Reading. . .

Boots . . .

Art. . .

Random. . .

I took this picture while I was sitting in the bank drive through this afternoon. I could even see the other end of the rainbow but there were too many obstacles in the way to get a picture of it. In the few minutes it took for me to finish my transaction and pull into full view, the rainbow had completely disappeared! Guess I'll have to wait until another day for my pot of gold. . .

Colleen. . .

A slide show is kind of the same as just one picture, right?

Happy Birthday, Colleen!

Something I Don't See Very Often. . .

Cake Decorating 101 . . .

Last March the quiz team held a fundraiser to help pay for the last quiz meet of the season. They ended up making enough money with the dessert auction to pay for the last meet as well as the first meet of this year. Due to the success of that fund raiser we decided to hold another one in order to help raise funds for the last three meets of this season. Zach spent quite a bit of time last year making his masterpiece "Jesus Cake" and decided to create another cake this year with the same theme. He planned it out ahead of time and came up with something just as good:


One of the key ingredients for him was to have the center of the cake look blood-red. . .

I was skeptical about how it would work but it turned out pretty good. . .

While the cake was cooling he finalized the drawing that would serve as a model while he frosted and sculpted. . .

I mostly stood back and watched the whole thing unfold . . .

(the top off of one of the cupcakes Gloria made worked out perfectly for the nose):

I think his "Lamb of God Cake" turned out just as good as last year's "Jesus Cake"!!!

Gloria made her own contribution to the auction with these cool BSU cupcakes:

I helped a little bit with the writing but she did the rest of it herself. . .

Today at church we held the dessert auction along with a baked potato bar after church and ended up with 44 desserts to auction off!! People are always so incredibly generous when it comes to the youth at church and we ended up raising enough for the rest of the season!! Very cool. . .

Facing The Giants. . .

Today was the real test for me to see if I've truly overcome my fear of horses. It's one thing to be able to saddle a pony, another to ride an average sized horse, but it's another thing altogether to meet and even ride a huge draft horse!


This is Lisa and Max. Max is the tallest horse in the state and just a few inches shy of the tallest horse EVER:

Lisa invited us to help her with the horses and we were a little surprised at their size even though she had forewarned us that they were big! I'd say big is an understatement!

The girls helped groom and feed the horses and then they took turns riding them. This is Megan on Rocky:

Gloria on Rocky:

Before putting Rocky away, Lisa asked the girls if they could give him a little haircut. She said his mo hawk looked funny and she needed someone to give him a trim. Of course the girls were happy to oblige. . .

The girls were pretty happy about EVERYTHING. . .

After we put Rocky back in his stall, Max got to take a turn with the girls. . .

He is younger and bigger. And, Lisa warned us, a little unpredictable. . .

Gloria and Megan insisted I take a turn and that's about the time I decided it was time to see if I had officially conquered my fear. Nope, I hadn't. But it was fun while it lasted.

Lisa asked the girls if they would like to ride Max bare back on the way back to his stall and, while they were a little uncertain at first, they courageously did it anyway!

Before we left, Lisa introduced us to Buster the donkey. It was a fun ending to a fun afternoon!


We really did have an amazing time with these horses once we got over our initial surprise at their size! Lisa said we could come back anytime and Gloria has already asked me several times this evening when we can go back. I'm pretty sure it will be sooner rather than later.

Because I have no self-control at all, I put some of the 90 pictures that I took in a slide show. It's not quite the same as being there in person but it's pretty close. . .

Highlights of the Game. . .

P.S. I think Lucy is going to be OK . . . so far, so good.

no. No! NO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

This is Lucy:

This is not the same dog that just underwent two surgeries in the last 6 months.

This is the 2 1/2 year old energetic pup that has only had two relatively minor vet visits in the last 2 1/2 years.

She cried when she got up this morning.

She laid around all day and hardly ate a thing.

She is probably going to the vet in the morning and, hopefully, it's nothing that requires surgery. It's hard to fork over money for a vet bill.

It's harder to watch a dog suffer.

Here's hoping it's just a sore muscle that she'll recover from overnight. . .

So Cold. . .

When it is 105 degrees in July, I want to remember this day.
After spending two hours outside in below freezing temperatures, I felt like my toes would just break right off if I stubbed them on something!

Wish I could bottle this cold and pop it open this summer. . .

Sweet. . .

A Little Diddy About The BCS. . .

This is worth watching all the way through!!!

Just Because. . .

It's a new year with the all new possibility of qualifying for that Mother-of-the-Year award that I win and lose on a regular basis! And that's the reason I took the girls to the mall today.

Go BSU!!

This one-picture-a-day thing is going to be harder than I thought! Yesterday I couldn't find a picture to save my life, which led to the ear-stitching photo, and today I took about 150 pics and managed to limit myself to my three favorites! (The rest will be on Flickr!!)



I like this one for obvious reasons:



And I chose this one because it's a good shot of our projector which made watching the Fiesta Bowl at The Egyptian tonight possible!! I wasn't sure I would enjoy being crammed in the theatre with 500-700 strangers, most of whom would be drinking beer and cheering wildly for The Broncos, but we had a really great time.


And, finally, I just had to post this one:

I wasn't sure what kind of crowd we would encounter at the theatre so I left the kids with Grandma and Grandpa. They had a great time and finished up this puzzle just before it was time to go home.


Yep, I have a good life!


Go Broncos!!!

Emma's Ear. . .

