Dallas

I'm a little behind on this post, but better late than never right? A few weeks ago BYU played TCU so we decided to take a little trip to Dallas for a few days.

We beat Mike and Polly there by a few hours so we were in charge of picking up the rental car. The only cars left in the size we'd rented was the Grand Marquis. The guy renting us the car asked us if that was ok. We were like, uhh, sure. We had no idea what kind of car that was. He said he had to ask because a lot of people don't like them. We thought whatever and walked out to see about 8 huge cars we could choose from. Of course we thought we better choose the light blue one. We felt like we were super old driving this huge car. All it needed was some big steer horns on the front hood. It was pretty funny. :) We could even fit 3 people in the front seat if we wanted and the trunk was huge! Everything is bigger in Texas right? We nicknamed him Jumbo Jerry. :)

Rory and I flew in Wednesday evening so we found our hotel and then decided to get some dinner. We found a Creole place and decided to give it a shot. The food was super spicy! But it tasted pretty good. Both our mouths were on fire by the end of dinner! :) Around midnight we picked up Mike and Polly from the airport. The Dallas airport is not fun to drive around because it is HUGE!

Thursday morning we went to check out the Mustangs of Las Colinas. They were these huge statues of horses running through a little river thing. They were pretty cool.

After we had fun with the mustangs we headed to Grapevine Mall to get out of the cold! Shouldn't it be warmer in Texas? It was super windy and definitely not warm!

Grapvine Mall is really big outlet mall. It was fun to walk around and they had some cool stuff to do. We talked Rory into being a hamster in a big ball on the water. It was pretty funny to watch.

He spent most of his time on his backside. It looked really hard to stand up in, but he made a valiant effort.

Here he is standing up! It took a lot of core strength to keep from falling over!

After that we thought Mike should have some fun too. So we put him in the hurricane simulator. It was pretty funny to watch him get pelted with wind! :)

For lunch we went to the Rainforest Cafe. It was delicious! Plus it's just fun to eat with animals moving around you and lightning storms going on. :)

After lunch we did a little more shopping around the mall and then we headed to the BYU football team fireside. After the fireside we went to in Mississippi where there wasn't a chair left in the building, we thought we better be a little early. This one wasn't nearly as full so we actually got cushioned chairs! It was fun to see Carter and talk to him for a little bit.

When we got to Texas one of the first things we did was check to see if there was a Cafe Rio or Wingers in Texas. Rory was dissapointed to find out there was neither. He then thought he'd try Costa Vida because that's close enough. We found one in Colleyville, TX. We had no idea where that was so we thought it was a lost cause. At the time we had no idea that the fireside was being held in Colleyville. Rory was pretty excited to find out it would be right by us! So after the

fireside we headed to Costa Vida for dinner. It was pretty delicious. :)

After dinner we drove about 45 minutes to Rory's cousin's house to spend the night.

In the morning we headed to the stockyards. We saw this car and had to take a picture. These are the horns we needed for Jumbo Jerry!

Rory riding a bull! :)

They did a cattle drive down the middle of the street. The steer were huge! I'm glad they weren't running at me with those horns!

They had some fun little shops along the street. We felt like we were in a Western movie.

Rory and Mike trying on cowboy hats.

They had this cool maze that Rory and Mike had to try out.

Polly and I watched them from a lookout spot. It was pretty funny to watch them running around the maze trying to find the different check points. :)

After the stockyards it was time to go to the tailgate party before the game! It was by Rangers stadium. You can see the baseball stadium behind us in the picture below. Thankfully the final game in the world championship series was being played in St. Louis and not here otherwise we would have had some crazy traffic problems!

Walking to Dallas Cowboys Stadium! (It was super windy so I had my hood up.)

Here is the massize jumbo tron! The stadium has a roof, but part of it was open for the game.

The cougars running out of the tunnel!

Carter got us some crazy good seats! We were on the second row in the BYU section! It was amazing!

In case you're wondering, BYU ended up losing the game after putting up a good fight. We had a lot of calls that didn't go our way, and a few key mistakes. TCU got some nice no-calls that might have made a big difference for BYU. Oh well, we had fun at the game!

Saturday morning before we left for home we decided to check out Dealey Plaza. This is where John F. Kennedy was shot and killed. I really didn't know very much about it so it was pretty interesting to go through the museum. They had lots of cool little videos to watch and some very informative displays set up.

Once we finished up in the museum we went outside to see the actual place Kennedy was shot. In the picture below we're standing in the same place Kennedy's car was when he was shot from a window from the building behind us.

Even though BYU lost we had a great trip! We had a lot of fun sightseeing and enjoying time with family!

Butterfields in Kentuckiana

A couple weeks ago my family came out and spent a few days with us. We had a lot of fun sightseeing and spending time together! My family loves to take pictures, so I'll just post some of the pictures they took and give you a running commentary. :)

We finally got a chance to celebrate some birthdays. Rory got some presents and we gave Megan her birthday present.

