Oquirrh Temple Open House

So I have some catching up to do. Again. I have become somewhat lazy.

The Saturday before Father's Day, Paul and I had tickets for the Oquirrh Temple Open House. We had originally planned to take his parents (who aren't members, or active members...one of the two) but something came up in their schedule and we were left with three extra tickets.

Well Amanda K and I were talking and since they planned on going soon, we just invited them along with us and merrily we went! Bronsynn, my niece, took up the third extra ticket. She really wanted to come along and see what a temple is like and I was glad to be able to go through with her.

So after Amanda's very cute baby shower at her sister's very cute house (and my very cute baby towel I made her...he he he), Paul and I picked up Bronsynn and then met Amanda and Spencer at Red Robin - which was a first for me and I have to say I liked it mucho. It was also down pouring buckets of rain the entire evening so we were drenched on our way in and out of the restaurant. Our shoes were filled with water. I am so happy I now keep an umbrella in my car at all times so that our clothes stayed somewhat dry!

At the temple, some of Spencer's family members met up with us and we all walked through together. I really thought it was beautiful...and small. I knew the rooms would be smaller in contrast to the bigger temples I am used to, but I still was surprised at just how small everything was. Small and pretty. I really enjoyed having Bronsynn with me because even though she has gone to church with my family since she was a baby, she is not a member of the church yet (her mom has yet to allow Bronsynn to make that choice). She is old enough to be able to do baptisms and I can't take her, which would be really nice, but at least she was able to see inside the temple. I especially enjoyed talking to her about the baptism font and the sealing rooms.

When we all met up in the 'Cookie Tent', we had a fun time chomping on some cookies and being goofy with the camera.

Paul and myself with my niece, Bronsynn:

Our Husbands being 100% retarded (although we wouldn't love 'em any other way):

Believe or not, they actually can be serious every now and then:

Amanda and I:

So HOT!!!!

And the parents-to-be:

As we headed to our cars, thankfully the rain had stopped and I was able to snap a picture of the Angel Moroni statue, post lightening strike (you can see how his arm and trumpet are black):

Daily Rant #7

So Michael Jackson is dead. I always loved the early Michael (never cared for the white version of him) and I have always loved his music - seriously, he was awesome. But I don't understand people crying about him dying. Yeah it's always upsetting when someone dies because 'a person is a person no matter how small' but honestly...people are really shedding the tears??? I don't get it. It reminds me of Elvis dying. On one of Elvis' 'death anniversaries', some chick on the news (a fan, not a family member) was literaly in hysterics, crying over Elvis who had been gone for I don't even know how long. Is it just me? Am I super insensitive and hard-hearted? Maybe, but I still don't think it's necessary to cry over a celebrity that you didn't know on a personal level.

I Love Me Some Babies...Horses That Is.

While I was out playing at the house with my family, I visited the new colt that our mare, Dolly, had last week. He's super cute, and looks like he is going to be a Dun. I love love love baby horses. I think I went on a little rant sometime before about how my favorite thing on a baby horse is their noses. I LOVE 'em.

Awwwwww! Look at my pup and the pony making friends!! Friggin' adorable, yeah?

This is the baby daddy, Sunny:

Wanna meet our other horses? I thought so.

This is Junior:

He is named so for looking exactly like his pop, who is this guy, Smokie:

Smokie used to be our stud, but the vet screwed up on a certain surgery and, well, he ain't a stud no more. Never seen my dad so pissed off in all my life!

This is B.J.:

He is the son of my barrel-racing horse, who I trained and raced in High School Rodeo. Only, she died a few weeks after having him. Her name was Bandit, cuz her mark on her face looked like a robber's mask. Hence why he named this guy B.J. - Bandit's Joy. Sentimental, I know.

This is Roxy:

She is a few years old and a really pretty horse.

