Done Gone Went To a Rodeo

Paul and I started our weekend celebration of the 4th off with some awesome yard work on Friday!! Woohoo!! Okay not really. It sucked. Especially cuz we have done everything we can think of to find where our water line is and we CAN. NOT. find it!! Arrggh!! One happy note is that Teresa and Paul, our good friends in the neighborhood, came by to help and provided a totally awesome Mango Lime drink and lots of laughs. I love those guys!! Teresa was driving by our house and about five minutes after she left, Paul shows up on his scooter with two shovels!! So funny! And Then Teresa came with the super delicious summer drink and helped me dig for our gas line. She did most the work, however, because I was laughing the whole time - which is basically what I do when I am around those two. I love it!

So after the most exciting and thrilling part of our day was over, Paul and I went to this stupid lame boring rodeo with B.J. and Hilary (see the sarcasm there? get it? ha ha - gee I'm funny).

I totally LOVE rodeos!!! LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE!!!! They are one of my most favorite things in the whole wide world. I totally miss my rodeo days and I get so nostalgic every time I go to one and I wish that I was the one racing again. One day.......

So here we are in all of our cuteness:

And this is me with Hilary (my someday sister-in-law, but she's been with B.J. for as long as I have been with Paul so basically we are already there - and she's so fun. I love her!):

Since we are all so awesome, we had the best seats of the house! Lower Reserved (which is a fancy way of saying you get to sit in chairs with backs instead of the benches) and third row up (so you don't have the fence blocking your view) and dead center (self-explanatory). We're royalty really, with seats like those.

I have provided some snidbits of the rodeo for those of you who wish you could have been there with us because Rodeo + Paul and Maghann = A Super Awesome Fantastic Time!!

The Grand Opening Ceremony flag dude:

The clown with all of his funny entertainment:

In the picture on the left, the clown was asking a kid in the stands near us if he wanted a hot dog. He goes to his Hot Dog stand and starts throwing stuff in a bowl and then throws the bowl in the cooker. The whole time he's crackin' jokes back and forth with the rodeo announcer and keeping everyone entertained. When he went to get the hot dog out of the cooker, out jumps this cute weiner dog with buns!! The picture on the right, the clown came riding in on his invention - which takes a lot of explaining and I am not going to do that but it was funny.

One really awesome thing that they did was bring out cancer survivors, old and young (one who had a brain tumor when he was only 3), in the wagon pulled by Clydesdales. They told their stories of survival and then the wagon made a trip around the arena and everyone cheered and clapped and gave them a standing ovation. Later on, they did an auction on the cowboy hat the clown is holding in the picture on the right. AA Callisters had this hat signed by all the top competitors of rodeo and they auctioned it off right there and the proceeds went to cancer research. This hat went for $1,100!! And if you look real close to all the rodeo people in the background, you can see that they are all wearing pink. It was a "Tough Enough To Wear Pink" Rodeo.

And the actual rodeo events...all of which I love love love!! I think I said that before....

Saddle Bronc:

Team Roping:

Calf Roping:

Bull Doggin':

And my sport....Barrel Racing:

There was only one girl who rode well AND got a great score. The rest rode like crap and hit the barrels and sucked major. I can say that because I am the best barrel racer ever. Okay, not really but obviously the reason for that is because I don't rodeo anymore :)...but I am hella good at it and know what I am doing, hence it was super hard to sit there and watch sucky girls in a 'pro' rodeo. WTH?

Mutton Bustin':

Always so adorable!! If you click on the picture you can see the little kid coming through the middle of the sheep....only, he was riding his sheep backwards and holding on for dear life!! The crowd went wild!!

And, of course, bull riding:

I have always wanted to do that. Bulls are fascinating to me. I love watching this event. I love watching it all of course, but bulls are super cool.

Okay so that's are super lame rodeo in a nutshell. Totally sucked compared to our hours of digging a giant pointless hole in our front yard...for the second time.

If I get the videos to load, I will post those too. I have this really fun one of a dog show.

Karen's Bridal Shower

Thursday evening, myself and several of my Snow roommates gathered for a bridal shower. My roommate, Karen, is getting married July 25th and we are thrilled for her!

