Setting things up...busy busy.

This is going to be numbered.  I have been away working my little tail off getting ready for the shop.

1.  to start I will talk about my weight-the focus of this blog-I am back down to 174 (Yippee...only 10 left)  Yes I am sighing with BIG relief.  My restriction comes and goes (it is strange really but as long as that little number keeps going down.

2.  I now have a class schedule, a store sign, a front room on the store and a messy garage full of Ikea flat pack ready to become storage for all kinds of crafty fun goodness.  I am struggling a bit with a webpage but it is coming along.

3.  Grand opening date is June 1 (cause I set it in stone in an advertisement coming out in my old neighborhood newspaper as an insert).  I made copies of 1000.  650 are going out as inserts and the rest will be in the shop, at my bank, and local businesses who have already offered to share them for me.

4.  My local wine shop is saving corks for a cork craft class a friend is giving in June.  He also volunteered to give us a good price on wine for our monthly Chardo-knitting session-(Chardonnay and Knitting of course).  I am going to give him an advertising thank-you blurb of course.

5.  I opened a business account at our local bank (a short walk away) and they were so nice. They took copies of the class list and offered space so I could be their business of the month and set up a display inside the bank.

6.  I have several accounts ready to order my stock from but need a few key additional ones so if anyone knows knitters, fiber artists, spinners, dyers or somebody with unique crafty goodness let me know.

7.  I am headed off to San Francisco in a couple of weeks and would LOVE to be back into my smallest clothes comfortably.

xxxooo

BYOC-

1. Do you have any siblings? What is your relationship with them? Good, bad, ugly?

 I have two younger siblings. a brother who is one year younger than I am and a sister who is two years younger. When we were young we were really tight. We hung out together and with each others friends. We talked and joked around. Now that we are adults sadly-we have grown very far apart. They both live in Washington state (one on each side of the mountains). Over the years we have gotten into several disagreements. two years ago at Thanksgiving we had another holiday argument and after several discussions with my parents up to this point that we (my husband and youngest daughter) would no longer spend holidays filled with argument and discord this became the last straw and we packed up and came home. We have not attended a family holiday since.  I have not spoken to my sister or brother since.

As a child my grandmother did not speak to her sister for more than 10 years. I have a sinking feeling that this might, sadly, end up the same way.

 2. Let’s talk pizza. Do you prefer homemade or restaurant? What toppings are your fave?

 Home made all the way!!! My foody husband makes pizza crust that is so much better than anything I have ever had out. When he makes it is  old school margherita with just fresh cheese, basil and fresh tomatoes. Someday I want to have it in Italy.

 3. When is the last time you cried – in sadness and in joy?

 I cannot really remember the last time I cried. The closest I came was a little welling up when my younger daughter made an off-hand comment about something I said. I hurt my feelings a touch :). The most beautiful side effect of the prozac is the crying. I hardly ever do it anymore.  My last full on cry was probably when I quit my job during BOOBS last fall :)

 I used to cry all of the time-during movies, when I got mad, when I had PMS, when I was tired or stressed out..you name it I cried about it.

 4. Do you own a gun – one that is specifically yours? Do you know how to use it?

 I do not own a gun. There are no guns in my house. I don't have anything against them in general and I have and know how to shoot them. I am much more a fan of guns for useful reasons...like finding food :)

 5. Repeat question. Summarize your week!

 Holy crapity..what a week. I am going to number a list here:

 a. I had a weight crisis. I discovered the second most beautiful side effect of Prozac: band tightening. I had decided to wean myself off the Prozac but have quickly changed my mind and going to keep it on board until my 20 pound weight gain is off and then get in quickly for a fill as/before I go off the things. 

b. I got the front part of my shop fixed up this week and my sign made!! I will take and post a picture tomorrow of what is done thus far.

 c. I had an interview for the neighborhood newspaper that I used to write for. It was quite nice and she is going to get me some free advertising. :) wahoo.

