Halloween is always a big deal for our family. Not only is it Nan’s birthday, but it’s easily one of our favorite holidays. Elise will tell you without hesitation that Halloween is her favorite holiday, and I wouldn’t be surprised if Ava and Enzo said the same thing. Jessica is really into it as well; she’s the reigning costume champion at the school she works at and is hoping to repeat this year. Last year she killed it with her pinata costume and this year she has put together an amazing outfit to dress up as Willy Wonka.
As far as the kids’ costumes go, Ava is dressing up as one of her favorite anime characters, Elise is a Pokemon character, and Enzo has a blowup chicken suit with bright rainbow colors. I’m taking the easy route and just dressing up as a baseball player, but in all honesty, Halloween isn’t as big of a thing for me simply because I work from home, so I don’t have anywhere to go in a costume besides trick or treating with the kids.
Speaking of trick or treating, I feel like Halloween has gotten even better for us since moving to Nevada because of the neighborhood we live in. I’ve never seen anything like it. It might even be fair to say that houses in our neighborhood are more decorated for Halloween than Christmas. There’s a house that builds a haunted house in their backyard each year, plus houses that give out full-sized candy bars. There’s even one house that has a cotton candy machine and spins it individually for each kid! It’s such a fun experience for everyone and we always look forward to it each year.
To make our evening even better, my Mom is coming over to have dinner and spend her birthday evening with us. She’ll also be working the front door to hand out candy while we’re out in the neighborhood. I’m looking forward to making a nice birthday dinner for her and getting some quality time. The kids haven’t been able to spend as much time with her recently due to activities and social events, so it will be great having her over.
A Big Night For Elise and Jessica
About six weeks ago Elise was supposed to go to the Ed Sheeran concert at Allegiant Stadium with one of her best friends. They got all the way to the stadium before finding out that the concert had to be postponed due to safety issues while setting things up. The concert was rescheduled for Saturday, October 28, which was last night. As it turned out, Elise’s friend’s Dad wasn’t able to make it, so they had an extra ticket and were kind enough to offer it to Jessica. She was thrilled to be able to go and of course, they had a great time. Jessica took a bunch of videos for me so I’ll be making a Vegas Showbiz video out of it very soon.
Since Elise and Jessica were having a special night, I wanted to do something fun with Ava and Enzo to keep them from getting jealous. We went to the mall and then decided to go to our favorite conveyor belt sushi restaurant. Enzo asked if we could take the long way so I decided to cruise all the way down the Las Vegas strip. I figured it would be fun because it was Saturday night, but it turned out much better than expected. First of all, the Formula One Las Vegas Grand Prix is only a couple of weeks away, and they’re going to be racing on the strip, so we got to see all the grandstands and other race infrastructure. I love Formula One racing and it was so cool to be driving down the same street that my favorite drivers will soon be racing on. I can’t believe they’re going to be driving 200 mph on that road and can’t wait to see it.
To make our drive even more fun and memorable, we were sitting at the front of an intersection near MGM Grand waiting for a green light, and suddenly about 15 motorcycles came up around us to get in front of me. They were ¾ size stunt bikes and the riders were doing all kinds of cool tricks while waiting for the light to change. We had no idea what was going on but they were waving to us and the kids loved it. They had their bikes up on the back wheel spinning around, then as soon as the light changed they were doing wheelies through the intersection, and some were riding while standing on their seat.
It was 7:00 p.m. on Saturday night, so it was prime time to be cruising the strip. I’m used to seeing classic cars cruising the strip on a Saturday night, but I’ve never seen anything like this. Ava was filming it the whole time on her phone and we were talking about it all night.
Activities Galore
As mentioned earlier, the kids have been staying busy with activities lately, so Jessica and I are constantly running them around. Elise and Enzo are back in their Saturday morning boxing class, and Ava has been loving her new softball team. We’ve been spending a lot of time in the fields and batting cages lately, which I love. Her team won their first nine games before losing one yesterday, so they’re off to an excellent start. The Fall season is shorter than Spring, so there are only a few games left, but I think it’s a guarantee that Ava will be playing again next Spring. She has made a ton of improvement over the past couple of months and we plan on working hard during the offseason.
I’ve enjoyed being back around baseball so much that I too am joining a team in January. I’ve been wanting to get back into some type of team sport or activity because I spend so much time at home working. While I do get plenty of exercise at home via the rowing machine and weights, it’s not the same as getting out there with people.
I thought about joining a hockey team but here’s the problem; hockey is very popular here (like it is in Seattle) but there are only a handful of ice rinks to play at. Kids teams always get preferential ice time, so if you’re on an adult team it’s not uncommon for games to start at 11:00 p.m. or later. I simply can’t make that work with my schedule, but that same problem doesn’t exist for baseball. Not only are there fields everywhere, but the weather here is conducive to playing all year long. I always loved playing baseball as a kid and wish I wouldn’t have quit, so I’m excited to get back into it. I did some research and found the Nevada Adult Baseball Association (NABA), which is a hardball league that looks really fun. I went to one of their games last Sunday and felt like I could definitely keep up. I’m planning on playing catcher and have started training for the season. Luckily, I’ve become friends with a guy who used to be a catcher in the Phillies system, so he’s going to work with me. I’ve also been watching a ton of videos on YouTube and regularly get out to practice with the kids. It’s important for me to stay active and I can’t wait to get back into a team sports environment.
Vegas Showbiz and Cappers Update
Our subscribers for the Vegas Showbiz YouTube channel are continuing to grow quickly and we’re now up over 850. Getting to 1,000 has been a goal for me since day one and I think we’ll be there in the next two or three months at most. On the Cappers side of things, I’ve been working on it for exactly a year, and we now finally have some paid subscribers! We’ve obviously still got a long way to go, but our growth is totally organic without any type of paid advertising, so it feels great to see it gaining momentum.
It’s doing well from a performance perspective as well, especially with NHL recommendations. We’re only a few weeks into the new hockey season and if you were to bet one unit on every NHL betting system recommendation our site makes, you’d already be up over 50 units! 50x on your money is insane, and there are certainly no guarantees that it will stay that way for the entire season, but there is no question that we have tapped into some successful systems and methods. I wish we could get that type of performance with football betting, but there’s too much action and the lines are too sharp to make that kind of money. The real profit, when it comes to betting on the major U.S. sports, is with hockey and baseball.
Hopefully, we can continue spreading the word and growing the business. Devin and I are both extremely bullish on our business model and feel like it’s only a matter of time before it blows up. Just gotta keep grinding in the meantime.
That’s about it for now. We’re looking forward to a visit from Grandma and Grandpa Rudd in a couple of weeks. It’s hard to believe that the holiday season is already here. I don’t have too many recent photos to share, but here are a few. See you next month!
