Happiness, thine name is Minou.

  Happiness, thine name is Minou. We added another member to our family - kitty Minou.  Minou is what the French, 'how you say, "kit-ty"'. 

As you can plainly see, she is the most beautiful, the cutest, the most intelligent, and the most fearless kitten.  I love this little kitty and am so thankful that everyone else does too!  She's kind of hard not to like except maybe when she plays to rough - her teeth and claws are very sharp!  Even Mi-Noopy, i mean, Snoop likes her.  :)      

 

Home Sweet HOME!

"Take me home to the place that I belong..." 

We LOVE our new home!  The boys have had so much fun making their rooms their own.  We are all enjoying the extra room (4.5 more rooms) our new house provides us.  Darrell was adament about getting unload and unpack ASAP.  But when he came across boxes of mine from four years ago and wedding gifts not yet used, he saved them for me to open.  I had so much fun revisiting my belongings from the past as well as finding a spot for the new.  We had never had a spot in the old house for our wedding China so we had never used it.  Our new house has storage space for China and so much more.  And most importantly, more space for us to grow together.    We still have plenty of decorating to do and furniture to acquire, but we are here and we love it.

Yes, I are completely humbled by the grace of God and His blessings on this family.   The house is so much more than I had hoped for or allowed myself to dream.  I couldn't have asked for anything more.

 

Besides preparing to move and moving (Ugh!), we have had some fun in the sun moments.  We have been to the lake a few times with Tom and Vicki, some ball games and a firework or two may or may not have gone off on the 4th at Denison street.  :) 

 Thanks too all of you who helped us along the way with selling the old house and moving.  We are so fortunate to have the friends and family that we have and appreciate them all!

From Denison Street,
The Smarts

The Vegas Experience

The month of February brought a wonderful trip to Vegas, courtesy of Darrell's employer.  Neither one of us had ever been to Vegas and honestly had never thought of it for our vacation destination.  But, on Februrary 27th we arrived in Tinsel Town along with our good friends, Derron and Michelle Day.  The airport had slot machines in every direction, limosines were all around and a strip of casinos, one right after the other, for a ten mile radius.  The Mirage delivered everything we had imaged, from VIP service, grand casino rooms and shoppes within the huge resort.  Our hotel must have taken up a whole city block. And it was only one hotel, there were dozens more.  The Bellogio took a 15 minute hike to get from the street to the front entrance.  We watched the fountains expolde to the tip toe tune of the Pink Panther and it was incredible.  The water danced like a cat's tail swaying back and forth. 

We then entered the world of the Blue Man Group at the Venetian (reservations made by our own personal conciege at the Mirage VIP louge).   It was very entertaining.  I enjoyed revisiting this show after so many years.  Their unique interpretation of sound and movement mixed with comedy kept us wowed and in stitches.   Darrell really enjoyed it.

We ventured up in the Stratosphere, similiar to Seattle's space needle, and peeked down at the town below.  We hadn't been sitting for long before we saw something fly by the window.  A few minutes later, it happened again.  People were bungie jumping off the top of the Stratosphere! 

Darrell, of course, had classes to attend during the day and a trade show convention to see but we still were able to share time together, and that was priceless.  
Michelle was the perfect tour guide.  She took me around to all different places including two Ross stores.  We rode the roller coaster on top of New York New York and laughed the entire time. It was a great day. 

We learned on day two that walking the Strip was for the birds and bought a Day Pass for public transit.  Even so, we were still sore by the end of the day from walking across large intersections and from shop to shop. 
We ran into Corey and Tara who were also there for a convention.  Corey skated the Strip, read and relaxed while Tara attended classes.  I think she also was able to find some time to spend enjoying the scene.