East Portland Community Center indoor pool

The EPCC indoor pool area is fun and cheap. For one adult and three kids I paid $14.75. The pool had life jackets your kids can use, but my kids found them uncomfortable. I highly recommend bringing your own life jackets. You will also want to bring towels, a lock for your locker, flip flops, goggles, floaties and toys.


The large body slide is for riders 48" and taller. Kids that don't meet the height requirement can go down in their parent's lap. A large part of the pool is less than 3 feet deep. Not seen in any of the pictures is the lazy river and a whirlpool kids can go around and around.


This picture doesn't show you the entire hot tub. It's for ages 16 and up.


There is a separate pool for swimming laps. It also had a roped off area for playing water basketball.


In the shallow area is a slide for toddlers.

7 Money Saving Travel Websites

I utilized an assortment of websites to get the best travel deals I can find.  Here is a list of my favorite sites.

 CheapOair is one a use a lot to find the cheapest airfare.  Through this site I was able to get 4 round trip tickets from Vegas to Honduras last minute under $2200.  I think that is pretty good!


 Travelocity makes it easy to compare airfares. You can also set up fare watchers.


Priceline has been one of my favorite sites for a long time.  I have been successful bidding on several occasions and felt like I saved a lot of money.

 Flight Network runs some pretty good deals at times.  So, they are always worth checking out. You never know when their deal might be to your city.

HipMunk is a newer website that I've been using a lot to check airfare prices.

Travelzoo has deals on everything involving a vacation: lodging, airfare, activities, and more.

Hotel Tonight is a new travel app that can save you a load on hotels.  They release a list of available hotels at noon each day.

The Easter Story Craft

The Easter Story craft is designed to help explain the Easter story to kids.  You will need 12 eggs filled with the following:

1 - cracker
2 - dime
3 - rope
4 - purple cloth
5 - thorn
6 - cross
7 - nail
8 - sponge
9 - toothpick
10 - guaze
11 - rock
12 - leave empty

Be sure to number each egg.  I like to hide them around the house and let the kids hunt for them.  Then they can line them up in order.  This is a great way to work on numbers for smaller kids.

The Easter Story

1 - cracker     The Last Supper at the Passover was a time Jesus had a special meal together with His 12 disciples. They had the meal in an upstairs room of a house. Jesus took a cup of grape juice and a flat loaf of bread, and prayed a thank-you prayer. He told His disciples, "Whenever you drink this, remember Me." After dinner, Jesus and His disciples went to a garden to pray. After they were done praying, one of Jesus' followers named Judas came up to Jesus.

2 - dime     Judas had soldiers with him. Then he did a strange thing. He kissed Jesus on the check. The soldiers had paid Judas silver money to tell them which one was Jesus. Then the soldiers arrested Jesus. Next, they were very mean to Jesus.

3 - rope     They took rope to bind His hand so He couldn't move them.

4 - purple cloth     They put a purple robe on Him and made fun of Him because He told them He was the King of the Jews.

5 - thorn     They made a crown of thorns that they put on His head. They beat Him with a whip.

6 - cross     Then they wanted to put Him to death. He was going to go through all of this so we could be forgiven for our sins.

7 - nail     They took nails and hammered Him up on the cross and put the cross up.

8 - sponge     He was hungry and thirsty. To be mean, they put a sponge with something sour (like vinegar) up to His mouth. It tasted awful to Him - He spit it out! He hung there for 6 hours, the He died.

9 - toothpick     After they saw He was dead, the soldier took a spear and put it into His side.

10 - guaze     His friends took His body down and wrapped it in gauze getting Him ready to be buried.

11 - rock     They put His body in the grave and placed a big huge stone in front of it so no one could steal His body. Then soldiers were put on guard to watch.

The Good News is Jesus didn't stay dead! Early Sunday morning some women came to visit the place where Jesus was buried.

12 - leave empty     They found an angel and the angel said, "He is not here! He is Risen! He is Alive! Go tel your friends!

Photos of Barcelona, Spain

Photos from our trip to Barcelona, Spain

Scenery around Scotland

 On one of our weekends we drove from Elgin, Scotland over to the Isle of Skye.  These are a few photos we snapped along the way.  Scotland is a stunningly beautiful country.  After living in Vegas for so long it was shocking to see all that green!

Sheep were everywhere in Isle of Skye.

This was one of the cutest towns we came across, Pitlochery.  It's a theater town.  Unfortunately I did not get tickets ahead of time and by the time we got into town the shows were sold out.

Firefly Tapas restaurant -Vegas

Firefly has the best happy hour in Vegas and it might just be our favorite restaurant in town.  We've been to all of their locations and they are all wonderful.  Most of Firefly's menu consists of tapas, small plates.  Their bacon wrapped dates stuffed with cheese and almonds is to die for.  If for no other reason go here and eat them; you will thank me!  They have a variety of hot and cold tapas to choose from including the Spanish staple Patatas Bravas.  If you go during happy hour you can get half price pitchers of Sangria or Mojitos.  The pitchers are huge. Oh, and it's kid friendly.  My kids love it there, because they get to pick out  lots of things to try.  Usually a grilled brie sandwich with a cup of tomato soup.

El Segundo - Las Vegas

I consider El Segundo to be one of the best Mexican food places in Vegas and it's kid friendly.  It's definitely in my top three.  I base that completely on the food.  I don't care what a place looks like as long as the food is good.  With that said I have to add that their atmosphere is fantastic.  It's dark in there in the evening or I would have gotten some pictures.  Their location is great in the Fashion Show Mall right on the strip.  Their patio over looks the strip.
Their prices are a little on the high side, but I got a Restaurant.com certificate and it offset the cost. You have to pay for chips and salsa, which normally would irk me, but they were pretty cheap, bottomless, and came with three different salsas.  All three salsas were good.


My husband ordered a salad and I got the fajitas.  Both were good and they were huge portions.





The kids split a nachos and I wasn't that impressed with them. There wasn't much to them and the portion was a lot smaller compared to the other items we ordered.