It was great!  Then we went to the science center.  Here are some pictures of our first day in town!

As you can see, for a moment I turned into a giant insect and exacted my rage on Jonathan.  Giant insects are very aggressive and mean.  Jonathan was nice so I decided to spare him for the time being.

Shortly after we went outside and saw these meerkats.  I loved them.  This guy was standing at the top of the tallest rock.  I love how they stand!  He was just hanging out and keeping watch.  He seemed very curious about everything going on around him.

Absolutely adorable!  I love these guys!

I liked this guy too.  He looks so wise with all of those wrinkles.

And of course, what kind of trip is it, if Jonathan doesn’t get to wrestle and alligator.

Also, what is a post with out some shots of water.  It seems I have an obsession with taking pictures of water.  Maybe it is because I live in the Desert and we don’t see much of this around here.

I really liked these guys as well.  They were cool.  They were fun to watch as they walked around and later we saw them chasing each other.

And this picture is here solely for my aunt.  She wants a white alpaca, so when I saw this one I knew I had to get a picture for her.  They had been sheered recently.  I am sure they were thankful.  It wasn’t exactly cold there.

I really liked this picture of Jonathan and I.  Robyn took it for us.  Well done Robyn!  It isn’t particularly easy to get these two mugs to look nice in a picture.

Ok, so I suspect you are getting tired of looking at pictures of animals from one day so I will move on.  The following day we all drove a few hours to Myrtle Beach and boy was it worth the drive.  We loved it!  We had an ocean view room.  Here are some pictures of the view.

And this was a shot from the other balcony on the other side of our room.

That night Robyn’s parents came by and watched the kids and we all split off to have our date nights.  Jonathan and I went to Rioz.  It was really great!  It was a Brazilian restaurant.  For those of you that know the meaning of the green side and the red side of the card we kept our cards on green for no longer than 10 minutes and we already had our plates completely full of really tasty meats!  I think our favorite meat was the lamb chops.  Our overall favorite was the roasted pineapple.  It was to die for!  the pineapple was rolled in cinnamon and then roasted and though it wasn’t intended to be a dessert it was dessert enough for us!  We actually sat and waited a few more minutes until the pineapple guy came back around so we could have seconds.  It was Jonathan’s first time at a place like this and he absolutely loved it.

This was a really cute picture of Griffin.  This is Paul and Robyn’s younger boy.  He was so sweet and he absolutely loved playing with the tv remote control and if he couldn’t find that then he was perfectly content with the buttons on the tv itself.  He cracks me up.

And yes.  We did actually go to the beach and have some fun.  Doesn’t Jonathan look good in this picture!  He got this really great shirt and shorts to wear as a cover up to the beach.  He was dressed up a little which is a little unlike us, but he looked really handsome.

This is Paul and Jonathan swinging Tristan as they were all walking out into the water.  I think they all had a lot of fun.

And this is Robyn and Griffin playing in the sand.

And here are the Hollobaugh’s.  Aren’t they a beautiful family!

And here we are.  Jonathan saved me by getting me that rash guard.  I came home nearly burn free because of that puppy.  And I look stylish while doing it.  Thanks Jonathan!

Later that night after buying some fireworks we walked around the beach and then found a nice place to shoot them off.  We found out shortly thereafter that it is actually illegal to shoot off fireworks within city limits.  Though apparently it is not illegal to sell them or buy them.  Who knew.  Thank goodness the police officers took pity on us out of towners and let us go without a ticket.  I do have to say that South Carolina has some weird laws, but it sure is pretty!

The next day we had to say goodbye to Myrtle Beach and South Carolina and we drove the few hours back to the airport where we started the 7 hour journey home.  This vacation was much needed and was worth every penny!  Thanks again Robyn and Paul for making it such a good experience!

This is a picture at the M&M store.  They have a lot of fun little things in there.  They even had a 3D movie about how red lost his M.  It was worth it, if for nothing else than the air conditioning.

What was even more fun is I got to see the Bellagio water show for my first time.  I have been to Vegas 3 times total and always missed it before.  The first time I was there they weren’t running it because it was too windy and I am not sure why or how I missed it the second time.  But it was great to watch it this time.

I have  a partial video of the show, but unfortunately I am not 100% sure on how to post it on this blog.  So, maybe i will figure it out later and update this post.  In the meantime this picture will have to do.

The best part of my trip to Vegas was our awesome experience at the Bellagio.  Thanks to my parents I was able to go with a coworker to see “Cirque Du Soleil, O”, it was so amazing.  Here are a few pictures of the Bellagio conservatory.  My coworker and I did some walking around just before we went to the show.

This was the ceiling in the O auditorium.  It was really neat because at the beginning a woman was suspended in the middle of that little twisty thing and was spinning around as it was lowered down.  I didn’t get any pictures of the show itself, but that was of course because they were very adamant about people putting their cameras away.  I didn’t want to get kicked out because of a few pictures.  And the great thing is I was able to fit all of this in between all of my conferences I had to go to most of the day on both days we were there.  It was well worth it though!  The conference was great, I learned a lot, and the show was amazing!!!  Thanks Mom and Dad!!!

I don’t have any pictures of Bakersfield, but the following week I had to go to Bakersfield for training and a meeting with my team.  Most all of my team is located in Bakersfield so the 3 of us that are remote traveled there in order to meet the rest of the team.

This week for the 4th, Jonathan and I are excited because we are going to be able to go visit our friends Paul and Robyn and then we are all going to drive to Myrtle Beach for the 4th.  Whew!  The last few weeks have been crazy, but they have been a lot of fun.  We are just excited to finally get out of town for vacation.  It has been a while since both Jonathan and I have left town for any kind of rest and relaxation so this is going to be great!!!

We got the chance to feed the coy.  They were hungry fishes.  You know, no matter how old you get this is always fun!

We took a lot of close up pictures of the coy.  They were just so cool looking.

And then of course.  You guys know me.  I always have to take landscape pictures with no people in them.  So here are a few.

This is a little house on the property.  No one lives there.  This is just where they perform their Japanese tea ceremony.  I think it is weekly that they do it, but you can get tickets to watch.  We never have, though it would be fun I think.  Though, it looks like a very pretty place to live if people weren’t watching you all the time.  =)

After we walked around the garden we went to a nearby park and played around for a little while.  I don’t think I have been on a swing set since I was a kid so it was fun to do that again.  =)

I hope the girls had fun and I hope this made up for us missing Holly’s birthday and her special day!  I am so proud of her!