Vegas NFR 2011

So it has come quite the tradition that I go to the NFR every year. My family gets tickets every year and I seriously look forward to it at all times. Rodeo has always played a huge part in my life and I still always think about the days I spent in preperation for them. The NFR just fascinates me because I cannot imagine the feeling of making it there and competing in that arena, what a rush it has to be. Rodeo what an event, I can't say enough good things about it and how truly blessed I feel to have been a part in it. I have such strong feelings about rodeo because it shaped me into the person I am today. With that said here are the highlights of this year :)

Friday night Camille and I had tickets to the rodeo (9th round).

Kayelin was such a good sport and went to New York New York and rode the rollercoaster all night without us.....She even got a VIP there ;)

Camille and I ended up at Studio 54 inside the MGM hotel that night and what a blast we had. This girl is great and we can always have a good time.

Saturday during the day we had so much fun walking around Cowboy Christmas and just hanging out. This is us on top of the Marriot hotel hanging out with my family.

The absolute funnest thing that I did on this trip was our Oreo we made on the mechanical bull at MGM. What a blast, my abs hurt so bad from laughing once I fell off.

Yes Camille has my sister's hair like reins, what a good time.

                                                                                       And us in action!!

There are always so many memories made here every year and I truly feel like I am in my element when I am around cowboys :)

Lets just say I cannot wait till next year!!!



I made it this far, nothing can hold me back

I have come to the realization that nothing is perfect and that as hard as I try I can't make it that way and I can't prevent things from happening. I feel sorry for the people that have to deal with my high stress levels on a day to day basis (Mike takes the brunt of this). Slow but sure I am learning to change, I am learning to EXCEPT the things that are out of my control.......it's hard OH is it hard for me but I am trying. I know if I don't I am going to die early from a heart attack or severe hypertension. My melt downs are happening more and more, does this come with age??? cause I hate it. I hate the way I feel when I over analyze everything that it brings me to a point of complete MELT DOWN!!!. I start believing in things that are not even prevalent or that I can't control, so why worry about it??
I recently got a book that is called "10 simple things to remember" and I love reading it so I thought I'd share it.
1. Love is why we are here.

2. The most important day is today.
           This is a big one for me because I seem to forget this sometimes. I contantly worry and stress about the future and everything I am doing today that will make my future better. Don't get me wrong I find that I love this about me because I am doing so much today to improve my life tomorrow but....there has to be a cutoff of what is healthy to worry about and then there's the point where I ruin today stressing about the future. Working on it slowly.
     Quote from the book that I loved:

                       Yesterday is gone......tomorrow only exists in the future. These, of course, are facts, but they are easy to forget as we spend so much precious energy thinking about things we did or didn't  do....or worrying about what might happen tomorrow. There are two days in the week that are not important...yesterday and tomorrow. Yesterday is gone and tomorrow is never promised.

3. If you always do your best, you will not have regrets.
           REGRETS SUCK!!!! I made a goal long long time ago not to have any. I found myself lately having one and man does is suck, it hurts, and I have to make it better. Working on it as well.

4. In spite of your best efforts. some things are just out of your control.
            I am becoming more and more familiar with this simple yet so important fact of life. Learning to except certain things will help me get through alot I have found.

5. Things will always look better tomorrow. Stay positive.

Hope is a attitude. It is a mental shift that we choose for ourselves as we tap into our inner reserves. When we decide to be hopeful, we open ourselves to discover the wisdom and strength we may not have known existed. Our lessons, when veiwed from this perspective, show us that things generally work out as they should.

6. Sometimes a wrong turn will bring you to exactly the right place.

7. Sometimes when you think the answer is "no" it is just "not yet".

8. True friends share your joy, see the best in you, and support you through your challenges.

            Can't say enough about supportive friends. I don't have many that would stand by me for EVERYTHING but the couple I have I know will always be there for me.  

9. God and your parents will always love you.

10. For all your accomplishments, nothing will bring you more happiness that the love you find.

             Couldn't be more true when I look into my life today. Sure I have accomplishments and sure I love sharing them but nothing makes me more happy then talking about the love I have found in the past 21 years. This is the love from a supporting family, friends and Mike as of now. I could go on for hours, pages to pages about how blessed I am for the relationships I have formed. These are everlasting relationships that through thick and thin I will have.

