1 year anniversary: Viva Las Vegas!

For our 1 year anniversary we went to Las Vegas for 4 days and had so much fun! We've both been to Vegas before so seeing the sights wasn't the top of our list.  We stayed at a great resort that had 3 swimming pools and a lazy river, so as you can imagine we spent many hours at the pool!  However, we did spend time on the strip each day and did some things we've never done before. 

 We had to stop at the Las Vegas sign for a few pictures.  There were 3 tour buses there, many cars and even a wedding party, so we snuck up on the side of the line to get some pictures and took a few goofy ones as well.  We both got a hat from the Hard Rock cafe and decided to sport them that day.  Elvis Presley was also at the sign and offered pictures but did say that he works for tips.  We choose to bypass the offer. 

One of our stops was the Hoover Dam right on the Nevada Arizona border.  Neither of us had been there before and it was breath taking.  There is a new road that was recently built that goes over the dam and its 880 feet above the water.  We drove down on the old road to take pictures from below and then walked across the new bridge above.  It was amazing! As we looked at the wall to the right we laughed about the movie "Vegas Vacation" with Chevy Chase and the part the dam plays in the movie. 

This is the view from the new road above the dam.  If you're afraid of heights its probably a good idea not to look down or even walk across it. 

The view from the old road.  Gives you some perspective of just how high the new road is. 

There is so much concrete here.  It took 30,000 cubic yards of concrete and 16,000,000 pounds of steel just to build the new road.  I can only imagine how much concrete was used to build the dam itself. 

We went on the roller coaster at New York New York and it was sweet! We both love rides and roller coasters of all types and are pretty willing to try any of them that we can.

Insanity, the ride at the top of the Stratosphere!

Our anniversary was Monday so we had a late night at the strip.  I get tired about 10pm each night and we got back to our room at 1:30 am, so you can imagine how tired I was.  We had to make a pit stop for some caffeine about 11pm for both of us haha.  However, we had so much fun playing on the strip and celebrating!  We kicked off the evening by eating dinner at the Hard Rock Cafe and it was delicious! After that we walked around the strip seeing sights and doing some things.  We had to stop at the M&M's world and get some random colored candies.  They were definitely the most expensive M&M's I have ever bought and ever intend to buy.                                                

Then we decided to head to the north end of the strip.  There we went to the top of the Stratosphere and it was awesome! It was about midnight by this time so seeing the lights was far better than being up there during the day.  There are 3 rides at the top where the viewing deck is and we went on the ride called Insanity.  You sit in these chairs and the ride goes out over the edge of the Stratosphere and looking down is kinda scary at first knowing not much is strapping you to the chair.  Then the ride spins you around for awhile and then it's over.  It was a great view and so cool to look down and see just far up you really are. 

If you look in the picture to the right you can see the cables behind us.  That is for those people that decide to Bungee Jump off the top of the Stratosphere.  We wanted to do it sooo bad but it was way to expensive.  We saw some people do it however and it looks like an amazing experience and it's one that been added to our bucket lists!

We also went to downtown Las Vegas that same night to see the Fremont Street light show.  There's 1 city block that is covered and a light show put to music is displayed above you.  It's pretty cool to watch.  There were all sorts of weirdos downtown though, so we didn't stick around to do too much after the light show. 

The Hard Rock souvenir shop had lots of sweet things we wished we could buy but we just stuck with a hat for each of us, shown in the pictures at the beginning of the blog.  Kevin decided to model this sweet hat for the camera but we decided it's not really his style haha.  He's so goofy!

This is us at our table at the Hard Rock Cafe  where we ate dinner in celebration of our 1 year anniversary!

One of the three awesome pools at our resort.  This was the largest pool but more kid friendly so we swam at a different pool most of the time.  We were fortunate enough to have the pool to ourselves most of the time.  We spent about 2 hours at the pool each morning as well as in the evenings some nights.  We even bought goggles and dove for coins a lot.  It's just fun to have something to do and I guess you can say we're still kids at heart haha. 

One of my favorite pics from our trip! I called this the 'love fountain' and it was outside of Caesar's Palace.  I sure do love Kevin, he makes me so happy, and I feel so fortunate that he picked me!! : )

We had some time to kill before catching our shuttle back to the resort  one night, so we walked around inside Caesar's Palace and stumbled upon this awesome escalator! It twisted around and took you up all 3 floors.  We didn't really have a reason to ride it but we did just so we could say we did!!

We had a great time going to Las Vegas and although it was warm down there, we were lucky enough to have the cooler temps most of the days we were there, cooler temps being 95-100 degrees haha.  I can't believe we have been married for 1 year now.   Our love has grown so much over the last year, so much more than I could've ever imagined.  We have had quite the adventure over the last year and look forward to eternity together!

Sunburns and Mosquito bites

Our summer of family reunions and vacations has commenced and is quickly coming to an end. I am VERY behind when it comes to blogging.  I decided one post about the 4 trips thus far would be way too much so I split them up into 2. 

