Walkin' the Strip

The fabulous and limited-time (exclusive) Las Vegas construction tunnel tour. Open, fresh-air sidewalks, bah! Half a mile of covered, beige, protected construction walkways - helps minimize glitz overload.


A new innovation in the ladies loo at the New York, NY (see DOUBLE cupholder, upper left - definitely accommodating to the yard-long margarita crowd).

Ah, the ladies of the Bellagio. It's a little hard to tell from this snap, but these ladies were so unbearably fashionable, that it was impossible to ignore them. They turned heads all the way through the casino... just missing their yard-long drinkies.

Still at the Bellagio, one of my favorite places in Las Vegas. The ceiling of the lobby - beautiful pieces of blown glass - farther away, and up close.

Pretty!

In a few places, it looked like what we'd seen in Italy last summer, but at the same time, kind of not.

Venice? or Venice, Las Vegas? Minus pigeons ... Plus ear-numbing cha-ching, cha-ching, cha-ching...

Even though it was cold and rainy all weekend, there was always sunny skies to be found inside..

Celebrations begin for the Year of the Ox.

Kung Hei Fat Choi!

Me, taking a picture of Chris, taking a picture for Liane.

Over the teeth, past the gums, look out Siegfried (or was it Roy?) here I come... (ok, bad joke, but good bronze tiger mouth)

Viva!

Went to Sin City for my birthday this year - we walked and ate our way down the strip, and ended up with one of the best meals ever at Smith & Wollensky steak house - YUM! Great filet, NY steak and outstanding veggie sides (so good, they rivaled the meat dishes, which is what the restaurant is known for). Also, had great waitstaff taking care of us, who were very entertaining throughout the meal.

Here we are as happy, and overstuffed dinner guests at S&W.

And to top it all off, a beautiful b'day chocolate cream-topped cupcake in an edible chocolate cup (no evidence remained of the dessert). Delicious. Yeah, roll 'em for 34!

Snow Snaps

Between Christmas and New Years in beautiful western Colorado. Steamboat Springs - one of our favorite towns, aka SkiTown, USA, as more Olympic athletes have come out of, or trained at Steamboat than any other place in the U.S. ...

Getting ready here to hit the slopes with Jeff and Shannon. Love those late-day lift tickets (thank you Dan!) ...

Later in the week, on a snowshoe trail... You can do it, Chris!

And there we are, atop the snowshoe trail (and standing on a picnic table) ...

Success, and the ski runs from earlier in the week behind at the back on big Mt. Werner.

On to Italy

From Paris we went East and met up with Chris' family in Italy. Together, a group of +/- 18 people traveled through the Tuscan countryside, spent a week in Florence, hiked between the Cinque Terre, and ended with 3 great days in Venice. We loved spending time with the family and seeing all the beautiful sights.

Home. Our Villa in Tuscany where we spent a wonderful week.

We went from the country to the city, and spent almost a week in Florence. Our apartment building is in the left side of the photo here (about half-way down on the left, with the square roof spike), and our living room and bedroom overlooked the Arno river (shown here) and we looked out across the river at the Uffizi Gallery. We were about half a block from the Ponte Vecchio, and it was such a great central location to everything we saw in Florence.

From Florence, we went up a spent a few days up by the Cinque Terre, and Chris and I hiked between the hill towns. Parts of that the trail and that hike were very challenging, but it's one of my favorite memories of our trip. And we had some amazing views of the water, the cliffs and the towns below the trail.

We finished our time in Italy with a few days in Venice. Like everybody says, Venice is like no other place on earth, but I think you really have to experience it to even understand (at least I did). It was early August when we were there, and there were a million tourists (including us) there, like wall-to-wall people crowding many of the narrow streets (as shown below), and it was incredibly hot, but it is one the best places I've ever been. We also had a wonderful walking and boat tour that helped us appreciate the city in a very authentic way. All in all, just an amazing place - and to top it all off, we had one of the best meals I've ever eaten there, from a little restaurant that didn't have a menu - just what was fresh that day...

And the obligatory shot of St. Mark's Cathedral and square.