She has always been the quiet one in the group but she is super cute and super fun!:

I was in such a mood for sweets so I was really lucky they had pumpkin cake, lemon bars and (what else?) chocolate eclairs - yum yum. I probably looked like biggest fatty cuz I had quite a few. They were mini eclairs so at least I have that on my side. We had some really good laughs and I had a great time!

This is the four of us together...me, Becky, Karen and Ashley:

Bacardi's Unknown Adventure

Look at my dog!!:

Any clue as to how that happened?? Well neither do we. It happened last Wednesday and that's all I do know. I was outside for a bit, taking care of some stuff, and Bacardi was with me. Then I went inside, left him outside, went by the glass door about an hour later and....there he was bleeding from his entire face!! His nose, his left eyebrow, and both of his ears! My first thought was 'What the....how did Glock get in here??' Ha ha - just joking 'Mana!

He almost looked like he got attacked by Wolverine cuz he had three stripes of blood going along his entire face. Of course, I think he just scratched his ears after he did whatever he did to himself.

In the morning, after we let Bacardi out of 'his room', this is what we found:

He had scratched all of his wounds and bled all over the bathroom. He looked even worse!:

Over the weekend, he has done the same thing several times. He makes them larger every time and I am going to be irritated if his fur doesn't grow back. I think we might have to get him a cone...which will suck incredibly because he's gonna look like a moron and it's incredibly unfashionable. How can I have a dog looking moronic and unfashionable?? Wo is me.

Sunday BBQ

After the Wedding BBQ, we had another BBQ with my Snow roommates and their significant others for our some-what monthly get-togethers. Everyone came over to our house after church on Sunday and we headed over to a nearby park and had us some burgers and dogs, along with some leftover potato salad (a LOT of leftover salad), Ash's nummy green salad and some Kool-Aid concoctions thanks to Amanda and Spencer's imagination!

I played a round of Horse with the guys, and then the boys tossed some ball and frisbee or something. And, much to my excitement, we played us some two-hand touch football, or as I called it "Two Man Touch."

I had a lot of fun with it. And check out our QB:

How many pregnant women do you know that would be willing to do that?? You're awesome, 'Mana!!

Our cheerleaders:

And this little girl, Mikaili, had us all entertained:

When we got back to the house, we got wonderfully fat off of Becky and Judd's strawberry swirl cheesecake - oh. my. wuuurrrrrrdddddd. - it was soo good.

Mikaili was literally the center of attention. Her laugh is so infectious...in a good way. We all think she's is such a doll - Ashley and Alan did real good! She liked going to the door to see Bacardi, and when she saw him she would squeal or scream or something cute. And then she jumped off the stairs to her dad or mom and would laugh and laugh. So fun (and no Ashey, I still have not changed my mind about making one of my own yet!).

And that was that! Everyone left soon after but it was super fun!!

Wedding BBQ

Last weekend was yet another jam-packed, on-the-go, crazy weekend. Much fun was had, however. Our weekend started off with a double-date with my sister, Amber and her boyfriend, Kevin. We had dinner at Gepetto's (a super cute restaurant with the best pizza I've ever had) and then laughed our wee little bum's off at WiseGuys. Paul and I were singled out a lot by the headlining comedian - he had me in tears!

So then comes Saturday - which was playoffs and championship game (which was lost) for Paul's team, the Raven's, and then the wedding dinner for my sister and her fiance - which was really just a casual laid back barbeque at her house. It was great fun. Friday I had cut and cooked 20 lbs of potatos for the potato salad I was in charge of bringing. So I woke up early enough to get my work out in and make sure I had time to make a salad out of all those potatoes, attend two football games, a trip to the store, and getting ready to get to the dinner early.

The food was sooooooo good and we had a great time sitting around talking to each other and hanging out.

My family just sprawled out on a blanket in the shade.

This is my niece, who I am always saying is gorgeous, because she really is.

My parents

After everone was happily fed, each of the immediate family members took a turn telling a funny story about Amanda and Kenny's past. Amanda had a pretty colorful past and knew we had some pretty crazy stories to tell and roast her we did!! This is Amanda laughing at the stupid stuff she did. Ahhhh the memories.

