Louisville and Graduation!

About a month ago I had the opportunity to go to DECA Nationals and represent Granite School District. There were about 2,100 students there. This was the opening session in an Energy Solutions type arena. It was so fun to just be there and watch!

We had nine students from the district and a couple even placed in the top ten! Well, while the kids were competing, the advisor from Cottonwood and I were able to do a little sight seeing...

First, we went to the Louisville Slugger museum. This was my favorite place! This is the tallest bat in the world, and it weighs 68,000 pounds!
Here's me standing at the bottom of it
I got to hold one of Babe Ruth, and Mickey Mantle's bats
Chruchill downs was my second favorite. It was the week before the Kentucky Derby so we go to watch a few preliminary races.
The grounds are BEAUTIFUL there!
We spent quite a bit of our time in Downtown Louisville as well, it was such a fun place to walk around!
We also went to a Louisville Bats game! Pretty similar to a Bee's game, but the weather was rainy and cold!!!
This is the steam boat we rode down the Ohio river on.
Lady Antebellum did an exclusive concert just for DECA! It was so fun to see them live!
Our last day there, we asked the Hotel to suggest a good Kentcuky restaraunt and they said go to "Lynn's Paradise Cafe." It was the CUTEST little place tucked away back in a gorgeous green neighborhood and had some GOOD Kentucky eatin'
What a fun trip! I was so lucky to have this experience!


Two weeks ago, we celebrated BRAD'S GRADUATION!!
Danny and Brad graduated with the same degree so we all got to watch Brad and Danny walk. Two of my FAVORITE boys right here=)What's a trip to Provo without going to the brick oven!?!Then we went outside to take pictures... It was freezing!
We had both of Brad's grandparents here, (Grandma and Grandpa Harris drove from California to be here!) and our whole family minus Tim, Travis, and Scott and Heidi. What an amazing support group! I dont' know what we'd do without family. I''m SO proud of my little graduate=) He worked so hard to get to where he is and we couldn't be happier! I love you ALL!

Just one of those days...

I had quite the week last week! Just really busy and stressful and what not... ya know, just one of those weeks. First of all, thank goodness for husbands! Brad brought me the most gorgeous bouquet of flowers because he knew I was having a bad day=) Second of all, thank goodness for friends! Brad's friend Nate came over so they could study for their info systmes class, but they accidentally forgot to study. We got talking about Mario kart and Nate had never palyed on the wii, so of course we had to introduce him... Then we decided to make cookies, and somehow that evolved into ording pizza (mind you, this was about 9:30 at night). After the pizza got there, we decided we had enough Mario kart, only to plug in Sherlock Holmes (thanks to Danny for a fabuolous birthday present to Brad). That lasted for about 15 minutes (if you know me, you know I can't stay awake much longer than that during a movie). Here's our night... One large BBQ chicken, one large pepperoni and pineapple.

Oh, and how could I forget the dew! There was also some "nector of the Gods."

So all in all, it was a very unproductive, JUST WHAT I NEEDED night! Eating pizza at 10:00pm wasn't ideal, but it was worth it!!! Thanks guys=)

Girls night!

We get together once a month with our girlfriends for dinner and last night it was at Holly's. We had yummy navajo taco's and played a mean game of speed scrabble! I had dessert so I made peanut butter bars at my mom's house just before I left, so of course I was in a huge hurry. My mom wasn't home, so I asked my dad to help... If you know my dad, this won't surprise you at all... "Dad, I need a 9 x 13 pan" Here are the results:

Yes, that is a measuring tape=) Then, I couldn't spread the batter (if you've ever made these, you know it's extremely thick), so he took over yet again; spread perfectly!
When they came out of the oven, I asked my mom to help frost them... She was a great help too=)I was a little late, but it was still so much fun! and here's the best part of the night: I got my camera out and I went to take a picture of Brandi and she just HAPPENED to be standing in the exact perfect spot... we had a fun little photo shoot after that. We were just missing Charla, but these girls friendship's mean the world to me and I'm so grateful to have such amazing friends and family! Thanks for a great laugh!

St. George!

I had a conference in St. George this weekend, and it was also Brad's birthday! So why not pack it up and take a weekend to beautiful St. George! The boys golfed and the girls shopped... kinda=) We went shopping for a new window! On the way down, we were just driving along and all of a sudden the front driver's side window SHATTERED! (We all thought we were getting shot at, but it was just a rock). We also celebrated Brad's birthday at Uinta Golf/Chili's and then just hung out with our whole family. His grandparents are so generous to let us stay there with them when we go down, and Brad's parents and older brother also came along! We have such an amazing family and I'm so grateful we could spend this weekend together=)

My window... ALL over my car!

even in the back!Our temporary window from about 30 miles out of Beaver... to Beaverwe had to pull over about 6 times to fix it before we finally got to Beaver...and we fixed it for good! Our temporary window from Beaver to St. George... nothing a garbage bag and some duct tape can't fix! (This was SO much quieter than the sheet flappin out the door!)

At least we got to go shopping once we got there! (Sadly, I didn't buy these beauties)
and celebrate Brad's birthday at Chili's!

Present time!!! This old man is 26 now!
and best of all, picture time! the fam, except Danny... he had already left.

What a great weekend!

Disney on Ice

Brooke, Stacey, My mom, and I took Cooper to see Disney on Ice and we all LOVED it! It was so fun to see all the different Disney movies, but it was so much more fun to watch Cooper. He was just affixiated on each different character as they came out! It was such a fun night=)

Here are the mice singing "cinderelly" and making her dress,
Brooke being silly with Cooper's Mickey Mouse crown,

Sleeping Beauty in "Once Upon a Dream,"

Arial, Ursula, and Flatsom and Jetson (Sabastion was so cute, but I didn't get a picture!)

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs,

and the grand finally... They had all the princesses come out in there dresses, and the castle was lit up, it was awesome! I didn't get pictures of Bell, because my camera died, but she was great too!
Thank goodness for Cooper! He is so much fun and always the life of the party... and I love hanging out with my mom and my sisters, I couldn't ask for a better family!

The last few months in a nutshell...

I decided nobody should get mad at anybody for "not updating" their blog, because let's face it.... we slack off every once in a while=) So, here's what's been goin on in the Merrill household for the past few months!

We celebrated my cute mom's birthday; she got a straightner...

and another year sexier!!! (That's what the sticker says) I can't remember, but I'm guessing that was from either Brooke or Stacey.

We went up to Bountiful for a couple Saturday morning flag football games...all the wifey's wrapped up in our blankets=)

Celebrated our TWO year anniversary!!! I can't believe it's already been two AMAZING years!!! I love you Brad=) My cute new car... (This wasn't just because it was our anniversary, it just happend that our other car was dying right before Oct. 18th=)

...had the BEST mac and cheese ever at CPK,did some miniature golfing,and even though I got a HOLE IN ONE, so did he=) and we tied.

Brooke and I also went to Missouri for halloween, but that will be another post all in itself, and then last weekend we went up to Logan for Brookie Sue's birthday! Of course we ate at Iggy's=) Here we are in the waiting area... Actually, here is everyone but Stacey and the guest of honor, because I accidentally deleted her picture from my camera! Sorry Brookie, I Love you!

This is Bailey giving her big brudder a kiss! She was really into giving kisses that night, as you'll see from the video=)