*lyssa beth*

Tour De Vegas Home

Well my house is finally "viewable" for you :)

Can I just tell you that I am not ever living in an apartment ever again after living in a house?

Ya, it's true.

Ok so here it goes:

This is our living room. To the right of this picture is the front door.

For those of you who had seen my living quarters before, I had a "black" theme going. I didn't like it anymore. It was just too dark. I needed soemthing light! So I took frames and shelves and repainted them white and sanded them a bit to give them an antique look. I am quite pleased with the end result!

And those dark red pillows are no more! I made some pillow covers so they now look like this:

Now onto the dining room, which is to the left of the living room.

We finally got a new dining set! It's been 5 years coming. But I found one I loved and had to get it. Luckily, it was one of the cheaper ones at RC Willey so we got a great deal!

Kitchen time, which is left of the dining room. I LOVE this kitchen. It's about 3x's bigger than the previous one I had...I love all the counter space and room!

Now there are other things downstairs like a hallway bathroom, shoe closet and laundry room with a door that goes out to the 2-car garage but didn't take pics. But they are next to the stairs. Up the stairs, to the left is a big loft, perfect for toys!

If you would have gone straight from the stairs, you would have hit the girls room

It's nice having them share. These rooms are a bit smaller than the ones we had before but it's fine. Soon, REAL soon, kate will say Bye Bye to the crib and sleep in a toddler bed just like Emma's...twinners!

The sliding door to the outside is in the dining room. Yes we have a backyard! And it's very "deseretesque" But I love the fake grass that you don't have to maintain :)

And this is what our house looks like on the outside except it's formated on the other side, meaning the front door is on the other side of the house. I didn't want to go outside at the minute and take a picture so I looked it up. My house wasn't on the real estate listing anymore but I found this one. So you can imagine...oh and imagine the shutters a bright teal color... ya you can't miss it!

So there you have it, our home for the next year. We love the area, neighborhood and this little home. We don't love the weather. So thank you for taking this tour with us. And there will be more pics later of our goings on.

I have no sense of style

Where to begin?

I think there are reasons to feel this way. Probably doesn't help that I am getting bigger by the day. I'll spare the pictures for now because from now till 2 years from now, I won't be satified with how I'll look. It's better that way, trust me!

Pregnancies are hard for me. I don't like being pregnant.

There! I said it. Sorry but "I'm just being honest"

I don't like my body exploding like the Hindenburg. It's frustrating to see the hard work of losing the weight to have it come on again and there's nothing you can do about it! Now, I know all the positives of being pregnant. There's a baby at the end of it. I can let myself go a bit. I have a solid excuse to lie on the couch while my husband does the dishes or makes dinner. But I like to feel useful! And I like to look cute too :)

While I was in Utah, I was able to go to dinner with some close friends from HS. After the experience, I felt totally out of it. I am so far behind the style, it is scary! And no worries, it wasn't anything my friends had said or did. They were their cheery, awesome selves. It was all me. I admit I am a bit self-conscience on how I look these days. It's probably a mix of hormones, explosions and the fact the it's takes a talented person to have a low budget and still look cute and fashionable. I shouldn't worry about it really. But I am only 25! I should still look cute and fashionable, right? Just because I have kids, doesn't mean my sense of style shouldn't roll over and die!

So I ask you, how do you do it? How do you stay up with the fashion of things on a low budget?

Where do you like to shop that has cute clothes but cheap?

I would love to know.

PS There will be pics soon of my house and from my trip to UT...so there might be pics of me, don't say I didn't warn you..wha wha wha!

Short but Sweet...and funny.

Had to post this.

What we've been doing while Joe's been off...

I think these pics are not in chronological order but oh well!
We live in a great area where there are lots of things to do outside. We first hit Red Rock Canyon, which is like 10 minutes from our house. We hit the free trails and hiked all around the "red mountains", as Emma called them. The girls had so much fun. Actually, everyone had fun. We lucked out on the day we went because the weather wasn't bad at all.

K well since I haven't been posting any pics of me being pregnant because, well, I am realizing that this time around, my pregnant self is NOT flattering at all. But here I am 2 weeks ago at 20 weeks.

Then we live about 40 minutes from Mt. Charleston so we drove up there on a really hot day. It was super cool and great to hike around the mountains. Joe was trying to do extreme hiking with the kids by going off trail but it was fun once we got down off the cliffs! We found a trail that lead to a small waterfall so that was fun.

OTher than that, we've just been relaxing and getting everything squared away. I have more pics of what we've been doing so I'll try to get those up.

Past few months...

Some things i've made in the past few months, mainly before we moved across the country!

I've gotten into sewing in the past few months and I love to create things!

If I must, I must...

Well you still aren't getting pictures of our new place just quite yet...let's be honest, it's going to be a while before I show pictures of the inside of my house, when the boxes are gone and it is DONE!

So until then, I will catch up for May. It was a crazy busy month for us, as you can imagine.

So here we go...

Joe's Senior Gala was at the beginning of the month. We went to the Alamo Dome and had dinner then gambled a bit. The tickets that we earned or won turned into raffle tickets to win prizes.

Joe was rocking the Texas Hold'em. He won tons of money which then turned into 29 raffle tickets (each ticket = $1000) So you can see how well he did! And in the end, it was all worth it since we won an IPOD NANO!! Wahoo!

The next day, we hit the road to Las Vegas to look for a house to rent for next year. The girls were picked up by Grandma and Grandpa Zimmerman. What a blessing it has been to live so close to family. The drive took 20 hours but there were of course stops along the way, like here at the Hoover Dam!

And this was our view the entire time...Oh look! A Dust Devil!! Yep, that was the highlight of the drive.

We got into Vegas around 2 pm Thursday and settled in. We stayed at my Cousin, Stephanie. She was an awesome hostess. She lives only 10 minutes away from the strip so it was a great spot to stay while we looked for a house. On Friday night, I believe, we hit the strip. It was crazy but fun!

Stephanie treated us to these famous Crepe's found inthe Bellagio. It. was. so. good.

And these crazy characters were by the fountains. Batman even talked like Batman, all gruff and raspy...it was pretty funny.

Loved this. Miss the real thing.

If any of you want copies of my photo work, drop me a line ;)

Worlds BIggest slot machine? I think? Ya, I was faking it...I don't gamble..duh!

Well happy to say that we did find a house..obviously or else I would be living on the curb as we speak! It is in Summerlin, a great area just West of the strip. It was meant to be!
We hit the road again back to San Antonio. This time, we didn't stop anywhere to sleep...we. drove. straight. though. I don't know what we were thinking, other than we had to get to houston the next day around 10:30 to meet his parents to pick up the girls. So it had to happen. That day, we were all exhausted!

Thus began a crazy next few weeks packing our house and getting ready to move!
But I wasn't the only one busy. My friends in SA were busy putting together a "She's having a Vegas Baby!" baby shower for me. It was remarkable. They are so creative and put so much detail in the parties or showers they throw. They sure knew how to make me feel special.
Since the theme was vegas, they decorated gambling style :)