Vegas, Baby!

Keeper and I just returned the other day from our first trip to Las Vegas. We'd wanted to go at least once while we live in AZ and are within driving distance. Since 2010 is the year many of my friends (1980 babies) and I turn 30, we have a lot of big birthdays to celebrate. Our friend (and Keeper's study buddy) Karen turned 30 on Monday and decided to make a group Vegas weekend celebration for the big day. She got a ridiculous deal on rooms at the Wynn/Wynn Encore ($100/night!!!!) so we hopped on board. I was very excited for a weekend of glitzy ridiculousness:)I used the upcoming trip as an excuse to : (1) get my hair cut/highlighted (hadn't been done since before xmas (2) get a much needed pedicure, (3) buy a short fancy dress that I would never wear anywhere else except Vegas (Thanks, Mom, for shopping with me!). Keeper and I carpooled with our friends and they picked me up after school on Friday... the drive up was pretty uneventful. Lots of desert/nothing until you get to a little tiny town (like Wickenburg or Kingman) and you think: who actually LIVES here? The desert is much greener up north than in Phoenix so the drive was pretty and we saw lots of Joshua trees along the way. I was impressed by the Hoover Dam but we didn't stop to take pictures :(
Friday night was spent settling into the hotel (which was AMAZING!!!) There is a Ferrari showroom INSIDE the Wynn. Enough said. We grabbed something to eat (note to self: "casual deli" food in the Wynn (turkey sandwich) cost more than some sit-down restaurants in Phoenix). Then we headed out on the strip to see some of the lights of Vegas. My first impression was: Times Square on CRACK! Absolute mayhem. Throngs of (drunk) people walking around with drinks on the strip. Lights and music everywhere. It was a bit overwhelming. We walked around to a few casinos and then my 4:30am wake-up (workout) was finally hitting me so Keeper and I called it a night pretty early and were in bed by midnight. It sucks getting old :)
Saturday, I felt much more rested after 8 full hours of sleep and was ready to take on Vegas. We ate breakfast, grabbed some coffee and explored the Fashion Show (mall across the street from the Wynn). We picked up a few things for Keeper to wear (I can sniff out a sale at Macy's like no other...and ALWAYS have my coupons too!) Saturday night and I ended up finding dresses for the (many) summer weddings we are attending in the next few months. We met up with our friends for lunch, then wandered around some more casinos on the strip and finally came back to our hotel to relax by the pool before dinner.
We all got studded out for dinner (hotel buffet= amazing food) and dancing later on. We pre-partied with everyone who came for Karen's bday (about 20 people!) and then headed downstairs to one of the clubs in the Wynn/Encore complex, Tryst. The club scene is not really our thing but when in Rome...er, Vegas... It was nice to know that my gold shoes were NOT considered overdoing it AT ALL. The club was actually lots of fun after I got over the "what am I doing here phase?" and some of the people started clearing out (it was packed when we first got in). We danced the night away and got to bed pretty late.
Sunday was spent sleeping in and then met up with friends for fabulous Asian food at a restaurant in the Venetian, and toured more casinos/hotels on the strip. I played Black Jack for the first time in the Imperial Palace (dumpy casino) where Bette Midler was my dealer (celebrity look-a-like dealer theme). We saw Paris and the weather was surprisingly cool, cloudy, and windy. We were still tired from the night before so Keeper and I (after losing our money) went back to the hotel room for a nap. We hung out with friends again Sunday evening but called it an early night and were up early Monday morning to check out and hit the road by 6:30am. I took a personal day on Monday, but Keeper and Karen had a 12:30 shift at the clinic. We had a great trip and I'm glad I got to experience Vegas.

Another One Bites the Dust

I just finished my 2nd coaching season of track. We had our team "banquet" last week. I use the term "banquet" lightly because it wasn't much of a banquet : (1) we had pizza since we are now sponsored by Sardella's, (2) we had it in the cafeteria with no decorations and (3) we had a ghetto imovie slideshow of the pictures taken throughout the season by the one coach who took pictures... needless to say I am proud of my kids and all they accomplished this year. My girls made my gift and it was probably the best gift I've received as a coach yet. They made me a framed sign that says "We Love You, Coach Y". The "we love you" is in script using sand from the desert and the "Coach Y" is in wildflowers picked from the desert. It is almost too nice to leave hanging in my classroom at school. I think I'll keep it at home for the summer :)

Spring Racing...

