Grab Your Balls....We're Going Bowling!

Welcome to Mesquite, Nevada! It is a smallish town that likes to mimic Vegas. At least that's what we thought of it. Interestingly though it is only 25 years old. It was founded in 1984 and has been one of the towns to suffer quite a few drawbacks of the downturn in the economy. Several of the casinos there were shut down. It borders the Nevada-Arizona border. We found this out first hand one night when we took a wrong turn while looking for some place to eat and found ourselves in Arizona only a two short minutes later.

So, why were we in Mesquite? The state bowling tournament is being held there from April until June. Dwayne's team from here in Fallon were set to bowl this past weekend. D ended up bowling 9 games in one day, and his fingers were super raw by the end of the night! He bowled three games in the following categories: Team, Doubles, and Singles.

We drove down Friday evening and the games all started Saturday late-morning with the team event. We stayed at this motel: The Virgin River

It also holds the bowling alley in it so we didn't have very far to go when it was time to bowl.

Dwayne's Team has five guys on it. Here are their team photos:

Their team name was "Dickie's Nuts" and they each had their own nut nick-name.

Dwayne was Doughnut, of course, a nod to the job he has.

After the team event there was a break before the doubles and singles events. We had about four hours to kill. Well, low and behold, this funny little border town had a Popeyes Chicken joint. For those of you who don't know, D is a huge fan of Popeyes chicken. There aren't any at all in Northern Nevada. It is a very special treat he gets when we head south. So of course....we had Popeyes for lunch.

What else do you do in a town you've never been to before to kill time? You drive around until you find something to do. In our case we found: Go Karts! It was a fairly nice track. The weather was great, not too hot or windy so off we went to race. There was nobody else there which meant we had the track all to ourselves!

We looked around in a couple of stores, went back to the room to freshen up and allow D to clean his bowling balls for the next events. Then it was time for Doubles and Singles. I took my cheering position at one of the tables and ordered us some drinks. Away he went and bowled.

Yes, these are bowling pin drinks we have, they filled them with your drink of choice.

Yard: Phase 2

Well with the weather starting to warm up we have been hard at work on our yard. I have to say, the house looks so much better with all the work that D and I have been putting into it. For our beginning pictures please see the blog titled: Yard: The Beginnings.

Once we got going with laying the sod in the front yard we realized just how big of a front yard we had! Three pallets of grass later we had beautiful green grass in front of the house. It was definitely a multi day project! Before we could even lay the new sod we had to tear up all the old dead stuff first. Out with the old and in with the new.

Now that the grass is in place, we can start building the border around where the bushes will be. We plan on lining the front of the house with green bushes. More on that to come.

I love having little flower gardens and we plan on having two. The first we have already planted. It is on the side of the house that is connected to the garage and is full of daffodils and tulips. The second one will be just in front of one of the sections of bushes and will have Calla lilies. More on that to come too.

One of our next projects will be the side of the house. We have this pile of gravel sitting on our sidewalk. It belongs on the side of the house. So on one of these days, we will clean the side yard, and haul all the rock over to the side of the yard. Why hasn't this been done yet you may ask. Well, the company that delivered the rock was supposed to deliver the rock on the driveway next to the yard, but instead it was delivered clear on the other side of the house. It has been kind of a deterrent to finishing that project.

Of course, as we finish more of our projects I will continue to post updates!

Happy Easter!

We hope everyone had a very nice Easter. Our Easter started with a visit by the one and only Easter Bunny! I caught a snapshot of him as he was leaving and helping himself to a little nibble on our newly planted, very green grass!

Then it was off to Mass as a family. Our Easter tradition is going church and then coming home where we take a few pictures and then we grill steaks! I'm not sure how many years now we've been grilling after church on Easter but it is a tradition we all love now.

Of course Halo had a visit from the Easter Beagle and he was so excited! He was all over his Easter basket!

( This is the Easter basket he got. He even had his own *white* chocolate rabbit!)

He couldn't wait to get into his goodies! The T-shirt he is wearing is a gift from his grandma for Easter too!

It was a really nice day. The weather was beautiful, the food was delicious, Easter Mass was great, and best of all it was great spending the day with family!

(Steven- my brother, Me, Melanie- my sister)

Date Night

We try to have a date night whenever we can fit one in our schedules. We take turns planning the nights and they are always fun. This past Saturday we were able to have the evening off together so it was the perfect night!

(In our seats waiting for the show to start)

To start our evening off we had dinner at Outback Steakhouse. D used to work there as a server and it is definitely a place we love to eat! With food in our stomachs it was time to go to the main event of the night. We had tickets to see Jay Leno at the Peppermill. We both enjoy watching the Tonight Show with him and it was way cool to see him in person. He told some really funny stories and of course some really good jokes. We had a great time at the show.

(Jay on stage doing his thing)

To finish off our night it was time for dessert! We went to The Melting Pot for some chocolate fondue. If you've never eaten there I highly suggest it! It is a little pricey but you get a lot of really great food. It is more than just getting something to eat too, it is a whole dining experience. We didn't do the whole meal just the dessert and it was still fabulous! Very very delicious!

(On our way inside)

(With our YUMMY dessert)

(D playing peek-a-boo with me across the table)

It was nice to have a night out and we had a great time!