Tuf Cooper Comes to Castle Dale

The big talk before the rodeo was how Tuf Cooper was entered. The big question was...will he show or decide to turn out?  Zach and I went to visit my parents that weekend, so my dad got us free tickets to the rodeo. We went and sat on the fence behind the roping chute.  Tuf was there, and it wasn't hard to miss him with all the attention he was getting. It made me feel bad for him. He probably can't go anywhere without being interrupted in conversation to pose for a picture. What a kind, gentleman to always be such a great sport about it though.

One of those annoying picture posers was my little sister. :) She wanted a picture with him so bad and kept saying, "Come get me in the back with the cowboys so I can get a picture with him." I kept asking her earlier in the week, "Did you even know who he was before you googled him?" Tayler hasn't had much to do with the rodeo/horse scene since we were kids, so I always tease her about stuff like that.  None of my siblings ever really had too much to do with horses besides her. I was a loner, until Teigen decided to take up roping/riding about two years ago. Now he shares my passion for roping and rodeo. Tayler always wants to go with me to the NFR though, and last time I took her along, we had a great time! What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas though. Secrets only sisters share. HAHA!

My dad actually had to be the one to ask him, then he yelled at me to come take the picture. I said, "Are you sick of this yet?" to which he replied simply, "No ma'am." I think that's one of the biggest reasons I respect him as an athlete so much. It takes a special kind of personality to handle the media attention.  There are those who will not pause for a picture with fans at all, so I commend those that take the time to be respectful to people, even when people are bothering them for a picture.

I asked him what brought him to "Podunk" Utah and he claimed it was because he heard what a great rodeo it was. I said, "Now I know that's a lie because I'm from here, and I don't even come back for this rodeo." We just kind of all laughed and I thanked him for the picture for my sister and wished him luck on his run.  He is definitely a neat kid, but it is still so crazy to me how people idolize "celebrities" because he is just that, a neat kid who happens to be an extremely talented roper. God bless the world though that we can always have cowboys with good attitudes and respect for those of us who are not so famous.  It would be a sad day in rodeo for me if they were all arrogant and above taking pictures with fans.

First Concert

Shyanne and I are always concert buddies. We've gone to several concerts together already. One day several months ago, I saw a deal on Living Social to get tickets to all three days of Country Explosion for $49. Of course, I tell her about it while we are working out at the gym that night and we decide to buy tickets the next morning. Trevor and Lacie wanted to go with us too, so we bought them each a ticket.  Country Explosion is basically the smaller, Utah version of Country Jam.  Bunch of big name singers come sing during the weekend, as well as some less-known artists.

We only went Friday night and Saturday night. Obviously, Sunday is out. But it was wayyy too hot to go out Saturday during the day.  We saw Gloriana and Scotty McCreery Friday night.  They must not have sold all the reserved seats, because they opened it up and we got down there closer and got to sit on a chair instead of blankets. Obviously, we didn't sit during the headliner because that would be totally lame. 

Saturday night we saw Clay Walker (one of my all-time faves) and The Band Perry Saturday night.  I knew eventually they'd sing "Better Dig Two" and Shyanne and I figured it would be their last song after they came back for the encore. We were right.  I of course sang it at the top of my lungs to Zach like I always do when it comes on the radio. We had a great time and ate lots of Mexican Style corn, ribbon fries, and other delicious fattening things.  I think it might be a new tradition! It was our first concert since we were married.  Oh how I love music!

Gloriana Rocking Out

Zach, Me, Shy, Trevor, Lacie

Finally...An End Table!

We are still slowly getting our house decorated and have been looking for an end table for the front room for MONTHS! I really wanted something teal/turquoise-ish in it to bring out the colors in our rom, but everything I saw was expensive. I did find some really cute tables on etsy.com, but they were either too expensive, or too expensive to ship here.

Zach called me Saturday morning to tell me there was a huge yard sale just north of Walgreen's and that they were bringing out some old antique furniture when he drove by. He told me to go see if I could find us an end table.  I did a few things around the house before leaving, then I ran over there all scrounge-like and walked around. Turns out, it wasn't a yard sale, but a huge "flea market" they were calling "Fleaology." There were actual vendors there and the table I ended up buying was from one that buys old furniture, then repurposes it. 



