Merry Christmas!

Our little trip to Vegas was fun, but man, were we pooped when we got home. We're not used to that much walking after sitting at our desks and typing all the time. So we opened our presents from each other on Saturday night and I also had a present from B's mom to open and we'd gotten a box from B's brother in NC. B's mom got me these cute Vans:

I'm totally not a skater girl, but I like Vans, so B suggested these to his mom. I'm not sure if he picked these out specifically or just suggested some kind of Vans, but either way I like them. Unfortunately, there's a piece of fabric inside the right shoe that gave me a blister when we took a walk yesterday. I tried to cut it out, but I couldn't quite get it all because it's way down in the front of the shoe on top. I'll have to figure something out, because I want to wear these.

B got me an Ayumi calendar for 2009, some things from Sephora that I asked for, some cozy fleece pajamas and a fleece robe and a little Ayumi purse that I actually already bought for myself a few months ago, but I don't mind having two. I think I'm forgetting something else, too.

We had some serious snow here recently, which came as a surprise. We figure we got about 4 inches. This is a picture taken looking out our front window:


I don't remember now what day this was, but it was snowing when we got up that morning and it snowed all day. It took a few hours, but it eventually started to stick on the plants and trees and then on the roads later. Then it mostly melted the next day, though there is still snow on the mountain tops now. There's no snow on the ground today, though, so no white Christmas for us.

We left for Vegas on Sunday morning around 9:45 and got there around noon, I think. We decided to have lunch at the Wynn first, which was good, but expensive, then we went to Bonanza Gifts, the worlds' largest gift shop. I've seen this place many times and it looks kind of kitchy, so I never really wanted to go in, but then I saw this thing about it on TV and turns out they have some cool Vegas junk in there. I found what I wanted, which was a pair of big fuzzy dice pillows, and a few other things.

Next we went to Sephora and dropped some cash. I had my makeup done while I was there and the woman did a nice job. She suggested some products to use for my melasma, but B just got me something for Christmas that's supposed to treat melasma, so I want to try that first. He got me this stuff by Dermadoctor called Immaculate Correction. I really hope it works. It's gotten some good reviews online. When I mentioned this product to the woman at Sephora, she didn't seem to know what I was talking about or recognize the brand, which is funny because they sell it. I guess you can't know all the brands, though, because they carry a lot of different ones.

So far, we haven't gotten anything from my dad and his wife or my mom and her husband, not even a card. That's kind of disappointing. I'm hoping they got their gift certificates in time.

Oh, speaking of gift certificates, and back to the Vegas story, we ate dinner at a place called Envy on Sunday night. I found this place online and read lots of good reviews, and several of the reviewers also said they were able to use a coupon from restaurant.com, so I looked into it and got a coupon for $25 off. This was a steak place, so we both got the filet mignon and it was perfect. My mouth waters every time I think about this meal. I like sweet rather than dry champagne, so I asked which of theirs was the sweetest and the waiter brought me one that's not on their menu, because they don't normally have it, and it was perfect, too. We ended up getting there a half hour early because we gave ourselves extra time to find the place, but they seated us anyway. I thought that was really nice. I took my leftover steak with me and heated it up in the microwave the next day and it was still delicious.

We were planning to eat at the Orleans breakfast buffet on Monday morning, but B's stomach was a little upset from dinner the night before, so instead we went down to the casino and I found a little place selling coffee, donuts and muffins. We went back to the Bonanza store because the sweatshirt I bought was too small, so I exchanged it for a bigger one, then we went over to this mall off the strip called the Boulevard Mall. B's mom sent him some money to buy a new pair of gym shoes, so we found a Foot Locker in the mall and he was able to find a nice pair of shoes there. I went to the Claire's next door and got a couple pairs of earrings.

Before the mall, we also went to the Bellagio to see what kind of Christmas display they had, and we took some photos there:

Parts of it were closed off because they were still putting it together, apparently. This was really the only place that had nice Christmas decorations up. After we finished at the mall, we had a little lunch in the food court and then left for home. Fortunately, we had no rain or snow to deal with on the way there or coming back, but it's been super cloudy and gloomy for the past few weeks now. I was hoping it'd be sunny, but we did get to see some snow here, so that was fun, and fortunately we didn't have to go anywhere that day.

Happy Holidays to everybody!

Christmas time

We've seen a couple of these guys in the neighborhood recently:


Coyotes! I saw one in front of our house across the street this evening, just trotting along ver casually. B and I both saw two walking through our back yard, not at the same time, and we saw another one about a block away from us when we were out taking a walk a few weeks ago. Pretty neat.

