Rawhide

I bought a Groupon to this Western theme park several months ago thinking we could take the kids and have a good time. We had enjoyed visiting Goldfield, Arizona, so much and this seemed a lot like that, so I figured we couldn't go wrong. Luckily, even though we started our evening at 103 degrees, I was right!

We saw two different shows by the same group of guys--I think they call themselves the Arizona Rough Riders. We saw a separate show by a Miss Kate and her rescue animals. Her horses could do amazing tricks and she could use a whip like a pro (she won some national title associated with the horse tricks she does years ago). We also ate steaks, panned for gold--they make sure each child gets a little bag full, rode burros, petted llamas, baby goats (3 weeks old), a miniature horse, sheep and pigs and had a band play us "Long, Tall Texan" and we didn't even do it all! We left after 9 pm and we got there when it opened. It was so much fun and I'm hoping to do it again when it starts to cool back down.

Acting scared of the stuffed Rattlesnake

Sad to be captured

At first those baby goats were friendly...

Then they started jumping on us... (Owen thinks this is pretty funny since he's not the victim!)

Then they were eating pieces of our hats!!!!

See how tiny that horse is?

This shot (ha, ha) is from the Billy the Kid show (see the guy falling?), we also saw one about Wild Bill Hickok

A picture with the whole cast. The bad guy tried to get Owen to shake his hand, but Owen was having none of it telling him, "You're a bad guy! You killed that guy who cheated at cards."

Strike it rich!

Riding off into the sunset...

This Means WAR!!!!

I slept well last night. I think God knew I needed the rest to go out and be angry today.

Remember that beautiful garden that I posted about a couple posts ago?

Well, it's not a secret anymore. The birds discovered that I have a green thumb too.

They ate my first--first--first people!!! HUGE (it seriously weighed about a pound it was so juicy) beefsteak tomato. That made me mad. In fact I almost titled this post "Mad as Hell" but my in-laws are such gentle folks, so I'm hiding the title in here where those who only look at pictures will have no idea that that thought even went through my mind.

Let's just say that damage to crops does not get looked at lightly by anyone in my family. My grandma had someone come onto her fenced property and cut down one of her beautiful trees for their Christmas tree. Unfortunately for them it fell as all good trees do into the fence which was electric. My grandparents sat in their Suburban all night with shot guns.

Given that I don't own a shot gun and I live in city limits, I was MAD!!!

It made me start thinking about Noah and how he sent a dove to see if there was dry land. I bet after the dove brought back that twig he shot it. That twig probably had the only ripe berries around and that bird had eaten them for himself.

I know you think I'm blowing this situation out of control a tiny bit, but you'd be mistaken because you see, this morning when I went out to care for my little garden I encountered THIS:

My sons heard me yelling and ranting like a lunatic (I didn't swear--out loud that is) and they came running to my rescue. Sweet boys. I guess they get their sense of honor from their grandparents.

(not related, but super cute)

And because you are all obsessed with my garden I wanted to show you a Ghost Aloe. Don't try and grow one of these at your house. Come visit me and bring poison--bird poison that is.

Not My Sciatic!!!

