Viva Las Vegas!

This city sure has changed since the last time I was here about 25 years ago. It's much bigger with loads more neighborhoods and everything looks new - because most of it was built in the last 10-15 years.  It is cold, especially at night, but very sunny in the day. The mountains are pretty close, which I had not remembered.

I saw a climbing gym for the first time with Adam and Thy. Boy can they climb high! I learned there are two types of climbing - one with a harness and ropes and the other called bouldering where they climb using hand and foot holds. At first, it looked so strange with all the different colored handholds and colors of tape on the walls. Then Adam explained that the goal is to climb all the same color which makes a route across or up the walls. The routes are of different levels of difficulty. Adam and Thy were climbing pretty hard ones.

On Thursday night we went to play Trivia  - Adam, Thy, me, and three of their friend were on one team and we won over about 5 other teams. It took each of us to guess the clues since no one of us knew all the answers. For one game, they played 30 seconds of 10 songs from all years and types of singers. We did very well. Another was a photo from each of 10 different pirate movies and we had to guess the title. Clara and Ben, did you know the stuffing in your stuffies is Kapok? I don't know how I knew that - but it was the right answer.

Tonight we went to Jimmy's soccer game. His team is the Pandas and their uniforms are .... black and white, of course. It was very exciting! The game was tied 2-2, but since it was a tournament they had to have a winner - So they had two overtimes of 5 minutes and still it was tied 2-2.  I didn't know how they were going to get a winner. They couldn't keep playing overtime - so the next step was penalty kicks. The teams took turns with their goalie as the only player facing one kicker from the other team. The team that had the most of five kicks each would win. Jimmy was the third kicker for his team and he got a goal. It was tied 3-3 until the last two players and the Pandas got a 4th goal and the Blue team had only three. - So the Pandas won. They are going to a tournament in Arizona in two weeks.

On Saturday, we are going hiking and to dinner with Thy's sister Mai and her husband John - a pre-Thanksgiving Thanksgiving.  

It's great to have time to spend with Adam, Thy, and Jimmy doing things they normally do. I've also seen their Costco and Walmart - both are much bigger than ours.

Next week, I'll have pictures of the colorful buildings and the Sphere.