A little too much Billy Ray

Well... this kinda says it all.

When Faith heard that Billy Ray Cyrus was going to have a concert close to Fallon she was so excited and just HAD to go. Why, you might ask? Because he's Miley's dad of course!

Taylor and I took Faith to the concert so that she could have her special day. It was so cute. She had a great time (once she got over her initial let down of the set up not being quite what she had pictured. She was disappointed that she couldn't be up front and center).

She spent the majority of the concert on either my shoulders or Taylors. She really did look cute sitting up there with her little straw cowboy hat on, waving her arms in the air. At one point a lady came up to her and gave her some glow sticks because "she's so cute, she just looks like she needs these". Next, another (fairly intoxicated) lady came up and gave Faith an "official" Billy Ray concert t-shirt, again because "she's just sooo cute".

I'm a retard and forgot my camera in the car, but you can see from this picture alone that she really did have a GREAT time.

We spent the rest of the weekend out at Pyramid Lake for our 1st camping trip of the year.

Its a good thing that Buddy was so tolerant of Olivia's showering of affection

Just a cute picture!

Mason and Olivia were perfecting their HANG LOOSE!

She's a NATURAL!

Faith tried wakeboarding for the 1st time on Saturday and she popped right up. She did really well and by the end of her 1st run, she was HOOKED! I was SO proud of her.

Olivia had her 1st ride on the tube. She wasn't scared at all (come to think of it, she isn't scared of anything). She loved it! You could tell that she thought she was one of the BIG kids.

Mallory's favorite thing to do at the lake is to drive the boat. She's not as in to the water as her sisters, so this is more her style. She did start jumping off the boat to go swimming this time, so maybe that's a start. She does make a cute captain though.

Then there's Lucy! This is our 9 month old Beagle who is now a certified "Boat Dog." I have been feeling guilty for leaving her at home alone while we go play, so she got to go this time. I must say that I was really impressed. She did great on the boat. I wish I was able to get a picture of her big 'ole ears floppin in the wind as she looked over the bow of the boat. It was so cute.

Yes, this is a picture of a BAT and let me tell you why.

At about 2:30am on Saturday morning (not that it really matters because we hadn't slept yet anyway, thanks to Faith's already sleepless night), Taylor was awoken by Faith saying, "The cat caught a really weird bug." So he gets out of bed to check out the situation. When he turned on the light, it startled the cat enough that it lost its "bug" which turned out to be a little bat that was now flying around the room appearently uninjured by the cat. Well, its not like we can exactly turn off the lights tell the kids to go back to sleep, but how do you catch a bat? With a basket of course!

After plenty of pictures and all but 2 children awake, OOOHH'ing and AAAHHH'ing at the "cute" little bat. We finally caught the bat in a basket and set him free.

Now that is definitely BLOG-worthy.

Celebrity Collage by MyHeritage

Here you go Joleen.
Believe it or not that is Demi Moore on the far right. Who would've thought?
Petra is so HOT! That made me feel good :)

MyHeritage: Family trees - Genealogy - Celebrities - Collage - Morph

An OLymPiaN To WatCh

I have obviously always followed national gymnastics and I'm really excited to watch the upcoming Bejing Olympics in August. Shawn Johnson will be the girl to keep your eye on. She is an absolutely phenomenal all-around gymnast who will be the back bone for the womens team in Bejing.

Shawn Johnson

You can click on her name to read about her Olympic trials performance

Faith's Slide Show

Mallory's Slide Show

Olivia's Slide Show

Memory Tag

Tag! Here's the drill (This one's kind of interesting...)

1. As a comment on my blog, leave one memory that you and I had together. It doesn't matter if you knew me a little or a lot, anything you remember!

2. Next, copy and paste these instructions into your blog and see how many people leave a memory about you. It's actually pretty funny to see the responses. If you leave a memory about me, I'll assume you're playing the game and I'll come to your blog and leave one about you. If you don't want to play on your blog, or if you don't have a blog, I'll leave my memory of you in my comments.

So Good...

Every mom deserves a day like today.

It was one of those rare days without my kids, so I drove to Reno to spend it with Taylor. It was one of the most relaxing, enjoyable days I've ever had. He was so sweet and scheduled appointments for both of us to get a massage. As soon as I got there, we went straight to the day spa for our 1 hour massage. It was absolutely divine. Follow that up with a nap and seriously, could you ask for anything more?

As a parent you always put everyone's needs above your own, but I really think an hour of indulgence is something all of us deserve. (Thanks again babe)

4th of July Fun

The girls were havin some fun with their sparklers. I'm not really sure what Faith was doing though :)

We spent the 4th out at the hanger with my dad, AKA "Papa". There was plenty of good food and fun. We had a great BBQ before watching the fireworks from Rattlesnake. Papa took everyone for a ride in the airplane. It was the 1st time in a small plane for Taylor, Caden and Mason. I was so impressed! Everyone did really well and the boys were smiling the whole time. Taylor even flew the plane for a little bit.

A pilot is only as good as his ground crew

I was so proud of Caden and Mason. They were great little co-pilots while their dad had ground school 101.

Taylor, Mason & Livie

Even Grandma Carey was up for some fun. What a cool grandma!

Olivia was waving G'bye to her papa as he took off for another plane ride. She just loves to fly!

Memphis in May

I know this is a little late, but I really wanted to share my trip to Tennessee to visit my older sister Denise and her fam. We went to celebrate Denise's 30th birthday.

During our visit the big Memphis in May festival was going on. This is the largest rib contest in the world. We walked through a ton of booths, ate way too much, and took a paddle boat down the Mississippi river. You can see how pretty it looked at night.

It was so great to see Denise. I can't tell you how much I miss having her here. She is doing really well now that she's all settled in. She's a surgical nurse at one of the hospitals in Memphis and still keeps up being a full time mom. Not to mention their slew of animals that she takes care of, including but not limited to: chickens, dogs, cats, fish, a bird, cows, horses and a donkey(I think). Wow. I'm in awe but not envious. :)

They really do have a beautiful home. I wasn't ready to come back when I had to leave. Everything is so green there. Oh, but don't forget to watch out for the fire ants! The south has some nasty little creatures.

The best part of my trip was spending time with my neice and nephew, Ethan and Teralynn. It was so much fun to hang out with them. They are getting so big. Ethan and I had a blast together. We had crawfish races, went to the park, played T-ball, rode bikes, cuddled, played soccer, you name it we did it. I'm not sure who was more tired at the end of the day, but we both slept good ;)

Ethan taking his little sister for ride on his quad. SO CUTE!!

A trip to the south wouldn't be complete without a crawfish boil. To my suprise, they actually tasted pretty good.

Birthday Boy

Taylor celebrated his birthday this last Saturday, and what a great day it was! We started it off by going out to Pyramid Lake for a day of wakeboarding, just the two of us. Both of us had pretty lofty goals (Taylor wanted to land and Tantrum or a Back roll, and I just wanted to clear the wake and land successfully) and at the end of the day we ended up with nothing more than some great crashes and 800mg of Motrin for the aches and pains. It was sooo much fun though!

When we made it back to town we were both starving, so we went out for some Sushi! Yum!! I was so proud of myself, those of you who know me know that I've always been kind of a sissy about seafood. Taylor had me go out on a limb and try real sushi this time. I ate and actually really liked raw salmon and raw yellow tail tuna. The real kicker was that my favorite of the evening was Eel! It was so good! I actually ordered seconds.