Not her first rodeo...or was it?

S-a-t-u-r-d-a-y....Night! We went to the Rodeo!! Strawberry Days hosted their 90th rodeo this last weekend. It was my first rodeo that I have any recollection of. Apparently I have been to one before, I just don't remember it. Overall impressions: a little brutal and violent and holy cow! cowboys are crazy. Why anyone would want to climb on the back of an animal that only wants to buck you off is beyond me. That's got to be the longest 8 seconds of anyone's life. It was a fun night and I can now check that off my bucket list.

Family Home Evening

Family Home Evening: trip to Denver Mattress to purchase my long-awaited and long-saved for adjustable bed base that can put you in a zero gravity mode and massage you till you fall asleep. I also got some new pillows. It gets delivered tomorrow morning...it kind of feels like Christmas at my house. I paid for the items in cold, hard cash! It was so fun to count out the $100 bills!!! I totally believe in only buying something you can afford and actually have the money for. Paying for it in cash is SO much more fun than a check or plastic card. Try it out with your next big purchase!!!After the big purchase we visited the Cheesecake Factory for delicious salads followed by even more delicious cheesecake. I figure if you eat a salad for dinner, you can also enjoy some dessert. We ate outside on the patio, it was a LOVELY evening. Thanks friends.

FACS Conference

Each year I attend a conference with all my fellow Family & Consumer Science Teachers from all around the state. It's a great opportunity to learn new things, sharpen my teaching skills and my favorite part: visit with friends.

This year I was charged with the responsibility to arrange for all the vendors for our Exhibits. I've been working on this for months. Sending out letters, e-mails, phone calls, more e-mails, etc. Here's the result of all that work: 29 vendor booths, a sold-out Garden Court at BYU and more money raised for our organization than ever before. I must say I was proud of my efforts and so releived it all went well.

Before:During:

Lunch crowd:

Orem Summerfest 2011

To celebrate the great city I have lived in now
for 16 years, I finally attended the annual
Summerfest. What a great place to people-watch. I'm pretty sure most of the most "interesting" people we saw don't actually live in Orem. Well, at least I've never seen their kind around town...and I'm thankful.

We wandered around the booths, ate some delicious corn and Navajo tacos and then watched the "carnies" (i.e. carnival people).

The fireworks were spectacular! We sat on the baseball fields and they were literrally right over our heads. You could feel the boom each time they were set off. Great night! I'll be sure to go at least once more in the next 16 years, at least for the fireworks.

In My Pretty Garden

I've been a busy bee planting flowers in my "mini" garden. Good thing it's mini or my wallet would burst into flames....they're pretty, but expensive! I'm hoping to keep them alive all Summer and I wanted to check their progress as the weather warms up.

Sunday Drives

I love a nice relaxing Sunday drive. Here are some pics from my recent drives.

A very swollen Provo river. Floods are coming.
Ducks along the river.

Out at Utah Lake State Park. Thanks for letting me in without charging any $.!

And you thought you had dandelions? Field of the little lovely ones inCharleston at the North end of Deer Creek.

Idol Chatter...and the winner is!

Well, apparently I've been a bit busy and forgot to blog
about the big finale! I was super glad to see Lauren
and Scotty make it to the finals. Haley had no business
even making it as far as she did. So we had the big country music show-down. I have to say that Lauren actually did a better job than Scotty on finals night. All that and with a blown vocal cord? Too bad she didn't rock it like that all season. Whoever picked Scotty's final song, boo. Jimmy, really? "Love You This Big", sounds like that children's book: Guess How Much I Love You....this big! Lauren's final song was much better.

But, when we look at the entire season, it was pretty obvious who was going to win. Scotty had the fans behind him from the very beginning, including me. Secret is: originally I was only voting for Scotty because I wanted to with the American Idol game because he was my first prediction. But in the end, I was the one that was surprised, because I actually really liked him. So, maybe somewhere deep inside I'm a little bit country. I always knew I was rock and roll. Darn Donny & Marie song.

The ending results for the AI game: Camille 11 pts. Tamma 9 pts. Nikki 7 pts. Glenn 4 pts. and Shauners 2 pts. Thanks for a great season. Now what will I do on Wednesday nights?