 d. I have been in and out of blogs this week. Leaving some comments when I can and at others times just reading. Some of us are doing so well and some others are struggling (such is life right?). I hope as our weather warms up (and gets cooler for those in the southern hemisphere) welcome the change and get great weather.

 e. Our cars have been broken. Last week I didn't have my car because my daughter's car needed work and it took almost all week to get it fixed. Then on Friday the day hers came out and I got my car back my husband's truck broke down!!! It spent this week at in the shop and he borrowed my car all week (I am kind of sick of not having a car when I need to do errands).

 f. I blogged a bit more this week but..have any of you blogger users been ANNOYED by the recent remodeling AGAIN!!! I do not adapt well to technological change and it annoyed me so much that I did not post for a couple days because finding my blog post page was so awkward. xxxooo :)  I edit..a lot...I find typos and then find some more when I check back in.  I am a horrible typo artist.  Well..I just had a heck of a time finding the edit function in the new window format..GRRRRR.  I finally found it but it was after clicking on several other buttons that messed up my formatting.

Holy Crapi-doodles I is Tight.

Ok..I needed a fill I think butttttt this is how I know.

This morning I got on the scale. It still read 180.1 I did my usual cuss to myself. and then went back on my prozac. I can without a doubt tell you that the stuff greatly...dramatically...completely and immediately impacts my tightness. I took two prozac at noon. I also took my vitamins and drank a vente peppermint mocha frapp. I got home about 2pm and was hungry. I shared a quesadilla with Grace. It went down fine. I felt proud of myself because I ate half but wanted all. Grace and I went to the book store and then dropped off some stuff to the Salvation Army guy.

At 4pm I knew Grace was going to be at Choir for 2 1/2 hours and the quesadilla appeared to be going down OK. We stopped for a second frapp (I know just hush that isn't the point)...anyhow I didn't get to drink the bloomin thing because voila...my first PB session in what feels like ages occurred.

I stopped with all ingesting until just now. 9pm :) I had a small glass of water and now I am S...L...o...w...l...y eating a portion of a baked potato from the fridge. So here is the thing. I really think it is time to get off the prozac. I am feeling OK..but the dilemma: Those beautiful pills keep me tight and hanging on goal. The big change is now obvious. This big weight gain has coincided with a major cut back in my prozac. I went from two to one pill and then this last week or so dropped them all together.

My doctor has told me that prozac stays in your system for quite a while and that daily fluctuations would not show up right away. I am thinking this is a load of hooey right about now. I say it has an effect in oh...about 2-3 hours. I know it at least tightens my band in that period of time.

So the plan at this time is to ride this new found knowledge back to goal or almost to goal and then visit the doctor (Yup..make an appointment now in preparation). I knew if I worked on it I would figure it out but the figuring has been a touch scary.

xxxooo

Out and About

It has been the best of times and the worst of times. I am messing with stuff here again (Life, career, meds, and diet) and as usual David and Grace and I are running around doing too many things.

On the weight front my weight is still exploding. I am now up to 180. I am now starting to feel quite sorry for myself because sure I figure I have earned 175 but not flipping 20 pounds of expansion. I am now squeezing into my clothes and mostly wearing ones that are comfortable. My size 12 jeans from Las Vegas are getting a lot of wear as are my yoga pants. The shirts that I debated getting rid of last summer are now coming out and going on me. Every morning I vow to call the doctor but I still have not. I will...soon. I am kind of hanging out seeing what will happen and really trying to concentrate on what I am doing differently. I am definitely not as active as I was last year at this time. I am now home most of the time and just walking to and from coffee and the grocery store. The new stables has a stall cleaner so I don't get to muck out stalls anymore. I have been off my bike and we have only fit in a short walk or two as a family. Nothing has been regular again (rain sucks really).

One of my friends asked me to train for a century ride with her in November. I think I am going to do it...eeek. It has been a goal of mine for a few years now but I wimped out. She rode at the ungodly hour of 7am on Sunday with a group but..there is no way I can do 7am. I need to get an hour in this week on my bike and then talk to her about when we can get onto our bikes and get cracking. I figure even if I can make it to 50 miles I will be ahead of the game.