This is last year's filly. She doesn't have a name yet but she is totally Albino, which is a first with our family of horses:

My horse, Ruby, was sold last year. I was pretty pissed cuz I trained her myself and she's been mine since she was four years old and I was twelve. Her mom, Royal, was also a racing horse but she is super old now and my dad sold her to a family where some kids would have fun riding her. And lastly, Goldie, was put down a couple weeks ago because she broke her coffin bone last year and horses usually never recover from that. She didn't, which sucked cuz she was a good mountain horse and my mom's favorite.

Monkeying-Around. Ha Ha - I Am So Funny With The Headlines.

My adventures continue with Bronsynn coming to stay the night. That same night we had Paul's flag football game to go to, in which she succeeded in driving me crazy and we had tonz of laughs.

The following day, Wednesday, I had to tend Zoyie for a litle while in the afternoon. I had to make a trip to JoAnne's so while we there I wanted to get something fun for them to do. While we were looking through all the fun stuff, they found these feather boas. I couldn't resist a picture of them in all their attitude. They were very Hollywood, in deed. It cracks me up.

We finally settlled on painting some really cute plaster bobble heads. Zoyie picked out a pony, Bronsynn an elephant, and I picked out a monkey. I have a thing for monkeys.

Here they are painting:

And our finished products:

I gotta say, although I love fun colors and funky designs, it was really hard for me not to paint my monkey brown. I don't know why. I can paint my walls orange, but I have to paint animals the way they look in real life. Go figure. But as you can tell, my monkey got funky.

And afterwards, Bronsynn and Zoyie raced each other on the Wii until Zoyie's mom came and picked her up.

Bronsynn was picked up a short time later by her mom but while she was there, my mom also stopped by to meet Amanda there to fit her wedding dress to her. The wedding is only three weeks away! I am so excited. Her dress is going to be awesome! My dress is done - can't wait to put it on and party!

A Day With The Chil'ren

Tuesday I had nothing really spack-tack-ular going on and I had promised my nephews that sometime soon I would come out and we would make some fun treats. So we picked out some fun recipes and I headed out to 'Grandma's House' to spend the day with my niece and nephews.

When I arrived, the boys were just finishing up there lunch on the tramp with Bronsynn and Gaven. The latter two had slept out on the tramp the night before and they all were having a grand ol' time bouncin' away on top of blankets.

Bacardi loves to come out to my parents' place so I take him as often as I can. He mainly runs around, peeing on everything and knocking the kids over. Good times.

The kids had a pillow fight, which is all fun and games until Gaven unwisely throws a pillow at Aiden while he is standing near the edge and nearly knocks him over the edge:

In which case, Bronsynn makes it all better:

When the tears were over, we headed out to the horses to visit with the new foal. And then we went inside to wash up and start cookin'. The boys love to help cook things so it was fun to make things that they could help a lot with.

First we made Surprise Cupcakes. We mixed the batter together, spooned some of that into the muffin cups and then the boys put oreos on each of the cupcakes and we covered them up with more batter. (I am adding batter to my list of Words I Hate.)

While those baked, we made some peanut butter Nilla treats dipped in chocolate. I would top a Nilla wafer with peanut butter and they would take turns topping that with another wafer.

Then they each got to dip those cookie sandwhiches in chocolate.

Then we went back and finished our cupcakes by topping them with Cool Whip and an Oreo on top. Dallin was quite tuckered out and had fallen asleep so Aiden did a few with out him:

Hey Mikey, I think he likes it:

We finished up with a little Fantastic Four and then eventually I headed home with Bronsynn as a stow away.

The Bachelorette Party

My summer craziness has officially begun. Starting with this past weekend, I don't have a single Saturday free until after my anniversary in August. It's gonna be one crazy ride. Anyhooslebees, Saturday was a bit crazy. Besides Paul's football games and regular Saturday shiz, my sister's bridal shower and a good friend's wedding reception took place.