When I was pregnant for the first time, I would get this terrible shooting pain down my leg. I asked my ob at the time what could possibly be causing me such grief and he said it was probably my sciatic nerve. Just typical for pregnancy he told me. And whether it was or not, after I had my beautiful daughter, the pain went away and I forgot about it.
Here we are eight (8!?!?) years later and pregnant again. Only with this pregnancy I decided that I was going to do it a little differently. You see, when I am not pregnant, I exercise Monday through Friday mornings for about 50 minutes to an hour every day. However, when I've been pregnant in the past, I have found it impossible to breathe past about the second month of every pregnancy. Well, not this time I told myself. You are going to push and push and push yourself past that. Your body is older and your recovery will be worse and you need to endure. So, I have been. At about two months it got really hard again, but I just cut back to four days a week until I got past that little breathing issue. And, I have toned down my exercising to about 35-40 minutes. I was on the right track and I was going to keep my muscle while gaining a HUGE belly. Only my right leg never got the memo.
About two months ago I started getting this terrible shooting pain in my right leg when I would lunge. Then it became painful just to lift that leg the tiniest bit when I was showering--you know to wash my ankle or foot. Putting on my capris became a painful experience and sleeping was a nightmare too as I didn't realize how much I turn my body with my legs. And, then I started having my leg be unreliable. I would walk a couple of steps and the pain would be so intense I would almost fall over. What the heck was happening? My body was NOT supposed to work like this. I am not new to exercise, so why was my body not cooperating?
I talked to my current ob and he said, "It's probably your sciatic nerve" (I think they have a book titled that in med school) and he sent me to a chiropractor. Well, apparently it's easiest for chiropractors to figure out what's wrong with you if you lie on your stomach. That wasn't going to happen, so it has taken a little bit of trial and error, but what is the diagnosis to this long, dull story?
My pain has NOTHING to do with my sciatic nerve (by the way your sciatic nerve is actually three different nerves that come together in your lower back and wrap down around your leg which is why it could possibly be hurting during pregnancy). No, my pain was from two different sets of muscles--the adductor and hamstring muscles. The adductor muscles run alongside the interior of your knee and keep your knee from flopping over when you... say LUNGE forward. Your hamstring muscles I'm sure all of you know about if you've done any stretching at all. The story is that those muscles are always tight and being pregnant and attempting to lunge forward exacerbates that condition to unbearable proportions.
The only solution is to drink lots of Sonic limeades and eat chocolate as soon as the kids go to bed. Not so much, but it may work if I gave it a chance. Really though, now when I am supposed to be lunging in my workouts, I do squats. I do LOTS and LOTS and LOTs of squats now. And, of course, like any problem, my movement issues are not completely typical--meaning, I can do side lunges without any problem and that really shouldn't work out, but it does.
So, next time you find yourself pregnant and your leg hurting, don't start pointing the finger at your sciatic--it could be your adductor or maybe your hamstring or perhaps a completely different muscle that you have never heard of before.
It has been really humbling to have to "take it easy" when I really want to push hard and keep this goal to do what I've always done. I feel like I fail in so many other goals and resolutions and this was one that actually seemed doable. I am grateful for my healthy body though. I'm grateful that I am able to still do almost everything I want to do anyway. Life really is about adaptation whether I want to admit to it or not.

This Desert Life

This is our neighbor's Jacaranda Tree. They only bloom this time of year and are so beautiful.

My grandparents came to visit Easter weekend and my grandma just couldn't believe how everything here is in bloom or so far along in its growth. Our growing season is completely off from most of the US and I guess I've just gotten a bit used to it. We planted our garden in February and now we have HUGE zucchinis and bell peppers and Owen's bean plant (from pre-school) is about to give us some beans. I also thought I had better show a picture of our ONE massive grapefruit that our tree gave us this last year. Anyway, we've loved our little above ground garden and I wish I would've taken photos of all my millions of snapdragons that were blooming the first three weeks of April, but I forgot.

It's hard to tell the length and width of these zucchini from the photo, but they are about as big around as my upper arm and as long as that too! The proud bean grower and his brother! (The kids love the onion blossoms.)

These bells are bigger than my fist by quite a bit.

Everyone who enjoys the garden that I grow.

You have no idea how hard it was for me to wrench this grapefruit from its mother. I didn't want to take away all of her hard work!

To give you an idea of the size of this grapefruit--compare it to Eli's head. You can see how much love (and water) was involved.

There were beautiful deep red snapdragons everywhere! The bush in the back is my new Privet. I'm hoping this corner will finally become something beautiful.

It's Not Always Clear...

When your vocabulary and the picture don't always fit...

Owen was looking through our reverence book at church and came to this picture by Carl Bloch. He leaned over to me and whispered, "Mom, isn't this the picture of Jesus healing the leprechauns?"

Scenario #2

After looking at my blog post pictures of our trip to Las Vegas to see BYU play, Owen said, "Mom, I love that picture of you and dad! Isn't that where you saw everyone wearing Jiminy Cricket T-shirts?"

And who says our kids aren't listening?

My Favorite NEW Cookbook

I'm sure a lot of you visit the blog Our Best Bites. I have visited the site several times and drooled over the delcious looking food. I was even going to make one of their recipes when I discovered they were going to publish a cookbook. Now I realize that MOST of the recipes in the cookbook are also on the blog, but I am really a fan of a good cookbook--just ask my husband, he thinks I have some cookbook hoarding disease. So, I bought the cookbook three weeks ago.

Since then, I have made The World's Best Dinner Rolls (I'm not bragging--that's what they are called):

I then prepared their Cheesesteake Sandwiches. I am going to confess here that I thought that the flavor was going to fall short, so I generously added Montreal Steak Seasoning. A seasoning that can do no wrong on any meat as far as I'm concerned.

I then made their super delicious Baked Creamy Chicken Taquitos. No picture, but they were soooo good that Ryanna--the resident cheese hater--LOVED them. I just dipped them in sour cream and salsa, but I hear they are good with the lime cilantro dip that is also found on their website.

I then had to try their Brazilian Lemonade--ever since my friend Koby made it and brought me enough to leave me in deep desire for a month or more. What better to wash down those taquitos with?

