Valley of Fire

We went to a state park, Valley of Fire, last weekend. It was gorgeous! Here are some pics:

Mullets, dirty wifebeaters and more...

So a week ago, Brent excitedly told me that Nascar was coming to Vegas and was having a race at the speedway in a couple weeks. Background to this story- A few times while in college, Brent and his guys friends roadtripped and went to a Nascar race. They had the best time and always came home with stories of mullets, dirty wifebeaters (which I hate that name by the way!), and swimming in a blowup pool with a thawing rack of ribs that the people were cooking for dinner- gross!! So when my husband hears that Nascar will be here I think he recreates all these fond memories and thinks that I can carry on the tradition with him. I was thinking when we came to Vegas that we could catch a couple shows, maybe a Circ de Solis show or something, but not Nascar! Well, being the dutiful wife that I am, I said yes. He got tickets for $10 each when they are normally $50, so I couldn't refuse a good deal like that. :) I guess the hick side of me, being from a small farm town, finds joy in the loud engines, dirt, and car crashes. (don't let that get around- hehe) Anyways, the race is in a few weeks, so I'll tell you ALL about it- every single detail. If I'm going to the race, then you will hear about it!

By the way, I am writing this at 1am while working after not sleeping before this shift, so excuse my behavior, I'm getting silly sleepy. My friends at Gillette have experienced this :)

Date night

We celebrated our Valentine's day with our free tickets to a show, dinner, and a ride to the top of the Stratosphere hotel. The best part of the night was being 1,150 feet in the air and looking down at all the other skyscraping hotels. You felt like you could fall out through the glass and every 10 min the tower would shake when the ride went off. They had an outlook area on top with 3 crazy rides that would shoot you in the air. We finished the night off in this cute, candlelit lounge with jazz music. Its called the Romance Lounge, doesn't the name sounds like a sleezy place?

Crab stuffed shrimp

As you probably know, Brent and I love seafood. We thought we'd try out a new recipe and we actually loved it. I thought that I'd post it for anyone that wants to try it:

Ingredients:

1 tablespoon butter
3 green onions, finely chopped
1/2 cup finely chopped green bell pepper
1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
4 1/2 teaspoons heavy cream
1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
Dash cayenne pepper (we didn't have cayenne pepper, but it was slightly bland, so put it in)
1/2 cup saltine cracker crumbs
1/4 cup mayonnaise
1 egg
2 tablespoons fresh parsley leaves (I used dried parsley)
1/2 lemon, juiced (I used a few squirts of lemon juice in the bottle)
1 pound crabmeat, picked over (I used 3 cans of crabmeat, drained)
1 pound extra-large or jumbo shrimp (about 24 shrimp), peeled, deveined, tails on

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
Melt butter in a skillet over medium heat and cook green onions, green pepper and garlic powder until peppers are limp. Place in mixing bowl and add cream, mustard and cayenne pepper to sauteed vegetables, mix well.
Add cracker crumbs, mayonnaise, egg, parsley and lemon juice; mix well. Gently fold in crabmeat. Form into small patties sized to stuff into shrimp; set aside.
Split shrimp down the bottom center to tail, being careful not to cut through. Stuff each shrimp with crabmeat mixture. Place on a baking pan and cook at 350 degrees until shrimp are pink, about 15 to 20 minutes.

This recipe we found on the food network wrapped the shrimp in bacon and drizzled a basil cream sauce over it, but we didn't do that. I made coconut rice and served it with asparagus.

It's always fun to try a new recipe. Here's a picture of our fabulous meal- try it out!

The missing pictures

Cheap fun on the strip

Last week when picking up our mail from the PO boxes I found a great Las Vegas weekly magazine. After scouring the whole magazine for the insider tips on the top things to do in Vegas while we live here, I found a great list of free/cheap things to do. So last Friday evening we went down to the strip (in comfortable shoes this time!) and went to the M&M factory and saw 4 stories of anything and everything you could want of M&M paraphanalia. We saw the M&M show "I lost my M in Vegas". I think Brent was a little embarassed since most of the people at the 8 min show were little kids, but you got to wear 3-D glasses, of course we're going to see the show! :) We then went next door to the Coke factory. We did a "Taste Around the World" and taste tested 16 different kinds of pop made all over the world. It was soo much pop and 2 people should not drink that much pop so quick.We just walked around for a few more hours people watching and stopped at this dueling piano bar. The music was great! We are definately going to have to go back there.