The bridal shower was up at The Lodge at Snowbird. Between Amanda and Kenny, these two already have everything they could need and she didn't need a typical shower. So what her Maid-of-Honor did was book two room at The Lodge, had each person pay a certain amount of money (instead of gifts) and then we all just enjoyed each other's company and had a swell time getting pampered. Sheri booked a massage therapist, a master esthetician, and a psychic and tarot card reader. Quite excellent!

It was amazingly beautiful up there, especially after all the rain. So green and so refreshing, I can't even tell you. I loved it. We had an amazing view:

We could walk out the sliding doors onto the back patio and go next door to the other room that held all the pampering. Later at night, it poured like crazy and the effect it had on the mountains was pretty amazing. Amazing seems to be my special word for this post. Sorry about that.

Okay so I arrived and hun out for about two hours and then I had to change and drive all the way back down to attend the wedding reception of a really good friend of mine. Paul met me there and we were in and out and then I was headed back up to the mountains. It was a lot of driving time and my head and butt both protested the whole way. Whattyado?

We had facials and pedicures. This one is my mom:

We had massages (that felt soooooooo good):

We had our Tarot cards read. This one is my sister, Amber:

Me shuffling the cards to have my reading done:


And my mom even had her reading done (not expected!):


We stuffed ourselves on super yummy food all night long (who needs diets?):


I wanted to hit that up super bad but didn't have the time before it closed. I was bummed. I thought I would try again in the morning when it opened up at 10:00 but that didn't work out, either. All I wanted was to sit in a hot tub against the mountains and relax!! For crying out loud!

Not everyone could stay the night but it was fun. We didn't hit the sack until 2 a.m. and I was dog tired fo' sho. My sister tried to work her magic and get the guys downstairs to open the hot tub for us, but it was not meant to be. Pretty funny stuff, though.

This is Sheri, Amanda's best friend, one of two Maid-of-Honors, the brains behind this brilliant party, and a friend of mine as well:

Mother and daughter:

Me with my sister - the Honoree of this shindig:

The Madsen women (How hot are we? Answer: Dangerously!):

More Home Improvements

We have needed to do this for forever but only barely got around to doing it - replacing our bedroom fan. This is the old one:

Blluuuaacck! So ugly! And it wobbled and made the chain bounce against the light which in turn drove me insane!

Now, we have a nice fan with a matte black finish and we used the mahogany colored side of the blades. Much much nicer and it goes with our room a whole lot better:

And NO wobbling! Woohoo!

Next to cross off our list will be a new fan in the office.

#1 No More

Paul's flag football team, the Raven's, were number one in the B league...that is until this last Saturday when they played my brother's flag football team. Gaven wasn't there cuz he's an idiot and went long boarding (thankfully with a helmot on) and crashed and broke his collarbone. But the irritating thing is that the Ravens should have won. I won't go into details about who cost them the game but I was pretty irritated that they lost their #1 standing - especially to my brother's team!! No, I am not happy for his team because I don't know anyone on it and Gaven wasn't even playing and the Raven's are really really good. Anyway - thought I would post some pics cuz it was a really interesting game! They only lost by a touchdown in the last 3 seconds of the game.

This Should Make You Very Proud, Ashley!

Yesterday was a momentous occasion for me. Wait for it....wait for it........

I went....canning!!! Holy crap that is amazing to me! Never thought I would actually get there and never thought I would actually care to go. But I do now and it was my mom's stake day there and so I went along with her and we canned and bought two cases of potato flakes, along with some oats that were already done. I am pretty excited about that. I was going to snap some pics of me and my mom decked out in their very fashionable aprons, gloves, and hats...but I didn't. Some other random person did, though. That was a little weird.

Finito!!

It's finally finished!! Behold: the glitter puzzle of sea creatures and forests!! And it only took us a little over three months (of course, there was a huge period of time in which we didn't even touch it - you have to be in a certain mood to do a puzzle)! But in our defense - it was a really tough puzzle! Thanks again to our great friends Becky and Judd for providing the entertainment!