Happy Late St. Patty's Day!

And just for fun, I thought I'd post the most terrifying clip from Darby O'Gill and the Little People. I had to turn it off in the middle, but I hope you guys enjoy it! Happy St. Patty's (a week ago) my darlings.

Las Vegas or Bust!

It was family reunion time!  Cousin Rob was back from Iraq and at his request all the Cannons convened in Las Vegas for the weekend.  It was so much fun to be together again! Aunt Nita and Uncle Bob joined the clan for breakfast at the Venetian before the U of U/UNLV game.  Dad had TWO gelato cones right in a row.  He said one was his breakfast, the other his lunch.  We had the cutest human centerpiece for our table - Baby Corbin Cannon!  The best of all the game! My $500 Leprechaun is still waiting for my fairy godmother to purchase him from the all-Venetian made shop along the Grand Canal.  I think he is just magically delicious. Breakfast at the wonderful "Bouchon" restaurant in the Venetian.  Uncle Bob really likes their "pommes frites".  I think they're "smokin'" Auntie Carole got her first look at baby Corbin and it was a good one.  He gave a "toes up" nod to her feeding prowess. Is there anyplace more fabulous than the Venetian?  It's like walking in a work of art. Instead of getting our money in the slots, the Venetian cleaned up on us buying their gelato - at least twice a day.  It just seems to make everybody happy to eat gelato and we're really into buying happiness.

Friday night dinner with Rob at Lawry's.  I can't remember having better food.  Oh, it was wonderful.  They brought Rob a complimentary "Welcome Back" dessert. Baby Corbin only has eyes for his grandpa, who graciously took baby-duty while the rest of us went to be dazzled by Cirque du Soleil's "Ka" at the MGM Grand.  Robert said it was the best show he'd ever seen.   He was spot on!  It was stupendous!  What a lucky family to enjoy each other, great food, cool digs and out of this world entertainment.  I want to go again!

Mystery of the missing kisses

So, Dad and I left right after Valentine's Day to see Carole.  I left all the decorations out including a three section heart-shaped dish with each section full of Hershey's foil-wrapped kisses that were left over from our Valentine party. 

When we returned home, all the Hershey kisses were gone.  The dish was empty but felt yucky I noticed, so I washed it well before putting it away for the season.  I thought that Nicole/Mandy and company had enjoyed the left over candy.

A  few days ago Dad came up to me with his pouty Dad face on and said, "I don't want you to ever yell at me for feeding the dog chocolate Oreos, ever again!"  I asked him, "Why?"  Apparently he had been out on doggy-do-do clean up detail and noticed many colored foil wrappings amongst the Barkley do-do; foil wrappings that had previously covered Hershey's valentine chocolate kisses! ! !

Whose the cutest baby in the land? Whose Grandma's little cuddle lumpkin? It's little Corbin Scott Cannon! What a good baby! He just sleeps and eats and eats and eats.

Below he's cuddled in the little cloud blanket that Aunt Nita and I saw at the Bellagio in Vegas and couldn't resist.

Even in his sleep, he's able to make his point.

Check out the little finger.

How about three generations of Cannon men? Aren't they good looking? What fine examples of the male gender.

Having just been fed, Corby and Uncle Clark keep their chins up - all of them.

I noticed we had lots of pictures of the baby, Scott with the baby, and Mitzi with the baby, but no pictures of the three of them together! So here is the first official picture of the Scott & Mitzi Cannon family of three!

Carole's Birthday

I posted all this picks in a non-chronological order, so this post does not flow well, but you'll get the idea.  This is a fried egg jellyfish that we saw this morning at Scripps Oceanarium just above Carole's house in La Jolla.  We were on a birthday excursion with her for President's Day. Sweet Carole has hit the quarter century mark, but she doesn't look a day over 25.   We enjoyed touching things in the tide pool outside.  We touched this soft brown lump that was supposedly the softest animal in the sea, we touched anenomes that grabbed our fingers and clung to them. For lunch we met Aaron at the Westgate's Grand Cafe.  After a lovely and  beautifully served lunch, they brought each of us out a dessert sampler.  One of the most yummy things on the tray was the tall glass of palate-cleansing sorbet that we ate between different desserts.  Pretty darn divine.  The chef came out to see if we were happy with it and to wish Carole a Happy Birthday.   We began this morning with a breakfast of crepes and belgian waffles from a little shop around the corner from Carole's house.  We ate outdoors amongst the palms.   We've got a whale of a tail to tell you about Scripps.  Told by the jolly large fellow below who sports big, moving lips. Nothing like a gorgeous pink jelly-belly for a treat.  I could watch them swim forever.  It is mesmerizing  to gaze at them undulating through the water.  Dad especially liked this bubble coral.  He though it looked like a bubbling brain.   Now, the last order of the day is for Carole to decide where we're going for a fabulous birthday dinner!  Birthday fun!

Dog Park Barkley

Despite the fact that today's high was in the 20's, Barkley wants to walk.  The sun was shining and so off to the dog park we went.  It was really beautiful and Barkley was adamant that we go.  

He was having big fun running in the snow.  He was leaping and hopping and snifing all the other dogs.  The only downside for me is this - we got home 3 hours ago and I'm still cold!

Ju NO!

