Joe Nichols in Wendover Here We Come!

My great friend Krissy had tickets to Joe Nichols in wendover and asked me to go. I was excited for the concert because I kind of like concerts a little bit but I wasn't all that excited for the actual Wendover part because I'm not too big of a fan of gambling... Or so I thought.

We got a later start than we were planning on and I got us a litttle bit lost on the freeway so we got there just in time to make it to our seats. I have never been all that attracted to Mr. Nichols but seeing him perform made him so much hotter to me.

Just look at him singing on stage. Mmmm!

Here we are just loving the concert!

So after the concert we decided to go and try our hand at gambling. I was mostly just doing it to humor Kristen because I hate playing the machines. Well after I watched her play for a minute we decided to go learn how to play at the tables. Oh boy. We first learned how to play Rouelette. I was doing so good! I had doubled my money! But then I got cocky and lost it. So then we went and played Black Jack. Same thing happened at the Black Jack Table. Ha. So I guess I do like gambling now. The tables are way funner than the machines. I think I'll still stick to going down there about once a year though! One thing I did learn, all you have to do is put like a dollar into a machine and sit and use it slowly and they'll bring you as many fun drinks as you want! Cheapest daquiri ever! The man looked a little confused when we said non-alcoholic. I take it they don't sell too many non-alcoholic drinks in Wendover.

But... even more fun than my new found love of playing the tables... our huge jacuzzi that was in our hotel room! It was so so great! After we came back to the room we just hung out in the tub for like 4 hours! I could use a tub this size in my home someday. Thanks for inviting me Krissy! It was so fun!

I Love Jacob!

I just feel that I need to clarify one little point. I have loved Jacob Black since I first started reading Twilight. Long before they ever thought of making a movie. I am not one of the shallow bandwagon Jacob lovers that suddenly love him now that he is so much hotter than Edward. Ok enough said.

I am totally Team Jacob and so New Moon was my favorite book in the whole Twilight series. Jake is such a great friend to Bella while Edward is gone and I loved reading about it. Many people that I have talked to said that New Moon was boring to them, but I loved it and couldn't wait to see it on the big screen. And it definitely didn't disappoint!

We bought our tickets a couple of months ago for the midnight premeire. We were going to the double feature. Twilight was played at 9:00 and New Moon at midnight. Well we wanted to make sure that we got good seats so my mom and I went and got in line at 12:30. There were already people in front of us that were going to need a total of 50 seats so it was a good thing that we got there so early. We just brought our books and treats and made friends with the other people in line with us. The time pretty much flew by!

Ty isn't into Twilight but he came to visit us and keep us company for a while. He thought we were a little bit crazy.

Letia and Morgan got there to keep us company once they were off of school and work. Yay!

These are all of the people behind us... Guess they should have gotten there earlier!

We had to have our New Moon shirts of course... And I bet you can't tell which team I am on...

Or Morgan...

But we decided that we can still be friends.

Once they finally let us into get our seats we were a little bored and trying to entertain ourselves. This is what we came up.

This is my best friend that I made while waiting in line all day. She is a fellow Jacob lover and so obviously we hit it off immediately. She sat right behind us. For about the whole first half of New Moon she would kick my chair or make some sort of noise whenever Jake would come on the screen. I loved her!

Apparently Lynsie got a little sleepy while waiting for the movie to start. Not exactly sure what Morg is doing. But Mom and Letia are wide awake and waiting for the movie!

Morgan looks a lot more happy in this one.

And here we are after being at the theater for about 14 hours. We look a little tired but not too bad. New Moon was amazing! I had a blast and am very grateful for best friends, sisters, and a mom that will do these fun and crazy things with me! I don't know what I would do without them. And I am so excited for June 30th so that we can do it all again for Eclipse!

Goodbye Schooner!

Pretty much everyone that knows my family knows that we work at the Prairie Schooner. My mom has been there since Tyler was born and then I started working 2 months after I turned 15. It was sometimes embarrassing to see people from high school and tell them I still worked there.