I set out to do something and I know one day I'll see the end result come together and all the hard work and stress will pay off. I made it this far and only good things can come of it :)

Fun in the Sun weekend

This past weekend for me turned out to be such a memorable one. To start it off I went to the Tim Mcgraw concert on saturday with friends. I love getting away from life for a while and just enjoying the many laughs that we share. My friends are great and I know through everything that I can count on them!!!

 It is so funny to me that all these girls I meet through Ambers and we just quickly become good friends. Thanks mom and dad haha

The guy driving this awesome hummer limo said he was waiting for friends so he said we could hop in for a mintue. Come to find out that this was Tim's limo....... AWESOME!!! (was he lying...maybe but still cool)




The second part to my fun weekend happened in Saint George.

We went to Zions National Park and went hiking. Which surprisingly I enjoyed so so much.

FATTY squirrels that aren't afraid of the hikers because they feed them quite WELL!!

Call me crazy but seeing the crap load of tadpoles was so fascinating to me because it was nothing I had ever seen before. So cool to see there little legs forming. Sure I learned about it in school but seeing it was so much cooler.

Monday night we went to the Tuacahn and saw the Little Mermaid. I am not one for musicals but this was really neat because the costumes and actors did such an amazing job.

Us messing around with the face things....ment for little kids, what can I say we never really grew up :)

The whole weekend turned out great, I couldn't have asked for a better one with the fam, but I did get some cute pictures that sure made me home sick......

You can't say he is not THE CUTEST!!!!!

Thanks to Leslie for taking these. I absolutly love and appreciate you for captureing him in all of his cute glory :)

MY Fairytale

Lately it seems like I have been finding myself thinking about love stories and fairytale turn outs. For example while watching JP purpose to Ashley on the bachlorette( I know I am pathetic) I could not help but think that that was like a fairytale ending.... or atleast the producers made it look that way. Lets face it I realize life can't be one of those fairytales that we all grew up knowing about where everything is perfect but I do realize that I can and am creating MY fairytale. One that I am happy with and one that I can't help but be so proud of. My fairytale is filled with plenty of hard times and disappointments but all of them is what make it MINE. Certainly I grew up like any little girl thinkin of my prince charming and how awesome my wedding would be and how in love my future husband would be in with me but......So far my life is nothing typical, planned or traditional in any way. This used to upset me when I thought to hard about it because for a long time I wanted that traditional way...boy meets girl, fall in love, get married and have kids, yatta yatta yatta.

I have recently came to a conclusion that I ENJOY being un-traditional and atypical. 



Why do I enjoy this so much???? Because this fairytale is ten times better then what I ever had pictured in my head for myself. I know I must be doing something right because I have one of the strongest relationships that I believe will never stop growing. I have such an amazing support system behind me that sets me up for nothing but success. My goals are becoming closer and closer to being reached each and everyday. How things are going for me I can't see not getting MY untraditional, atypical, unplanned, longtime coming FAIRYTALE.

Summer time

Even though I don't lead a very exciting, well worth talking about life, I still enjoy every second of it. This summer for me has really been all about working and preparing myself for the long journey of Nursing school to start in Aug. And for those who don't know I have decided to attend Provo College and will graduate in May of 2013 with my RN Licensure. Even though getting my RN will not be the end of my schooling it still excites me that all my hard work payed off and I was accepted into 3 seperate school the first time I applied, and those of you who have ever done applications for a professional program know that this is something to be proud of, and trust me I am extremely PROUD of myself, and the people that have stood by me through all of it.
This summer ofcourse hasn't been all work, I enjoy the small things that I have been able to do this summer, like time spent with Mike and his family in Birdseye, riding my dirt bike, laying out, watching the rodeo, enjoying snow cone wednesdays, and ofcourse the freedom of not being in school for a few months :) Not to mention that everyday I go into work is a fun day. I am building such fun relationships with my co-workers and residents, I love it.
Mike and I also added a new addition to our lives.....His name is Mac

This little guy is ten weeks old and what a CUTIE!!! He loves his big brother Bear (the feelings aren't quite reciprocated....yet) and follows him around contantly. These two are what can turn my bad days into good ones. All in all this summer has been great!!! I have grown so much closer to Mike the last few months with all the major decisions I am throwing at him and can't say enough about how amazing my family is for a support system, I couldn't do it without them. And even though this year did not start out very good, I can still see the good coming my way and can count the many blessings thus far.

