April 21, 2015 ~ MJ One Show and Stratosphere

Lucas had the opportunity to go to Michael Jackson ONE, a Cirque Du Soleil show at the Mandalay Bay (which he has been dying to see since it came out since he is a HUGE Michael Jackson fan). It was his dream come true! He said it was by far his favorite show on the strip (which he has seen over 20 shows due to his job). After the show they went to the Stratosphere for dinner and for...surprise...free rides at the top of the stratosphere!! I was at home studying (as usual) and got the exciting call that him plus one (me) could ride the rides at the top of the stratosphere for FREE. I have grown up in Vegas but sadly I have never been to the top of the stratosphere so this was my dream come true!! It was such a windy night that they had closed down the ride where you hang over the edge and turn in circles and they also closed down the bungie-jumping. Lucas tried to convince me to ride the ride where your in the rollercoaster cart and you slide off the edge of the stratosphere but considering the other two rides were closed down due to wind I didn't think that sounded fun. We decided to ride the big shot as many times as we could! It was breath taking to be shot into the air and have an amazing and amazingly high view of the whole strip, so we did it again and again and again.

I was after the 3rd or 4th time that we decided the butterflies in our stomach were a little too strong to ride again. Overall it was a wonderful night for Lucas and a wonderful surprise for me to join him!

May 11, 2015 ~ Where event: Paranormal Frederic Da Silva and Carnival

If I haven't said it enough...I love the perks of Lucas' job! We were able to go to Paranormal Frederic Da Silva, it was a mixture of magic and mind games. Lucas was a part of the show and it was amazing! After the show we went to a carnival at the Vegas Luxury Ride warehouse. They had carnival games, a DJ, food trucks with free food (including an ice cream truck!) and a couple of different catering services there also. We were able to try a lot of different foods and of course Lucas won all of the carnival games. He won a ring toss and got a bluetooth speaker! There were also jugglers and people walking around in costume, I don't even know how to describe their costumes. 

May 4-6th 2015 ~ Six Flags, Beach and Angels game!

May 4th we woke up bright and early and started our drive to Six Flags in California. I have never been to six flags and apparently have never been to a REAL theme park before because of that. I have been to Disneyland a handful of times but Lucas says they don't have real roller coasters. We went on a week day hoping that the park would be empty and we were in luck! The only ride we had to actually wait in line for was the X because only one side was working, all the other rides had a 15 minute wait max. My favorite ride was Tatsu because you get strapped in and then you are tummy down the whole ride. At first it was scary because you are staring at the ground while flying through the air but you really feel like you are flying! My other favorite ride was the Lex Luther drop of doom. The Lex Luther and the Superman share the same two, which is a very high tower. You climb up to the top of a 415 foot tower and then you drop. The first time we rode the Lex Luther it was exhilarating and fun so we hopped on it a second time. The second time the superman ride went to the top of the tower the same time we were at the top of the tower so the tower started to sway back and forth and shake. With the swaying, shaking and loudness from the superman I thought I was going to die...and then we dropped! The first time we knew when the drop was going to occur but the second time there was so much noise and so much going on we didn't see it coming! Unfortunately after like 4 rides I got a little sick and had to sit out but I still rode a couple of more rides before we left the park (like the Lex luther twice and Tatsu).

May 5th

Unfortunately it was overcast the whole day and on our beach day! The water was so cold, the water was cold enough where Lucas didn't want to get in...that means its pretty cold! Luckily we brought long boards and so we were able to still have fun. We first sat on the beach and talked and enjoyed the sound of the waves crashing, then we walked along the boardwalk and watched the surfers surfing. Then it was long boarding time! I am not very fast on the long board and so Lucas ended up helping me go faster by grabbing my hand and pulling me. I have such a cute husband! 

While we were walking on the beach we saw this in the sand. It says "follow me" and had an arrow next to it. The arrows ended and so we decided to continue to draw arrows until we got to a lifeguard tower and then we drew a smiley face.

At night we went to an Angel's game, my first MLB game! It was a lot of fun even though the people next to us happened to take a picture and I was in the background mid yawn... They took that picture then I left to go to the bathroom and Lucas happened to see the picture after they took it and asked for a copy. I guess I am just really good at photo-bombing pictures and not even knowing it. It was Cinco De Mayo and they wanted to break a Guinness World Record so they gave everyone sombreros...and we beat it! Lucas and I are in the Guinness World Record book for being apart of the largest gathering of people wearing sombreros. They had everyone put their sombreros on at the start of the fifth inning and they counted more then 20,000 fans wearing sombreros. Not only did we make the record books but it was an amazing game against the Seattle Mariners. One of the players made his MLB debut and his first time being at bat made a home run! The game ended with the same player making a walk off home run and winning the game.

