What a TIME!

It's always a treat to spend TIME with my son, Lucas, and this TIME I had five glorious days with him, all to myself, in Vegas where he's lived for the past 4.5 years. Why does the TIME always go by so quickly? Anyway, here a few shots from our TIME together...

Lucas' house, about two miles from the Strip:

Boys and their toys (the toys get more expensive the older they get):

His Christmas "tree" and decorations (Hawaii ornament from our cruise last year). This tall & skinny pine tree will be planted outdoors later on. Lucas has an incredibly green thumb (which he didn't get from me) and has lots of unusual indoor plants all around the house:

A photo from Lucas' My Space page - getting in the holiday spirit!

Lucas, Skaught, and me...

The Stratosphere (the tallest building in Vegas) - we took the elevator up to the top to enjoy lunch and the view (the restaurant spins around slowly - takes about an hour to get all the way around):



Walkway view from the hotel to the pool area where Lucas worked this summer - you can see the typical amount of snow this year on the mountains in the distant:

The pool area where Lucas had a (very lucrative) bartender position this past summer. Sadly, when the pool closed for the winter, he lost this job and is now a food runner at the indoor sports bar & grill. Thankfully, he has a job but his salary was cut in half. The economic downturn is making it impossible for him (and everyone else) to find another job. I heard later that over 1,000 people applied for a few positions at a new In-And-Out Burger joint opening up - OMG!

Luke's friend, Ariel, is on the right - he told me later she's "cold as stone" (not really - she's a performance artist and was doing her thing at the mall in the hotel. FYI...she gets paid $150 for an hour of standing there, only moving once every 10 minutes or so):

My performance art (for some reason, I didn't get paid for it):

One of the outdoor lounges where Lucas currently works - I'm relaxing in the Joe Montana lounge - who's Joe Montana? (just joking!):

But then it really did snow in Vegas (later on, there would be 4 inches on the ground and everyone was freaking out!). I kept saying, "this is nothing, folks!"

Love my grandbabies...

and, my beautiful boy!
TIME with your family and friends is the best present you can give or receive this TIME of year. I'm just so incredibly blessed.

a "senior moment"

Last Friday, I had a "senior moment"...not the kind you're thinking of (like when an elderly person can't find their reading glasses because they're perched on top of their head) but due to an incredibly fun photography session. I photographed a high school senior down in the Short North and walked away thinking, this was the coolest thing I've done in a long time (and not just in terms of artistic expression but it was literally 25 degrees that day).

Check out the main pic on my blog for now...check back in a few days when I'll post a few more from the session.

Homesick

I knew my Hawaii pictures would resurface some day...has it really been almost a year since we set sail around Paradise?

Nothing like a little winter wind howling and snow showers swirling around my Hilliard house to make a girl homesick for paradise.