Grace started a class this weekend on forensics. Universities around here offer classes for kids on interesting topics called Saturday Academy. She goes to the class in the afternoon at a college in north Portland. The pay off is David and I get to explore a part of Portland we have not really hung out in before. On Saturday while Grace was in class we went to a place called Scrap (a place that sells salvaged office, craft and art stuff ). I picked up some wire that I can knit for 2.50 for a big spool, some linen, an old style Pentel mechanical pencil and some really cool buckles. David got a reel of resistor arrays (like 5000 of them) and a house charger for our cell phone. We walked away with all of this about 10 bucks.

We then went to the rebuild it store. They sell used wood, windows, appliances, cabinets light fixtures, tiles etc. We didnt really find anything here but it was really fun to look at where the 1970's went to die :) People were all over the place getting excited about old things.

The street that the Rebuild it store was on is really nifty. They had other shops along the street, bars, brewpubs, restaurants and even and urban farm store that sold chickens! If you have seen an episode of Portlandia you will recognize this part of town. David and I both went..ohhhh this is the Portland they are talking about. :) It was quite fun! and as a bonus when we picked up Grace she was happy with her Saturday class and told us all about the stuff she learned.

On Saturday evening David and I packed up and shifted a bunch of stuff out of the garage and brought home more books to go on the living room shelves. We sorted about another couple of boxes to sell back to our local book store. I am also ready to send the book I talked about a few posts ago 'Habit' on to the next person who wants to read it (more on that in the next post so keep and eye out).

Ok...onto some pictures.

The week before Spring break we got snow!!!! Here are some pictures of the snow coming down in front of my house.





Pictures from the wine tasting event last Thursday.





North Portland on Mississippi Street from Saturday

Fun Neighbors...Hic....

Down the street from out house is a hotel. It has the same lay-out as our brownstone house but the owners bought three of them and knocked out walls and created a cool hotel. They held a wine tasting tonight and David and I went. It was very fun. we met some neighbors. Talked to a published wine critic (he got quite drunk even though I saw him pouring his wine into the spit bucket) and drank some rose made from pinot noir grapes (quite good) and other reds created from grapes grown up the road from my cousin and aunt and uncle (the ones who did the VA stint and who were so much 'in' the blog this year).

It was REALLY nice to go to a wine tasting so close to home. As we walked home our new next door neighbors invited us in for more wine and conversation. It is amazing to see how different the same house can look with different occupants. The brownstone next door is very mod (which I love). They have the stove range hood David is gagging for and they also split their dining room into TV room/dining combo. They have birch kitchen cabinets while ours are cherry (I am happier with ours). They have the black slab granite counter tops that I miss from my old house.

The hotel was interesting to look at too..They turned my dining room into a hotel room!!!! so sitting smack where my dining room table is was a bed. The kitchen was intact and looked very much like mine. They took the main floor bathroom door and made it so that you can enter from the dining room. the Living room portion you saw in my pics is this hotel lobby. A unit to one side was busted open and held three more guest rooms plus a conference room.

I had a little stress-out today. We went to homeowners association meeting on Tuesday and asked for permission to create a shop sign and change out or garage door for a glass one. The board asked us what business we were planning and stupid me told them. Apparently like many HOA boards. They like to take on the decisions that are really not theirs to rubber stamp. I got an email today from the president of the board stating that he was very sorry but the rules would not allow me to alter the use of my garage. Well..as I did not ask for his permission on this I carefully crafted a reply telling him so. I asked for a sign (no response was given for this) and to change my garage door. I am going to back off on the garage door and basically open the business under the wire. All of the advice I received from parties who I will not reveal in such a public blog forum :) suggested this course was probably the wisest. I checked as a back up plan on a rental space a mere 1/2 a block from my house..the rent was $2000 a month!!! yeah..no...I would be happy to gross that amount in the beginning and do not think a fledgling knitting/craft coop would hold up to overheads that high. I do not know what business would frankly but maybe I am underestimating the power of yarn and sticks :)