On May 6th we woke up early and started our drive home to meet our new nephew Benson Giles! 

May 6th 2015 ~ Meeting Benson Giles

Here is a picture we took on May 3rd before Lucas and I left for California. We wanted to take a family pictures before the family changed by the edition of Benson Giles.

May 5th 2015 ~ Birth of Benson

Benson Michael Giles was born 5/5/15 at 7:55am. He was 8 lbs 7oz and 20 inches long. 

 Here is a post from Carrie's instagram

May 6th 2015 ~ Meeting Benson

May 2015 ~ Community semester is OVER!

Wow was this a semester to never forget...but not for good reasons! It was extremely stressful and mostly because of the teacher. We had this huge community project where we had to perform research in our community and find out a need that needed to be addressed. The majority of my group was at Southern Nevada Health district in the immunization clinics and there was an out break of the Measles in Disneyland so we figured that would be a good topic to cover. We did an online survey and posted it on every and all social media so we could get as many people as possible to complete the survey. The teacher, Professor K, said to let her know if we had any questions but we didn't know she meant send me rough drafts of your project every week so I can micro-manage. After about a month into the semester and a month into the project we had a question and she analyzed everything and let us know that we were doing it wrong and not how SHE wanted. It was so frustrating because we only had 3 weeks to complete a paper, a poster board, pamphlet in Spanish and English and present it and its 50% of our grade and we were finding out we weren't doing it how the professor wanted. This was just the beginning but we didn't know that. The week of our presentation to SNHD she let us know that she wanted a dress rehearsal of our presentation...there were 8 people in our group with 8 different work schedules and she wanted a dress rehearsal with EVERYONE! We finally figured out that everyone could meet Tuesday morning (except me but I was one of the few that could get work off) and she said she was busy and couldn't attend and that we needed to record it. We were upset and agreed to record it. Come the dress rehearsal it was the day after I was in the ER, March 24th, and I barely could stand for more then a couple of minutes, I had to take a break and sit down in the shower I was so fatigued. You know your sick and fatigued when you can't even get through a shower without a break. 

Anyway, I managed to get through the dress rehearsal and come March 27th the day of our presentation to SNHD things exploded! Just before the presentation Professor K cracked down and told people they weren't dressed professionally. She said how Mayra's sweater wasn't professional and needed her to change. Mayra responded in what is professional dress and stated that she is struggling with paying rent and buying food for her children so how is she supposed to go shopping for cloths. Luckily my outfit was professional enough for professor K without my blazer on so Mayra removed her sweater and put my blazer on. She also stated that Jen's outfit wasn't professional (which she had a pencil skirt, flowery blouse and black cardigan on). Jen responded with a similar response as Mayra but professor K continued to analyze her outfit and push her. Jen started to cry and professor K continued until Patti stepped between them both and said stop pushing us, stop pushing us, you have pushed us enough and we have worked so hard and it is less then an hour before our presentation. Professor K grabbed Patti's hands and when she finally let go we all left the room to go to the bathroom and cool down. Patti got written up with a learning contract which resulted in letters to the dean on behalf of Patti to remove the learning contract. It was such a big ordeal, she pushed everyone to their limits and the majority of the class was upset and frustrated with her the whole semester. End of rant, I am so glad the semester is over and we all survived it. 

March 27th, a selfie in the SNHD bathroom before changing and leaving for our presentation

 Our presentation to SNHD

Here is the English version of the pamphlets we supplied to the SNHD after our presentation. Our presentation not only discussed what is in the pamphlet but discussed ways to teach parents about the measles. We played a jeopardy game about measles in the beginning of the presentation and made it a competition. We played the jeopardy game to present the option for interactive learning methods.  

Here is the poster were presented to the school about our project.  

Here is a picture of the other group and their poster and the dean

Here is a little taste of our 46 page paper about Measles and our research we conducted. Don't want to bore you with the whole things. I changed it to single space but the actual paper was double spaced and ended up being 46 pages after references and appendixes.

Here is a copy of our presentation slides that we presented to SNHD