The Schoon had its bad moments and could be very drama but for the most part it was a fun place to work. The bosses could be a pain but my mom would always say that if I could work for Jim then I could work for anyone. It is very true. But then I became one of his favorites and it wasn't too bad. Ha ha. In July Jim decided to retire and sold the restaurant with zero warning to anyone. We were told that we were all being let go from the old company and rehired at midnight with the new company. Since we were new employees we were being put on a 30 day probation. We were told this was just a "technicality" and not to worry. Christian, the new owner, didn't want to make any changes with the staff or managers, he said we had a good staff and a good thing going we just needed to tweek a few things and make it a little more modern so that more people would want to come in. Well apparently that changed. My mom and Jeff, who is Jim's son, both managers, were fired 3 weeks ago. I don't know what reason Jeff was fired but my mom's was not legit. 20 years of dedicated work, without any write ups or trouble and she was just fired one day after a lunch shift! Lynsie called and quit that day and never went back. I waited until I made sure I had another job and then gave my 2 weeks. I worked my last time at the Prairie Schooner today.

It is so weird to think that I will never work again at the Prairie Schooner. I worked there for 8 years! I have been thinking about all of my memories at the Prairie Schooner and realized that I did all of my growing up while working there. I had my real first kiss from one of the bussers that I worked with. I met some semi-famous people that would come in to eat.

These are 2 of BYU's football players that came in. Harvey Unga and Fui Vakapuna.

I was able to work with some of my best friends at the Schoon. I of course worked with my mom, and Lynsie worked there the last year and a half, and Tyler worked there through high school. It was fun working with my family. Lots of people say that they don't know how we did it but for the most part it was really good. Steph and Alyssa both worked there with me and those were the best days. We were the best hostesses together! And so many of my cousins, uncles, family friends, and neighbors worked there as well. We had some good times! And then I made so many friends. Way too many to mention. But many of the girls that I worked with will definitely be good friends forever. Some that have been gone from the Schoon for a while now and some that are still there. There is just something about spending countless hours standing in the kitchen that makes you bond. I am going to miss lots of people. I am also going to miss some of my regulars from lunch. I tend to talk a lot and so I got to know some of my customers pretty well.

But enough of the memories! I have a new job now and so far...

Thats right I work at Texas Roadhouse now! I know this is so dorky but the t-shirt is true! I really do LOVE it! I was so nervous because Prairie Schooner is all that I have ever known and I know how to do everything there and I pretty much just hate any kind of change. On the way to the Roadhouse my first day I was so nervous that I could have puked. I was sure I was going to pop out a cold sore. But so far it has been great. I really like all of the people that I have met so far. It is really different working with guys, at Schooner it is all girl servers. But it is good. I think I am taking a cut in pay but we'll see. Hopefully not too big of cut but either way it is totally worth it. It has definitely been an answer to my prayers. It is where I am supposed to be right now.

So for any of you that eat at Prairie Schooner, move your business on over to Texas Roadhouse where we have hand cut steaks and fall off the bone ribs! (That is part of my schpeil I have to say) Oh and my mom is still looking for a job. There aren't too many out there right now so if you hear of anything, let us know!

Brad Praisley!

I can't believe that I have never seen Brad Paisley in concert until now! I have always loved him but things always kept happening to make me never able to see him. :( I was not going to miss him this year no matter what.

The concert was at Usana and so we had to go down early to get in line so that we would get a good spot on the grass. Steph took the day off so that she could come down with me and Hollie and BreAnn. We left way later than we had planned so I was pretty stressed.

This is what we saw when we got to Usana. What the? Usually when we go to wait in line for Kenny there are at least 100 people at around 12:30ish. We didn't even get there until 2:30 and there were only 2 girls there. At least we were first in line! I could not even believe that no one was there.

We still had fun waiting for the gate to open! We played some skipbo and just hung out for a few hours until the mad dash of running to the grass began!

After we got our seats we had another hour of waiting to do.

Hollie, BreAnn, and I had to buy our shirts with hot Brad Paisley on it.

Then the concert finally started! It started with Jimmy Wayne but I didn't get any good pictures of him. Then It was Dierks! I love him! I forget how much I love him! This was my second time to see him and he doesn't disappoint. He has so many good songs! Then the moment I've been waiting for... Mr. Brad Paisley!!!

