with a pool (that was my criteria), few bedrooms, and something we could sell in a few years or so.  We really wanted a backyard, but found it wasn't as great when living here in the heat.  We were so lucky to find the perfect fit on the second day. We found our "spec home" in a new Henderson community called Avellino Ridge.  I tried to link the floor plan, but it didn't work. The home is still in the process of being built- it will be finished middle of Novemberish.  And of course, we haven't closed on it just yet.

Here are a couple tours of the house- you might need a little imagination since its not complete yet.
We got an awesome deal though and pretty much got all the upgrades for free.  Things like granite countertops, maple cabinets, stainless steel appliances, and other random things.  The details had already been established for the home, but we were able to choose the flooring! That was fun! :)

The only down side is that it's a shared driveway.. but, I think we'll live. It's only 10 minutes away from Matt's work which is awesome. We are both really excited about the whole situation. It all happened very quick, but we both feel good about it and can't wait to move in!

We didn't have much time for fun on this quick trip, but we did find some for the dancing water!

A day in Calgary

 We stayed a full day in Canada just for fun. I wish the weather was more conducive to walking around and exploring. It was pouring rain most the day, so we decided to drive around and see the town that way. We stopped by the mall and is was AWESOME. Honestly, it was the biggest and nicest mall ever. Each store was the size of a department store. It really was too bad we had absolutely NO room to pack anything else into. Okay it was probably a good thing too.  Our hotel had a pool with water slides and we just had to take advantage. 

We wanted to visit the temple while we were here.  Everyone knows there's a temple in Calgary, right?  We looked up the address online and jumped into the car thinking we would see it as soon as we got close... Well there were times we thought to give up.  It was pitch dark and nothing was adding up until we stumbled across this sign in front of a huge construction zone.  Oh did we feel silly.  We must have heard in conference that it would be built... and maybe next time we come it will.

It was a good day in Calgary, but we were SO anxious to get home! We had a flight scheduled from Calgary to Denver, Denver to Vegas, Vegas to SLC.  It was good to be home again, though we know it won't be long until we move again.

Canada Heli Trip (part two)

It was a two day trip and a good thing we had to land every couple hours.  I got pretty sick on one of the flights.  Hours in a helicopter + turbulence + just not being used to the whole thing = Motion sickness.  Luckily I was able to tough it out(somehow) until our next "scheduled" landing.  For the next leg, I made a nice bed in the back seat and slept the whole way.  It did just the trick.

Most the airports we landed in were real small and deserted. 

Pilot Nick got a little bored at some points and tried a little acrobatics.  Okay, nothing too extreme.  Just flying in patterns around us.  Seemed to entertain him :)

Matt taught me how to fly on our trip and actually let me do it!  Don't let Matt fool you- it's a lot harder than it looks to keep that ship steady... and I was glad to have him as my back up.

Our first look at Calgary, Alberta.  I was nervous about the whole flying at night, but apparently Matt knows what he's doing.  That or he does a pretty good job at faking.  Anyhow, we made it to our destination! 

I knew this trip would be a "once in a lifetime" thing and I'm so glad I was able to go along side Matt.  It was fun hearing him talk in his crazy lingo with the towers.  The more i tried to follow their conversations, the more lost I would get.  What a fun adventure for us- I just love my pilot so much.