Petition to Change Nevada State Tree

Okay so if you don't know the current state tree of Nevada is the bristlecone pine. They grow in high elevations, generally right below the tree line. Because of cold temperatures, dry soils, high winds, and short growing seasons, the trees grow very slowly. Due to the harsh conditions they live in they are usually small and contorted. The wood is very dense and is thus resistant to attacks of bugs or fungi. Due to these factors they are not very plentiful, but are considered to be one of the oldest single living organisms, one has even been dated to be 4,789 years old! So yes, this sounds like a pretty cool tree. The problem is, no one ever sees one, there is not much first hand knowledge of this specimen with the citizens of Nevada.
My suggestion for a new tree is the well known, it can be seen every where, they seem to go up in seconds and are around for what seems like 4,000 years. They come in varying sizes and seem to multiply at a moments notice. They can be enjoyed by everyone throughout the city and probably the state for that matter, although my first hand knowledge is limited to Las Vegas. They are resilient and can rebound from direct hits quickly and are easily moved from location to location without any damage to the from itself. The colors are bright and generally hard to miss, unless of course they have been moved into inappropriate places. I think my choice of replacing the Bristlecone with the Traffic Cone is a good one and I hope you are all with me. Because it's the only thing that might make all this craziness around town, a little bit easier!

Okay, if you can't tell I'm completely annoyed with the amount of road construction in this town. Every time I turn around more cones have gone up. Now in general this would not bother me, but I never seem to see anyone working in this areas that have been closed off to traffic. If you are going to close it off, at least make it look like you are doing something.

What can they come up with next?

This is not an illusion, it truly is a giant birthday cake. My sister somehow got roped into creating "decorations" for the Cub Scout Blue & Gold dinner last night, even though she is not on the Cub Committee. All she knew was that the theme was a birthday party and that it was celebrating 100 years of scouting. She wasn't really sure what she was going to do until Tuesday, when she thought it might be fun to make a giant birthday cake. So of course with one day notice and thought my Mom and Sister were able to build this cake using supplies that they already had. And just as a side note the top tier rotated! Now although I did go and help them complete the masterpiece, the creativity was all theirs.

It's pretty scary isn't it!

Boys will be Boys

My boys went camping this weekend and left me to fend for myself. (Which I must say led to a very relaxing couple of hours!) And from what I can tell they had a great time themselves. They went out to the dry lake beds yesterday afternoon and came back right around noon this afternoon, so it wasn't a very long trip. But they filled the time they had with friends, food, and fun. It was a pretty large group that ended up going. I believe this is a list of those that went; Justin & Lincoln, John, Rydman, & Cutler Terry, Allen, Tyler, Matthew, & Micheal Weinand, Lars, Henry, & Jack Larsen, and Clark Orme.
According to Justin Lincoln had a good time. A few melt downs, but overall he did really well. Justin took his Big Wheel so Lincoln rode all over the dry lake bed on it. He also spent a lot of his time with Micheal. And he managed to only fall into one Mud Puddle. (The boys were a little afraid the dry lake bad would not be dry considering the amount of rain we have gotten in the last few weeks. But I guess the skies have been clear enough to let a large majority of the space to dry out)
When they finally made it home today, Lincoln was a mess. He was so dirty! His face was covered with dirt! I hope Justin just did not wipe it because he wanted to show me how dirty he was, but if it had been me I could not have left his face like that very long! :) But I guess dirt is just a part of camping out!

See My Pretty Flowers!

What a great husband I have :)

First Slurpee of the Season

Jumping Star

Since we had the day off we thought it would be fun to take Lincoln over to SkyMania. This is a large indoor facility full of trampolines. I had never been there before, but knew Lincoln would love it especially since he had been there once before with the LeFevre's. Plus he loves to jump!! So it wasn't much of a stretch to think he would enjoy himself. Thankfully, they were having a special today, everything was 1/2 off. So instead of $9 dollars for an hour of jumping, it was only $4.50. Which is a much better deal. And as expected Lincoln loved it. He jumped for his full hour and probably could have kept going if he has been allowed to. By the end he was so sweaty! But so excited to be jumping and even though we did not jump, it was fun to see him having such a good time. Here is a short clip of his experience-

How many Lincoln's do you see?

