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| Dan decorating houses with the kids |
Kelly flew in last Friday for a weeks vacation in Las Vegas. She and her boyfriend Dan stayed at our house Friday through Monday and we dropped them off at the strip Monday after lunch. They stayed at the MGM until Thursday am when they headed back to NJ. Devin and Riley had such a great time playing with them. Devin (for the first time ever) was genuinely crushed when he had to say good bye. He did this for the first time Monday when we dropped them off at MGM. He did not want them to stay at the casino, he wanted them to come home with us. It was so sad. He and Riley cried the entire way home from the strip. I was able to side track them for a day since they knew we would see them Wednesday for dinner at Hofbrau Haus. After dinner Wednesday he did the same thing. Truly crushed that Kelly and Dan were not going to be around the next day. It was so sad. Thankfully he is old enough to understand that we will see her sooner than later and once we move to NJ he will get to see them all the time.
The Las Vegas Rock and Roll half marathon was good. Kelly was assigned a different corral than me, but started in my corral so she would not have to wait to take off. I was assigned corral 11 out of 40 so we took off close to the front of the pack. I could not believe the amount of walkers (that jumped corrals) and were literally walking 100 yards into the race. No these guys were not to the side, no they were not courteous to get out of the way of runners or stay to the right. They just walked in the middle of the road and would not budge from their groups of 2 or 3 that made a wall of slow speed to get past. It sure was hard to pace with having to dodge and weave around all the walkers and picture takers. Thankfully by 3 miles they seemed to drop in numbers and I was able to run with the pack and by 7 or 8 miles in the pack thinned out enough for me to not have to run in and out of people the entire time. By 10 miles I was able to run straight and keep pace with the people ahead of me. Frank has a super fancy GPS watch that tracks distance, pace and lots more but for the first 3 miles and the last three miles I was not able pace since the satellites could not keep a good contact with the watch since I was in the thick of the casinos. I ran 13.24 miles in 2 hrs 15.33 minutes.
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| see me in green in the center (between orange and yellow shirt) trying to cross the finish line |
Now a half is 13.1 miles and I was tracked at 13.24....I have to imagine there is a .05 error and the rest was me weaving all over the place and actually ran an extra tenth of a mile by doing so. It was fun to run in a large crowd once it thinned out a little bit, but the finish was a disaster. Huge bottle neck and you actually could not "run" across the finish line since there were so many people trying to get through. My knee was/is seriously f-ed up afterwards and I am losing three toenails but I did it, and did it at a pace of 10 min and 19 sec miles the entire time which is good for my first one in my mind. There were people passed out, vomiting, shitting themselves afterwards while the rest of us just hobbled through the carnage back to our cars. I did have belly issues afterwards (and for a few days) but thankfully was able to get through the mess and home with no hiccups. Apparently my body did not know how to handle the extra distance at the pace I was running at. Ha, you learn something new everyday :(
Devin had his Christmas singing concert at school while Kelly and Dan were visiting which was great. Devin was super excited to be able to have them come. He sang about 8-9 songs and had all sorts of hand movements down for the songs. After their concert they had a special visit from Santa and Devin was super surprised and excited. He told Santa that he wants a new bike and no, he does not need training wheels. I guess this summer we will work on riding without them. He was handed a candy cane and he broke it in half so Riley would have some too. How sweet! He really can be such a sweet boy. I am glad that he was able to have Frank and I there along with Aunt Kelly and Dan.
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| at a few weeks old-slept through all the noise |
Frank has been asking for over 4 years to go back to the Hofbrau Haus for dinner. I do not eat German good....so I have no desire to go there. We went when Cookie and Kelly came to visit when Devin was a few weeks old and have not been back since. Frank always tries to recruit our visitors to go and finally we had to chance. Kelly's boyfriend Dan actually lived in Germany for a few years while his dad served and BOOM interest to eat there! The kids loved it since there was a group of three musicians who were right near us singing in German and getting the crowd into it. Devin and Riley even raised their "steins" when asked to. Kelly, Frank and Dan all ordered brats, wienersnitzels, veal things other things ending in "zels" and kraut and potatoes...I had a side salad and some beer. Kids even ate a traditional German hot dog made with natural casing. I was interested to see if they would eat it since it was not grilled and was a different color than what they were used to. At Hofbrau Haus when you do a shot you get paddled by the wait staff. Kelly and Dan got to experience this lovely tradition. Both said it really does sting, but since I was driving I got to skip it. In the gift shop Devin was fixed on getting a lil paddle to hit our bums....yikes-he did settle on a German sports car from Aunt Kelly. Frank did get his Das Boot to drink out of and Dan joined in with one of his own!
Last night Frank and I went to see Andrea Bocelli. Frank gave me tickets for my birthday and I was so excited that it was finally time to go and see him. I saw him in December of 2008 at MGM by myself and it was just amazing. We went out to a casual dinner at Brio beforehand which is always delicious and then made our way to MGM. It was chaotic with so much traffic to get there but thankfully he came on 15 minutes late. Frank was impressed with the sheer size of the orchestra on the stage and the amount of choir on the risers behind them. Andrea sang mainly in Italian and a few in English. He has a Italian Soprano named Ana Maria sing a bunch of songs and another woman named Heather something sing as well. Both had amazing voices and were very powerful. Its so amazing to hear live and have all the different sounds of the instruments playing right infont of you rather than in a pit. I am glad Frank enjoyed it...that means I we get to go again sometime in the future :)
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