GIRLS DAY OUT.

Sunday, the party is over, we decide to have a girls day out. before the hard work of moving begins. Virginia will leave Monday morning and we don't often find time for just we girls to have fun time together. We headed for the nail spa. Laurie, Kris and I chose to have a pedicure.

Virginia opted for a manicure.

Kris was in the habit of treating me to a pedicure when I visited her in Southern California, many years ago. I remember them as sitting on a fairly normal chair, soaking my feet in a pan of water and having my feet on the technicians knees as she sat at my feet with a towel over her clothes. This was an entirely different experience. The plush chairs, give you a massage while your feet are  softened.

The technician sands the rough skin off the bottom of Kris's feet.

After the scrubbing and softening, we each got a defoliating toes to knee massage. What a great feeling.

The nails and cuticles are given special attention. The techs laugh and talk while they work.

Kris had them really laughing as she counted from one to ten in Vietnamese. They corrected her pronunciation a couple of times.

Then the color and hardner are added.

A relaxing and fun hour later, we showed off our feet and hands, and headed out for Sushi.

There are several really good sushi restaurants in the area, but not many of them are open on Sunday. This one is Midori, on N. Green Valley Parkway, in nearby Henderson.

We had appetizers of salmon and tuna, fried tofu, and seaweed salad. All delicious. I forgot to take pictures of everything but the first plate.

We were having too much fun for me to remember the exotic names of these dishes. Just that they were all delicious as we tasted back and forth. Virginia's order with rice above.

My entre had three different types of tuna plus octopus, shrimp, caviar,  and salmon.  Extremely fresh and tasty, served on a combined bed of fine rice noodles and  sticky rice.

Kris and Laurie both tried a conventional sushi dish. All were good.
We headed for Laurie's and Virginia made the perfect statement. "We need to do this more often." I'll go for that!

GRADUATION PARTY-ONLY 105 DEGREES.

Saturday, at 4:00 the counters were laden with food and snacks. Party time, and the weather has cooled to 105 degrees from 111 on Friday.

Laurie put the cake over a container of ice to keep  the frosting from melting. Air conditioning doesn't do much good with doors opening and closing, and movement in and out.

Guests begin arriving. Chairs and sitting places are skimpy because much of the furniture was sold.  The stairs do double duty.

Neighbor Bob, a young 87 loves to flirt, dance, and oil paint. We chatted for a couple of hours.

Kelly and Jeff, are teacher friends.

Many of the students  enjoyed party after party over graduation and weren't very hungry.

They made their way upstairs and congregated on air mattresses the family has been using for beds. Games and a big screen television kept them entertained.

Amber is home schooled and will attend college in Colorado. Her father is the boys scout leader, if I'm remembering correctly.

And you know those annoying little pop-ups you get on your screen?  Well this annoying little pop-up is grandson Theo, blocking a picture of Mason. Next time he gets the mighty hand of Thor.

I don't know the kids name's for the most part. Just that they are all polite and nice and thwart the current reputation of the unruly, spoiled-rotten teens.

Stewart's friend, Paul, has signed on to help with the move to California. Ken decided to pay the boys to load the vans and drive to Valley Springs, to earn money toward their college expenses. They normally have summer jobs, but leaving Vegas means less opportunity to make expenses.

There were a lot of fond farewells.

But most of the graduates will meet again as both Stewart and Mason are now students of University Nevada Reno where many of their friends are enrolled.

This is Dallas. What a beauty and intelligent too.

A good friend, and ex-sister-n-law to Kris, Julia Gold, I hadn't seen in about five years. We had such fun the last time we met. I hope it won't be as long until we next meet.

Enjoying friends I've only heard about before. Laurie and Ken have lived in this Nevada oven for 8 years and expect to see their friends on visits both ways. Friends and family, the best of treasures. Parties make good memories.

FAMILY TIME AND MOVING.

