Vegas was great! Considering we don't drink (much) or gamble (much) we had a fine old time. The airport bars in Nevada are better than in Utah. Of course, the weather was better in Vegas than at home too. One Homeland Security woman at McCarren in Vegas was having a bad day and yelled at Custer for being so slow. She said if he didn't hurry up she'd search his bag and make him miss his flight. The rest of the HLS crew were very nice and more than made up for her behavior. We did a lot of shopping at the trade shows. Custer got a new and much needed saddle. I found two pairs of beautiful silver earrings and a very handsome purse. The kids, of course, fare well too. I love to shop at the cowboy trade shows and get new western Christmas ornaments. We had some very good meals at the Flamingo Hilton and Mandalay Bay. We gave ourselves fifty dollars each to gamble one afternoon. Custer hit the twenty one tables and I cruised through the poker machines until I found one that liked me. We both played for a couple of hours. Custer lost all his money and I cashed out my fifty plus a profit of a $1.25. A well spent two hours I say. The seats we got to the rodeo were perfect and we enjoyed it so much! The trip was short (two nights and not quite three days) but we saw all we wanted and did all wanted. Not bad for a trip we didn't know we were going to take until five days before we left! LOL Thanks for asking. Lori

Yeah, Spike would literally "send" you to Disney! And a last name? Thank you Marg near Rapid City! I have been thinking fondly of the Spike days lately and wondering what Spike did after selling out to IVillage. Anybody know? THS is such a great place. Spike did a great thing in creating it for us. Did he create the whole Garden Web? I used to hang at Buying and Selling, but hope never to move again, so have not been back in a while. I just ventured back today, saw the mention of "shoes" and had to check it out. Gyr Falcon, back when Spike ran things, you would get a warning if you got out of line, then would find that you could not log on if Spike decided that you violated again. As said above, when you logged on, you would go to the Disney web site, instead. People referred to this as "riding the spinning cups" or "spinning with the cups," as in the teacup ride. Somebody on the forum would notice that one of the regulars had not posted in a while, and would ask about them. Had anyone heard from them? Another regular who was in touch through email would reply that the person was,"spinning with the cups," or "visiting Disney." You could try apologizing to Spike and maybe get back on THS. Sometimes, the ban was only temporary. Other times you could try to re-register as some other name (probably from a different computer, too), but then had to be careful about folks knowing it was you. At one point, the whole Building a Home regulars went off and started their own forum at a blog site because some regulars were banned. Does anyone know is that site still going?

OK, Now I know I'm cracking up.....I had looked and looked and as soon as I posted, there they were....Darn that little leprechaun that lives in my puter......

Hi, I did not see the original question when I posted above. Sometimes, the posts take a while to load. Irina made an announcement why she was not able to post regularly. I think she and others also mentioned other gessie forums. When I posted and tried to give credit to those who mentored me, I realized I should stop referring to "experts" by name in case anyone wanted to Search for them but might just bump into my Posts in error and get frustrated! Linda probably also got really busy, too. Or sometimes people migrate to other Forums for a while. For myself, life was very hectic for the past 9 months, with my collection showing symptoms of limited care, especially the last 3 colder months. Joanne