My dad never gets up in front of people, not that he can't, he just doesn't. So we were all surprised when he actually did. He was telling a super funny story about when she was a baby...too long to write down.

Amber telling about how Amanda (when she was only 18) tried to tell my mom her new tattoo wasn't permanent and would wash off in just a few days..... yeah, it wasn't going to.

My mom telling everyone how Amanda burned up a brand new engine for our Bronco that my dad re-built....

Morgan, Gaven and I all had funny stories, too. Like when she dragged Morgan up the stairs by his feet when he was little and his head hit every single stair going up. Or the time she was doing an updo for my Junior Prom and there was a chunk of hair that didn't get placed and so instead of trying to pin it somewhere, she decided she would just rip it out. Nice.

Bronsynn and I - always posing for the camera:

Towards the end of the night, Bronsynn started a waterfight with Sheri. It was so funny - the two Maid of Honors going at it!! They were so soaked!

We all hung around towards the end of the evening. In't my hubband a cutie pie?? Oh I adore him!

And lastly, Kenny and Bronsynn. Kenny and Amanda have had an off and on relationship for nearly 11 years. Kenny loves Bronsynn like his own daughter and she has loved him ever since she was a toddler. These two have so much fun together and he's so very protective of her. Our family is ecstatic that Bronsynn now has someone she views as her father and that this man loves her as his own. He wanted to adopt her a long time ago and that has never changed so after Amanda and Kenny get married, that's exactly what they will do!

O My Father

Fathers' Day was a pretty packed day. I was up early making chocolate chip cookies for Primary. The day before we held a primary activity for the kids where they each get to decorate an old tie up real funky with all sorts of fun things and then wrap it and give it to their fathers to wear on Sunday. It's really funny to see all these men show up wearing ties with springs, fuzzy balls and googly eyes popping out of their ties - some wearing several ties at once because they have several kids in primary. Then all the fathers come with their kids to primary where we had a really fun sharing time game and the kids versed the dads (or grandpa's or whoever they brought). I got the biggest kick out of watching these dads with their kids. The men were such good sports and when they had to sing a song in a silly way (my favorites were Cowboy, Noses-Plugged, and Opera) they really got into and had their kids laughing. And of course we all ate chocolate chip cookies.

After church we headed straight over to Grandma Budd's to celebrate with Paul's family. Paul's uncle Chuck also had a birthday. We ate with them and it was really good - super amazing bbq chicken! Paul and I had already picked up Mike's fathers day present which was stowed away in the back of our 4-Runner. We all went out to the car to show Mike what he got (not that he didn't already know).

His new Barbequer!:

Paul pretending the barbequer is actually his:

We finished up with some cake (the really awesome kind from Costco with the super yummy filling and ten miles of frosting) and then Paul and I had to take off to meet up with my fam. Oh the joys of splitting up the holidays. Not.

Everyone at my house was outside when we arrived and the homemade ice cream was just finishing up. It's a family favorite to sit around the fire pit and chill out so that's what we did:

Benny and me:

My hunk of a husband:

After ice cream was finished, we headed down to Bluffdale park to do some slack lining. My brother Morgan is way into it and it's obvious since he is the only one who doesn't need someone to hold him up. Slack lining is SO hard!!! And the wind was ferocious so that didn't help any either. I was determined to do some of it by myself but I didn't manage to do much. It's a lot harder than it looks!!! We got some funny videos but I am not going to take the time to post them.

Aiden and Dallin - so cute!:

My mom giving it a go...and then Morgan:

Me (trying really hard!)....and Amber:

Paul...and then Gaven, who shouldn't even be attempting this with his collar bone:

Paul and I goofing off in the bed of the truck on the way home - I know, I know - we're adorable:

We came home and Dad opened up all his cards. Lately he has been collecting gift cards from Cabella's for some one-man fishing boats and other gear. But this time, he got several Home Depot cards to add to his pile of H.D. cards he already has so he can go and get himself and newer, bigger barbecuer.

And as we were leaving I noticed that Bronsynn and I practically matched. We both had on the exact same style shirt from Aeropostale and we're both hot - so we match!!