Continuing my family saga out of Las Vegas, Mason graduated on Thursday. My son and his family have a garage full of boxes, no beds to sleep on, minimal cooking utensils, chairs, a table, a couch and television set in their house. They are preparing to move back to California,  32 miles from me,  and still host a graduation party on Saturday. A bit  of bedlam with house guests, moving and a party. Ken and the boys spend Friday cleaning, hosing down the patio, pruning dead palm fronds, etc.

The heat is intense and when the outside work is done, the guys cool off in the pool.

Virginia and Cedric, and the boys arrived from California and take respite in the air conditioning with another 113 degree day.

The dogs are excited and nervous because they detect something different is going on about them and change for them is always stressful.

Laurie and I prepare gobs of potato salad, coleslaw and party stuff . It is too hot to barbecue so the chicken and pulled pork are catered by Dave's Famous Barbecue. Dave claims other sauces are just Ketchup. Kris comes in after work and we all enjoy some family time in the pool.

Kris, Laurie and Austin.

Theo likes the waterfall and diving for pool torpedoes.

In California, there will be no pool, but in Las Vegas, if you can afford it, a pool is almost as important as the house. Virginia is diving for torpedoes with the kids.

Saturday, the party doesn't begin until 4:00 p.m. Kris is also moving, not out of Las Vegas, but to a bigger place. She just got the keys to her new digs, so we all troop over to see it.

Her current backyard is hot and narrow. She has two dogs, a lab and a shepherd. The dogs share with those she fosters for a dog rescue program. The need is great  and she fosters dogs all the time.

She is currently caring for a minpin, (miniature pincer) who had a leg broken in three places and the owners couldn't afford the $1000 to mend the leg. She also has a pit bull in foster care right now. They all get exercised in the cool part of the morning, starting at 4:30 a.m. before she goes to work.

I've been accused of being a collectiholic, and Kris collects shoes. This one is just pretty, but she does very creative things with shoes.

Laurie collects anything elephant, and both use their collections as part of the house decor. Laurie has an elephant print on her phone. I love it.

And I love Kris's big, bold style of decorating, as in this over-sized clock, the width of a twin bed,  in her guest room. I spent the night there.

Her new back yard is 1600 square feet.

It has a pool. With Ken's pool unavailable, (they live close to each other), she was anxious to have that option.

I didn't make it up the stairs, but I like the different planes and mix of colors in a visible space from wall to wall that is popular.  Virginia and Theo  peek down from above. Tomorrow, the party and Girls Day Out.

LAS VEGAS GRADUATION-113 DEGREES.

I've been absent this blog since June 5th when I flew out of Newark, N.J. to Las Vegas for my grandson, Mason's, graduation. My webmail would not recognize me from my daughter-in-law's computer, so I could not blog from Las Vegas.


Mom helped him get his cap on straight.


Mason is quiet and resists all the fuss.


Especially when Dad tried to plant a smooch on him.


Las Vegas graduations are different than most. All the area High Schools have graduation in the same conference center building, so we get our pictures at home-INSIDE!  Inside because it is 113 degrees outside on this graduation day. No graduations are  held outside because the weather can literally be deadly. I was sooooo grateful.


The kids load into seats on the floor in the huge auditorium.


Row by row they file by on stage to receive their diplomas and then take their seats. Mason is part of the band so he sits with the band members. He got two band awards. This band was given a rare honor of playing for the Macy's Day Parade and also playing at Carnegie Hall. In short, they are good.


Graduations for all the high schools are held on one day. As soon as one school is finished, the next one begins staging. The Average person and average camera cannot pick out their student from seats in the bleachers as about 800 students are involved, so a camera gets each kid on a four-way big screen at eye level above the event on the floor.


Afterwards, we went to a local restaurant for lunch. Brother Stuart loaned Mason his sunglasses.


Sans gown and cap, this is his Blues Brother's look. Yeah!

One of his Senior assignments was to write his life story with pictures. Mason is very artistic and his reminiscences were written from the heart.  Proud grandma shed a tear after reading it. He'll be attending University of Nevada Reno.