March Celebrations

Next in our line of visitors: Mom and Dad Higley!

They technically came through twice, but we didn't document the first time around.  Their second weekend through was close to their birthday so we had a low key celebration. 

 

Low key=a treadmill is near by and no shoes are being worn.  :) 

You'll notice a lot of 2 things in the following pictures...striped Christmas wrapping paper...and Kathryn. 

I'm glad all this birthday stuff didn't bend her out of shape...

For the record she was interested equally in the birthday honorees.  

The family of three sharing a moment. 

 We had a very fun visit with M/D Higley that included: watching old Carol Burnett episodes, eating chocolate (coincidentally those were our gifts to M/D Higley), visiting our favorite greek restaurant, and a classical guitar concert at LVH (we forgot our camera otherwise we would've documented our front row seats!).  Until next time!

 

 



And in other news, I found an exciting app from Friskies.  The possibilities are just about endless, but this is still one of my favs.  A pot of Friskies at the end of the rainbow?!  C'mon.  What is simultaneously more cute and disgusting than that?

Cactus garden/butterfly garden, same dif.

After our successful train ride and visit to the local alpaca shop, we decided to continue the party out of doors to the cactus garden at Ethel M. The sun had started to peak through but was still overcast for the most part and it made for some great pictures. 

 

 

Pet sighting! 

Crested rabbit ears.

James Dean Nathan contemplating the sights. 

The Higley brothers managing to look like so much cardboard/Shopko ad.

Mormon tea, anyone? 

Old and mostly dead cacti make for great silhouettes, I think?
 

 Next stop (the next day; we were too tired on Saturday): Bellagio atrium!

 

As usual, the designers spared no expense; the butterflies were a fun touch. 

Unfortunately some photos look so good they seem a little fake.  This is one of my favorites; I love all the colors; thanks butterflies!

We finished off the night the usual way.  :) 

 

Thanks for coming, guys!  

Train ride with Benngrayifer

We took a train ride!  Ben, Jenn, and Gray came down to visit in March and we decided to venture down to Boulder City (half an hour away) to check out the remains of the Nevada Southern Railway.

 

This was in mid-March, but it was freezing while we were waiting for the train. Apparently we just needed the sun to come out because it warmed up later, but the cloudy-ness of the morning was so nice. 

The mail car. This was neat to see; they also had a video loop playing interviewing the former train mail carriers.  It was interesting, but kind of a downer.  By the time we were done here, I felt bad that technology had advanced past post carrying trains.  Maybe that was the point? 

Once boarded on the train.  My legs were being lazy, so I had them laid over Nate...the train conductor walked by and jokingly suggested we get our own train car...oops!  :) 

The Higley train riders. 

Sights from the train ride! 

I was bugged at this girl for bombing our picture at the last possible moment, but Nate got even by (accidentally) body checking her as we left this area of the train. 

I love the intentional and accidental weirdness of this photo.  Guess which is which? 

The train ride was possibly a more kid-type thing to do...perhaps that's why I enjoyed it...lots of fun and we'll wait for our next victims visitors to go again! 

Mount Charleston

Saturday at the Higley house:

 

 

A few weekends ago, we were challenged to break out of our pattern.  What better way than to go hiking?  Nate's co-worker and friend, Tony (and wife Rachel) invited us to explore Mount Charleston. 

 

And explore we did!  The weather was perfect and I, in Las Vegas, heard wind blow through pine trees!  It was momentous for me.  :)

 

In other news, it was a hike I/we could actually handle. Hiking has always been difficult for some reason, and Cedar Breaks taught us that elevation is a problem for us now.  While this hike took us higher than our norm, we could still breathe, so huzzah! 

Mary Jane "Falls".  Probably by now it has melted into an actual waterfall, but it was fun to see it in this state. 



It's hard to be in the mountains without feeling majestic... 

....

...and tired.  :) 

Close up of waterfall ice. 

Sigh.  It was really so pretty.  And it did us good to be around real mountains...and to be reminded they aren't too far from our house! 

Hass land. Tony and Rachel also took us to where the hass roam free.  Seriously.  Wild hass.  Awesome. 

They were a little stand offish, but they were so pretty and fuzzy. 

Only Tony, the horse whisperer, was able to achieve pets from one of the hass. 

See?

 

'Twas a lovely day and a kind I hope to repeat in the near future.  Nature!  Goulet.  

Hilton* Idol

So here's the deal.  I graduated in December.  I applied to license soonish after, and I am currently waiting on the board to approve me to be a CPC-I (Clinical Professional Counselor-Intern).  Though the word "intern" is still attached, it's kind of a big deal. 

 

 

And I only say that because unless I have that...no practicing as a counselor for Liz.  I officially parted ways with Spring Mountain in January, but had not worked there since early December.  During my off time, I hunted for an internship site (which I found!).  I'm very excited to be (eventually) working for HeadsUp here in Las Vegas.  The snag is my license.  I don't have one, so no worky. 

 

Money was something I wanted/needed, so I did the next best thing...I applied with a temp agency and got a fairly quick response.  OfficeTeam was sort of my friend in Ohio, and I've once again joined forces with them.  They landed me a couple of interviews, one of which for Hilton* timeshares in their financial services department.  I had been fairly warned, but I've never experienced an "interview" like this before.  It felt more like this:

 

 

I arrived with 40 of my new friends to interview for one of 12 spots.  I recognized a friend I'd made at the temp agency so I got reacquainted with her as I scanned the crowd.  During my scan...I recognized someone. Who I worked with at another employer.  Who was fired for credit card fraud.  Who wasn't supposed to be out among us contestants interviewing for a job in financial services.  Oh, and?  Later on during introductions I figured out she has decided to go by another name completely.  It was a fun morning.  We were broken up into smaller groups.  She was in mine...it was a fun morning.  We had various tasks to work through, including team building exercises and logic tests.  I was picked to move onto the next round, and then the next.  By this time I was also sick over the idea of a credit card thief having access to a bunch of credit card numbers.  When I arrived home, 4 hours later...an anonymous call was made and the information the company needed was given...and a few days later I was informed I'd made it to the final round of Hilton Idol! 

 

To be frank, this was a coup in the sense that I wanted someone to pay me.  Yes...I think that's it.  Looking back, I think I was spoiled with my work at the hospital; I loved my groups and felt I was always learning.  Re-entering a call center world (sigh) has been difficult on my ego.  However I like the cash. In addition, I figure there is something for me to learn in all this, right?  Right?

 



*name has been changed