I haven't blogged much due to all my time being consumed by teaching and coaching. We have 2 weeks left of track season (Regionals & State) and my girls have been awesome this year! I have a great bunch and they have been running so well. My girls' 4x 800 team just took the gold medal at the district meet on Wednesday and I hope to see a lot of PR's this coming week:)

I decided with all this hard training we've been putting in, to do a couple shorter races of my own and see where I'm at. 2 Saturdays ago I ran Pat's Run which benefits the Pat Tillman Foundation. It is a 4.2 mile race that finished on the 42 yard line of Sun Devil Stadium (in honor of Pat's number, 42). I had done it 2 years ago and not only is it a great cause, it is also a HUGE deal out here. Over 19,000 people did the race this year. I had a great race and beat my previous time by 4 minutes. During the run, I looked at my Garmin (trusty GPS running watch) at the 5k point, and realized I had beaten my 5K PR during the 4.2 mile run. The next day I thought, "I need to run a 5k".
I found a small 5k downtown for May 2nd and signed up. I told the guy I coach with, since he was looking for a 5k as well. He told some of our runners who aren't running the Region Meet this week (JV runners) and they signed up as well. We met up this morning and had a great race. The guy I coach with won the whole thing, at about 15:30. Ridiculous. The boys did great too. They all finished in the top 20 and ran great times. I ran a great race and beat my PR by about a minute and 30 seconds. I did not use my watch, which sounds like nothing, but it was kind of a big deal for me. I didn't realize how much I look at it and rely on it to gauge my effort and pace. I ran the race mostly by myself (it was a small race and there were only 2 women in front of me...not really a "pack" to race with). I just tried to run what felt like "hard" to me.
It worked. Our little North Canyon group did well and we got lots of medals :) Onyx has become quite popular with the kids on my team. I bring her to practice whenever I can (which isn't that often, since I usually run the workouts with the kids...) but she comes to all my races with Keeper. She loves being included. She loves making friends with everyone (people and dogs). And she's just so freaking photogenic:)

Fun Visit

Time for some blogging....

Last weekend, Keeper's mom flew out for a 3 day visit. She hadn't been to Phoenix since the first Thanksgiving we were out here (2007) in our other apartment so we were excited to show her the new place. We spent Saturday at the Phoenix Art Museum looking at the Ansel Adams exhibit. Very cool. We went to lunch at Pita Jungle (one of my all-time favorite restaurants out here), relaxed in the afternoon, then went to The Main Ingredient for happy hour. TMI (as Keeper and I like to call it) is a new place that opened up a few miles south of us on 7th street. They have a small menu of great salads, sandwiches and appetizers, and a good selection of beer & wine. The restaurant is a house with really cute outdoor seating. We like the mixed crowd of laid-back people and chilled De La Soul music playing...we've gone the past 2 weekends and haven't been disappointed.
Sunday was spent relaxing. I did a long-ish run, then we went to Old Town Scottsdale for a little site-seeing and a margarita. Monday, I took off work (and Keeper was on break all last week) so we drove up to Sedona with Onyx. We had lunch at a great little place in town with outdoor seating. Then we attempted to drive to a trailhead for a hike. We used our Best Hikes With Dogs, Arizona book but found that the dirt road that led to the trailhead was more than a little washed out after all the winter/early spring rains (despite the hiking book's claims of "easily passable by sedans"). We were supposed to take the dirt road for 5 miles, but after a few minutes of dodging the rocks, we thought better of tearing up the undercarriage of my poor Saturn, parked it and just took a little stroll down the road. I thought the temperatures would be cooler than they were, but it was pretty hot. We were content with a leisurely 2 mile stroll with Onyx and still caught some great views of the red rocks. Onyx and her black fur were glad we didn't push our luck with the hiking.
We had a great visit and wish we saw Keeper's mom more often!!!