Back to the UK

Frankie and I are all packed up and ready to head to the airport. We're flying back to the UK today, and are really looking forward to being on the same continent as Matt again.

I'm a little nervous for the flight, since it will be my first time flying to England alone with Frankie. I'm not sure how it'll go, solo parenting over the ocean. All I can do is hope that Frankie is in the mood to watch a ton of movies, and that I can eventually coax her into a nap.

Wish me luck!

A Milestone

I officially resigned from my job at CSU yesterday-- I'm ready to move on to a new adventure.

Leaving CSU is a bit bittersweet. I've been there for a long time (thirteen years!), and have made a lot of good friends there. Still, I feel like it's time for a change. Not sure what that change is going to be yet, but I'm excited to see the possibilities.

Wish me luck!

New School Pictures

I've heard through the grapevine that the picture of Frankie's nervous little face on the first day of Kindergarten was a little heartbreaking for some of you. It was for me, too. But, here are a few pictures from the second and third days of Kindergarten to show that she's bounced back like a champ.

Second day:

Third day:

Kindergarten Update

Second day of Kindergarten today. Here's what Frankie said:

"I don't just like Kindergarten. I LOVE IT!!!"

In case you can't tell, Frankie had a really good day today. She was a little sad when I dropped her off, but a nice little boy named Reed helped her out by giving her a hug and a pat on the back. Now, they're super best friends. She played with him all day, and couldn't stop talking about him.

I'm so happy she made a new friend, and that she's liking Kindergarten. I hope it's not too hard for her to go back to England for a few more weeks, but when we do finally get back to Colorado she will hopefully fall right back into the school groove.

Kindergarten pictures

The first day of Kindergarten seemed to go pretty well for Frankie. She was really nervous going in-- I think whe was a little overwhelmed by having to meet all of the new people, and to have to find her way in that big, busy school. This picture pretty much sums up her emotional state at the beginning of the morning:

But by the time I picked her up in the afternoon, she seemed to have lost most of her nervousness. She was still a little on the fence about the whole experience, though. There were a lot of new rules to learn, and routines to figure out. But, hey... there were also corn dogs for lunch. So, how bad could it be?

Here are a few pictures from her Big Day:

Kindergarten Already?

I really can't believe it, but Frankie's first day of Kindergarten is tomorrow.

How on Earth did she get so grown-up?

Even though we're only in Fort Collins for another week, our stay out here just happened to overlap with the first three days of Kindergarten at Frankie's school. I talked to Frankie's teacher, and even though Frankie won't technically be starting school out here until late October, we agreed that it would be a good idea for Frankie to come in for the first three days of the semester so she can learn the ropes and meet her teacher and classmates.

We did a little back-to-school shopping today, and Frankie picked out a new dress for her first day. At 8:45 I'll be at her Colorado school, trying not to cry as I say goodbye.

Viva Las Vegas!

I just got back from my Vegas trip with K.C., and I'm already experiencing serious pangs of withdrawl. I had a fantastic time on our "girls weekend." We talked, laughed, read books by the pool, drank a few cocktails, and did a little gambling. By the end of the trip, my voice was sore from laughing so much. It was really, really fantastic.

Here's the view from our hotel room at the MGM Grand. Technically, this was our second hotel room. We had booked ourselves into a suite, but when we got up to our room on the fourth floor we were greeted by the deafening PANG PANG PANG!! of construction right underneath our bedroom window. Since the fourth floor is the first guest level at the hotel (floors 1 -3 are casino floors), the construction cranes and bulldozers couldn't possibly be closer to our room. K.C. and I sat on the windowsill for awhile watching the construction progress, and even though it was kind of an interesting spectacle we realized pretty quickly that it didn't exactly create a restful vibe. We called the front desk and made them move us to another suite on the 9th floor.

The 9th floor suite was much better in terms of noise, but weirdly it had a problem too: It smelled. Pretty badly, actually. Like there was something wrong with the plumbing in the bathroom, if you catch my drift. They didn't have any other available rooms that night to move us to, since the hotel was full due to the Lady Gaga concert they were hosting. So, we left the room and hung out in the casino for awhile while they snaked the pipes. When we got back to the room, it was much better. Still, I was a little miffed that we had two problems with our rooms. Matt and I have gone to the MGM Grand every year for the past four years, and have never had a single problem. So, it was definitely aun unexpected (unwelcome) surprise.

