A NEW Home

Las Vegas been under construction (growing) pretty much my whole life.  When I graduated from high school the population was around 250,000 residents.  Now it is over 2,000,000!  With all of those new people living in the city, there have been new homes being built constantly.  One of my favorite past-times is to visit model homes.  I love to get decorating ideas for now, and to dream up my favorite floor plan.  The house my mom lives in was brand new when she moved in.  The house my dad lives in Idaho was also brand new when he moved in.  Someday I hope Leonard and I can move into a brand new home too.  I wish we could do it now while we're raising our kids, but we hope to live around the world some more with Leonard's work.  Here's hoping we can build a new home for retirement, ha ha!

 

Mom and I visited Inspirada and looked at 13 of their new model homes.  I was inspired!

This kitchen was little, but I loved the curved island.

Here's a lovely dark kitchen...

...overlooking a lovely living and dining room.

Another version in light colors...

...and it's dining and living room.

(I want a great room so bad!  I have a dining room and eat-in kitchen, and a living room and family room on my main floor.  I would much rather have one large eating area instead of two smaller ones, and one large living space instead of two smaller ones.  Someday.)

I do love our basement rec room, except for one thing...it's in the basement!  I'm not a huge fan of basements, I like living above ground with lots of sunlight.  It's difficult to build basements in Las Vegas as it's a desert and the water table is too high.  The solution?  Build a rec room upstairs!  I love it, and wish our house had this too.

A lovely master bedroom...

and its master bath.  I want this vanity table right in front of a huge window.

Another cute bathroom for our girls- they'd each have their own sink and a place to sit and do their make-up.

There were lots of cute rooms for the kids.  Love the gray polka dots!

A fun wall treatment.

I love this blue and want to paint the flowers above the bed.

Another cool paint effect.

This would be a fun guest room.  Again, I loved the paint on the walls.  It reminded me of our flat in England with all of the old filled in fireplaces.

This was my favorite room.  I just love swirls!  I also love that one side of the bed has a nightstand and the other side has a dresser.  I also love how all of the bedspreads went right to the ground.  I hate dust ruffles, but I also hate seeing under beds, this is a lovely fix for that!

Another flower painting I want to copy, and I love the desk in front of the window, and the window treatments brought all the way up to the ceiling.

 

I love to dream!

B(best) E(escape) A(anyone) C(can) H(have)

The day after Disney we did some shopping at Downtown Disney in the morning, then made our way to Laguna Beach for some lunch at Carmelita's.  I want more!

To burn off some of the calories we had just consumed, mom and I walked the entire beach and back.

Listening to the ocean is just the most relaxing.

One of my favorite smells is coconut suntan oil and it's even better at the beach!

A pretty little mural along the way.

I captured these algae-covered rocks getting splashed by a wave.

 

Another fun mural.

This was our favorite beach house.

We climbed these colorful stairs to check out the front of the house.

It's for Lease!

Can I live here please?  Oh wait, it only has 2 bedrooms and I have 6 kiddos, ha ha.

 

We returned to the sand to continue our journey back.

(Rainbow beach umbrellas are another favorite!)

 

There's my name!

The ocean is so therapeutic to my soul.

My dream house is on a beach.

We finished our day checking out the cute shops on Forest Avenue.

 

Laguna Beach, we will meet again!

Diamond Jubilee

Mom and I spent the best day at Disneyland celebrating its Diamond Jubilee!  The only thing that could have made it better was if all of our families were with us.  If they were though, we probably wouldn't have accomplished all that we did.

We rode TWENTY-ONE rides!! 

We ate churros, drank pineapple dole whip floats, had corn dogs for lunch, and a yummy chicken dinner at the Plaza Inn.

In honor of the 60th jubilee there were diamonds everywhere, even on the cupcakes, tee hee!

My mom was born the same year that Disneyland opened!

We had so much fun riding the original rides from 1955.  Oh no!  I'm going to get swallowed by Monstro, ha ha.  The Storybook Land Canal Boats have been one of my favorites since I was 4 years old!

Along with the original rides we also enjoyed the "big" ones- Splash Mountain, the Matterhorn Bobsleds, and Indiana Jones Adventure.  We couldn't ride our favorite- Big Thunder Mountain Railroad as it was closed for refurbishment.  In fact all of the rides in Frontierland were closed to make way for the new Star Wars Land.  Tomorrowland has pretty much become Star Wars Land already, but pics of the new part look really cool.  However, we didn't ride the new Hyperspace Mountain (formerly Space Mountain) as that ride always hurt our necks so badly.

 

By the way, we got DRENCHED on Splash Mountain!

I love how Disney pays attention to every detail.

There's beautiful fountains...

...and flowers everywhere.  I wish Disney could redecorate the whole world!

The Mad Tea Party is another one we can never ride (I can't stand to spin, maybe because I suffer from vertigo already, ha ha!), but it is still so pretty to look at.

Happy 60th (almost 61st) Birthday Disneyland!!

 

*On another note:  Queen Elizabeth II became queen the year my dad was born in 1952 and celebrated her diamond jubilee in 2012 .  With her recently becoming the longest reigning monarch in England and celebrating her 90th birthday I've read a couple of commemorative magazines about her life.  I used to dream of being Cinderella at Disneyland when I was a little girl, but let's just say that now I wish I could be the Queen of England, ha ha!

The Twin Triplets

I think it is so cool that Leslie, Becky, and I all have twins.  It's even more fun because Leslie has twin girls, Becky has twin boys, and I have boy & girl twins.

 

They made some time on a busy school night so I could see them.  We had some yummy food at the Macaroni Grill, followed by a slice of my favorite Lemon Passion cake.

 

It's so nice to have life-long friends (we met in 7th grade!).

Babysitting B-bop

My mom babysits Bennett each week, so I got to join her while I was in town.

This boy is such a sweetheart, but he doesn't eat or sleep much at one sitting.  That means he is up for most of the 24 hours in a day and loves being held for most of that time.  Besides his mommy and daddy he has 2 grandmas in town and his Auntie Erika visits him lots, so he is well taken care of!

He was a little shy at first, but soon he warmed up to me.  My mom thinks he must have recognized that I'm his Auntie since I look and sound similar to his mom, Auntie Erika, and gramma  :).

I love this boy so, and wish I could see him more!