My cute, little, bright table!

I had a hard time deciding between the three tables so I made Zach come back with me on his lunch break.  By the time we got back, one table was already sold. Bummer! It was super cute. Zach liked the black one with a little light blue on the top. But I couldn't get past the bright turqoise/teal one.  I thought the black one might be too short next to our couch anyway.  I ended up going with the teal-ish one and am glad I did. It looks absolutely amazing!  There were some other really cute things around, but I only ended up getting two other decorations while we were there.  Better not spend it all in one place! :)

 

 



Cool old lantern and a wall hanging I also bought

 

 

Puppy Sitting and FHE

Jana and Mike went to Nauvoo for a few days and needed someone to watch their dog so I volunteered to watch their little Mini Aussie, Jaycee, for them!  She was such a sweetheart. We played fetch and she snuggled with me. Now Zach wants a little dog!

Jana was so cute and brought me a card with an Olive Garden Gift Card, a Coldstone Gift Card, and a Cinemark Gift Card to thank us for watching Jaycee.

After we dropped Jaycee off to Jana and Mike, we went to Brent and Jan's for Sunday dinner and FHE. Arin did the lesson on family history and being a pioneer. We talked about journaling too and keeping records for our family after us.  Grams was there and she was telling us some really great stories about her own history. It's important to keep those before us "alive" even after their gone so I'm going to retell two of her stories that had us rolling.

Both stories have to do with Christmas and Christmas trees. The first went something like this...

"I had asked grandpa to take the tree out and he kept saying he would. I gave it a few days, and he still hadn't taken it out. It was getting really dry and the needles were falling off everywhere.  I decided I could break it up and stick it in the fireplace.  It was the worst! Black smoke filled the room and I was running around opening up windows to try and get the smoke out.  I learned my lesson and never put another Christmas tree in the fireplace to burn again."

The other...something like this:

"Grandpa hated flocking on trees, but I loved it. We shopped everywhere one year and finally found the perfect tree.  On the way home, we had sort of forgotten about the tree and noticed our car was really needing a wash.  We pulled up to the wash to drive through and all the cars were honking. We just thought there must be something going on behind us.  Our car, and tree, got a nice little wash. The tree was even just fine once we got home!"

I hope we can always keep our loved ones alive even after they're gone so our children and other posterity may always know about where and who they came from.

First Trip to Seattle

I'm a little slow on this post, since I have so much to recap! But...we went to Seattle on business back at the end of May.  It was my first time to Seattle, ever!  Zach didn't lose his wallet, so that made our flight go more smoothly this trip.

Funny bit about that...so Arin rode up with us so she could drive our car back to Lehi. That way we wouldn't have to pay to park it for the week.  Zach got out of the car to get our bags out of the trunk. I said to Arin, "Watch, his wallet is right here in this open center console, he'll think he forgot it, but really it will be in my purse." We both started laughing as I put the wallet in my purse because of the "honeymoon mishap" when he lost his wallet in the SL airport before we even flew out.  So Zach goes to grab the handles on the bags and then looks me straight in the eyes as he is patting his pockets (realizing he doesn't have his wallet and will need ID to get through security). Arin is starting to pull away, and Zach starts pounding on the trunk for her to stop. I start laughing as she rolls down the windows and says something about forgetting his wallet. At this point, Arin and I are having a good laugh and I explained everything to Zach. He didn't think it was too funny, but I think he was pretty thankful I had remembered the wallet for him.  He would have NEVER lived it down if he'd forgotten the wallet after losing it on our honeymoon.

Brent and Jan picked us up in Seattle and we went with Kerry and Lawana to dinner at a steakhouse that was like Texas Roadhouse. I can't remember what it was called though. It will come to me...I'll update that later if I remember!  The next two days we just hung out at the auction house, saw a movie, went to the fur fashion show, ate at Anthony's...really fun! 