Apparently it is easier to rent your basement out than it is to open a little craft studio...Ok..I am going to go now. I am just a leetle tipsy. Oh by the way you know when I moaned about being sick after drinking a 1/2 bottle of wine and chasing it with a bit of chocolate a few weeks ago. Umm..I had several glasses of wine and even two slices of cheese (really good wine and cheese even). I just got drunk. At this weight I do not know if this is something to celebrate but a little piece of me..you know that part that was self-pitying when I wanted to at least get a little tipsy at the last party I went to..was celebrating..for now.

Just so you know...I have managed to type and catch a whole heck of a lot of typos in this post (drunk ones). Be kind if I missed some..hic....


xxxooo

Weighty issues

I am having a bit of a weight crisis here. The scale read 176 again this morning. This and a notice from my weight tracker that I have not updated in too long lead me on a fact finding mission. You all know I am a nerd..a numbers nerd. Well..here is something we can all gain from a look at the big picture numbers. I have logged my weight from the beginning of this weightloss thing. I set up conditions that I have kept constant throughout. 1. I weigh everyday. 2. I do not pay attention to small ups and down on the scale but log when I lose whole pounds (or more than one). Only one other time did I feel the need to mark a weight gain. That gain funnily enough was last April!!! I seem to have an April problem.

The numbers say:

1. 8/22/07 I weighed in at 304 pounds (that was actually my all tie high and I recorded that as a marker.
2. My surgery day weight on 8/22/2008 was 298 pounds.
3. I really started logging faithfully when I really felt restriction. that was 3/2009. Yup more than 6 months after surgery. I weighed in at 259 on this date.
4. I only have one entry in April of that year (that means I lost 5 pounds but it came off in a big lump with nothing between 3/27 and 4/20. Yup that was a lovely April (note the sarcasm).
5. 2010 was a very good year (note the lack of sarcasm). I lost steadily even in April..each month has at least 4 lost entries with losses of 2 or 3 pounds at a time.
6. I hit goal 164 on 11/28/2010. Two years and 3 months after lapband surgery.
7. Things went along pretty steadily at this goal weight until February when I lost a couple more pounds and hit my all time low weight of 162. Ahh this low weight was too good to last and I promptly blossomed back to 171 in you guessed it..April 2011.
8. In June I reclaimed my goal victory of 164 and proceeded to drop back to 162 and then even (for about a day) hit 161 for a really all time low :)
9. The new year has ben a bit volotile..the scale has swung around from 164 to 170 but these last few weeks have seen a swing that strikes fear in my bones...176..I do not like that number and despite an imagined reclaiming of the downward trend the scale seems to be holding stubbornly to this higher range. I am doing my math :) calculating my need for a fill (I almost called my surgeon and made an appointment more than once today) and evaluating (and reevaluating) my habits in order to figure out what in the game has changed. I do know I am eating a whole lot more than I was before. The questions are...can I muster the internal strength to eat what I should and not what I shouldn't. Will a fill help or hurt? Am I OK with this newer bigger self (ummm NO). Is exercise a contributing factor?

I do know: rain in April keeps me on my butt as does my knew unemployed status. I need to rectify that at least.

*** I need some love that is for sure. Come one people..provide comments. Sometimes a girl needs to know she isn't blogging into the dark.

xxxooo

Picture Time-My Phone is Smokin...and so is the cat.

The cat loves catnip. We popped into the pet store to pick up a scratching cardboard thingy and talked to the shop owner who cared for her for a month. This woman said that by sprinkling cat nip into the cat tower/scratching post that she would soon use it. We came home and gave it a good sprinkling and voila..these are pictures of one stoned cat hanging in her house. :) She is settling in better than any cat I have ever owned before. Two thumbs up for Kokamo.
I made a little batch of evil this week. On Facebook there is this 100 foods you should try in your lifetime survey. I will include it next. none of us had tried frito pie and thought..well..come on...it sounds to good to miss after the nastiness that was sea urchin. I made it for dinner. It was tasty of course. I made it with homemade chili and sprinkled freshly chopped heirloom tomatoes on the top to appease my guilt.

