Life as a ROADIE

Many of you may not know, but I have decided to start a full time job as a roadie. lol Ok, so not really, but I have enjoyed pretending to be one this month. Two weeks ago I got a call from my manager. He says to me, "Are you sitting down?" Here I am thinking I'm going to get fired. Then he says, "You won free tickets to the Green Day concert!" I never win anything! And now I was winning not just two but four tickets to the Green Day concert and soundcheck passes that gets us in the VIP! Best day ever! This was on Friday that I found out and the concert was on Sunday (I know, I know, sinner on a Sunday. But, you can't say you'd give up something like this!). So Friday night Landon and I were trying to figure out who we should take. I told him I wanted us to take someone who would not only appreciate the opportunity, but the music too. So, the two people that popped into mind was Landon's uncle Dave and aunt Lindsey. Dave is in a band of his own so I knew he woudl love it and his wife Linds is very open minded and laid back so I knew she'd be all for it. We called and asked them if they liked Green Day. When they said yes we said, "Well, then lets go to their concert this Sunday! Oh, and, lets go to the bands soundcheck and hang out in VIP!" We had to be to the Energy Solutions Arena at 4:00pm sharp on Sunday. The concert didn't start until 7:00pm so we had a few hours of fun they had planned for us. There was a group of about 30 of us that had won tickets. We all got to go in the ESA while all the rest of the unfortunate souls had to still wait outside in line. We waited around for a little bit until the band was ready for us then we headed into their soundcheck. They played about 4 songs just for us!!! It was awesome! Then we all headed up to the VIP lounge to wait for the concert to start. Up in VIP they had food, drinks, guitar hero, couches, free t-shirts and just some time to chill. We were up there for about an hour and a half then the concert was about ready to start. We went down to our seats and jammed out to the opening band Franz Ferdinand (hope I spelled that right). They were great! They only had one song I knew, but that didn't keep me from groovin to the other songs. Then came Green Day! I will admit that they were a bit vulgar at times. It seems like rockstars always have to make their point when they come to Utah. But, once they got the show started we rocked the night away! We had such a good time, but I definitely don't feel as young as I used to! I was exhausted by the end of the day! 7 hours of straight rock and roll chaos burned me out! But, in a good way. :-) I was so glad we got this opportunity. Thanks Verizon for making it worth being nice to our customers.

Sand Dunes....12 days since last serious injury

Last week Landon and I actually had a day off together. That has been few and far between lately. We decided to do something fun with our free time together. Whenever we think of fun we think of the four wheeler of course. So, we had planned on getting home from work on Thursday night, packing everything up and headed out to spend the night at the dunes. Well, you know our luck whenever the four wheeler or us having fun is involved. I got home at about 8:45 pm from work to find Landon is the garage fiddling with his dirt bike. As I walked into the garage something broke on his dirt bike's handle bar. Apparently is was an important part that he used to excelerate. At no surprise this happened just late enough that all stores were closed for parts. So sadly we knew we would not be making it out there that night. We got everything all packed up and in the car so we could head out first thing in the morning. We got out of the house at about 9:00 am to head over to the nearest bike shop we knew of to get a part for his dirt bike. That took about an hour and a half to get the part and put it on. So we were finally on t he road at about 10:30. We took the route that takes us into Tooele. We stopped to get a bite to eat because by this time it was nearly noon. After all our days adventures we FINALLY made it to the sand dunes at about 2:00 pm! As you are pulling into the dunes there is sign that will let you know how many days it has been since the last serious injury. I'm sure it hardly ever makes it past 5 days, but that day it was up to 12. We were lucky because there were only about three other cars there. We jumped out and jumped right on the hills! This was my first time on sand so I was a little nervous, but it really wasn't bad, except it felt like my back tires kept rocking me side to side. I said to Landon, "I realize we are on sand and I will slide more than on dirt, but I don't think I am supposed to be slidding this much!" We headed back to the car to check the tires and we discover we had put one of the tires on backwards. LOL So silly! After that little fix we were back on the hills. There is a big hill called sand mountain that is quite large and steap, but I was bound and determind to get up it. Oh don't you worry, that wheeler of ours got up that with no problem! The scariest part was coming down. You can't really hit the breaks when you are going down a big sand mountain or you will fly forward off the wheeler. So you just have to put it in a low gear and hold on tight! Once I made it to the bottom the first time I knew I could do it again. Landon had never been on sand on his dirt bike so we were both learning that day. We had got him a paddle tire for his bike,which makes a world a difference. He did great! I am grateful that he is not one of those guys who thinks he has to show off and do stupid things that make him or I uncomfortable. After riding for about an hour in the blazing sun we took a little break to drink some fluids and relax. While we were sitting there some clouds came in and covered the scorching sun so we thought we should take advantage of it and ride without the heat. We rode for about another hour and just as Landon was getting ready to go back up sand mountain I noticed his paddle tire looked super flat. He said, "It just looks flat because it's sitting in the sand." He went up sand moutain one more time and once he got to the bottom said, "Ok, so maybe my tire is flat." lol We checked it and the tube inside the tire was done. Imagine something else going wrong. Hmmmm weird. lol We didn't let that stop us from riding. We just took turns riding the wheeler up the hills. At about 6 we decided we should probably head home before all the Friday night crazy's came up. We had so much fun getting to just be together! I cherish times like those because some day it won't be just the two of us picking up our stuff and heading out to do fun stuff like that. Someday those kinds of things won't be so easy to do and may become even fewer and further between. Until then.......