Brad had so many guitars that he used. They were super sweet. I couldn't ever get a very good picture of it though.

Oh my gosh! He is so handsome!

For his song Celebrity he had it set up like guitar hero! It was so cute! I loved it! There was even a surprise guest to play guitar hero...

Taylor Swift! Wahoo! She was only on the screen but it was still pretty exciting!

During the middle of the concert it started to pour and there was tons of lightning. I was kind of scared that we were going to get struck! But I thought the rain actually made it really fun! Steph and I loved it!

Jenilyn doesn't look like she is too happy about the rain! Ha ha.

Alcohol is the song that Brad ended with and it was a pretty cool stage set up. I was sad that it had ended.

This is the whole crew! I am so grateful for all of my concert buddies! We always have so much fun at the concerts! Thanks for always coming with me guys! I hope we keep doing this forever. Thanks for the fun times!

Labor Day!

I love that Labor Day is a week after school starts! I definitely need a break by then. I usually don't ever do anything fun but this year I went camping at Crystal Hot Springs. It was so much fun and very interesting!

We were pretty nervous that we wouldn't be able to set up the tent all by ourselves so Alyssa told Clark to be ready just in case we needed his help. But when we got up there... BreAnn and Hollie had it all done for us! We could not have been any happier! As the weekend went on we just got more and more adventurous and outdooorsy.

For example... the snake.

First it started off by Lynsie desperately wanting to catch this snake that she saw. She was too scared to ever grab it so we had some fellow campers that caught it for her. The boy had on a real life Davie Crockett hat and the mom, low pig tails. They were pretty much "mountain people" and Lynsie told them that. They didn't even take it as an insult at all. They let us get some pictures with it and then were going to take it home to add to their collection of other reptiles that they have as pets. These were the first of many interesting people that we met this weekend.

I was a little concerned that we would freeze to death because I didn't really know how to start a fire. Lynsie and Hollie figured it right out.

After they got the fire all the way going they decided to do some sort of fire dance in celebration.
On Sunday BreAnn had to wake up early and go home for church. The rest of us had a pretty lazy and random day.

We just sat and read our books or relaxed for as long as Lynsie would allow us.

When Lynsie could handle no more book time, we played a 2 hour game of ipod idol. I am pretty sure that all of our neighbors were really confused and probably wanted us to leave. People would just walk past us and stare. It was so funny!

Then Lynsie and Hollie needed to burn off some energy I guess and made up this game of turning in circles with their heads on wooden dowels and then try to make it down the mountain. It looked pretty interesting but I never joined in that game. I don't remember why. Probably because I thought it looked childish.

I guess that we were so over worked from our rough day that we needed to take a break for a snack. They were so delicious though! We just wrapped roll dough around a wooden dowel and made sure it was all sealed up and then cooked it. When it was done we poured honey butter into it. Oh my gosh... I'm getting hungry just remembering them!

Here is an up close picture of my perfectly cooked delicasy! Mmmm!

Alyssa really wanted to eat a flaming marshmallow! Ouch!

This was our last night camping and so we decided to burn stacks of wood and stay up all night and have a relaxing fire. Well we did for a while until... Lynsie and Lyss started doing this sort of samoan type chant. It was probably about 1 in the morning and the whole campground has been asleep for about 2 hours. And this chant required some yelling. All the sudden this couple came over and started talking to us and wanted us to do the chant for them. So of course we happily did. Then they tell us that we should come meet their friends. This is where we meet some more crazies.

These friends of theirs were pretty much hippies. They were all dancing and singing and so happy. But there were only a couple of them that liked us. They were so weird but a perfect way to end our camping trip.

Meet Embry. From Twilight. We are 99.9% sure that it is him. We went so far as to ask him to howl at the moon. He wouldn't.

This is Pete. He made up a song about us. They became our best friends and hung out with us at the pool the next day. The more I meet new people the more I realize that I am in a very small minority of normal people. Ha.

Some of the funnest times of the camping trip were at bed time. Telling scary stories. Ha ha. Hearing complaining about having to sleep on the end. And just bonding. This was such a fun camping trip! I love all you girls! It definitely needs to be a yearly tradition.