Served on a plate.

Grace liked it.

David Liked it.





To further appease my guilt I made little crustless Quiches and popped them in ziplock bags for quick high protein meals. David has been reheating two for breakfast. Grace has been avoiding them but did say they were good when I made her eat one yesterday.

Here is the list..How may can you tick off? I am up to 73. I am not sure if I want to try a few of them.

1. Abalone
2. Absinthe
3. Alligator
4. Baba Ghanoush
5. Bagel and Lox
6. Baklava
7. Barbecue Ribs
8. Bellini
9. Bird's Nest Soup
10. Biscuits and Gravy
11. Black Pudding
12. Black Truffle
13. Borscht
14. Calamari
15. Carp
16. Caviar
17. Cheese Fondue
18. Chicken and Waffles
19. Chicken Tikka Masala
20. Chile Relleno
21. Chitlins
22. Churros
23. Clam Chowder
24. Cognac
25. Crab Cakes
26. Crickets
27. Currywurst
28. Dandelion Wine
29. Dulce De Leche
30. Durian
31. Eel
32. Eggs Benedict
33. Fish Tacos
34. Foie Gras
35. Fresh Spring Rolls
36. Fried Catfish
37. Fried Green Tomatoes
38. Fried Plantain
39. Frito Pie
40. Frogs’ Legs
41. Fugu
42. Funnel Cake
43. Gazpacho
44. Goat
45. Goat’s Milk
46. Goulash
47. Gumbo
48. Haggis
49. Head Cheese
50. Heirloom Tomatoes
51. Honeycomb
52. Hostess Fruit Pie
53. Huevos Rancheros
54. Jerk Chicken
55. Kangaroo
56. Key Lime Pie
57. Kobe Beef
58. Lassi
59. Lobster
60. Mimosa
61. MoonPie
62. Morel Mushrooms
63. Nettle Tea
64. Octopus
65. Oxtail Soup
66. Paella
67. Paneer
68. Pastrami on Rye
69. Pavlova
70. Phaal
71. Philly Cheese Steak
72. Pho
73. Pineapple and Cottage Cheese
74. Pistachio Ice Cream
75. Po’ Boy
76. Pocky
77. Polenta
78. Prickly Pear
79. Rabbit Stew
80. Raw Oysters
81. Root Beer Float
82. S’mores
83. Sauerkraut
84. Sea Urchin
85. Shark
86. Snail
87. Snake
88. Soft Shell Crab
89. Som Tam
90. Spaetzle
91. Spam
92. Squirrel
93. Steak Tartare
94. Sweet Potato Fries
95. Sweetbreads
96. Tom Yum
97. Umeboshi
98. Venison
99. Wasabi Peas
100. Zucchini Flowers

More Pictures From Las Vegas and The New House Volume I

Las Vegas from my cell phone. I love having a cell phone to take pictures with. I also like it that I can email them to myself. The downside is that we then have more than one camera with pictures on it and it sometimes takes me a while to get all of the pictures together in the same place :)






Some of the decorations on the exterior of the Venetian Hotel.

At the beginning of the meal and wine tasting at Joel Robechon on trip.
The pudding like dish at 10 pm in the picture were the dreaded urchin. They looked and felt like pudding or soft custard in your mouth but creepier.
David at the end of our swanky Joel Rubichon meal. You can tell from the grin that he is at this point rather drunk and concerned whether his legs are going to work when it is time to go. On our last day we walked up the strip and through my favorite hotel in Las Vegas: The Bellagio. This Spring has a Dutch theme. Behind David is a small Carousel and a large filled 'wooden' shoe with large swathes of tulips.


Long promised pictures of our new house.

