Nashville

Rex is working in Nashville for two weeks so I flew out to see him and go to the Grand Ole Opry. I love country music so going to Nashville was a dream come true! We loved the Country Music Hall of Fame, The Grand Ole Opry and Broadway Street. Marty Stuart, Charly Pride and many others performed at the Opry. It was so surreal being there. We stayed at a beautiful hotel called the Millennium Hotel. There is amazing talent and live music everywhere you go in Nashville....we loved it!



Country Music Hall of Fame

Country Music Hall of Fame

Broadway

Grand Ole Opry

Our vacation October 2012

 



Now That's a Vacation!

I've never taken a two week vacation before. All I can say is "Wow!"  I'm really spoiled now and a one week vacation will never again be long enough. Typically, our get aways are a whole lot of fun packed into a long weekend, so this was a big change for us.

To start our vacation, Rex and I flew from Las Vegas to New Orleans and boarded our cruise ship for a week. We had a great time on the cruise but agreed that a 5 night cruise would be long enough for us in the future. We loved the days at port in Key West, Free Port and Nassau Bahamas. We liked the food and comedy shows on the cruise and enjoyed meeting new people and making new friends.

I loved dressing up for dinner every evening. I had to do some serious shopping before the vacation! Not only to get dresses for dinner, but I seriously did not own a pair of shorts, a sun dress or any article of clothing to wear in the hot, humid Caribbean. Even living in St. George I don't wear shorts because I'm rarely out in the heat.

We did a culinary excursion and learned to cook some local seafood. The ad for the excursion said something like..."if you like eating shrimp and lobster, you'll love this culinary experience." Well, cooking conch fritter's instead of shrimp and lobster was (as Rex would say) like that, only different. But, we were cooking at an outdoor cook station overlooking white sand beaches and gorgeous blue water so...no complaints!

When we got back to New Orleans we went to the Louisiana Seafood Festival. We loved the live Jazz and had fun trying some crazy food like alligator sausage gumbo and bacon wrapped shrimp over grits. The beniets were yummy (similar to a scone with powdered sugar on it), but the praline candy store was the best! Oh my ever-widening behind...YUM!! We also loved Bourbon street and the bus tour of New Orleans. We agreed New Orleans was the highlight of the trip!

From New Orleans we flew to Richmond, Virginia so I could meet one of Rex's business partners and see some Fall colors. We took a nice drive so I could oooh and awww over the changing leaves and snap dozens of pictures of trees. I love FALL! We also went to Thomas Jefferson's home in Monticello. Rex had to stay in Virginia for a workshop so I flew back to Las Vegas alone.

Natalie met me in Las Vegas and we had some relaxing girl time. We lounged around in our PJ's, ordered room service and watched TV til midday. Then we got ready and went shopping and then to dinner and a show. We were suppose to be in Phoenix with Christie, Kimmie and Melissa for the Brad Paisley concert and were sad it didn't work out. We drowned our sorrows with food from PF Changs and The Cheesecake Factory and ended up feeling ok about it. :)

When I got home I had a couple of days to clean and organize drawers and other stuff I never get around to, had a spa day with my GF Tracy, took Cameron and Alivia to the pumkin patch at Staheli Farm, etc. What a fun, fun vacation!! I love our life!!





1st night on the cruise



Our cruise ship

culinary excursion

 

Getting off the ship in Nassau

 

Bond, James Bond

One of the beautiful sunsets at sea

 

LA Seafood Festival

New Orleans home



Beautiful lobby of our hotel in New Orleans (Hotel Monteleone) 

 

Our hotel in New Orleans

Bourbon Street

He asked for it...literally!

 

 

Monticello, VA



Thomas Jefferson home

 

I love red leaves as much as I love red dirt

 

 

 

Kailey

Well today is a sad day for us. Kailey moved into Dixie State College student housing. We are empty nesters...again. We have loved having Kailey live with us this past year and enjoyed all of the teenagers, parties, plays, school programs, dances, etc. that come along with a popular, well-adjusted, sweet, high school senior. We are really excited for her new adventure! Good Luck KK!


