This is how it all went down...

UEA – Utah Education Association. The 5 day school break in Utah when most men pack up their precious hunting gear and head out into the wilderness in search of ‘The Big One”. Chris was once all caught up in it but time has mellowed him and so has golf. So for the last couple years we spent the week in Palm Springs with neighbors. This year the neighbors decided to stay home and watch the crash of the stock market & debates. Frankly, all the kids really want is warm weather, a swimming pool & friends to share it with. Oh wait, maybe that’s what I want. Either way we packed up 4 families and headed south. The first night we left the kids with a sitter and went to Les Miserables. It was a great production…same story, same music, very well done. The next day we left the bread winners at home with the littles and headed to Vegas to spend their hard earned cash. At a favorite place – Lululemon Athletic clothing store the clerk put me thru a series of breathing techniques after he announced my total being billed to my Visa. A series of 4 letter words crossed my mind. My hands were dripping sweat. My girlfriend, Tricia, piped in “you husband doesn’t care!”. I took deep breaths and then realized what had happened just moments before…. We had a mother/daughter shopping team with us. Melissa (age 15), the daughter had just returned to the Lululemon store and announced to her mother, Rosie, that she had purchased and was wearing a $50.00 bra from Victoria Secret. There stood a very speechless Rosie who I am sure has ever raised her voice or expressed an overly strong feeling about anything without doing it with the utmost kindest of words. The look on her face said it all. Rosie, like me, was probably close to throwing up. My thoughts… “HEY! At least when I walk in a room everyone will actually SEE the over-indulgence that I’m wearing.” And throughout the rest of the trip Melissa made certain that EVERYONE was aware she was wearing a $50.00 bra.

Justin Timberlake and Friends. We REALLY liked him and his friends made it that much better. He played a sold out show at Planet Hollywood Resort on the Vegas strip. How cute was he??? He introduced each act and each act was AMAZING.

The Jonas Brothers, Stomp Out Loud, Leona Lewis (‘Keep Bleeding Love’ & winner of the British Idol), Boys to Men (yes, the trio from the late 80’s early 90’ and sounded exactly the same), Esme from Holland (JT has written some songs for her), Rihanna (she is fabulous), then Justin came out and sang a few songs from the last couple albums. He did duets with Will Iam from Black Eyed Peas, Adam Levine from Maroon 5 & Lionel Ritchie (JT’s favorite song of all time is ‘Easy Like Sunday Morning’). After a few songs on his own 50 Cent joined him. 50 did a couple of his own songs and then Justin finished off the show with basically everything on his most resent album and a few from the past. He DID NOT DISAPPOINT! He sang for almost 2 hours everything we wanted to hear. We crawled in bed at 5 a.m. and it was worth it. We will not miss it next year!

Saturday we took the kids to Entrada where they could swim in the same pool where Gabriella & Troy swam in High School Musical 2. Sunday we spent the day at the Russell’s beautiful home. They are long time friends of Jana & Randy. Roger, Jill, Sarah, Michael, & Heath (likes to be referred to as ‘cuteness’) were fun hosts. Our littles were in heaven. We really enjoyed the Russell hospitality. And, who knew, they love to make movies.