This is the view when you look down a set of steps to the basement door. My knitting/craft studio business will be here.
The following interior photos are of the main living level. The house is what I call a bownstone. It is a lot of multi-family row houses with a front stoop and a small set of stairs that can be used to go down into a downstairs entrance. The interior pictures are up the stoop set of stairs.


When you enter the house there is a living room. There are still quite a few boxes of books to go on the shelves. I am debating whether I should cover the books in a common color. My daughters suggested I sort them by color by that just seems wrong..I like my books sorted by subject. I also need a larger rug. The red one is a trial for color but I don't like it. Grace is going to have this small rug up in her room. See future posts for house pictures Volume II: The upstairs and Volume III: The shop (that one might be a while :)).
The lighting is bad but this is my front window. It overlooks the street and if I look down I can see my front lower patio.

With a right turn and down a small hallway you arrive in a large kitchen dining room area. This is the view down that hallway from the kitchen/dining room part of the house. On the left side of the hall is my old china closet. It will hopefully move back down to the yarn shop soon and be replaced by a built in bar/drinks area.

A view of my kitchen area.

On the large wall I am collecting large white platters and plates to hang around the large wall clock. I found two last weekend at a couple of antique stores we visited. I am hoping to build a window seat and built in book shelf from floor to ceiling where the smaller one is. Right now we have two sets of cubes (our old night stands) to hold our cookbooks. I hope the window seat will hold our games, puzzles and things.
Most of my neighbors have split the dining room area into a family room/dining area. We decided to go with a large table that seats 10 but found really comfortable dining room chairs. We have taken to sitting in the dining room a lot with the radio on.

Ten Things Thursday

1. The scale went down another pound today. I will feel so relieved when i break through that 170 again.

2. I have found that Sugar and carbs are an important aspect of my life-either that or fake sugars are definitely not something I should be ingesting.

3. My restriction is definitely returning. Dinner was quite filling last night and I am having to put in some effort to getting my morning vitamins and pills down.

4. We had sun this morning-Now the clouds are returning :(

5. The shop is coming along. I had a contractor come and look over what I wanted. He said he could start work next week and get me open by May 1. I applied for a business license last night and have a logo and a webpage ready to be developed. I need to get cracking on ordering stock now and getting my sign approved by our HOA.

6. I love having the extra spare time that I have since I quit work. I am a house-cleaning machine. I am much happier when things are tidy.

7. Dissolved vitamin D and E taste sooo fishy..blech burp.

8. Grace has horseback riding lessons today at 3:30. I cannot wait to sit in the heated parent room and knit!!!

9. Our new cat is the coolest cat I have ever owned. She is so friendly!! I am really happy so far and Grace is stepping up to her responsibilities as main cat box scooper and room cleaner. I was really worried she would not be able to stay on top of things but so far soo good.

10. Oh freaking heck...I am out of stuff to say and it just started dumping buckets of freaking hail-rain. Sometimes I hate the northwest in Spring.

11. I just thought of something-I really need to keep a log of my restriction. It is soooo variable these days and I have decided that a running log of how many days I am too loose, just right and too tight might help me decide when/if I need a fill.

xxxooo

Thank Goodness :)

So David's High fat and protein with a low carb diet was officially a failure for me. Just putting the sugar free restriction on me sent me off on bender land. In addition my restriction went to crap. Soo..when I came home from Las Vegas I had officially weighed in at 177.5. I nearly had a stroke!!!!! this is an overall gain of 15 pounds from my lowest and 12 from goal. Of course this got me back on my own successful brand of wagon (Well it was successful before anyway).

I have learned from this:

1. There is No one way for anyone and David's way is not my way.

2. Examining the changes over the past few weeks adds up to: reduced exercise and more food intake. I need to reduce this.

3. I might have to forgo the coffee again but for now I am going back to sugar but re-reduce the fat back to my normal order.

So far...I am back down two pounds to 175...There is still some nail biting going on but at least the scale is headed the right direction again.

