Brickhouse Blog

Our Saturday morning swim lessons are coming to an end.

This Saturday will be the last class until later in the month when the boys start weekday lessons twice a week. It will be a bit crazier for us (me!) because we’ll have to head out to the rec center weekday afternoons, after school but we have to leave Saturday mornings open for soccer season… I know most people are very much looking forward to seeing the green grass after this snowy winter.

Matthew is in the Pee Wee I class at the rec center. I always love it when they do the train. He is the second from the left.

I went to Las Vegas last week for the annual Pink Elephant IT Service Management conference. Yes, you read that right… the words pink and elephant were used in the same sentence as IT and service management.

This was my fourth year attending and as in past years it was great. The MITRE contingency was smaller this year (just three of us) but that provided the opportunity for the trip to be a bit more relaxing (we did not have any crazy all-nighters this year!). The sessions are decent (not boring, plus by now I have learned who is a good speaker and who is not) and the guest speakers are just terrific. The keynote speakers this year included Chris Gardner (of ‘The Pursuit of Happiness’ fame) and Allan Pease.

Of course, one of the best parts of the conference is the location. Not just Las Vegas but the Bellagio in Las Vegas. The conference was at the Venetian the first year I went, and that was nice but it is no Bellagio! Because I am a ’super’ conference attendee and an alumni,  I got a fountain view room this year. The picture above is the view from my room. It was great! In fact, I kept the shades open at night because I wanted to see the lights.

In addition to the conference and the hotel, the other great thing about Las Vegas are the restaurants. There are so many wonderfully delicious restaurants. Of course, we took full advantage of this. Here is a list of the places we dined:

Blt Burger - This is a great place, with great, juicy burgers and delicious shakes. My favorite dining experience on this trip. Drink of choice: vanilla shake with chocolate syrup.

Samba Brazilian-style steakhouse – This was my first experience at a Brazilian steakhouse and I have to say the steak meat was incredible: rare (maybe a bit too much for me) and juicy. However, I was not so keen on the turkey or chicken, and I didn’t bother trying the sausage as I knew I would not enjoy it. The sides were very good though: fried bananas and the caramelized carrots. While I enjoyed it, I think next time I will just stick with a single steak. Drink of choice: mojito!

Tao – This has been one of my favorite places in Vegas. In fact, it is the only place that I have returned to every year. However, I’m not sure I enjoyed it as much this year. Maybe the novelty has worn off, or the fact that we had to wait almost 45 min for a table and it was getting late. Don’t get me wrong, the place is very unique in look-and-feel and the food is really good (they have wonderful sushi and their wasabi-crusted steak is one-of-a-kind). Drink of choice: tao tini!

Bouchon Bistro- This was my second time at Thomas Keller’s restaurant. Both times have been for breakfast. Last year, I ordered the signature French toast which was incredible. This year I ordered the baked eggs and it was also quite good (must like runny eggs). However, the service this year was not the greatest. It took forever for them to serve us our coffee and they completely forgot about the pastries I had ordered. Oh well… Drink of choice: coffee!

Julian Serrano – this is a new restaurant in the new City Center (Aria hotel). It is tapas style and unbeknownst to me Julian is a famous chef in Las Vegas. We went here on our last night and dined on Spanish Tortilla, Ceviche, Manchego cheese, salmon, etc. Drink of choice: Sangria. Note – the new City Center, while architecturally quite nice, it is a bit stark, sterile and city like… it is not very Vegas-like.

I will note that while I ate my way through Vegas, I did also work out… in addition to all the walking, I actually went to the gym and indulged in the spa as well.

And what did the boys do while I was away? They dined on pasta, homemade sauce and the Silver Diner!

(And yes you are probably wondering, did she even gamble?! Yes, I did. I played roulette quite a few times. My lucky numbers were good – in that they allowed me to play the tables for some time but not good enough to walk away as a winner.)

As I posted recently, I love children’s books. I’m fortunate that my boys love to be read to and that they are open to a variety of books. Of course, being boys, they’ve always loved books about planes, trains, trucks and cars. (They also have an affinity for character books such as Thomas the Train, Dora, Diego, Clifford and Scooby Doo.)

Recently I decided that I wanted to read a fairy tale to them; Cinderella to be exact. It was my favorite growing up and I happen to still have the book – my book from when I was 8 years old. I know some people would wonder why would I want to read Cinderella to boys or introduce them to a ‘Disney’ book (my book is a Disney version from the 1970s). But just like I would not have a problem with a girl playing with Barbies (I loved playing with them!), I have no problem with reading a ‘Disney’ book like Cinderella – even to boys. Everyone should know the story of Cinderella; in fact everyone should be familiar with all fairy tales.

And as for the Disney part, well let’s not forget that many of these ’so called Disney’ stories were originally written by the Grimm brothers in the early 1800s (though they were not published until later, maybe even after their death). They have been Disney-tized but ultimately they are folktales and fairy tales that have been passed on.

Regardless, I thought I would read Cinderella to the boys at least once. If they thought it was silly and didn’t like it we would not read it again. Well, it turned out that they loved it! Matthew has asked to read it over and over again. They are enthralled by the story, the pictures… the mean stepsisters and the cute little mice!

Shortly after I read the book to the boys, Thomas received his first assignment for a school ‘project’. Ironically it was a fairy tale project. I turned out that his class had just started ’studying’ (he is in first grade after all) characteristics of fairy tales: things come in threes, a good person, bad person, something fairy, etc. I personally think this is really neat that they are doing this type of work at such an early age. Anyhow… for his project, he had to select a fairy tale, answer some questions and then create a ‘project’ to represent his fairy tale – something like a poster board, diorama, etc.

As you can guess, he picked Cinderella (I did tell him there are others, like Princess and the Frog which we had recently seen at the movies). He was able to answer the questions on his own and then created the diorama you see above. He did it all by himself (well, I helped find and print the pictures that he wanted)… he did draw the carriage himself though!

What are we going to read next? I have two more fairy tales waiting for me at the library, both are Caldecott Honors. I’ve read this particular Little Red Riding Hood to Thomas before and it is quite good, but I don’t know if he remembers it.

Rapunzel by Paul O. Zelinsky

Little Red Riding Hood by Trina Schart

Hope you are having a fairy tale of a day!