Emily is getting ready to turn 21.  Lucky girl, her birthday is right in the middle of holiday season.  December 26, to be exact.  What does she want for her birthday?  She wants to go to Vegas!  Darren and I had already pre bought a hotel stay in Vegas, so we figured airfare wouldn't be that bad.  After all, not that long ago, Darren and I flew to Vegas for about $125.  Surely we could find something around that price...right?

WRONG!

We are having a heck of a time finding decent flights under $200.  We've tried Cheapoair.com at $240.  Cheapair.com was a little better, with flights starting at $220...but on an airline we do not want to fly.  I've tried Expedia.com, Orbitz.com, Travelzoo.com and every traveling .com I can think of!  No luck.  

Prime time to purchase tickets is supposed to be 6 weeks before the flight in the middle of the week.  I'll keep checking back until we have success.  After all, you only have one chance in a lifetime to turn 21 on the Strip!

Wow!  It's only Wednesday, but this is one heck of a ROYAL week!

First, my beloved Kansas City Royals are the 2015 World Series Champs!  These guys are a heck of a team.  Most grew up and became adults together, winning championships together in minor league ball.  Not too long ago, we were discussing how excited we were about the AA and AAA championships of these guys, and hoping they wouldn't give away our homegrown stars in favor of quick fixes that faded away by season's end.  But no!  David Glass, Dayton Moore, and Ned Yost have come together to create a winning team; a team that brought CHAMPIONSHIP back to the Kansas City vocabulary. 
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Of course, every great victory deserves a celebration, and my family and I, along with approximately 800,000 of our closest friends, shut down the city!  The parade was beautiful, and people were so excited to be there.  I think the reaction of the players was amazing.  They seemed almost unbelieving of all of the positive attention, all of the LOVE, we showed our Boys in Blue.

 I will never forget our amazing 2015 team, and the unity of an entire city.  There are photos everywhere showing the huge throng of blue jerseys and shirts around the parade route, with a sign that says, "We don't burn down our city, we SHUT it down!"  Kansas Citians have always acted with such class, and I am so proud to be Kansas City! No rioting, no shootings, no violence.  There is a report of a few people standing on the roof of cars, but they have stepped up and chosen to take responsibility for their actions. 

On the other hand, I have two molting chickens.  One is Royal and one is Rocky.  Now, molting is a natural process.  Every year, chickens need to shed old feathers and grow new ones.  Friends, you know I love my chickens.  Let me just say, when they molt, they are not pretty.  In fact, they are quite ugly.  So, I love on them, try to tell them I still love them, and that I think they're still kind of pretty (they are not).  It takes a lot of energy to molt, so they don't lay eggs during this time.  I'm just trying to make the process as stress-free as I can so that they will go through their first molt with as little anxiety as possible.