Us taking a picture with the models after the fashion show. The buyers kept making us stand up there because they all wanted pictures of us with the models. It was super awkward to have all the buyers taking pictures of us!

Brent and Jan and Kerry and Lawana left Thursday morning, and we picked up our rental car.

Chevy Cruze! Like what I was going to get, but bought my VW Jetta instead.

We went back to the hotel and had an omelette with our complimentary breakfast tickets at the Mariott. Then we took some well needed naps. After we woke up, we got ready and went driving around to some neat places. Our first stop was the Seattle Temple (which is actually in Bellevue and not Seattle).

The temple grounds had all these beautiful little trails with benches in there to ponder. It was landscaped so beautifully on the entire grounds. I told Zach, "In Utah, we can't landscape like this because all the ground is used for parking. Here, they can use it to beautify since there aren't very many members." So, in some ways, those outside of Utah are lucky because the grounds are full of foliage and gorgeous flowers.

After the temple, we went to a place that Kate Flowers (Ty used to work with her at SUU) suggested for us to visit. She moved to Seattle a few years ago and gave us sooo many good ideas to visit and places to eat at. It was called Gas Works Park (or something close to that).  It was an old gas place, and they left some of the old equipment and made a park out of it. It has a really neat view of downtown Seattle from the park.  You can walk down and sit on benches cut out of the concrete wall above, and the water hits into the concrete in from of the sidewalk and railing about 3 feet in front of you (think "dam-like"). I have so many pictures from the trip so I'm trying to only post the best ones here and I'll put the rest in an album.

We had reservations at Salty's that night, and so we had some time to kill. It didn't take us as long as we expected to visit the temple and the park. So after the park, we found a Catholic Cathedral online and drove to check it out.

The window above Zach says "I am the vine, you are the branches." Kind of a cool statement!

There was a free art museum across the street, so we decided to go in and check it out. Afterall, we were parked right in front of it. We went in and there was literally 10 pieces of art on the walls in the whole joint. Some were really pretty and others were very umm...interesting.




Finally, we decided to journey over toward the side of the city that Salty's on Alki is on and we drove around some neighborhoods up there. We had fun driving around seeing all the homes and how different they are than the Utah style homes. Very pretty!  We also passed this overlook and decided to stop and take some pics.



We were still like an hour early for our reservations, so we just sat in the car listening to music. Before we had left the hotel, I had said, "Do you think I need to at least take a nicer blouse?" Zach was convinced I didn't need to. Well, once we were finally seated at Salty's, I think we made everyone ELSE feel awkward with how under-dressed we were. Everyone was in cocktail dresses and shirt and tie or suits! Then, us Clampetts roll in with t-shirts and jeans. It made us laugh really hard because it made us look like such rednecks! Especially with Zach's "stache" looking like this because he forgot a razor and we never went to buy him one! Talk about creeper status!

The food was great! Anthony's and Salty's have pretty much equal quality of food, but Salty's definitely has the killer view!  We watched across the water as the sun went down and the city lights came on. It was amazing!



After dinner (I had lobster, Zach had crab legs), we just went back to the hotel and crashed for the night. We slept in a little the next day, had another complimentary breakfast and then went out adventuring again.  We went to the Space Needle.

Then, down to Pike's Market for lunch. We ate at Kell's Irish Pub that Kate suggested. The owner actually seated us and took our drink orders. She had such a heavy accent we could hardly understand her. She kept checking on everyone in the restaurant too. It was cool because we parked up above Pike's and could see the sign for Kell's, but you had to go around the back and down into the alley to get in! It was in the basement portion! Made it all the more fun. We chatted with the couple in the background of the pic below. They were so nice! They were leaving on a cruise to Alaska and were from the San Fran Bay area. We decided that one year when we go to Seatlle, we'd like to go a few days early, and go on an Alaskan cruise and then come back for business. We'd save on flights for the cruise because it would be killing two birds with one stone!

