Take me out to the ballgame!

Salt Lake Bees v. Tuscon Sidewinders - SL loses, but it was still a blast!

Are you afraid of the BULL????

OK, that's an old joke from WCU. See there was this Pike nicknamed Bull, and he had a crush on one of my friends, Joy Hinson (Shanna knows Joy, she was a teaching fellow). So anyways, Joy didn't like him, and when she told him that he asked her if she was afraid of the bull! So we used to say that all the time. Well, let me tell you that this morning when Wes, Brandy and I were mountain biking I WAS afraid of the bull. There were several cows and bulls on the trails and in the woods surrounding them, and it freaked me out. THEN Brandy was kind of running near one of them, and the BULL charged her!! It scared me to death, of course, but she ran and the bull stopped. We have been on this trail a lot, it's the one right behind our house, but I am usually scared of mountain lions, bears, etc, not cows and bulls! So that was a new experience that I didn't necessarily like. After Brandy got charged, we had to go around the trail a little to avoid them. Oh, and that was AFTER Wes said he was going to throw rocks at them to get them to move, and I said NO!! Granted, he has more experience with cows and bulls (considering he worked on a beef cow farm when he was in high school!) but I didn't like the idea.

AND Miss Brandy rolled in horse and maybe even cow droppings AGAIN, so she got a hose bath outside when we got home. Sorry Shanna, I wanted to try the dog wash but it was easier to do this than get her in the car with poop on her! So this is her, shaking off, then acting smug and mad, after her bath.

AAAHHH, running water....

How we take it for granted!! I went on a women's retreat with our church this past weekend, and there was NO running water, so we were using portopotties, and of course there were no showers. It was an amazing weekend of activities and hanging out with the other women, but I was so happy to be able to take a shower! I didn't take that many pictures because you don't really feel like having your picture taken when you are sweaty and dirty, but here is one of me and my tentmates, Rachel, Lynette, Tracey, and Debbie.

Friday night we did a moonlight hike up the mountain, Saturday morning was paintball and a ropes course, Saturday afternoon was tubing, then Sunday morning was a GPS hunt, which was REALLY fun. I had never played paintball before, and WOW, it was kind of crazy. You really do just run around with a gun trying to hurt other people! But my team won (not with my help because I pretty much just hid behind a tree the whole time and shot at people!).

In other news, Miss Brandy rolled around in something dead this weekend while fishing w/ Wes, so I gave her a second bath last night using vinegar, soap, and baking soda. It seemed to help the odor a little, but yuck!! I swear having a dog has to be SOMEWHAT similar to having kids!!

The weekend....

OK, my battery is about to go dead so I will make this one quick. Although let me just say that I think I am wordy. My friend Rachel was saying the other day her teachers used to tell her that, about her writing, and I have discovered that I am that way also. Oh well, you can always just look at the pictures!! We had a great weekend filled with babysitting and boating. Friday night we watched the Opie kids while their parents, Chris and Dawn, went out for their anniversary. The kids were wonderfully behaved for us. Keaton ate about 7, went to sleep at 7:30 and stayed asleep the rest of the evening. Gentry hadn't had a nap so she wanted to go lay in our bed about 8 and watch cartoons. She fell asleep and so did I, while Wes stayed downstairs with Keaton in case he woke up. I will say that the hour Keaton was awake was tough though! He likes to be held, and you can't just hold him, you have to walk around too. I see why so many people have the slings now. One of those would have come in handy! These pictures of him and Wes were when they first arrived, so he was pretty content at this point!

Isn't she the cutest thing? I love this child. Here is an even cuter one of her. This was a little while ago, but I can't resist.

Now on to Saturday....We went out with the Shaw's to Utah Lake. It was 100 degrees, we don't have a pool, but needed to get wet, so we drove out to the middle of the lake, parked the boat, and swam and floated around for about 3 hours. It was so nice! Utah Lake is near Provo, which to many around here is not the place you want to stay and play for long (it's home to BYU, if that tells you anything!) But it's a nice lake, and the views were great.

Tuesday's Random Post

Today was a momentous day in Utah! It rained!! For those of you who live in the south, you must understand something. It NEVER rains here in July, in fact we have had fires throughout the state for weeks now. So rain is a wonderful thing. In fact, it started as soon as I left work, I had to run out to my car in it, and I didn't even care. I LOVE rain now. I never thought I would say that, after feeling like I lived in the rain forest sometimes in Asheville. Anyways, so tonight I took some pictures of the sky. The sunset was gorgeous.... This was the stormy sky to the north. It is a welcoming sight to see these dark clouds.And if anyone can tell me what kind of flower this is I will be in debt to you forever! They were planted before we moved in, and they do really well here and I want more.

I also just wanted to give a warm welcome to Misty, who just created a new blog! I am so happy to have her on here now. Check out their link under The Gordons.

Happy Birthday Dominick!!

Today we celebrated Dominick Lee's 4th bday. Dominick is the son of our good friends, Eric and Diane. We have several friends with 3 and 4 year olds, and they are so much fun, and cute too! And they are little hams, so I got some great pictures of them. The bottom pic is the Opie family. They have baby Keaton, who is 4 mths now, and Gentry, who is 3. Wes and I are babysitting them next Friday, so we will get a little taste of what parenthood will be like! I will let you know how it goes!

It's hard to get back to blogging again after vacation, sorry it took me a few days!! We met Wes's parents, Tom and Sue, in California last week. They traded one of their time shares for a week at the Worldmark Resort in Angels Camp. It is about two hours east of San Francisco, which is where we flew into, so we spent our first night in SF, hanging around Fisherman's Wharf, going to Ghirardelli Square (where I just had to pick up some dark chocolate!) and taking Tom and Sue to Wes and I's favorite Irish coffee place, Buena Vista. Here is a picture of the four of us at dinner on the Wharf...

The next day it was on to Angels Camp. The drive there kind of feels like you aren't in California anymore. More like Indiana or some midwestern town. Very flat, and lots of farms. But then we came into Calaveras County, home of 22 wineries. Angels Camp was where our resort was, but the small town of Murphys, CA was where most of the wineries were, and where we spent a lot of our time. One afternoon we visited 4 different wineries, and one of them in particular, Ironstone, has a summer concert series, so we bought tickets to Earth, Wind and Fire for the next night. It was a wonderful evening at the winery ampitheatre, and the concert was great! Here are some pics of one of the wineries and on the lawn before the concert...

Another treat nearby was Bear Valley, a ski resort town and therefore, much higher elevation and much cooler than Angels Camp. The drive up was about 45 minutes, and it takes you through Big Trees National Park. The trees were beautiful, and very large....

And, I know you will be shocked.... We went fishing (or Tommy and Wes went fishing) on one of the mountain lakes.....

All in all, it was a wonderfully relaxing vacation!!