Holy crap

Has it really two and a half weeks since I last wrote? I guess time really does fly when you're having fun. I've been so busy I'm not even sure where to begin. Also I left my camera at home so I can't post any of the dozens of pictures I took.

I guess I'll first say that I had a great, great time with my friend Susy. I was a little nervous that we wouldn't get along since it's been almost five years since we last saw each other. As it turns out it was like we hadn't spent a day apart. I don't know how many other people have a friend like that but I certainly feel blessed that I do. She and Kent also hit it off and we had a great time together while he was in town. Since we had a guest we did stuff that we normally don't take the time to do. We went up to Fort Collins and did two brewery tours, one at O'Dells and one at New Belgium. I preferred the O'Dells tour, mainly because we didn't have to wait. At New Belgium we cooled our heels for 45 minutes before we got our beer. (Hey, I have priorities.)

Thanksgiving was also nice, we had 15 people at dinner. The cooking for 15 isn't that much more than for 7 but the clean-up is sure a pain. Plus, we had some of my mom's family in town and their contribution is to sit and eat the food and watch everyone else clean up. As you can imagine, it's extremely helpful. Susy had never been to Thanksgiving before and I thought it was great she got to enjoy my favorite holiday with us.

Susy and I went to Las Vegas on the Monday after Thanksgiving and stayed at the Paris. It was pretty nice but after this trip I'm not eager to go to Las Vegas again. Once you've seen one casino on the strip, you've pretty much seen them all. Our first night we met up with my friend Hanna and had dinner (thanks again Hanna, it was awesome!). The second night we went down to Fremont Street for the light show. My dad also instructed us to see the newly renovated pool at the Golden Nugget. It's definitely cool, with a huge aquarium in the middle. However I felt the experience was somewhat marred by the vast number of scary drunk people walking around and at times following us. At one point I dragged Susy into Binyon's Horseshoe because I thought someone was following us. I asked a police officer for assistance but by then the smelly old drunk was gone. We didn't stay much longer after that since we didn't feel like gambling anymore.

Those are the main highlights of the last few weeks, plus a lot of good time with my family. On a side note, my brother is in trouble yet again. He relapsed about six months ago and as a result back serving time that he'd been on probation for. I hope that he'll be able to get and stay clean but my faith is somewhat broken.

I hope to have some pictures up this week of my trip.