It's possible, though, that all of our bad luck with the rooms was because some sort of Karmic vortex had been created by K.C.'s FANTASTIC luck on the slot machines. I tell you, that lady's luck was seriously unreal. I sat next to her the entire time, and it seemed like every spin of the reels brought up some sort of bonus screen or jackpot situation. We played the low-roller-style penny slots, and at the end of the trip she was up six hundred dollars. Go, K.C.! Woo!

My favorite gambling-type machine is the Sigma Derby. It's an old-fashioned horse racing game, a throwback to old Vegas. It's probably fifty years old, and is the last operating machine of its kind in Las Vegas. It's a ton of retro fun. Six players sit around the table and bet on which two horses will come in first and second. The little mechanical horses take a spin around the track, and everyone that bet on the winning pair wins anywhere from 2 to 200 quarters (based on the odds). It's the only machine in the casino, maybe on the entire strip, that takes (and spits out) actual quarters. Ten dollars at the Sigma Derby can last a really long time, which is great for a low-roller like me.

The guy at the far right is D-list celebrity Drew Lachey. He's the brother of Jessica Simpson's ex-husband Nick, and was the winner of the second season of Dancing With the Stars. He was literally ten feet away from us at Bally's casino. It was funny, actually. There was a huge line of people queuing up to take pictures of/with him, but K.C. and I were totally nonplussed. We couldn't understand why anyone would stand in line to take a picture with the guy-- Not really sure what the allure was. We could barely be bothered to turn around from our slot machine chairs to look at him. (I snapped this shot from my chair, but only for blog-related purposes.)

On Saturday night, K.C. and I took a "Haunted Vegas" tour. (The picture above is of the divining rods the tour director handed out to us as we signed in.) We met our tour group in the lobby of the Royal Resort Hotel. We planned on having a cocktail or two before hopping on the bus, but as it turned out, the Royal Resort is the only hotel in Vegas with no casino, and no bar. Weird, right?

We came very close to deciding to bail on the tour, but I'm so glad we didn't. It was really good, cheesy, spooky fun.

The guy in the top hat is our tour guide, Jack. He was in his seventies, and is a licensed undertaker. The bus tour was almost three hours long, and he talked, joked, and told stories the entiure time. He did a great job of keeping the energy level on the tour up, despite the fact that it lasted until almost midnight.

There were only fifteen of us on the tour, but one of the men sitting next to us was so incredibly annoying. He had a thick, thick, Long Island accent, and asked our guide a question about every five minutes. Three hours of that gets very, very old, especially when the questions were often on subjects that Jack had already discussed, or about things that Jack couldn't possibly be able to answer. K.C. and I left the tour with that guy's voice ringing in our heads. He started every question he asked with the phrase, "HEY JACK..." Thus, we started referring to the question-asker as "Heyjack," and by the end of the trip had pretty well perfected our imitation of his crazy Long Island accent.

Me, divining rods and toe-tag in hand.

One of our tour stops was the Flamingo Hotel, where we were instructed to take pictures at a site rumored to be haunted by Bugsy Segal. Here's K.C., looking skeptical. (Or perhaps thinking of punching Heyjack.)

Late night in the Flamingo gardens.

One of my pictures at the (haunted?) Bugsy Segal memorial. Paranormal orbs caught on film? You be the judge...

Another stop was a park in Henderson that was rumored to have paranormal activity. Here's K.C., taking a ghostly picture.

The tour also touched on hauntings tied to Tupac, Elvis, Red Foxx, Liberace, and a few locals that met untimely demises. Even if you didn't get into the ghost stuff, the history of Vegas was really interesting. 

Now, here are a few more random trip pictures: 

K.C., rocking Sigma Derby.

K.C.'s big win. (I was so jealous!!)

Me, goofing around at the casino.

Lucky ladies.

Roar!

I'm sure there are a million other details that I'm forgetting-- Our fantastic Friday night dinner at Craftsteak, the crazy outfits on the Lady Gaga concert-goers, the completely insane meat market scene at the MGM Grand pool.... But mostly, I just remember the laughing.

Great trip!