Just when I was all in a Disney state of mind, Kylan had to luck out and schedule a seminar in Las Vegas. Not that I'm complaining, of course. For the price of a plane ticket I get to be a lady of leisure for a change. What will I do with no work or deadlines??? LOL! Who am I kidding�I am so excited that I have the map of 'the strip' almost memorized! And it's not much of a stretch from thinking about Disney to planning for Vegas. After all, they are probably two of the most colorful and crowded tourist destinations in the U.S. and they both have themed hotels carried to the extreme. (You may have noticed that I have not mentioned the Vegas 'biggie', gambling. Well, it's not for me. Although Kylan will be working while there, this will be a vacation for me. And I do not intend to waste my time and money sitting in casinos!)
Enough of Vegas. Now for a recap of February.
We didn't really do much at the beginning of the month. On the 14th we went to see the movie 'Daredevil' and then went out to dinner with friends. Kylan had been really excited about seeing the movie...the superhero Daredevil is one of his all-time favorites. I wasn't greatly excited about seeing it, but it was a pretty good movie. It was nice to see a comicbook flick that had a bit of a plot for a change. And I think that the casting was pretty good. I didn't much like Jennifer Garner as Electra (she had the necessary fighting skills but didn't look the part at all) but Ben Affleck was pretty good, except for a very bad haircut. Colin Farrell was wonderfully sadistic as Bullseye and, of course, I loved Michael Clarke Duncan as Kingpin. If you plan to see it, I would advise finding a theatre with a good sound system as sound plays a significant roll in the film.
On February 15th we went to the Quaker Square Crowne Plaza for their Valentine's package. For those who don't know, the hotel (and attached shopping area) was built from an old Quaker Oats factory. The hotel rooms are actually in the silos from the factory. It is really pretty cool to stay in one of the round rooms, more for the experience than anything else. The restaurants there are good too. Our package included a room, dinner for two, a bottle of champagne, chocolate covered strawberries, entry to a jazz club, and a buffet breakfast. Even though it was just overnight, it felt like we had a week's vacation. And it definitely didn't feel like we were in Akron. (If you happen to be in town and want to go to a relaxed club with great music, try the jazz club at Quaker Square. It is a relatively new establishment so it is not very crowded and they make a great Cosmo!)
On the 22nd, Kylan's martial arts school had its annual Chinese New Year celebration. All of the students from Wing Sing and its sister schools Yuen Sing and Yee Sing, along with some family members, arrived at a local Chinese restaurant for the party. We had lots of fun and the food was delicious. There seemed to be even more people in attendance this year than last year�I would say near 100.
As for the very end of the month, that's when we had our front lawn dug up. We discovered a plumbing problem involving a backed-up drain in our basement. We had someone in to snake the drains in the house and, when snaking the main one that was backing up, the bit on the snake broke. In other words, there was a blockage of some kind in the main line. So, after managing to get together the necessary funds, we had a back hoe ripping up part of our lawn and the main pipeline from the house was replaced. The blockage had been caused by a tree root that was about 12 inches around! So now we have a nice mound of dirt in front of the house and we have to wait for warmer temps so it can settle back into the hole that was dug.
Later,
D.
Books Recently Read
Dawn:
Fixer Chao by Han Ong.....6 out of 7
(A well-written novel about a feng shui fraud.)
Imajica by Clive Barker.....7 out of 7
(One of my all-time favorite books. A great fantasy tale about the quest to reconcile the various dominions of earth. A long one at over 800 pages.)
Artemis Fowl by Eoin Colfer.....5 out of 7
(Reminiscent of Harry Potter, but with more adult sensibilities and less repetitive. A great story about a 12-year-old mastermind's plan to steal gold.)
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