So Dad and I went to see the much acclaimed movie, Juno, last night.  I knew it dealt with a teen pregnancy but I had heard it was uplifting and the guys on KSL's movie show said it was a definite go-to movie - 3 1/2 stars.  So we went.  Guess what, I was NOT uplifted.  The snappy diaglogue was mostly dirty and often vulgar.  The ending was a travesty.  Juno makes a wise decision (unlike the one she made to be sexually irresponsible outside of marriage) and opts out of an abortion.  Instead she finds a neat yuppie couple to adopt her baby.  All is well until the yuppie husband, Justin Bateman, decides, in an ultimate moment of choosing self-gratification, that he would rather divorce Jennifer Garner (who very much wants a baby) and not have to contribute to a relationship or have the burden of being a father.  Way to go, Justin, you creep.  Jennifer Garner ends up taking the baby as a single mom (not Heavenly Father's plan for any of his babies) and since she will be divorced, the baby will essentially be an orphan because he won't have any kind of a dad (seeing as Juno's love interest is completely ignorant of his responsibility in this matter) and his mom will have to work full-time to support them like the hard-working lady she is.  O Brother.  Some uplift. I would recommend that anyone who wants to see a good movie about adoption of a child watch Irene Dunne and Cary Grant in Penny Serenade.  Irene Dunne is injured in an earthquake and cannot have children.  Does Cary Grant abandon her or divorce her??? No, of course not. Instead, they seek to adopt a child.  No sordid details of illicit teen sex acts here.  Instead the movie portrays the adoption agency as acting in the best interest of the baby; wanting it to have a home with two loving responsible parents.  When Cary Grant loses his job the agency considers taking their little girl away from them because the dad can't support her.  Cary Grant goes before the agency officials and in a most memorable scene vows that he will work several menial jobs or do whatever it takes to support his wife and adoptive child.  I cried watching that scene.  No abdication of the father's role here.  No shuffling off responsibility.  It was like watching manhood in its finest hour.  Now that's a movie worth watching.  Let me know when you'd like to borrow it.  It's in my movie library.

After at least three failed attempts to get tickets to see "O" at the Bellagio over the past several years, Anita got us on the front row for the late show in Vegas last week.  I have to admit, I was a bit disappointed.  I expected it to be an "underwater show" with an elevated pool you could see through.  Instead, the pool is level with the stage and you can't see anything underwater, although all the Cirquers go underwater.  This made it more like the other Cirque shows and I was expecting something quite different.  So once again, I fell victim to unfulfilled expectations.  How they torment us! None the less, the acrobats, etc. did not disappoint.  These little Asian contortionists were made of rubber.  Very impressive stretchy, bendable rubber.  The only really uncomfortable part of the show for me was when divers dove into the little stage pool from about five stories up in the rafters.  You could literally count seconds until they hit the water.  Just watching gave me vertigo and I felt my stomach do leaps and somersaults.  Heights, you know.   Still, it is a show like no other and well worth seeing.  Our evening dinner was at the Picasso restaurant in Bellagio.  You eat right on the level of the dancing fountains on the lake in front of Bellagio and watch the water show during dinner when you're not busy revolving your head to look at the restaurant decor -- original oil paintings by Picasso.  The menu features two set dinners at a fixed price.  Dad and I took the cheaper of the two - $123 a plate.  (I can hear Scott choking)  But, it was a dinner I will always remember.  The entree choices were deer, beef rib, or pidgeon.  Which would you choose????

Phantom in Las Vegas

Dad and I got to the Bear Paw early for breakfast so we could pick up Anita & Bob at the Las Vegas airport by 9am.  Our first stop was at the Venetian so Dad could get some gelato.  We found it in a little cart in St. Mark's square by the canal shops - the tried and true gelato place downstairs wasn't open when we early birds got there.  The Venetian has added another whole new associated hotel and shopping area called the Palazzo.  It looks a bit like they are competing with Bellagio's conservatory.  Waterfalls three stories high, amidst formal gardens; amidst shops many which were not yet opened - you get the idea.  Unfortunately, I forgot my camera this trip.  We took several pics with Anita's camera, but she doesn't know how to download pictures from her camera; she didn't have a cord so I could download them, so it may be a while before we get them; but we've got 'em and they're great!  That evening we had an early dinner at Lawry's, still my favorite.  Then Aunt Nita had gotten us the best seats in the house (front row center) to see Phantom of the Opera at the Venetian.  They built a 40 million dollar theatre especially for this production and it was spectacular.  We entered to see the walls shrouded in mold colored drapings.  Once the show began the drapings were whisked away to reveal the sides of the theatre replicating the Paris Opera House.  At the same time, there are four pieces of the famous chandelier, one of which came flying off the stage right over our heads to finally join with it's other pieces that are flying around the theatre in the center of the opera dome.  Wow.  At another point in the show the phantom flies around the theatre hanging from the bottom of the chandelier.  And of course, it crashes with theatrical splendor during the show too.  Holy special effects, BatMan.  The phantom kept popping to different places around the stage, I was thinking that they were using doubles for him, but I think I was wrong because at the end of the show everyone came out to take their bows like regular human beings and at the very end suddenly, "Poof" the phantom appeared right before my eyes in front of me onstage.  This show was full of terrific trickeration.  And when Christine sang her song in the graveyard, I thought it was the most beautiful note I've ever heard.  Sweet beyond belief.  Who needs Broadway? Head to Vegas!

Go here and scroll down to see a video of the chandelier:

http://archrecord.construction.com/resources/conteduc/archives/0701edit-2.asp

A Request for the Family - Apartment Videos!

Seeing as most of us have blogs, and most of us have places of residence, I thought it would be fun to see everyone's place of residence on their blog! I never saw Carole and Aaron's Salt Lake apartment, and still haven't seen their San Diego abode. Neither have I seen Amanda, Nicole, or Clark's new residences. I don't know if you guys enjoyed seeing our video tour of Jones Place, but I would love to see what it's like where you guys are living...that way I'll know who we should visit next and who we should stay with. So break out those cameras, shoot some video, give us a tour, and let's all enjoy. Of course, if you have roommates, be sure to work things out with them - I don't want this to create any weirdness. Thanks! Scott