George Strait and Reba Concert

April 2 was the George and Reba concert. Bailee had been wanting to go really bad but I did not get tickets. Well, Grandpa Joe had tickets that he couldn't use so he let us go. She was so happy. It was a fun night. We went with Cole and Jaclyn and Cole introduced Bailee to Thai food. We went to the best little hole in the wall Thai place for dinner before the show and she loved it. It is her new favorite food.  

Pics of Bailee and I, and my little brother Cole 

and his wife Jaclyn

  

LeeAnn Womack was the opening act and her and Reba sang "Does He Love You" together, it was really good.

Melissa Peterman came out and did a little comedy thing with Reba since they were on the Reba show together and it was way funny. She was all decked out in Utah Jazz stuff with a foam finger and a Budweiser...she was hysterical!

Reba came out in a taxi when she sang Fancy and the music video played on the screen above. It was Bailees favorite part

And then there was George...he is still a hottie after all these years and just a class act...

Love him!!!

After 4 1/2 hours of singing (7:00-11:30) they were still going strong and Bailee was asleep on my shoulder so we decided to leave. My brother had parked us far away because "we needed to walk off our dinner" Well that came back to bite us when it was an absolute down poor when we left and he had to run all the way to the truck and come pick us up halfway. We were soaked!!!

Fun night and fun memory with the fam...

OK I think my major blog catch up is complete...whew!!!! 

Thanks for hangin' in there!!!

Zoo

We had a week off of school for Spring Break and my brother, sister and I wanted to do something fun with our kids. We decided on the zoo because it was the first beautiful day we had had for a long time. So me,Tracie, Jaclyn and our friend Jen all met at the zoo with our kids on Friday April 1. It was so crowded we could not even find a place to park. We made the best of it and it ended up being a great day. ( a side note, we kept seeing sets of triplets everywhere and Tracie made the comment that maybe it was triplet day and that was why it was crowded, we laughed it off and thought nothing of it. Well later that night it was on the news... it was triplet day at the zoo...)

Here are the kids at the playground as soon as we got there.

Left to right: Savannah, AnnaBelle, Carter, Bailee holding Hunter.

Cousins...

Hunter loved the slide.

 Hunter and Jaclyn looking at the fish... 

Toothless Carter eating lunch... he had lost another tooth that morning at preschool. 

He was so decked out in camo that we kept teasing that we couldn't see him.

Our picnic lunch...on the cement because that was the only space we could find.

It was ok though, it was in the shade.

I just loved this pic...the two bigger kids took the hands of the littler ones and watched them the whole day. It was so cute.

You can't go to the zoo and not have your picture taken in front of the famous lion fountain...

The baby elephant, the elephant exhibit was my favorite part. The trainers were out working with the mom and baby and we got to see them do all kinds of tricks and eat whole watermelons and pineapples as a reward. It was very entertaining for a long time. We loved it seeing the animals so active.

Mommy Elephant doing a trick for a pineapple

Mom and baby

 The tigers were also very active. They were playing in the water and splashing around. The kids loved this.

All Carter wanted to see was the lions and Tigers, so here is Carter with the tiger in the background.

Hunter looking at the tigers...

Here is a pic of each of the mommies and the kids in front of the giraffe. These are really the only pics of   us moms the whole day.

Our friend Jen and her daughter Savannah, AnnaBelle was too busy for a pic.

Jaclyn and Hunter

Me and Bailee and Hunter

Tracie and Carter

Bailee

This pic I had to put in because it was a funny memory for us. The hill was so steep and we were all dying walking up it and Jen had to pull this wagon so the kids all decided to help her by pushing it while she pulled but they had way more energy than us and started running so they kept running over her. Then they saw us laughing so they kept doing it all the way up...it sure made the trip up the hill fun.

Our little group of gorillas... I love this pic...

Bailee helping Jen push the kids at the end of the day when we were all beat...

It was a very fun day at the zoo. I dont think I have ever been to the zoo when so many animals were out playing and being active. I think that they were enjoying the first nice day also. They were probably done being couped up all winter and needed a beautiful day to play as much as us.

Definitely a successful trip to the zoo. It has been about 6 years since I have been to the zoo so it was long overdue.

Bon Jovi x2 (part 2)

Part two of the story begins once we are back home in utah and life had somewhat gone back to normal. We were all just kind of wondering what would happen with the Salt Lake Bon Jovi show. They had said they would see what they could do but what does that mean? Well, Monday Angela got a text from Serena asking for everyones names and spellings again so she could make sure she had them right. Well this got our hopes up and we did not know if it would really happen or not but then Tuesday morning we got the official text saying that we had tickets waiting for us at will call and we could pick them up there.They asked us if we could help them pass out fliers and stuff at their meet and greet after the concert, so of course we said yes...Still very sceptical, we head up to Salt Lake and down to will call and they have no tickets in our names. We proceed to tell them that Serena had texted us and they tell us that we have to go to the sign where it says "With the Band"...Are you serious? Ya it was real, they had our tickets for us on Ryan Stars personal guest list! Holy cow this was crazy...well we get a look at our tickets and they are on ROW 2...yes I said row 2...could it get any better? (well ok maybe row 1 is better but we loved row 2) We could not believe this was really happening to us. Row 2 at a Bon Jovi and Ryan Star concert is a lifetime achievment. lol. It may never happen again and the best part of these tickets were that they were FREE!!!! We did not have to pay hundreds like the others around us. We acted like giddy school girls. It was amazing.

