Jess and Danny May

A New Cowboy in Town

If Kade isn't the most handsome little cowboy, I don't know who is! Kyle entered him in the Little Britches Rodeo this weekend! He did the muttin bustin and calf riding! Emily wasn't too excited about her little 4 year old getting on a bucking steer but Justin was there to run with the steer and hang on to Kade as he rode. Kade loved it!

Dusty has also become somewhat of a cowboy! He finally convinced my mom to let him ride one of Justin's bulls when they buck them out. He loved it and now he wants to ride in high school rodeo.... we'll see...

This is as he was getting bucked off... notice his right foot planted on the ground and his left foot is above the bull. haha.

Sad Day for Moapa Valley!

The following came from the Las Vegas Review Journal:

A Mormon church in Logandale was destroyed by fire early today. No one was in the building around 4:10 a.m. when volunteer firefighters were alerted to heavy smoke and fire coming from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints at 3245 N. Moapa Valley Blvd., Clark County Fire Department spokesman Scott Allison said. The smoke and fire were so thick that crews could only battle the blaze from outside the building, he said. No injuries were reported.

A side office building containing the bishop's offices and church records were not harmed in the fire, he said.

Allison said the Mormon church was one of the oldest buildings in the town, about 50 miles northeast of Las Vegas. It was built by the community in 1951.

It's really sad to think of the valley's pioneers who spent their time there making bricks and putting the building up. There is a lot of history in that building.

Ladies! Put your heads together...

Ok girls! So, Jessica Taylor is once again SINGLE. You all know that I live in Moapa and let's face it...there are not a lot of fish in the sea around here. SO that is where you come in! If any of you have any brothers, uncles, cousins, friends, nephews, or grandsons (hehe) who are looking for a really cool girl, send 'em my way! I really am not picky but I kinda like older guys and someone who is active in the church. So, put your heads together. I'm counting on you to pull through for me. :)

Disneyland!

Staci invited me to go with her and the kids to Disneyland! She picked me up early Sunday morning. Staci forgot to pack her shoes so we stopped in Barstow (or Barstool, as Jayci calls it) at the outlet mall to get her some walking shoes :). We got to our hotel in Anaheim around 2:00, relaxed for a min and then headed to Newport Beach....

Me and Staci. We were FREEZING!

Monday we headed to Disneyland. The weather was PERFECT and we walked on every ride!! This is definitely the time of year to go! We went on 17 rides Monday alone! Dakota was so brave! Last time he came he wasn't tall enough to go on Screamin the roller coaster so he was really happy that he had grown and was tall enough this time! Jayci and Carla weren't so brave... they waited while we went on it... 3 times. Jayci's favorite ride was Splash Mountain and I would have to agree with her on that. I think that will always be my favorite, no matter how old I am.

Tuesday we went back to Disneyland for a few hours before heading home. We left Disneyland at about 4:00 and drove straight home! The kids wanted to stay for another week and couldn't understand why we couldn't just stay.

Above: Me and my niece Devyn waiting in line for Tower of Terror.

Dakota: mom, my head hurts

Staci: what's wrong? You have a headache?

Dakota: no, I was rubbing it on the carpet and now it hurts

I had so much fun on this trip! I don't get to see Devyn, Jayci and Dakota as often as I would like because they live in St. George so being with them for 3 days was a blast!! I hope they know how much I love them! They are such good kids with such sweet little spirits. I am so lucky to be thier aunt and be a part of their lives.

I am thankful for...

I have been a little bummed lately and very stressed so I decided that it is time to stop being negative and start thinking about everything good in my life and everything that I have been blessed with, so I made a little list. “Real life is not always going to be perfect or go our way, but the recurring acknowledgment of what is working in our lives can help us not only survive but surmount our difficulties.”Sarah Ban Breathnach What I am thankful for… o My family and the relationship I have with each of them even though sometimes we think we can’t stand each other. o My job! Sometimes I wish I could just stay home in bed but so many people are losing their jobs and I am just so thankful everyday that I still have mine! o My co-workers and my awesome boss! I couldn’t ask for better people to work for! o All of my nieces and nephews! I am so lucky to get to see them as often as I do. I love them so much! I can’t wait to have kids of my own. o For my health! I can walk, run, see, and hear! Every morning when my alarm goes off at 4:40am and I complain about getting up to work out, I am going to stop and instead be grateful that I have a body that CAN work out! o For my church calling! I am in Young Womens and it is sometimes challenging but I have grown so much from it and should feel privileged to be in there! o For my truck and freedom to get wherever I need to be. I am going to stop complaining about fuel prices and just be grateful that I have transportation!! o For freedom in general. o For the cute little house I live in. o For my sister-in-laws!! I love those girls so much!! I don’t have any sisters and it would always make me sad when I would see my mom with her twin and her other sister and saw how close they had become as adults and I thought I would never have that but now I finally have my sisters and I love them so much!! They are my best friends! o For a dad who worked so hard and sacrificed so that my mom could stay home and be there everyday when we came home from school. (I don’t know how any one can afford one income anymore!) o For all my friends and the support and advice I get from them!! o For the once-a-month movie night with the girls. o Bunkos every third Tuesday o For Kessa and her willingness to work out anytime! o For my mom! Moms are amazing and they make you who you are… whether you learn from their example or learn from their mistakes, we should all be thankful for our moms!