Las Vegas Vacation wrap up and Our New Family Member

If you enlarge this you will see that this place offers a free meal to anyone who weighed more than 350 pounds. Both of us mentally calculated whether we would have ever given a free meal and then both felt conflicted by the whole premise of the place. Needless to say burgers and fries cooked in lard momentarily sounded good. We managed to pass on this one and went to an Irish pub across the street.


A Pizza place owned by Mario Batali. We had lunch here on one of our days. The crust on the pizza was really good :) You can also see much of the square at the Venetian.

The indoor canal at the Venetian. We did take a romantic ride but it was very short. I imagine a real one in Venice would be better :)

David drinking his wine at the pizza lunch.





Dinner at Robuchon. A fancy resturant at the MGM Casino. David was dying to eat here. I did not look at the bill and I don't want to know how much it was but the food was excellent and I managed to eat a 16 course tasting menu. I also tried my first ever frog leg (good), enjoyed caviar for the second time (hated it the first time liked it this time). Only one course was nasty. They served us sea urchin. It tasted like butterscotch pudding and looked like it too. I do not know if this is what urchin usually tastes like but I would prefer real butterscotch pudding I think. I only managed one bite of this and then passed it over to David.

I did manage to eat the 16 courses by taking bites mostly and making David eat the rest :). There were only a few things I ate all of (mostly the best bread I have ever eaten in MY LIFE!!!) :) I even had to give up on the dessert

On Wednesday we rented a car and drove out to the West rim of the Grand Canyon. Along the way was The Hoover Dam.



We stopped and hiked up to a really nifty bridge that provided a great view of the dam and was full of mathy plaques about the bridge construction. The bridge is located on the Nevada -Arizona border and very windy.



The West Rim of the Grand Canyon is awesome. From what I understand from the bus driver that there is a little intrigue going on with the observation deck builders and the local Hualipai Tribe. I haven't had a chance to search the web for the scoop but the gist of the story is that the builders were trying to take advantage of the tribal members. The tribe sued the builders and are now running the place. The result is that building and development has slowed down considerably. Instead of plunking their money into the attraction the tribe is using the money earned from the more than 500,000 visitors to put in water lines. According to the bus driver even today the tribal village does not have a stable water source. Every winter their current system freezes and fails. The down side was the walkway was still under construction. The walkway itself was built well and it was rather cool really because you could still see the raw construction of the attached building. You can see the walkway behind David. It was really cool to see both the tribe taking such an active role in running the place and looking through a glass window to the Colorado River and cliffs under your feet.

After we drove back from the Grand Canyon we popped into Morels for a drink and snack. This is probably the best place at the Ventian. The food and drinks was great and we could sit on the patio in the warmth of the evening and watch the people walk along the strip. There was also a great view of the hotel arches and walkways. We did go on Wednesday night and the clubs were a bit noisy so I would highly recommend going on Monday night when the clubs aren't open :)

Before our last dinner in Las Vegas we took a walk around the outside of the Venetian. The outside walkway was lovely at sunset. Note the dress-I finally bought a wrap dress. I have wanted one as a reward for hitting goal. Little did i know I would finally find one I liked after hitting and rebounding up the scale again. Eek.
Dinner on our last night in Las Vegas. David and I went to Bouchon another fancy place owned by Thomas Keller (another of David's chef favorites). This was at the Venetian but in a nice quiet floor away from the mall madness of the main part of the Casino and mall. The restaurant overlooked a garden like swimming pool.


David and our newest family member: Kokomo. She will mostly be Grace's responsibility. The poor friendly kitting has been sitting up for adoption in our neighborhood pet store window for at least a month. The store has a program where they take in an adoptable cat from the local pound and sell her for a minimal price. We waited until after spring break and she was still in her window so today we adopted her and rewarded the pet store handsomely with the purchase of a cat play set, litter box, food and a toy.

She is settling in nicely and has taken turns sitting on each of our laps. She is also quite comfortable surfing the web :).