Kailey's Senior pictures

Rex, Lisa and Kailey Fall 2011



Desert Hills High School Homecoming 2011 (Kailey and her proud Dad)




Dixie High School Homecoming Dance 2011



Kailey and Quinn Desert Hills Prom 2012

Kailey and Quinn modeling for magazine 2012

Kailey and Maddy Desert Hills High School Graduation 2012

My little girl

Natalie

For Natalie's birthday, I decided to do a blog post about her.  Natalie is not only my little girl but one of my best friends.  I love hanging out with her...talking, laughing and helping her chase her little ones around.  If you ever hear me talking on the phone to someone, laughing hysterically, there's a good chance I'm talking to her. I love her sense of humor and I love how we just "get" one another.

Natalie was a sweet, little 5 pound 15 oz baby at full term.  She was born with a lot of brown hair that got blonder and blonder with time. Her hair grew really fast...it was all the way down to her waist by the time she was three years old. 

As a little girl she loved anything that had to do with being outdoors or animals.  She loved hiking, skiing, snowboarding, boogie boarding, water skiing and hanging out at the lake or beach.  She was obsessed with horses and wanted to own horses when she grew up.  She was such a girly girl in appearance, but she played hard and never let getting dirt or grass stains stop her from having fun!

Natalie always had a lot of friends and liked her birthday parties to be done on a large scale.  She'd say, "Mom, can I invite my whole class to the park for my birthday...we can have a slip-n-slide, a water balloon fight and a BBQ!"...and we did!

When she was 14 she decided she wanted money for her birthday so she could go shopping and pick out her own gifts.  I thought it was way too boring to just give her money, so I taped $100 bill to the inside of a large box, filled it up with styrofoam peanuts and wrapped it.  She dumped out the peanuts in the middle of the living room and 10, or so, 14 year old girls proceeded to scatter and sift through the peanuts looking for her gift. OMG, worst idea ever...I was still cleaning up styrofoam peanuts by her 15th birthday!

When Natalie was little she had many interests and talents. She played the violin and she loved to dance.  She was in Super Steppers Jr. drill team as a little girl and she was also on the drill team in high school. She was also a great soccer player. I thought she was a good student in high school until she confessed (as adults love to do to their parents) to skipping school and going to the lake A LOT her senior year.  Luckily, she still pulled off good grades.  :)


Natalie has always loved being massaged and tickled. I had a bedtime routine (for years) of tickling the kids backs, faces and arms before they went to sleep. We had so many precious talks during that nightly one-on-one time and it really kept us close. 


She and I loved singing "Love Can Build a Bridge" together when she was little. We even sang it over the phone a few times, when we were sad and missing each other, when she got married and moved to Omaha.


Natalie and Tyler had such a close relationship growing up. She was always a good big sister. Although, according to Tyler, she beat him up a lot and by the time he got big enough to beat her up she had Spencer around to protect her. 

She met her sweet hubby, Spencer, when she was 16 and they got married when she was 19.  They moved to Omaha for him to go to pharmacy school, to SLC for his first pharmacy job and then to St. George to "come home". We are so happy to have them back in St. George! Natalie and Spencer are the proud parents of 2 1/2 year old Cameron and 1 year old Alivia.  Enjoy those babies...they grow up!

Happy Birthday!


Love,

Mom

Kailey's Grad party

KAILEY'S GRAD PARTY

Kailey's graduation party was amazing! Her sisters really outdid themselves on this one. We all pitched in and did our little parts, but the official (soon to be professional) party planner's were Kimmie and Melissa. Fun times! Kailey will be moving into student housing and attending Dixie State College in the Fall...CONGRATS KK!

Kailey through the years pictures

Melissa, Chris, Davien and Lydia

Princess Lucy

Allison and Penny

Quinn playing the "pin the diploma on Kailey" game

Kimmie and Kailey

Spencer, Natalie and Aliva

Teresa and Mike

Tyler and Cameron

Tyler



Lisa and Rex

Melissa and Kailey

Rex toasting to Kailey-nice speech Babe!

Christie reading questions in the "are you smarter than a HS graduate?" game

Chocolate milk pong

Natalie's first attempt at CMP

Melissa defending her cups with kung fu like moves

Fun times!

We ended this gorgeous day with a gorgeous view