Las Vegas and the Christmas stars

Good evening and good December to you. This Sunday evening finds me back home after a guys' weekend in Las Vegas. Karl, Derek, Jim and I attempted to rekindle the magic of our last Vegas Visit...a mere 11 years ago. While we are living much different lives than we were in 1996, we are essentially the same people. It took us minutes to get back up to speed and enjoy a mindless weekend at The Rio.

I'm always touched by the good fortune of having friends with which getting together after so much time has passed is a seamless and comfortable experience. I'm blessed to have such good friends, despite the distance between us. We have vowed to make sure the frequency of visits is significantly increased over the coming months and years.

Friday's torrential rains across much of the West/Southwest forced my flight to be three and a half hours delayed. I didn't reach the hotel until 12:30, meaning I missed the night's festivities. Which kind of sucked. I went down to the hotel bar and had a few drinks by myself and was reminded what an anomalous aberration Las Vegas is. Definitely the People Watching Capital of the Universe.

Saturday, the four of us watched more continuous college football than I have personally sat down to view since I was probably 20. Capped off by a Sun Devil triumph in another installment of the Duel in the Desert/Territorial Cup battle with Arizona. We then spent the remainder of the evening drinking, bowling, playing pool, drinking, drinking and eating. And drinking. It was definitely just what the doctor ordered.

And I didn't gamble one red cent, I'm proud to say. Not that it's much of a temptation for me to overcome. I have never been seduced by it.

Today, I returned home to take my ladies, as promised, to buy a Christmas tree. Our eight month-long vision of spending the holidays in our new home became that much more crystallized. The girls took great joy in hanging ornaments tonight. When they finished, we just sat back and absorbed the warm glow of the room. We're stunned by the reality that we have an entire room dedicated to the tree. In the condo, it was stuffed up against a wall, sandwiched between the couch and TV. Here, it sits prominently in the front living room bay window for all to enjoy.

Lori's gone to town on the interior and exterior of the house. Garlands and wreaths adorn much of the front hall and all of our accumulated Christmas knick-knacks have found new niches to occupy. The whole house smells of evergreen and cinnamon. We had a company come and string icicle lights along the entire top eave of the house last week. Our house has holiday light outlets pre-wired into the walls, but it appears that there's something wrong (which you really don't discover until you string up lights). An electrician is coming tomorrow to hopefully fix the issue. I'll take a picture of the front of the house when the lights are functional. We have a few our there now and in the windows, but the icicle lights should be the crowning achievement.

Many of the homes around here have lights up and we've been invited to a neighborhood party across the street this coming weekend. We met a few more neighbors and, I have to tell you, this sensation of pride in home ownership and sense of community was too long coming. But now that it's here, it's definitely sugar plum sweet.

Let the Christmas dreams begin.