We visited the Louisville Slugger Museum. It was pretty cool to take a tour of the factory and see how they make their bats. The museum was also fun to walk through. They even gave us our own mini bat!

Here Nathan and Rory got to try out a real bat from a player in the league right now. I can't remember who's bat Nathan used.

Rory tired out David Ortiz's bat.

They had a cool little area in the museum where they had painted part of a locker room along the walls. You got to walk through a dugout and down some stairs to get there. It was fun to see.

An interesting piece of artwork we saw as we walked to the waterfront.

Nathan was a little ahead of us and this is where we found him sitting.

A cool statue on the waterfront. I think maybe he was one of the first explorers in our area, but I really can't remember. :)

Friday afternoon we took a drive out to the temple. I had never walked around it so it was kind of fun to see. I look like I have a basketball under my shirt here. :)

Saturday morning we went to Churchill Downs. You can't come to Louisville without visiting both the Slugger Museum and Churchill Downs. I have been to races here, but it was neat to see the museum and take the tour on the grounds.

We got to walk right up to the track.

This is Animal Kingdom, the Kentucky Derby winner from this year.

To get to the museum you got to walk through the starting gates. Kind of fun. :)

We had a blast with my family. My mom got to stay an extra day and do some maternity shopping with me. I finally got some jeans that fit! :) It was a lot of fun to have them out here. I was excited that they finally got to come see where we live now. It was fun to show them around our city and see what we've been up to. Next time my mom comes out hopefully we'll have a little baby on the way!

Baby Polar Bear

On Saturday Rory and I were out close to the zoo so we thought we'd stop by and check out the new addition! A few months ago a baby polar bear was brought to the zoo. We went by about a month ago, but he wasn't out for the public to see. I was pretty sad about it. But luckily when we went on Saturday he was out playing! So I thought I would post the cute pictures I got!

I know most of you probably don't care. But I'm going to narrate what the polar bear was doing as I was snapping pictures. :)

For a while he was playing with this huge trashcan and I could not get a picture of his face. Nice butt shot right?

Finally he accidentally pushed the can over the edge of the big step there.

Now he decides to find something new to play with since he can't reach the trashcan anymore.

So he walks around the other side of the pole and decides to play with the hay in his little kiddie pool. But it's a big drop and here he is beginning to fall over the side.

This is the end of his tumble as he rolls around with the hay stuff on the ground.

He's pretty cute isn't he? Thanks for humoring me! :)

While I was waiting for the polar bear to get rid of the trashcan so I could get a better view Rory decided to make room for the little kids and he went over to watch the grizzly bear swimming in the pool. When I was done with the polar bear I went over to join him. It was pretty entertaining watching him swim around.

It was just a quick trip to the zoo to finally see the baby polar bear, but it was a lot of fun! He's adorable!

Rory's Birthday!

Last Friday Rory turned 25! He's pretty excited he can rent a car now without extra fees. :)

To start out the day I made Rory chocolate chip waffles at 6 in the morning before he left to work. Then I drove him to work so he didn't have to ride the bus. He got off work at 3 so I went to pick him up. Little did he know that Mike and Polly had flown in and were there to surprise him as well! Mike had a business meeting in Louisville so it worked out perfectly that they could be there for Rory's birthday!

When I asked Rory what he wanted for his birthday he said he wanted to golf at The Ledges in St. George. Since that wasn't going to work Mike took him golfing out here. The course wasn't near as nice as The Ledges, but Rory was still happy to be golfing. While they golfed Polly and I made Rory's cake! It was layered devils food cake, with whip cream on two layers and chocolate frosting with nuts and coconut in the middle and on top.

Rory was pretty excited about his birdie shot.

For dinner we went to Red Lobster. Rory has been wanting to go there forever, but we'd been waiting for a special occasion. Neither of us had ever been there. Since they were doing the all you can eat shrimp special it was the perfect time to go! The meal was delicious and we stuffed ourselves on biscuits and shrimp! My favorite was the alfredo shrimp linguini and Rory really liked the sweet and spicy shrimp.

After dinner we hurried home to watch the BYU vs. Utah State football game. We were hoping BYU could pull out a win and give Rory a good birthday present! The game wasn't looking so good until they finally pulled out the quarterback!!!!! We were so excited to see Riley Nelson come in to play. And what do you know? Nelson had better stats in a quarter and a half than Heaps did in 2 and a half quarters. And Riley brought us from behind to win the game at the end!! I think we might have woken some people up cheering. :)

During half time Rory opened up his presents. He was pretty excited about the Ninja Turtle actions figures I got for him. He can't wait to play with his little boy!

We had cake during the game as well. It was delicious!

Rhett and Julie gave Rory some waterproof cards that float. They're pretty sweet! We had to give them a try. :)

All in all I think Rory had a great birthday!