Livin' the Redneck Dream!

I've always thought of myself as a city girl. After all, I was born in California and lived most of my life in West Valley City, Utah (which Billy refers to as "the Hood"). My mom was born in Queens, New York and moved with her family to the Los Angeles area when she was a teen. She met my dad while in California. They got married and had me and Aubrey, and then moved back to Utah which is where my dad was from. I remember many of my dad's stories about what it was like growing up on a farm. It was always hard for me to imagine what that had to be like because I had never spent time anywhere near a farm...then I met Billy. Over the past 10 years I have to say that I really have become aware of my "inner-redneck".

In August, for our anniversary, I decided to surprise Billy with tickets to the Monster Jam World Finals in Vegas. Over the last three years, since Billy was diagnosed with MS, we have tried to take every opportunity possible to do the things we enjoy...now. I knew that if we didn't take the opportunity to do it now, that it would probably just remain a dream of Billy's.

Last Tuesday, me, Billy, and the boys started our road trip to Sin City and I must say that we had the time of our lives and I discovered that I am a redneck at heart! This is how our trip went:

Day 1: Drove to Vegas with stops along the way to the Lehi Dinosaur Museum and the Lehi RollerMills (where Foot Loose was filmed). Arrived in Vegas, checked into Circus Circus Hotel and played games and caught a circus act in the Midway.

Day 2: Drove over Hoover Dam and took a tour of the visitor center. Went back to the hotel and enjoyed more games and circus acts at the Midway. Took a stroll up the strip to check out some of the hotels and casinos.

Day 3: Took a drive to Fremont Street and checked out all the shops. Drove back to the hotel and went to the Midway (again!). Took a drive farther down the strip to check out more hotels. Checked out the Nascars at the Nascar Cafe. Drove back down to Fremont Street once it got dark to enjoy the Fremont Street Experience.

Day 4: Drove to the Sam Boyd Stadium at UNLV to the Monster Jam World Finals party in the pits. Watched the monster truck qualifying event. Went back to the hotel (and of course, the Midway).

Day 5: Drove back to Sam Boyd Stadium to participate in day two of the party in the pits. Watched the Monster Jam World Finals.

Day 6: Spent one last morning at the Midway. Went to the shops on Fremont Street. Drove home.

Highlights of Our Trip:

- walking across Hoover Dam - AMAZING!!!

- meeting Dennis Anderson (the driver/owner of The Grave Digger monster truck) after waiting in line for two hours to get his autograph

- taking a ride in the back of the Blue Thunder monster truck

- seeing the looks on the faces of all three boys as they climbed inside one of the actual Grave Diggers

- meeting Travis Pastrana (motocross free-styler, owner of Pastrana 199 and Nitro Circus monster truck)

- watching the Captain's Curse monster truck roll up into the stands and over 5-10 rows of bleachers at about 60 mph

...and it looks like we are all set on doing it again next year!!!

Let's do the Watermelon Cheer!

My little Bobcat just became a Wolf tonight. The only things I knew about scouts prior to marrying Billy and having boys, were Samoas and Thin Mints. We attended pack meeting tonight and I was able to get a few pictures of the grand event.

As for Dev, he tried scouts for a little while and decided it just wasn't his thing. He's more into playing with his iPod Touch, downloading music, playing internet games, and straightening his hair...kids these days!

Let's Rock This Tour!

So my MS150 Bike Tour page is now up and running for this coming tour. Click on the link above to visit. I still need to take a little time to personalize it for this year, but it is functional - so please take a minute to support MS Team FedEx with a donation or by joining us in the ride this June!

Happy Birthday Boom-ditty!

My little Boomer is nine today! Boy how time flys! Here are the things I remember most about this day, nine years ago:

1) My water broke at 2:00 a.m. in our bed.

2) Billy drove me to the hospital in our 1972 Plymouth Fury III and had to do a 7-point turn into a parking stall at the hospital (because he was extremely nervous and half asleep, but mostly because of the length of our vehicle).

3) Cadyn was born shortly after 9:00 a.m. and weighed-in at a whopping 8 lbs 7 oz. He was enormous considering he was born 4 1/2 weeks early. All of the Labor & Delivery nurses referred to him as the Giant Preemie.

4) I asked the doctor if there was any way that my due date could have been off because he was the size of a full-term baby. He informed me that there are certain characteristics that preemies display such as the cartilage in their upper ear being soft, the absence of lines on the bottoms of their feet, and also the absence of nipples. Yep, Cadyn was born nipple-less!

5) I was scared to death when Billy came back from taking Cadyn to the nursery and informed me that he was having difficulty breathing. Cadyn had to spend 10 days in NICU until he could learn how to eat without choking.

I love you, Boomer! Happy Birthday sweet boy!

Finally!

I'd just like to say sorry to all my fans out there who have been so patiently waiting for a post. I can't even begin to explain how busy I have been since the sewage incident (which has turned into quite the remodel). I know that's a poor excuse for not sitting down for a few minutes and updating you on all of the wonderful happenings in my life, so I figured I'd better do that now. Here are a few of the delightful activities that I have been a part of during the last two months...

My family moved everything from our finished basement into the garage and ripped out all of our downstairs flooring so that it could be replaced.

Then we moved everything from upstairs to downstairs and lived in the basement for a few weeks so that we could remove all the flooring upstairs to have it replaced. This is when we started having some issues.

We decided that while we had the upstairs torn apart, we would tear down and replace a wall in our bedroom that had some water damage due to a mystery leak. After removing the sheet rock and insulation, we discovered that our lovely little brick house had no other framing to it other than the brick itself - which we thought was quite interesting (and wierd). Anyway, we found a small hole in the grout between two of the bricks that ended up being the culprit to the mystery leak and we fixed it. Then we started putting the wall back together.

We also noticed in the kids room that there was a spot on their wall that looked like rust was coming through it. Upon examing the other side of the wall, which happens to be in the bathroom, we discovered that there was a crack in the shower board. We figured that water had to be leaking through this crack and into the drywall and decided we better fix it too. Too our surprise, after cutting away a good size piece of drywall, we discovered the rust spot was actually some taco sauce that one of the kids had splashed on their wall...and also that there were numerous hornet nests behind the drywall too...so this repair wasn't all in vain!

We also decided to paint both our room and the kids room, and in a color, since the rest of the house has white walls. I get a kick out of the names of the paint colors we chose. We did our room in a brown that was called "Brown Bag" and the kid's room was done in a green called "Punk Rock".

We also had a little mishap after our new vinyl floor was laid in our downstairs bathroom. About two days after installation, we received a huge ice-rain storm. A gi-normous amount of water leaked into and down our foundation (underneath the drywall) and flooded the new floor. Needless to say, it lifted the vinyl right off of the floor and we ended up having to have it re-done. We also had a new rain gutter installed and had to remove the drywall and fix the leak in the foundation so that we wouldn't have another misfortunate mishap.

We also had to cover the entire kitchen and dining room floor with new wood so that there was a smooth clean surface for the new vinyl to be laid. At one point in time there had been self-adhesive carpet in our house that left a thick black fuzzy film over the floor and the only way to prevent it from showing throught the new flooring was to cover it up.

Billy also decided to finish the shower in our downstairs bathroom so that we are able to bathe while our upstairs bathroom is torn up. We still need to rip out the flooring and replace a bunch of rotted floor boards before the new vinyl can be laid upstairs. This means that we have to remove the tub and toilet, etc.

So now we are left with just the upstairs bathroom...and cleaning...and unpacking...and finding time to blog.