Queen of Kings

I promise this is the last of my Alaska posts, but I saved the best for last, the King Salmon that we caught. I had no idea what to expect, all Mike kept saying is that they were hard to catch and that they were close to double the size of the silvers last year, I WAS EXCITED!! The first couple of days I didn't even hook one, let alone land one. I was getting discouraged but no one else was catching either so I kept my head high. And now the stories begin...............

I FINALLY hooked into one the night of the camp trip but I chased the darn thing a freaking mile (exaggeration maybe a little) down the river, running on rocks and risking my life (haha) just to have the fish break the line. Leslie was so nice as to take this picture as I was walking back winded and sweating!!! GROSS I KNOW, but atleast you can see the dedication I had :)

MY VERY FIRST KING SALMON, 24 Lbs

Right after the tremendous fight with the first King I hooked into and lost I hooked into this one about 20 minutes later and landed the sucker!!! How excited I was because I almost lost it, and Mike even ended up diving onto and straddling the fish so it didn't get away. AMEN!!!

This was the first fish caught between all the girls and as you can tell we were having fun with him. We even named him Stanley haha, thanks Tahsh :)

FISH #2 (nameless)

                                            He weighed close to twenty pounds.

This night was one of the best fishing nights we had. Everyone that went had hooks in and almost everyone landed one. Donna's was the biggest fish caught that night, but all were really nice fish.

GIRL POWER!!! We had too much fun up there.

FISH #3 (Slammer) 

He weighed in at 27 Lbs and boy did I feel that when Mike and I were trying to land him. I got to say though fighting these fish made the experience that more worth while. It was a challenge and I loved every second of it.

Carol caught a fatty too!!! We had alot of fun and turned out to be the only two to catch one that morning.

Mike's Fish

FINALLY!!! The last night of fishing Mike caught a King. I was so SO happy for him because I had started feeling so bad that he didn't get to fish much because of me and all the girlies he was helping. Once again I have to say what A TROOPER he is. And what a sweetheart as well cause I don't know many men as selfless as this one. He is always putting himself out just to make sure others are having a good time. I feel like the luckiest girl to have one hell of a man to take care of me. He means the world to me.









More Alaskan Adventures

I am LOVING my time in Alaska. More then I even thought I would. Having an almost all girl trip is so much fun. Maybe Mike wouldn't agree but he is still a trooper. One of the days tourin around we decided to take a paddle boat around a huge lake. It was alot of fun cause why'll we were paddling around the float planes would come in and land right on the river, can't say that just happens everyday.

On monday night all of us decided we wanted to go camping out on the river. Mike and I had gone last year and we knew we just had to do it again this year.

OUr camping squad conisited of me, Tahsha, Leslie, Camille, and ofcourse Mike. (poor poor man). We had so much fun I cannot even describe the memory to give it  the justice that it deserves. My ab muscles were soar the next day from laughing so hard and so much. I love that when we were out there not one other thing mattered. I wasn't stressed about school, work or bills. The world had stopped and I was living in the laughter and the memory. What a lesson to learn the good way....I need to start taking time and experiencing life in this light more often cause this is what life is all about,

 Enjoying the time and company of friends and family.

This picture is by far my favorite of the whole trip. This was us the whole trip, we enjoyed eachothers company at all times. I have not laughed like this in probably years. What a blast girl friends are.

Our sweet one burner stove to boil our water for our MRE's

Camping buddies by the fire. Don't mind that this was taken about 11:30 at night and it's stil daylight.

Soul sista's. She is my right hook haha

Got to love when I can capture a REAL smile out of him. What can I say i fell in love with this face.