I almost forgot how to do this

Wednesday we stayed at my Grandma's house in Santa Clara and had a little family New Years Eve party. The next day we woke up and went to Pine Valley to go sledding. We went there last year and we took the Rangers with us and we found a meadow that had snow and ice on it so we tied a rope to the Ranger and would get pulled behind the Ranger. It was really fun and we wanted to do that again this year so we went to the same place but there was way too much snow!! Kyle's truck got stuck right when we got there so we unloaded the Ranger but even that kept getting stuck (thank goodness for some snowmobile-ers that helped us tow the Ranger). So... to make a long story short, we pretty much spent the whole day getting un-stuck and helping other people who were stuck. It was still fun though! We Nevada folks get so excited just to see snow :). I wish Jason and Trish could have come... we missed you!!

Kyle's truck, stuck in the snow...

My dad's truck has a wench so he was able to pull Kyle (and every other truck) out.

Kyle and Dad trying to decide what to do while Dusty shovels haha.

Help

Hey girls! I haven't done much blogging lately... I don't know if it's because I've been too busy or because I haven't done anything exciting enough to blog about :)... proabaly a little of both. Anyways, I was asked to do the Christmas lesson next week for all the Young Women combined... I am thinking about doing it mostly about Mary. If any of you have any stories or poems or anything like that that you think I could use, please let me know :). I have asked my dad to sing the song Mary Did You Know but I think that will be the very last part. So anyways, if any of you have anything that you would like to share with me, it would be much appreciated :).

Quite the Red Carpet Event...in Mesquite... who knew?

My heart belongs to Kade...

Cami, Amanda, Kessa, Colton, Lonia, Me, Emily, Casey, Lyndi

...but my neck belongs to Edward! (in Colton's case, Alice)

So last night, we all went to Mesquite for the midnight showing of Twilight! The night turned out way more fun that any of us expected... Of course we have all read the books and I made shirts for all of us to wear (just to make it more fun) but we aren't some of those crazy fans, like the ladies who went to an Italian restaurant and ordered mushroom raviolis just to be like Bella. We were just going to the movies for a girls' night out... so, we drove to Mesquite and ate dinner first. After dinner we were going to go to Wal Mart to kill some time because we still had a couple hours before the movie started but we decided to drive by the theater instead, to see if anyone was in line yet... no one was in line but we could see the movie theater staff setting something up so we figured that people would be getting there soon and we should probably just stay there and be the first in line. Little did we know, what they were setting up was the red carpet!!... Make a long story short, after waiting for a couple hours, a limo pulls up and out come the actor who plays Mike Newton along with Natalia Livingston from General Hospital, and Isaac C. Singleton Jr. from Pirates and some other people. They were in Mesquite filming a new movie called Rough Hustle so they showed up for the movie. Mike Newton was sitting directly behind me and Emily, 2 rows up. It was kinda cool!

Natalia Livingston

Mike is the one on the left, he was really cool and down to earth.

4th photo tag

OK here's the rules: Go into your picture files and open your 4th folder and download the 4th picture onto your blog!!! Write your memories of the photo

This is me and my youngest brother, Dusty. We were on our way to Vegas to see Blue Man Group for my dad's retirement party and me and him were riding in the very back of the Denali ... I got bored so I took out my phone and started taking pictures. He wouldn't do the kissy lips.

Family Pumpkin Fest

Yesterday we had a family Haloween party. It was so fun! Blake and Kessa have a pumkin patch across the street so we picked some pumpkins to carve, ate chili, had even had homemade rootbeer, oh AND we topped the night off with caramel apples (me and Kessa were going to work out after but I had to study my lesson for Sunday... sorry Kessa!). Emily decided to make this a new tradition. The kids had a blast!

I love Halloween!

Fruit Pizza

For those of you who were at my house last night for Bunkos and asked for the recipe for the fruit pizza, here it is...

2 packages Pillsbury sugar cooke dough

1 tub (8 oz) Cool Whip

1/4 package cream cheese

1/8 c powdered sugar Fruit

All you do is roll the dough out on a cookie sheet and bake as directed on package, let cool. As for the frosting, I don't know the exact measurements because you just kinda do it to taste; if you put too much cream cheese in and need it sweeter, add more powdered sugar, or vice versa. Spread the frosting and sprinkle fruit on top... Very easy! =)