We had a ward activity last night to help fundraise money for Girls Camp. Now I know it was close to Presidents day, so perhaps that is why we had a special visitor, but there was no program exactly. So I am not sure if this is somethign he does every year at this time or what is up exactly. But he definitely could pass for Lincoln.

And just in case you are wondering there are 3 Lincolns in this photo. So yes there are two little boys named Lincoln in our ward. The little Lincoln just turned 1 a few months ago so we had the idea first :)

Crazy Cozy Coupe

The Lion King

Wow! If you ever get a chance to see the Broadway version of the Lion King you need to take it. The show is amazing. Great music, awesome costumes, and great additions to the original story.

A big thank you to Ann and Brian for getting my Mom the tickets for Christmas. It was the perfect gift! And another big thank you to my Mom for asking me to use one of her 4 tickets! What an awesome night we had!

It was basically a girls night out with My Mom, Rachel, Sherri, Nana, and myself. (There were only originally 4 tickets, but there just happened to be two empty seats in the theater, one of which was right next to our original 4. So that worked out great and we were all able to go. And did I mention it was AWESOME!
I have always enjoyed musicals and have dragged Justin to more than a probably has enjoyed. Heck one of the first dates I took him on was to see the Opera in Utah! Good thing he is a good sport about it, and I think he secretly enjoys them too! I have also had the opportunity to see two different shows on Broadway in New York. And this one was just as spectacular as those. I wish I could have taken pictures during the event, as it is so hard to try and describe just how amazing the costumes were! (I did do a google image search though so here are some representations of how cool they were!)

Family Adventure

Sometimes being a teacher has its perks, on top of the very obvious ones such as no Holidays, summers off, great hours, etc! This evening we enjoyed one of those hidden benefits! We took Lincoln to the Shark Reef at Mandalay Bay for free! That's right other than the gas to get us there, it was free!! Basically, because I am a teacher I get free admission for myself plus one guest! But you are probably wondering how it was free considering there were two others beside myself. Well, as luck would have it, Children under 5 are FREE too! So we all got in for free! It was awesome! And even better was the fact it was nearly empty so Lincoln could run around without us having to worry about losing him in the crowd!

After seeing our fill of fish and sharks, we decided that it might be fun to take Lincoln to the Rainforest cafe, since we were already downtown. And I think he loved it!! What was even cooler is we happened to stop by a small kiosk in the store area to find out exactly how to get to the restaurant and were given a coupon for the Cafe. It was a coupon for a free kids meal and priority seating as well. We did not realize how awesome this coupon was until arriving at the Cafe and being escorted to a special line, only one family in front of us, which bypassed what looked to be at least a 30 minute wait in the regular line. And then to make the deal even sweeter we got Lincoln's meal free and considering they would have charged us $10 for it regularly we thought we had struck gold!! So our night was full of hidden bonuses! And it was so much fun on top of it all! I love spending time with my boys!

Where did January Go?

I can not believe it is February already! last month was super crazy! With two cousins getting married and all the activities surrounding those events, as well as receiving a new ward calling, working, making cake pops for said weddings, attending meetings for my stake and ward calling, and trying to fit some time in with family, January has slipped right through my fingers! Luckily amid the chaos that was January I managed to snap a few pics of my handsome little boy! I love his smile, which I can only get if I tell him to show me his teeth!

This is the only picture I have of the hundreds of cake pops I made last month! Literally, I made hundreds. Some for Kristin and some Kimmy! I think they were a hit, especially with Lincoln! Some of the finished pops never even made it to the wedding thanks to my little thief!