Vegas!

This past week I was at a continuing education conference in Las Vegas put on by the American Association of Nurse Practioners. It was held at the Venetian and Palazzo hotels. Talk about luxury! It is a five star hotel and I had a luxury suite all to myself. Of course I wish Brandon could be with me but someone has to work :)

The Venetian obviously is supposed to be like Venice and since I have actually been to Venice (with my good friend Kelli Jo) I think I appreciated the ambience even more.

The gondola rides.

The ornate paintings and ceiling murals.

And Saint Marks square.

And don't forge the gelato! Except I forgot I deleted my photo of the gelato!

I learned a lot while I was there and took a couple of workshops- skin biopsy and eye exam. Some poor cows helped us learn theses skills.

Those weren't the only interesting things I saw while I was there.

I did a little shopping at Ceasar's palace.

Watched the volcano erupt at the Mirage.

Watched Larry King interview a couple of legendary nurse practitioners.

And then did a little clubbing with the celebs.

Went to a Lakers game.

And saw a few concerts.

I was able to go to a try-out of "American Idol".

And we were honored to have President Obama come to the conference to support all of us amazingly dedicated nurse practitioners!

Another interesting thing I learned was about the EDC. I met a gal while waiting for drink at the pool who told me she was in Vegas for the EDC. As I walked around I would hear people yell "EDC!" And everyone would start cheering. I saw lots of people dressed in an odd fashion, even more odd than the "normal" Vegas attire.

So naturally, being at a continuing education conference, I wanted to further my learning and looked it up on Google. It stands for Electric Dance Carnival. On the local news they expected it to draw 100,000 people to Vegas. A You-tube promo video shows people dressed in all kinds of carnival-parade-float-like attire dancing to a loud electric bass with carnival rides and,I expect, lots of liquid Tom-foolery. I might have attended but I forgot to bring my tutu, fishnet stockings, and glow-in-the dark face paint. Sigh. . . Maybe next time.

Month #2 How to build a house

There are lots of decisions to be made when building a house. Here are some of our selections:

Tile for our entry, great room, kitchen, and hallways. I think we are leaning toward the top tile in a 12 x 24 in size.

We finally came to an agreement on our granite for kitchen countertops:

We are going with a dark grey shingle (2nd from left side on top row):

We are working with a custom cabinet business to design some built-in shelves around the fireplace as well as the other cabinets in our home. I think we have decided on what range/oven we will buy - Gas range with double ovens. We still need to pick out a dishwasher and are researching that one still. If it weren't already 11 o'clock at night I might even put some links with pictures of those things on our blog.

Along the way we do expect some glitches. Our first one was a Doozy! The subs who poured the concrete forms for our garage did not make the corners square. Brandon noticed that it didn't look quite right and mentioned this to our contractor who didn't quite understand what he was trying to explain. Our garage floor was poured and then they realized the mistake. We had to have the  sides of the garage jackhammered out and the foundation re-poured. Fortunately, we are not paying for that mistake!

Right now, the roof is almost finished and everything inside has been framed. We have some actual rooms in our house!

It is even grandma approved!

Month #1 How to build a house.

First, move a lot of dirt.

And more dirt.

Get some good piles of dirt!

Make sure you advertise who is building your house.

Second, water all that dirt so you don't annoy your neighbors with all the dust. Buy some ditch boots, while you are at it.

Because some of your neighbors will be snakes!

Third, pour your foundation. In our case, a slab.

Fourth, build some sturdy walls. Our builder, Mike Rohlfing, specializes in Insulated Concrete Foam (ICF). The outside walls have 2.5 inches of styrofoam on either side of 6 inches of concrete. This makes a home very airtight and energy efficient.

Don't forget to have a little fun while you are at it.

Fifth, make sure you don't forget you need a garage. Garages were meant for storing stuff AND your vehicles so make it big!

Make sure you get enough sleep because this is hard work,

Sixth, frame your interior walls. It will help you figure out how much space you'll have in your rooms. Maybe even pretend to take a shower?

This building stuff is easy!! (Especially when your spouse is doing most of the work :)

We could use some suggestions about what kind of retaining wall to put in on the side of our home. Our lot is on a hill and there is about 13 feet of elevation difference from one side to the other. Unfortunately, the builder of the lot above us, didn't do much excavation. We ended up having to dig out quite a bit of land to make our yard flat. I think this is going to be one of those "unexpected costs" of building.