Sunday I pulled out all the stops and made their Pineapple and Ginger Flank Steak--which is not to be found on their blog--only in their cookbook apparently. We put the steak on top of their Coconut Rice (once again not found on the site, but in the cookbook) and for a side dish we did super yummy Carmelized Green Beans. Fresh green beans with red onion and bacon--can you ever go wrong with BACON?!?!?

And then Ryanna's birthday. What to do for her cake? I don't do cutely decorated cakes. It should probably be in my genes, but I don't go there. I happened to be flipping through this cookbook and saw a picture of their Chocolate Mousse Crunch Cake and Ryanna's eyes got really big and she said, "I want that for my birthday cake." (along with some chocolate ice cream with brownie bits because she is MY daughter)

Doesn't that cake look fancy and it's sooo easy--even making your own mousse is really not a big deal.

This week I took it a bit slower and only made a Pesto Pasta with Roasted Tomatoes recipe (yes, I made the pesto from scratch and it turned out delightful), but I can't find this recipe on their blog either. Although it is similar to their Creamy Pesto Pasta--it's not exactly that recipe. Apparently, you really do need to buy the book.

You think I'm done? I'm not even started. However, last night I did make their Orange Kissed Cookies and called it good. I'm making myself type this right now, so that I don't eat every single cookie that is left.

And you, what is your favorite recipe you've discovered from their blog?

Last weekend

Last weekend I was in Las Vegas--watching Jimmer Fredette and the rest of the Cougars play in person. This weekend I watched from home while trying to gently, and at other times not so gently, maneuver children out of my view of the TV. Who didn't cheer when they beat Wofford--but that was expected right? Then, I watched Gonzaga play their first round team--Gonzaga who has TWO men who are seven feet tall--and I worried about the Cougars' chances. Saturday night there was a lot of screaming and clapping and overall excitement as the Cougars won against this freakishly tall Gonzaga team. I loved it (but I did miss singing the school song and pumping my fist while yelling "Rah, Rah, Rah, Rah, Rah..."). Some feelings and experiences can't be replicated outside of a stadium.

And, so you don't feel lonely about not going to Las Vegas with us, I'll entertain you with photos from the occasion.

I love this picture because you can see that we were some of the first people in the stadium and I can just see Derek's face all lit up in anticipation of great things to come. This trip was my gift to him--I planned it and executed it, but I couldn't surprise him because I think that would've pushed him over the edge--he's a little bit responsible about his job.

Jimmer's so good he warms up by shooting two balls at a time--ha, ha!



I realize that these photos of the players are a bit grainy, but my camera was maxing out on zoom to try and get these, so you'll have to forgive me.

If you don't know who this is--you don't follow BYU sports.

We were LOVING this game!!!

He had just scored 52 points--a record that will probably never be broken. I guess it took his breath away too!

After reading some reviews and talking with some friends, we decided to go to the buffet at the Bellagio. It was delicious (for example--custom made omelets, seveal types of fish, sushi, prime rib, fresh fruit, several types of oven roasted pizzas, Indian dishes and desserts!!!!). Derek thought it was funny that I happened to grab several desserts my first time through. I consider that strategic planning. Why fill up on junk like salad and bread sticks when I can have a key lime tart or chocolate goodness?

This was the garden court area of the Bellagio. It was really cool. There are so many flowers and the little shed you're seeing the top of houses lots of different types of butterflies. If we were any good at photography, we could've spent some serious time here.

I thought this tree was so fun to look at and so artistic.


This was a living piece of art. As the flowers dry out, they are replaced, so there are always fresh flowers being displayed. If you look closely, you'll see a hose hooked up to the back to keep the flowers fresh.

This also was in the Bellagio--can you tell where I'd stay if I had the choice? It's the world's largest chocolate fountain. No really--I'll show you the certificate even.

Doesn't convince you still? Here's a better picture.

While we were there we also went and saw Cirque du Soleil's KA. We thought it was awesome--the stage moves--not just up and down, but completely vertically. They had some amazing stunts and the costumes were awesome. No pictures allowed though.

We also lost our car. Yes, probably the only two sober people in the entire casino and we forgot the level we parked our rental car on. I remembered the letter is the most frustrating thing. We looked for about 40 minutes before seeking help from the valet station where they put their people on it. They found it in about 10 minutes.

It also has to be mentioned that we began the trip by eating lunch with our cousin Jarom who recommended that we eat at Bobby Flay's Mesa Grill. I am now extending the same invitation to you. I loved my food and we all agreed that the Queso Fundido appetizer was to die for.

Now I'm home where women cover themselves up at least a little more, people don't wear their alcoholic beverage around their necks, you don't see "dancers" performing inside buses while you're driving down the road and I can breath the air without fear of emphysema. It was fun while it lasted, but it's good to be home too.