Vivia Las Vegas Part 3- House hunting

Some activities we enjoyed besides house hunting while we visited Vegas at the end of February. We made the offer on a Tuesday and didn't leave till Friday evening. Of course we had some paperwork, inspection, etc that we needed to take care of but most of the time we relaxed, enjoyed good food, and did some lazy sight seeing. The first picture is from where we parked our rental to go explore the so called "Strip." By the way, our rental was amazing! I don't know how we got it really, but we did. A really nice Mercedes SUV. It was luxurious indeed!

At the gardens display presented by the Bilagio. 

When they say gardens, it's a garden. It's not garden"s". Why do I point this out? Everybody suggests going to see it and it is SO SMALL. It's worth it if you are on the strip anyway or want to go see a few things but not worth it for a special trip.

Just walking around, see some of the new shops they opened. They were all very high end shops that we would never purchase anything from. But, the surrounding atmosphere was neat with the flowers and such.

More lights and walking around! 

Tess enjoyed all the interesting things to look at. And there is a lot of it! I like the Venetian the best, it has more down to earth shops, neat architecture, and the canal which makes it very unique. 

She never falls asleep like this anymore...my favorite moment of the day! 

On our way to Mt Charleston and to visit the area our home is by. It is about a 20 minute drive to Mt Charleston from our drive way! Not bad! 

Getting teeth in everywhere! But they were hard to see, now they are plain as can be and I just love her "toothy" smile. She is now getting her first molars in! Both are on the bottom, she'll be chewing like a champ in no time. I am glad her teething has happened so quickly, she doesn't bite and it has it's advantages for a baby that hates baby food! 

She always does this! So funny. Sticks her feet right in the air. 

People may not have yards in Vegas (unless you have some serious mula, and by serious I mean more then us!) but the city makes up for it with plenty of parks all around our area. We probably live about 5 minutes from about 5 parks. Each one a little different and each one has a splash pad. It has been getting VERY hot lately, those splash pads are going to be fun when Tess can enjoy them! 

This will be our new stake center! Isn't this area gorgeous??? Such a beautiful building. And it's close to our home. We actually drive past several buildings on the way to ours which leaves us wondering...WHY?! But, we do love our ward and are making friends already!

They are hard to see...there are wild donkeys in this picture! 

My girl! I was not prepared for what motherhood would bring. There is nothing else I have felt more inadequate to do. Which is interesting. I never anticipated motherhood to be as difficult as it is. I don't know why it is. I think it is because I need to learn that this is God's work, not mine. I need to rely on Him in order to be successful. This is something I haven't felt I needed to do in any task besides when I was serving as a missionary and I feel it 100 fold now.  I am working on depending on Him, and praying for the strength and enabling power that I know Christ offers us through his Atonement. One thing I haven't found difficult, loving this little girl. Along with how difficult it has been for me, I have learned more about the capacity of God's love. I would do anything for this little girl, she is our little world. She means everything to us and we want to do all we can to help her through this life and return back to her Heavenly Father.

Just enjoying a nice breeze...I love this little look. So funny. 

I don't even know where we are at this point. But These pictures were taken on the trip, so they get put in this section! Ha!

We decided to visit a free aquarium at a casino that wasn't far off the strip. We were looking for "freebie" types of activities. The aquarium was neat, but what made it worth it was to visit the Bass Pro Shop. It was a pretty cool store!

It really is amazing how tall those giraffes are! 

She's almost as tall as the giraffe! 

AHHH! Look out for the lion leaping at you! 

We decided to go exploring in the Red Rocks area, here we are on our little hike out to a spot Greg wanted to check out. Can you see why he wanted to check it out? Besides the beautiful red colored rock?

There it is! Can you see it! Yep, a little climbing crag. And it is our favorite so far. My favorite anyway! We have already been out there three times. Short trips, it's hard to keep Tess entertained in her play pen for very long. 

The two little teeth shot! She was getting the ones on the side in, but you can't see them. I miss the two "toother" grin. :) 

VERY pretty area! The dessert has it's own kind of beauty.