Hello again folks!

Just a brief update this time! Thanks for all your lovely messages on the message board , its lovely to hear from you all! (Karly i'm impressed with the message, finally getting to grips with the computer hey?!?)

Before I tell you what we've been up to this week we forgot something in the last blog! Did we mention that we learnt to two-step?!?the two-step is a dance that the cowboys do! When we were in Houston Kev and the boys took us to a country bar, it was so much fun, we learnt the dance and Jess even danced with a real cowboy, not that well but it was definately entertaining!

We spent last week in Las Vegas and stayed in a casino hotel on the strip, unfortunately it wasn't the MGM or the Bellagio but felt like heaven compared to some of the hostels we've been in!!We had our own double beds, a TV, our own bathroom and there were 2 pools!!

The casino did free blackjack, roulette and craps lessons (yes there really is a game called craps and its really hard..the game!), anyways we took the lessons and feeling brave decided to go for that big win!its wasn't ment to be and we resorted the the 1 cent pokie machines, actually karen did win a few dollars!!

We saw the Bellagio fountains, so beautiful, as were all the posh casinos-our favourite was The Venetian where we went to see 'The Phantom of the Opera- AMAZING!! We also took a day trip out to the Grand Canyon, first stopping at the Hoover dam and going along Route 66. We had a couple of hours at the canyon to walk the south rim, it really was spectacular, the photos will not do it justice!! The sunset over the mountains on the way back to Vegas was stunning!

Of course we also went out on the strip but we all know the rules..what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas...!!!

On our last day we decided to be brave and go up the Stratosphere tower!This is a tower that goes 850feet up above the strip, there is an observatory deck where you can see all over Vegas and as far as the mounatins that surround it, it really is a city in the middle of the desert!!However, there is also a small theme park on top of the tower, with a ride that shoots you another 200ft up and 2 more rides that literlly hang you over the side of the building!! We had the tickets in our hands and were as ready as we were ever gonna be and then we found out that the rides were closed due to high winds!!!Karen was really dissapointed, Jess not quite so!!

So that was our week in Vegas, a lot of fun! The only downside was that we had to eat out every night because we had no kitchen and by the end of the week we felt like we had been supersized!!The portions out here are huge and we thought we could eat a lot!!One day we decided we needed some fresh fruit so we ordered a fruit platter to share for our dinner...we actually got a sugar high from eating so much fruit, laughed to the point of crying (whilst still at the table in the restaurant). felt like we were going to be sick for an hour afterwards and didn't eat fruit for days!So Mum(Jess'), when you asked me on the phone the other day if we're eating enough..we're doing just fine!!

We flew into San Francisco yesterday and are back in a hostel. Its really central and the city is really cute. Theres free internet so we can catch up with everyone again. We spent our first night having a few quiet beers with some aussie girls and dutch guys that we met, who were kind enough to take us to pier 39 to show us the hundreds of sea lions that live there!They were so loud and smelt so bad but it was an amazing sight if not a little strange in the middle of the city!!! Today we ambled around the shops looking for shoes as all of our shoes are broken and we are down to one pair each (not including the really pretty but stupidly high heals we got in Vegas)!!

Anyways this short entry has turned into a small essay so we are going to go and eat...agian!!

Lots of love Jess and Karen xxx