Nascar & Vegas baby!

Shawn and I are bound for Las Vegas. We leave tonight when I get off of work. Sin City here we come again. We were married there just shy of 2 years ago. I am looking forward to taking in much more of Vegas this round.

Nascar craziness and Junior Nation here we come, wearing the number 88 with pride!

This Weekend Short & Sweet-- well sort of

Shawn ran a temperature of 100-102 on Friday & Saturday. It finally broke late Saturday night and I was relieved. It stresses me out when someone I love is running a fever. So we nestled in at home to give him lots of rest. We made it a movie weekend. We rented three movies -- Nights in Rodanthe which I had be wanting to see since it came out. It was not as good as the book, but I enjoyed it none the less and Shawn slept through most of it. Which is a good thing because it made me cry and Shawn would have teased me if he had been awake. Quarantine was the next one and it is one of those scary movies. It made me jump a couple of times and unfortunately we watched it at night right before bed, which in turn caused me to have weird/scary dreams almost all night. I thought watching the HGTV channel for about an hour after the movie and before bed would get my mind on a different track, but it didn't. The third movie we watched was Swing Vote with Kevin Costner it was good it had some funny moments and tried to prove a point. The relationship and interaction between Kevin Costner's character and his daughter I thought were the best parts of the show.
We watched the Nascar race on Sunday, with not much to be excited about. The race was in California and it had a few rain delays, but they ended up finishing the race in the end. Jr.'s engine went kaput and he wasn't able to finish the race, which of course we did not like. One of the positive things that came out of the race is Kyle Busch (the driver we dislike very much) did not win. Yeah! Yeah!
We leave early Thursday morning to go to Las Vegas and we are very excited. We are ecstatic to leave all this snow behind for a few days, plus it is supposed to be in the low 70's all week. To us that will be a heat wave. We are planning on wearing shorts, but I am packing pants just in case. The big reason we are headed to Sin City is to watch the Las Vegas Nascar race live. Something Shawn has wanted to do for a long time. We have tickets to the Nationwide race (Saturdays race) and the Sprint Cup race (Sundays race) the big race. Shawn found out yesterday that Dale Earnhardt Jr. will be in both races, normal he just races in the Sprint Cup races. That news only makes it more exciting to watch the Nationwide race. We would love to see Jr. win either or both of these races. We also plan to golf, catch a show, visit Margaritaville and more. I will share the experience and photos when we get back.

HaPPy BirTHDaY SHawN

Happy Birthday Baby!!!

I love you for the great person you are and all that you do for me. I feel blessed to have such a great husband. You fill my life full of love, laughter, and happiness. I look back on the memories we have made and it makes me smile and then I look forward to the many years to come with excitement. I appreciate you, your sense of humor, your love & understanding. Thanks for loving me the way I am. I look forward to waking up & going to bed seeing your handsome face for many years to come. I hope I made you feel special on your special day.

Love, Me

Valentine's Day & Nascar's Daytona 500

This last weekend was another busy one.
Saturday was Valentine's Day and we had the kids. We don't usually have the kids on holidays very often. So we decided to do something a little different and we went to the movies. The last movie we saw in the theater I believe was National Treasure 2: Book of Secrets on opening weekend, so to say the least it has been a long while. Since movie options in Jackson are slim we decided to go to Idaho Falls to Edwards. Clayton's heart had been set on watching Friday the 13th all week long, even though he is only 11 and the movie is rated R Shawn decided he could go see it. However, us girls did not want anything to do with that movie so we went to watch Paul Blart Mall Cop. Clayton thought the movie was great and Shawn said it was the typical Friday the 13th movie and was all right. Mekenna and I both got some good laughs at Mall Cop, for me the movie was good but not great. After the movies were over we went to Garcia's to meet my Mom and Lynn (step-dad) for dinner. We were able to just barely beat the rush of Valentine dates, thanks to Mom & Lynn showing up a little early to save us a table. It was enjoyable to get to see them and visit. My brothers Jeremy & Tyler stopped by for a brief moment to drop off my nephew Teagan. My mom was watching Teagan while my brothers took their sweethearts to a movie. Teagan has gotten so big and is adorable. It was good to see my brothers even if it was only for a few minutes.