Bee's Game

Landon's aunt and her kids were in town from Maryland. I had never met her kids before so I was super excited that all of us were going to get together at a Bee's game. Landon's grandma was in town from Idaho too so it was like a big family reunion! For all of you who don't know Landon has two sister's who are married, a step bro and step sis that are married, and an unmarried step sis. Some of them have started families of their own too so we have two nephews and one on the way! So when all of us get together it is quite the extravaganza. We took up two full rows at the game with all of us! We had a great time! We all did more talking then watching the game. lol And of course we had to have some hot dogs, peanuts, dippin' dots and popcorn! It's tradition!After the game we all walked out to our cars to say goodbye. As I walked over to our Escape I noticed their was glass all over around the passenger side. Someone had busted in our front passenger window. There was glass every where inside and out! There was glass all the way over on the back seat behind the driver's seat! We called the police even though we knew there was pretty much nothing they could do at that point. We also called our insurance to see what they could do. Unfortunatley our deductable for something like that is $500 so Landon said that he would try and find a window and fix it on his own. He ended up getting super lucky and finding one at a dump for $100 and was able to put it in with some help from Tommy. Thanks for your help Tommy. I know Landon appreciates all your hard work ;-) Putting all the window catastrophe aside we all had a great time. Thanks Gregg and Denise for putting that fun night together! And Cameron, Hillary, and Mike it was great meeting you finally! Come back and visit soon!

Bake Off!

As many of you know when we firsted moved in we had an ancient oven. Last Christmas Landon's dad and step mom got a us a new oven. Since then I have been on a baking spree! A couple of weeks ago I pulled out my grammy's chocolate chip recipe. I started mixing away! Before I knew it I had a HUGE bowl of cookie dough, much larger than I was planning on. Instead of freezing half of it, silly me, I decided to cook all of it. So, I baked for about two and a half hours straight! I have still not mastered this art called baking so each pan of cookies turned out different, but sadly most of them were flat. I have tried using less butter, more flour, more baking soda, cooking with the pan turned over(heard this idea from someone and it actually worked pretty well), less time, more time.......and still none of them were those fluffy, beautiful looking cookies. I did some taste testers of course and they tasted fantastic, but I don't just want delicious tasting cookies! I want them to look as good as they taste! Seeing the accomplishment is almost as big of a prize as the taste! If any of you have any idea's for me please feel free to pass them on this way. I will not give up!

See how pretty they start out in the oven! This is cookin them upside down on the pan.

Flat as a board!

Oh don't worry! There was still more cooking! And yes they are stacked and stacked and stacked!

Enjoy the beauty

A few weeks ago Landon and I went on a two hikes up Adams Canyon. The first one we took Mia up with us. We were trying to make it up to a known waterfall, but it was getting too dark so we just went as far as we could and turned around. Mia loved being out on the trails. The second one was a bit more of a challenge. lol We parked a bit further away from our desired hike location so we ended up hiking about 8 miles. I won't lie I nearly fell over and begged Landon to go back to the car, but we kept to it and made it all the way up to a beautiful waterfall. It was a crazy hike that in spots we honestly didn't think we could do it, but we did. And it was worth every step!

First Hike

Second Hike

Book Nerd

As many of you already know I have become a serious book nerd since I read Twilight last year. I had never really enjoyed reading when I was in school. I actually don't think I ever read all the way through any of the books I did book reports on. lol Then Twilight came along. I read it the first time and fell in love with reading. Reading for me has become an escape from the real world. A time for me to escape to fantasy and forget all my worries. Since Twilight I have read two other series. The first one was The Luxe. It was based in the late 1800's early 1900's. It has a lot of love and scandel in it, but also I feel like it has education about earlier times. I liked getting to know more about how lifestyles were back in those times. It's crazy to think how different things were and just reminds me how blessed we are to have all the freedom we have. The second series was called The Mortal Instruments. Absolutely loved this series! It is kind of like Twilight. It has more than just vampires though. There are werewolves, fairies, warlocks and so much more! It is full of action and of course has romance. Currently I am reading Gone With the Wind. I have been reading this in between series so I haven't gotten very far in the whole 1400 pages, but I am slowly making my way through. :-) I recommend them all!

4th of July

This 4th of July Landon had to work the whole weekend and I magically had three days off in a row. My parents were heading out to Strawberry to go camping with some more of my family on that side of the family. I felt bad leaving Landon behind, but I decided that I desperatley needed some time away or I was going to lose my mind. So we left Thursday morning and came home on Sunday. I didn't realize how much I had missed my family. I had a really good time. I brought one of my books and just got to hang out with fam, ride wheelers with my little bro, and be a book nerd. :-) My mom, me and Tim went out on the lake to do some fishing. I don't have a fishign license so they were the ones that were fishing, but I liked being along for the ride. They both caught some pretty good sized fish. Unfortunately most of them we had to throw back because they were either too big or too small, but it was still fun. I missed my hubby the whole time, but I loved getting to spend some time with my family. Plus, absense makes the heart grow fonder, right? ;-)

Timmy and Momma

Me, cousin Landon, Uncle Lane