Las Vegas

We are moving to Las Vegas in about a month! We're very excited and a little overwhelmed with all we need to do to prepare for the move. I'll be working at UNLV Libraries as head of educational initiatives and Mike will work at the academic success center at UNLV.

We visited Las Vegas and Henderson last weekend to find a place to live, scope out our neighborhood, and get Nora registered at her new school. It was a very successful trip, given that we accomplished those goals and did a couple of fun things while in the area. Here is photographic evidence of the fun stuff.

We visited a bird preserve in Henderson, and it was beautiful and peaceful. The weather was amazing -- 65 degrees in January? Yes, please. (Check back in July to see how much we love the weather then.)

Nora was very excited about ducks. She now says "quack quack" when she sees a picture of a duck. 

Our evening activities on the strip were a big contrast to our peaceful morning outing. The fountains at the Bellagio scared the little one.

But the conservatory at the Bellagio was really beautiful!

The gardens are currently celebrating the Chinese New Year. The children in the photo above are made of flowers.

Yellowstone National Park

We had an awesome trip to Yellowstone National Park last week. My parents and my brother & sister-in-law (Rob and Sarah) met us there and we all camped together in the Norris campground. We had a fantastic time reminiscing about past family trips to Yellowstone and showing Mike and Sarah the park for the first time.

Here are a few favorite photos:

A glimpse of the Tetons on our way to Yellowstone
At Norris Geyser Basin on our first morning in the park
I love that I caught these two mid-laugh. Aren't they fun?
(Yes, those are my parents, even though they look waaaay too young to have adult children like me.)
This is one of the most beautiful things about Yellowstone -- steam rising amid the dark green pines.
And here's the other most beautiful thing in Yellowstone -- the grand canyon and the falls are stunning.
Mammoth Hot Springs
Dad & Mom cooking breakfast. We ate really well on the camping trip: stuffed French toast, grilled salmon, corn on the cob, homemade ice cream, s'mores. Yummy.
Here's the obligatory Old Faithful photo. It really is stunning, but also so crowded. This year Yellowstone National Park set a new record for attendance: 2.5 million.
And here are the wildlife photos. We saw tons of bison, but just a couple of elk, some deer, and a wolf (though it might have been a coyote).
On our way out of the park, Mike and I saw a grizzly bear with a cub! I have to admit, that was the most exciting wildlife sighting of the trip. And I didn't even get a photo.
On our last night together, it snowed. Pretty hard. Mom & Dad and Rob & Sarah were staying in Mom & Dad's tent trailer, so we all ate dinner there together, played cards, and ate popcorn. It was great fun.
Mike and I felt pretty tough sleeping in our tent after it had snowed for a couple of hours. But we were really warm and cozy, and when we woke up the next morning most of the snow was gone.

The trip to Yellowstone was great. We're planning to make another family trip there in a few years and hopefully everyone can make it then. It's such a beautiful place. Being there with the family brings back great memories.

(I didn't get a photo of the whole group together at the falls. Mom or Sarah, if you have one please send it my way!)

Hiking in the Snowies

Once Melissa and I returned from the Family Reunion Tour, we thought one of the best ways start feeling at home in Laramie area would be to do some hiking. After all, we love hiking, and Laramie is a very outdoorsy kind of place. We decided to hike a trail in the Snowy Range, which is about 40 miles west of Laramie. The Snowy Range is part of the Medicine Bow National Forest, and Medicine Bow Peak is the highest mountain in the Snowies. The trail we hiked, the Tipple Trail, passed through some beautiful landscape and had excellent views of Medicine Bow. Here's what we saw.

An old miner's cabin.

A trail marker.

This is an old broken-down mine with a vertical shaft.

I have to say that the photos don't really do justice to our experience. The elevation of the trail we hiked was about 10,000 feet. The trailhead is located at an overlook with Medicine Bow Peak directly above and vast stretches of the Snowy Range below the trail. To stand at that elevation with a chilly wind whipping at us, we felt exposed but also inspired. Most of the trail we hiked was under the cover of trees, so we were sheltered from the wind.

This is a photo from one of the overlooks.

As we drove down from the mountain after our hike we saw this huge moose just off the road. Amazing.