Sharon Vargo and Lost Sock Day

Brad Harris as Emmett Kelly

One of the activities was a costume party where we were supposed to dress up as our favorite day of the year. I chose World Tourism Day and piled on stuff from all over the world. Casey chose National Kick Butt Day and wore his taekwondo uniform with a butt-shaped sign pinned to his butt that said, "Kick here!" Only one guy attempted to kick him. Sharon Vargo here is Lost Sock Day, and Brad Harris made a perfectly sad Emmet Kelly Clown Day.

Near Highlights and Boyds Mills offices. We took the back roads thanks to our handy iPhones.

This is the lake next to our cabin at the Highlights weekend. Gorgeous!
We took a paddle boat out for a bit and got our butts wet due to a broken rudder.

Showing my baby belly at the Midsouth SCBWI conference in Nashville in Sept.

I won the Illustration Contest at the children’s book writers and illustrators conference in Nashville – yay! Here’s my entry. The art director had given us a couple picture book manuscripts, and we had to choose one spread to illustrate using the text he provided.

Labor Day weekend is a great time to blow bubbles and see family.

Drew is pile of laughs – even snapping beans is funny.

I wasn’t sure I’d be able to go to Vegas because I had basically been on bedrest for about 2 months. I was throwing up twice a day with morning sickness, but far worse was the crazy dizziness I had. If I would stand up, or look at my computer, or basically do anything besides stare at the wall, the room would spin and spin and spin…

My first trimester ended the week before our Vegas trip, and the dizziness mostly let up – yay! The nausea and throwing up was still around somewhat, but it’s much easier to handle that when the room’s not spinning in circles. (The severity of the dizziness I had was rare for pregnant women, most don’t even get dizzy, so those of you not pregnant yet, don’t worry – you probably won’t have it). We’re so thankful that the baby is healthy. Next Monday is another doctor’s appointment and I can’t wait to hear the heartbeat again.

So here’s our fun week in Vegas:

My pregnant belly is starting to show, at least I can tell it’s popping out there. We stayed at Caesar’s Palace for the conference. Quite a beautiful place!

Casey’s parents at the Sign-A-Rama awards banquet. Yes, Casey gets his goofiness from his dad.

I like palm trees.

The Venetian is so gorgeous! This is around 8 am. Apparently the only time Vegas sleeps.

This is still all indoors. Casey’s showing off his muscles on the bridge.

Here I’m trying to convince Casey that my baby belly is showing.

Casey’s looking like a total tourist at this nightclub.

In front of the Mirage.

The Chihuly ceiling exhibit in the Bellagio

The Bellagio gardens

The Mexican restaurant where we had lunch inside the Miracle Mile Shops – yes, that’s a painted ceiling, Mom.

My uncle and aunt, Ed and Lynn, were also in Vegas, and they took us out to Paris for linner… or dunch… or whatever it’s called between lunch and dinner. Yum.

So during dinner, Ed convinced us that the greatest game in all of Vegas isn’t poker, or blackjack, or a slot machine… no, it’s a game in the kid’s area of Excalibur called Pitch a Witch!!! You position a stuffed, ugly witch on a launchpad and then whack the release lever with a mallet. You have to get the witch to land in a cauldren in order to win a prize.

My witch is positioned, but I never made it in the cauldren. Casey, Ed, and Tom all did. What’s with the guys winning Pitch a Witch? Well, afterwards we played a dragon racing game, and I won that one!

We went home with 3 adorable teddies – the first toys for our baby!

Outside of Luxor. That’s the real sky, Mom, not painted.

For our anniversary, we splurged and stayed at the Wynn – a 5 star hotel (we got a deal on Hotwire). We went to a cirque du soleil show at the Wynn, Le Reve. It was fabulous! Of course we weren’t allowed to take photos at it though. We also spent some quality time in the pools – both at Caesar’s Palace where we stayed for the conference and at the Wynn. Didn’t take the camera in the pool.

The Wynn even made their casino elegant.