Even though this picture is kind of gross, in the spirit of my new resolution to post one picture everyday, Emma's stitches are all I could come up with . . .
Besides, this was a pretty big deal during the last couple of weeks and I haven't said much about it. Emma has had chronic ear infections pretty much her whole life. The vet has told us that some dogs are just more prone to them than others and it is difficult to pin point exactly what the cause is. We were treating her current infection during the week before Christmas the way we always do when it flares up, only this time it was painful enough to her that she would often shake her head violently to deal with it. This led to an infectious bubble on the inside of her ear flap called a hemotoma. If left untreated it can cause permanent hearing loss as well as many other health problems. Regardless of all that, she was in obvious pain so we took her in for treatment on the day before Christmas Eve. The vet said she would need emergency surgery in order to give her some relief so, of course, we agreed. This was still a tough pill to swallow (no pun intended!) considering we recently spent close to $1500 on her last surgery just a few months ago!

To make a long story short, she had surgery on the 23rd and came home with a cone on the 24th needing constant supervision. Emma is a very nervous dog to begin with and the cone managed to freak her out even more! None of us were getting any rest. Thankfully they make anti-anxiety medication for dogs and once we started giving that to her on a regular basis we all started to sleep at night.

A few days ago we were able to get rid of the cone, much to Emma's relief, followed a day later by the bandages and now we just have to put drops in her ear twice daily to clear up any residual infection so this won't happen again. I NEVER want this to happen again!

Sometime this week the stitches holding the two slices of her ear together will come out and we'll hope for the best. I'm crossing my fingers that it will be at least a year before we have to reach so deeply in our pockets again for another vet bill!!

Memory Lane at Park Center . . .

Garcia's Mexican Restaurant, Park Center Blvd., 1989.
Although this picture of Barbacoa Restaurant was taken on January 2nd, 2010, it transported me back to the day in 1989 that I walked through the front doors of what was then Garcia's Mexican Restaurant and turned in my application for a food service position. At that time it was my dream job. I had been working at Sizzler for about 3 years and I was tired of knocking myself out every day for very little tip money. I was a good food server and I thought I was ready to work at a REAL restaurant. I was newly engaged, had a nice apartment with my sister and felt like it was time to make a change. Rob and I ate at Garcia's on a pretty regular basis when we were dating, even if it was just to sit on the patio and eat chips and salsa. In my mind, it was a stretch to even think I could get a job there but I really wanted it to happen so I turned in my application.

They gave me good news and bad news: They didn't need any food servers at that point but if I would be willing to start as a cocktail waitress, I could take the first food server position that came available. I didn't know anything about serving alcohol but I decided to take the job anyway. I didn't mind serving drinks, mostly margaritas and Mexican beer, and it was a pretty cushy job compared to what I was used to. I eventually moved on to food service (as well as a bit of bar tending!) and made many good friends along the way. In many ways, I considered my fellow employees to be my extended family. I worked there right up until Zach's second birthday in 1994 when I decided to stay home and have a little daycare in my new house. Shortly after that, the restaurant changed hands and names and I grieved a little bit over losing such an important part of my life.

Today I heard the news that the building had been the victim of a three-alarm fire overnight and was a total loss. It's strange how something can be so far removed and yet feel so personal. I had to drive by this afternoon and see the damage for myself. It brought out some pretty strange emotions in me from regret to sadness to curiosity about what has happened over the years to the people I forged such close relationships with during that time and yet still lost track of. It's been on my mind all day and, for some reason, I'm craving chips and salsa. . .

Strategy. . .

Zach and I played Settlers of Catan today.

We also played LOTR Risk.

At the same time.

Using elements from both games, Zach has designed a very strategic way to combine two of our favorite past times into one really confusing, difficult and time-consuming activity.

Here is how it's played, in a nut-shell:

The Risk armies are placed first, then the Catan settlements and roads are placed followed by the collecting of the Catan resources and, finally, the Risk territories (on the Catan layout) are counted up so the armies can be reinforced.

And then the game begins.

Each player's turn consists of:

1. Rolling the red and yellow Catan dice and collecting resources

2. Counting territories and regions and collecting the corresponding army pieces to place on the board

3. Combat with the red and black Risk dice (a settlement adds 1 number to the highest die for the defender while a city adds 2 numbers)

4. Collecting territory and adventure cards if the battle was successful (if a territory is successfully conquered, a resource is gathered corresponding to the conquered territory)

5. Building settlements, cities and roads if able

6. Fortifying your position

It took 3 hours for Zach to set it up, five hours for him to completely annihilate me and 30 minutes to put it away.

I think it was time well spent!

(How nerdy are we???)

Baker 365. . .

I found the change I was looking for!! At least for now.

Melanie casually mentioned last night that she would be using the 365 project for her blog this year which triggered my memory all the way back to December of 2006 when I started this blog with the intention of posting 1 (or 2) pictures everyday that reflected my life and what is important to me.

Obviously I didn't have the discipline to do that. I took and posted anywhere from 1 to 100 pictures just about everyday!! Totally out of control. So, I guess you could say I'm getting back to my roots.

ONE picture. Everyday.

It's going to be about QUALITY not QUANTITY.

But, of course, I'll have the rest of my pictures on Flickr just for good measure. I'm not really a cold turkey kind of a gal. . .

Happy New Year!!

Change. . .

Thursday of this week marks a full three years of semi-regular blogging. I'm thinking maybe it's time for a change as we slip into 2010. Maybe there will be less horses and less events. Maybe I'll tell more stories about my life. Maybe not. I've enjoyed posting everyday things about my life but it's felt kind of mundane lately. Maybe I'll just stop for a season. Or maybe it will just continue to be me talking about the same stuff. Same song, fourth verse. Things in my life seem to be changing. Maybe it's time my blog reflected that a little more. Then again, maybe not. I guess only time will tell. . .