Teagan

The 2009 Nascar season has started. To say the least Shawn has been excited for it to start. Our friends Ed & Barbara Garner are also big Nascar fans and invited us over to watch the race, the big Daytona 500. Trying to entertain themselves during the race Clayton & Mekenna decided to turn the Garner's bar area into a restaurant "The Cross" where we could order water, soda, beer, other, pistachios, and candy. It was fun to watch them play together and get along for the most part. Clayton prepared the orders and Mekenna was the cute little waitress that took the orders. As far as Nascar goes we have high hopes for our favorite driver Dale Earnhardt, Jr. to do well this year.

flickr.com

However in the Daytona 500, after a few mistakes in the pit box he was falling behind. Then on lap 124 he was involved in an incident the caused a wreck. Then the rain started to move in which is not a good thing if the race is past the half way point, because if they stop the race due to the rain they don't finish the remaining laps. Then with 76 laps to go they stopped the race because of the rain and then they called the race meaning where ever the cars were on the track is where they placed. Unfortunately for us June Bug (Dale Earnhardt, Jr.) was in 27th, which is not what we wanted. On a positive note we have many more races in the season for him to win. If we are lucky we will be able to see him win the Las Vegas race. Shawn and I are going to Vegas at the end of February to experience our first live Nascar race. We are excited to see it live and get away from the snow for a few days.

Camper Pictures

We have paper copies of the pictures of the camper, so I thought I would share-- I had to scan each one and they did not turn out very clear, but you can get an idea of what it is like. We are so excited to go pick it up. Even though we won't be able to use for a few months, because we have so much snow.

The couch turns into a bed.

Our bed looks big and there is a lot of room to move, no more claustrophobia

The bunk beds for the kids, we love this cool option.

The table also can also turn into a bed, but for us only as a last resort.

It has a tv, vcr, dvd player, and radio, but we will have to invest in a generator before we can use those lavish options.

One of my favorite things about the camper-- who doesn't prefer a toilet to squatting in the woods?

Happy Birthday Dan & Bob

Happy Birthday & Best Wishes!!

Dan -- February 9th

Bob -- February 10th

Happy Birthday Hanna

HaPPy BirTHdaY Hanna!!!

(a day late, sorry I was not able to post yesterday)

Lots of visitors = a busy weekend

This last weekend seemed busy. We went sledding again, well what else do you expect us to do with all of this snow. My cousin Melissa and her fiance Russ and little girl Kaelee joined us in the fun. At least it was a little warmer this time compared to the last 2 times. Clayton & Mekenna got bored with just sledding down the hill, so Clayton proposed the idea of making a jump. Shawn agreed to a small jump. The kids had a blast hitting the jump and thank heavens nobody was injured (seriously injured I should say). On the last run of the day Clayton & Mekenna went down holding onto each others feet and after hitting the jump Mekenna's head hit Clayton's cheek. There was no visible damage, but it must of hurt because Clayton cried pretty hard for awhile. I will have to admit the jump was fun and maybe a little painful. I went on it four times, twice by myself, once with Oscar, and once with Kaelee. It was also fun to watch the kids enjoy the experience so much.

Then on Sunday we had a friend of ours Jack over to watch the Super Bowl. I was cheering for Arizona, but unfortunately they were not able to pull it off. I don't watch much football anymore but it was a good game and some good commercials as well. In celebration of the Super Bowl I decided to try some different recipes for the game food. I made an Espinaca Con Queso dip that was pretty delicious. I also did some chicken wings, which I have never made before. The wings turned out okay, but I definitely have a few different ideas to try next time and I think they will turn out much better. We also had cut up strawberries covered in yogurt. Of course celery and ranch dip to go with the chicken wings. Yes Ranch not Bleu Cheese neither Shawn nor I am a big fan of Bleu Cheese. For the sweet tooth we had a bowl of regular & peanut M&M's to munch on.

So I guess if you throw in visitors and the Super Bowl the weekend seems to be busy, maybe I should just say busier than usual.