Kentucky Derby

In May Darren and I were able to go to our second Kentucky Derby.  If you remember correctly, our first Derby was in the absolute pouring rain so we were hoping for better weather this time!  The night before Beth's family had a birthday party for Annie who was about to turn one.  She totally loved her Gigi's cupcake!

 

My brother even got to stop by for a few minutes before he headed to the Hot 100 Party.  He looks pretty spiffy if I do say so myself!

 
The weather cooperated and what we got what we wished for but it was 90 degrees and  sunny.  Way too hot to be in the infield for sure but we survived!

PreDerby pictures.

 

 

Our arrival at Churchill Downs.

 

Darren with Wes and Vic after the race.

 

In the end we were glad to be there but I didn't get to see a horse that wasn't on the jumbotron!  I Want Another went on to win the Derby

Pre-Wedding Festivities

The night before Bryan and Carolyn got married we took them out for a few drinks before they became husband and wife.  It was a fun weekend and one of the very few weddings I got to attend that was actually in Nashville!

Red Rocks

While we were in Sedona we definitely wanted to see the red rocks.  Granted they are hard to miss but there are some places where the views are significantly better than others.  We started off at Red Rocks State Park.  Unless you want to hike the red rocks, this can probably be missed but we did get a couple beautiful shots.

 

 

We took a break for lunch and ended up eating on the main road in Sedona called the Cowboy Club.  The restaurant appealed to us because their burgers looked really good.  What sold us was the appetizer sampler.  It included cactus fries, the round thing in the middle is a fried cilantro flatbread cake served with homemade peanut butter, buffalo brochettes and rattlesnake meatballs. Yep you read that right.... Cactus, Buffalo and Rattlesnake. Living on the edge!

We were told about a neat church built into the rocks called Chapel of the Holy Cross.  It was really beautiful how it blended into its surroundings.

 From the Chapel you could look right down on this insane house.  Apparently there are lots of rumors of famous people owning it but turns out its the eye doctor who invented Lasik. 

 The colors of the rocks we saw were varied and very beautiful.

 

Got Hockey?

Trying to get to the point I can scrapbook our trip to Asia, just a few pages left!!  This is from April 2011 at the CHS hockey night that I hung out with Jayna and the girls.

Montazuma's Well & Castle plus Tuzigoot

While in Arizona, Darren was interested in seeing some Indian ruins.  We stayed the night near Sedona and found three different ruins nearby.  Our first stop in the morning was Montazuma's Well.  We were thinking it was going to be well, a well, one that you would send a bucket down and get water.  Maybe at one time it was something similar but now it is a spring fed hole where one million gallons flows through here each day.
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On the wall of the cliff above the spring fed lake were the remnants of cliff homes.

Nearby is also Montezuma's Castle.  This building was built  high into the cliff face and was constructed by the Sinagua tribe.  The castle contained 20 rooms and was built almost 900 years ago!  It's amazing things this old can be found in the United States when when most people think our history only goes back 400 years or so.

 

From Montezuma's castle we drove over to Tuzigoot.  Tuzigood is an Apache word for crooked water.  It is a 2 to 3 story Sinagua dwelling which dates back to about 900 years around the time Montezuma's Castle was also built.

 

 

It was a very interesting history I had never known much about before our random stops in Arizona.

Grand Canyon

From Vegas we decided to road trip to the Grand Canyon.  Darren had never been to the Canyon and I hadn't been since I was 16 so I was due for another visit.  We visited the South Rim since the North Rim had not opened yet for the season yet.

 

 

Back in the day this would have been a house with an unbelievable view.

 

We headed along the rim to the east entrance.

 

At the east end of the canyon is the desert view watchtower.

 

From the watchtower there were great views of the river.

 

We were still in the park at sunset.  The views were beautiful.  I just wish the pictures captured it better!

 

 

Jelly Belly Factory

Even thought I only had two pictures from us visiting the Jelly belly factory I loved them (and I love Jelly Bellys) too much not to have scrapbooked them!

Happy 4th of July!!

Hope you all have a great holiday!

Napa

From our last trip to Napa featuring two wineries we spent the most time, Jarvis and Castillo de Amorosa.

 

Hoover Dam

On the drive from Vegas to the Grand Canyon, we had to stop at Hoover Dam.  Unfortunately there were no tours that day so we didn't get to go into the dam, but we did walk along it and went up to the observation deck.

Down river.

 

Of the Lake Mead reservoir. 

 The memorials to the building of the dam.

 

On the way to the Grand Canyon Darren had his first In and Out Burger experience.  He almost convinced me to go again the following day on the way back to Vegas!