Our first adventure was at Wolf Creek in the Ogden canyon down in Utah with the Barber family.  All of the kids, spouses, and grandkids were there and we had so much fun!!  The resort was in a beautiful location surrounded by the mountains.  Kevin and I were only there for the first few days because of having to come back for work so we missed out on a lot of stuff.  The things we did do were lots of fun though.  We spent one day swimming at Cherry Hill water park and everyone got sunburned I think but it was fun.  I was surprised to see Mike and Tena (Kevin's parents) going down the water slides.  The resort had a great pool so we swam a lot as well as doing outdoor activities such as basketball, tennis, horse shoes, hiking, etc.  We, the adults, spent many hours playing cards after the kids had gone to bed and we had a lot of laughs.  When it comes to cards I'm a pretty good player and I think all of the Barber siblings and spouses now know that about me.

I somehow got roped into playing basketball with Tim, Todd, Chad, Kevin, and Emilee.  I wasn't too excited at first as sports is definitely not a favorite thing of mine to do.  I don't mind waching but when it comes to playing them I've never been any good at it and have decided I never will.  I got to play because Emilee played and they wanted one girl on each team (no hard feelings Emilee).  In the end I did admit to having fun playing with them.  They were of course nice and let me shoot and dribble the ball when someone was nice enough to pass it to me, but I didn't have a problem with just hanging out in the back of the court or the side lines and not touching the ball haha.  Emilee fell on the court and scraped up her leg pretty bad so Matt, her husband, took her spot.  I then got to guard Chad.  Now Chad gets picked on a lot by his brothers but he's a good sport about it.  I can't say I ever played basketball with the boys but now I can.  There was sweat flying and ball fighting but it was fun to watch Kevin and his brothers play.  When I played t-ball as a little kid I was hit in the face with the ball in the outfield and ever since then I have had this fear of balls coming at my face.   For this reason I never go under the basketball hoop.  Also, that seems to be a very competetive place to fight for the ball and I didn't want any part in it.  In the end, I did make a few baskets and had a great time playing, although I'm sure they were all laughing inside at how horrible my skills are haha.

I was horrible at taking pictures on this trip unfortunately but I did get a couple. 

                                            This is a picture of the dam below our resort. 

                                  Kevin and Emilee playing tennis against Chad and Kelsey.

Our next adventure was the following weekend at Copper Basin with my dad's family.  This is one of my favorite places ever! Growing up I can't tell you how many years of memories I have of being up there but I love the fact that now Kevin and I get to make our own memories up there.  At the campground we are about 1 hour from cell phone service and 1.5 hours from any sort of store and basically civilization and it's THE BEST thing ever! Four wheeler rides, hiking, lots of card playing, delicious food, and sitting around the fire making memories.  Here are a few pictures to enjoy.

 My grandpa Ed takes lots of naps! Him and Grandma are wonderful people and we all love them so much! What great examples to look up to of marriage, the importance of family, and having gospel centered lives.  I sure do love spending time with them and appreciate all that they do. 

 A tradition of ours is to hike up to Greek Lake each year.  It's always an adventure because you never know the condition of the trail.  Sometimes we can get a car up to the trail head and sometimes only 4 wheelers can get up the road so it's always an adventure.  We have to go through large creeks to get to the road that takes you to the trail head and Kevin loves to get us wet when we have the opportunity. This year we could get cars up the road so we had two vehicles and many 4 wheelers hauling people to the trail head.  At the bottom of the trail head is this cabin, seen below, that has been there for a long time.  Each year the roof falls in a little more but we can still get in there for pictures.  Another thing we always encounted up at the lake is snow.  We're sitting at about 10,000 feet so its chilly but beautiful!

This is my Dad and Lynn with most of their kids and grandkids.  It's nice to get together as we don't all live in the same places and states and visits are sometimes very spaced out.

 Grandpa Ed with most of his grandkids and great grandkids.  We had 35 people up at camp this year and that's probably the most that will ever be up there all at the same time. 

 Kevin and I with Green Lake in the background.  It's all glacier water so it's freezing cold but glistens green and beautiful year after year. 

               Grandpa Ed with the grandkids and three grandson-in-laws that were there this year. 

 This is kind of difficult to read, but last year Kevin carved our names into the log by the lake, where everyone carves things, and put "KG 11", adding a 12 this year.  I hope that one day we can have our kids intials added next to ours!

We went on many 4 wheeler rides and found a lot of snow this year.  Snow and tress blocked many trails forcing us to turn around but we had lots of fun exploring and going through the creeks. 

All in all, we had a fun 2 weeks in the sun and the mountains with our families.  We feel so blessed to get to spend time with them and live close to most of them.  Thank goodness that we were blessed with such wonderful families that have great traditions and love spending time together.  We look forward to the day that our children will get to make memories of their own with cousins and aunts and uncles.