Well the show begins with Ryan Star  and of course we are screaming and yelling at him and treating him as good as we would Bon Jovi. He was so cute to us and looked right at us and waved and smiled and winked. We were his little fan club when most people did not even know who he was.

His show was great, and we of course loved him.

We owed all this amazingness to him

Ryan Star we love you!!!!

 

Then Bon Jovi again, twice in three days, dream of a lifetime...

He was of course amazing and even better having him up close and personal. Man you can see so much when they are right in front of you.

We just soaked it all in and enjoyed every minute...

 

The only people with seat better than us were the people in the pit...(A hole in the front of the stage) You can see them here between us and him...dang people!

After the concert we met the Ryan Star group at portal K and got some flyers to pass out while they did their meet and greet. After the fans were gone he and his band hung out with us for a little while. I got my cd's signed and we all got good pics with him and the members of the band. I even got a hug and a kiss on the

cheek. 

We owe all this fun to Ryan Star and we cannot thank him enough. He was so nice to four girls from Utah and made a memory I will never forget. He has got huge fans in us and we will support him till the end. We even bought Ryan Star tee shirts instead of Bon Jovi so we could support him.

This is us with Serena, his road manager. She was so good to us and friendly too. She is still e-mailing us pictures of us with them and keeping in contact. Great people!

Thank You Ryan Star for being the nicest guy treating us so good and making this happen for us.

You are the best!!!

What a memory...

Had to add this because it makes me laugh...He was so cute to just be goofy with us. There are a few pics like this but some things are just meant to be kept secret...lol

Ryan Star's music is awesome. If you enjoy David Cook or The Script, he reminds me of them and I encourage you all to give him a try. His cd is called 11:59

Bon Jovi x2 (part1)

This post is so long that I am doing it in two parts. So be warned that it is very long and you do not need to stick with it all but I write my blog for me so I am writing the whole story as it was something that will probably never happen again. In March we went to Vegas to see Bon Jovi and this is part one of that adventure. 

We left on Thursday March 17 and headed to Mesquite. We got there late and went and hit the casino. I am not a gambler but I was bored watching everyone so I decided to put $10 in a penny slot, yes I said a penny slot, because I have heart failure when I watch my money disappear so I thought it would be less painful if it was pennies at a time instead of dollars going away...Well, I won $113 so I kept playing and going up and down for about 30 minutes. Then when I got back down to $100 I cashed out. This is me and my winnings, not much but huge for me!

Angela and Brenda, it was St. Paddy's day so Brenda went out in style

Then Friday morning we got a phone call from a very nice friend of ours  that called to wake us up at 5:30 a.m. They thought that since they were all up and at work than we had better be up too. So we were up and headed to Vegas nice and early. Got there and hit the strip. We walked all day and it was a gorgeous sunny day. Here are just a few of the things we did. So many pics that I just picked a few but our trip was non-stop and so fun.

Margaritas at Jimmy Buffets Margaritaville

We got pegged as Utahns right away...we must really stand out, hehehe

Drinks and nachos at Toby Keiths "I love this bar"

Me and Toby...( I wish)

 There are characters on the street everywhere but you have to pay them to take your picture with them so this is the only one we did.

I laughed at these stands that were everywhere we went. I called them slurpee machines. But they had 30 flavors of margaritas and daquaries that just dispensed like a slurpee. Crazy

If any of you watch the show Pawn Stars on the History channel, this is it. I had to take a pic of it because I love that show.

A pic of all of us in our room right after we got there. We had such a nice room. I have never stayed at such a nice place before. Angie did good!

Us right before the concert on Saturday night.

Ryan Star, the opening act, we had never heard of him before but once he started playing we recognized his music. He later became the turning point in our whole trip and he quickly became our new favorite person. Stay tuned for more on that...

Now for the man of the hour... Jon Bon Jovi!!!!

Just a few of the 300+ photos that we all took of Bon Jovi...Man he puts on a show like no other and having great seats helps. 

Love his smile so I had to put this one

The whole band

OK, now the story of the whole trip...Afterwards Ryan Star was out signing autographs and so Angie bought a CD and we stood in line to have it signed. By the time we got up to him there was not really a whole lot of people waiting so he stood and talked to us for a while. He then told us that we seemed like fun, cool girls and asked us if we wanted to go backstage with him and meet his band and stuff. So of course we said yes and he took us backstage to their dressing room. No, we did not see Bon Jovi, they were long gone out of the building by this point but we did walk past his wardrobe room and see all their clothes that were being packed up...(exciting I know) but for us it was. While backstage, Ryan asked us if we were coming to the Bon Jovi show in Salt Lake since that is where we lived. We told him no because we could not get tickets, that is why we were in Vegas to see him. He told his road manager Serena to take our names and cell phone number and he would see what he could do. Well we left it at that and our awesome night came to an end. We all got hugs and said good-bye and then we were escorted outside. This story does not end there though...

 Pics of all of us with Ryan Star

We were all on such a high after the concert that we got back to our room very early in the morning, and this is what we found. This guy was passed out cold right in front of our door. We laughed so hard we thought we would die. We called down to the front desk and they sent someone up to get him and make sure we got into our room ok, (since some of us watch way too much csi and criminal minds) After about an hour they had not been able to wake him up but they did find someone that he was with to come get him, it just added to the excitement of the night. A quote from the security guy that came to help us...Welcome to Las Vegas!!!!