After lunch, we walked around Pike's. We totally forgot to go see the gum wall though, so we'll have to do that next year. We got cherries and peaches and ate the cherries on our way into the baseball game. So weird, but they let you take whatever you want into the stadium! We were standing outside trying to hurry and finish eating them and the lady told us we could take them in and whatever else we wanted! Pretty cool. We had fun at the Mariners game...went to the hall of fame and took some funny pics (catching a ball below). We bought a blanket as a souvenir (and because it was getting cold) and had a hot dog and peanuts! Sang "Take me out to the ball game" of course! They played the Rangers and totally got spanked, but the game was still really, really fun!

We found the stadium with ease, but couldn't find anywhere to park. The last place we saw was $25 and we were not wanting to pay that much so we kept driving. Well, that dumped us right back onto the freeway without warning and we had to drive ALL THE WAY BACK AROUND AND BACK DOWNTOWN! We were laughing, but it was certainly not ideal. The next time around, we just paid the stupid $25 to park!

This guy in the bottom pic reminded me of Super Mario with that "stache" so I just had to take a pic. He was selling "Dingle Berries" and yes, that's what they are really called. They are Shish-ka-berries which are chocolate covered strawberry and bananas on a stick, but they refer to them as dingle berries. Good marketing strategy? I don't think I could eat something that delicious if it's name was dingle berry! HA!

That was our last night there though and we flew out the next morning. It was a really fun trip though and we're looking forward to some good ideas we have for next year's trip! I have some really neat pictures from the business side of things, but I better just put those in the family photo albums! :)





Hostess Makes a Comeback

A few months ago, Hostess went out of business. As sugar crazed Americans had hoped...it's back!! My brother-in-law, Clayton could probably live off of Hostess products so when I got to work today and found out the good news, I sent him this picture: (my friend, Tara, insisted that I couldn't just take a picture of the box because it needed to be "real time" so he would believe me)

My old department had brought in twinkles and cupcakes and donettes. I had three donettes. Yum!! Our conversation pretty much sums up Clayton's excitement about "The sweetest comeback in the history of ever." 

This day will surely go down in history!

First "Fourth"

Fireworks are among a few of my favorite things, so naturally I love the 4th of July for that reason. It's summer, so it usually equates to a BBQ somewhere as well. We went to Brent and Jan's for the BBQ and then headed up tower mountain where Zach and I were engaged exactly 51 weeks earlier.  Ali and Alex had their first date up there exactly 3 years ago, so it has kind of become a somewhat "magical" place for us Becksteads.  It was awesome to see the fireworks happening all over both valleys. We could see some huge fireworks clear up on the east side of the Salt Lake Valley near my old apartment in Holladay.

Ali's friend from dental school, Maelynn, and her husband, John also joined us. Of course Jeremiah was there. He wanted to just be the official picture taker, but we refused because we wanted him in all of our memorable pictures!

I was wearing sandals that night and it was getting dark, so when I propped my phone up to take our group pictures, I skimmed the side of each of my feet over a cactus. The next day, I had little blue and purple sores with a little needle hole in the middle. It stung for a good twenty minutes afterward! Stupid cactus! Lesson learned, never wear sandals at night time when there is a good chance cacti will be involved and near your little piggies.

Our First Crop

"The Fruits of our Labors" Literally

We were so excited when we bought our house because it had a fairly large garden plot. Neither of us had planted a garden without the help of our parents or grandparents. It was an interesting experience to plant it in May and to be completely honest, I wasn't sure anything would sprout up out of the ground. We planted tomatoes, peas, squashes, cucumbers, green beans and carrots. It was totally experimental but over the last two months, we have watched our little garden flourish and today I picked the "first crop" since it is Sunday, I didn't really go out and pick the entire crop that was ready, but picked one of the smaller tomatoes that was the brightest red and a few of the ripened peas. The pictures below show our wonderful journey from start to the first fruits of our labors.

That's my hubby just hard at work digging me some trenches.

He looks so tired and sweaty. Don't feel too bad for him...he's probably just faking it. ;)

And our first tomatoes coming in...and our first peas!

Here it is sprouting up all over! I need an updated picture, the squash in the last rows are huge now!

First little peas! Yummy!