Somehow we got suckered into going to a time share presentation during the evening. I mean, come on, we were just looking at a booth that said "Free tickets, Free shows, Just ask us how!", and we were debating on how this could be true. They definately did not tell us that we would have to sit through a 2-3 hr. presentation when we signed up. But hey, we got free tickets to a show, 2 buffet dinners, and tickets to top of the Stratosphere. It's going to be our Valentine's Day date!

Today we drove to a ski resort on top of Mt. Charleston. The weather has been cool for Vegas and the mountain got 2 1/2 feet of snow this past week. It's hilarious, the radio stations and everyone is talking about how brisk, and chilly, and freezing it is...we're like, you don't even know what freezing is! We just did a little hiking (or more like falling through the deep snow) through a park, went sledding down the hill on cardboard we found, and realized that we should have worn our snow gear... :)

A lot of rambling in this post, sorry!
(I tried posting pictures but it's not letting me upload the pictures, I'll post them soon)

Camping with the cactus

This weekend was our first experience camping in Arizona at Lake Havasau. It was beautiful there! We left on Friday afternoon, approximately 1 hr after we said we would and after almost forgetting our tent and camping chairs...who really needs those?! :) It was about 3 hrs away as we drove through the desert and hundreds of tumbleweeds (which I think are so cool!) and cactuses (cacti?). -sidenote- my mom had told me a story of when she grew up in California, the kids would make large forts out of the tumbleweeds. I hadn't really believed her since I had only seen 1 or 2 tumbleweeds and didn't think that their forts were really that big, they were just big to little kids. Well both sides of the roads were lined with tumbleweeds....anyways (mom I believe your story now! :) )
We got to our camping site right as the sun was setting so we quickly put up our tent and set up. We saw several quail, which is what Brent and Bella were going to hunt the next day, so Brent was getting excited thinking that he was going to have good luck. We woke up the next morning and drove out through the desert on some little tiny dirt road (if you could call it a road, more like a bumpy path) to the "spot" that was perfect for hunting. Bella bolted out of the car running through the hills only to come back with cactus prickles stuck in all her paws, nose, and tail. We spent most of the day picking out the cactus prickles with pliers. So all of the quail that we saw at our camp site and on the roads were nowhere to be seen. I think they felt safer in town. It was really pretty to hike the foothills and see jackrabbits and spend the afternoon outside. I called it quits for the day because I felt too bad taking out any more thorns from Bella's paws, otherwise I'm sure Brent would have hunted all day and probably been successful. We went to the lake that was deserted because I'm sure Arizonians thought it was too cold to be sitting at the lake- it was 65 degrees!
It was a fun camping experience...here are a few pics from the weekend.

And a few more pics . . .

Craigs List

When we were packing for our roadtrip a lot of things didn't make the cut since we were packed to the brim. There was not an inch to spare- you saw the pictures! One of the things that didn't make the trip was our vacuum. Our thought process was that we'll only be here 3 months, we don't really need it. Well, after living in the apartment for 2 weeks with our very hairy dog (who would have known that a short haired dog can shed soo much! I thought if they had short hair it would be minimal shedding... :) ), we realized that our beautiful red couch was now almost white and the carpet was now very soft with a layer of hair and dust. Craigslist is wonderful! We found a vacuum better than our one at home for $10 and it was disgusting to see how much filth it picked up. So that's my plug for craigslist and a random thought for the day. Now we'll see if we will fit this vacuum in for the drive back home....

Happy Superbowl Sunday!

How are you spending your Superbowl Sunday? This is how we're spending ours!

Happy Superbowl watching!!