It seems like every time I make an entry here, it's about some doctor's appointment, so...this one will be, too. I didn't go to the appointment with the general practitioner because they called me the day before my appointment and said they'd have to reschedule AGAIN because the doctor wouldn't be in that day. This is the same place that cancelled on me because I wasn't exactly 15 minutes early, so I'm done with them. I gave them two chances and I'm through trying to get in to see a doctor there. I haven't found another doctor to see yet, and I'm feeling pretty discouraged about the whole thing right now, so I haven't really looked for anyone else.

Today was my monthly visit to the pain management doctor and I had to wait almost an hour to see the doctor. Usually they aren't that slow and I've only had to wait a maximum of a half hour. I don't know what was going on today. I had kind of a psychic moment after finally being taken back to the exam room. B was waiting in the car for me and I knew he must be wondering what was taking so long, and I imagined he might come in looking for me. Just a minute later, I heard B at the check-in desk asking about me, so I poked my head out to show him I was back in the exam room. I felt really bad about taking so long because he had to adjust his work schedule to take me to this appointment, but really there was nothing I could do about it except sit there and wait. Then as usual, I saw the doctor for all of 20 seconds; he gave me my prescription refills and I left.

My hand has been feeling better, but I haven't been getting a lot of work the past couple weeks because this is typically a slow time of year. Course, I have plenty of other aches and pains to make up for that. Seems like when the weather changes, I feel worse. We were having lots of sunny, mild days here until last week when it suddenly got cloudy and we actually had some rain during the past few days. Isn't this supposed to be the desert? There's some snow on the highest mountain peaks in the area too, but there was no snowfall here in the valley. I wouldn't mind seeing a little snow.

Next Sunday is when we're going up to Vegas for a couple days and we're going to open our Christmas presents from each other the night before. B actually talked me into opening one present each early, last weekend. He wanted to give me some coffee that he ordered from my favorite coffee place back in NC, so now I have 6 pounds of fresh new coffee flavors. I really need to freeze some of it now so it stays fresh. The box the coffee was in smelled so good when I opened it up. My favorite is probably Sumatra Mandheling, but he also got a bunch of flavored coffees for me like Hazelnut, Chocolate Fudge, etc. And Mel, if you read this, my tried-and-true method for making coffee is one ounce of ground coffee to 6 ounces of water. I'm a fan of General Foods International Coffee, too. They make some instant chai tea that's very good in addition to the coffee flavors.

B and I enjoy watching The Dog Whisperer, even though we don't have any dogs, and last night we saw an episode where Cesar went to Vegas and helped various members of Cirque du Soleil with their dog issues. That was pretty cool because one of the people he helped was one of the main characters in Ka, which we saw back in 2005. That was our favorite Vegas show out of all the ones we've seen, I think. We've talked about going to see it again, in fact. Maybe one of these days my dad will come out to visit, like he keeps saying he wants to, and we could take him and his wife to see Ka.

We got the last of our Christmas stuff taken care of yesterday by going to the mail store and mailing our Christmas cards and also a box of presents to the store B used to co-own back in NC. I guess technically he still does own part of it, but only a small percentage. Anyway, we filled a small box with little presents, like a Route 66 mug, some Arizona keychains, candies, chocolates and toys, and then put a card inside telling them to divide up the stuff however they want. I think they'll enjoy getting a box of treats from us and hopefully won't feel guilty or obligated to send us anything. I ordered a set of nice-smelling body butters from Sephora for B's mom and I ordered gift certificates for my mom and her husband and my dad and his wife, and I've been finished with B's shopping for a couple weeks now, though I do plan to get him something else when we're in Vegas.

My mom's birthday was earlier this month and I sent her some things from Sephora and she sent me a nice email thanking me for the present. She invited us to come visit next summer and stay with them for a couple weeks, and I appreciate the invitation, but it is just so misguided. Several years ago, she and her husband were going to come visit us, but her husband was really rude to B on the phone and has never apologized or tried to make amends for it at all, so there's no way we're going to go stay at their house with the possibility of more hostility from him. This is something I know mom must understand, yet she still thinks we can come visit like nothing ever happened?? I don't think so. So when I answered her email, I simply thanked her for the invitation and conversely invited her to visit us, too. Frankly, I don't think either visit will ever happen, but I guess we have to be polite and ask.

I added a new Ayumi gif on the right side of the layout today using some more recent pics of her that I thought were especially pretty. I keep waiting for her to put out a cool video that I can use for a new gif, but none of her videos lately have been that great...just sort of average. I know she went to Shanghai to film one that was very expensive recently, but I just thought it was okay. Here it is, if you'd like to make an assessment for yourself: