July is about history...


Well, we've just about made it through July. This summer seems to be going by so fast, but they all do. Its my favorite time of year. I love all that goes on in the summer with all the rodeos and celebrations and family stuff. I like the heat pretty good too, except I don't do real well in it this year.

Coby's been gone a lot rodeoing and working, for the most part he should be back to rodeoing on the weekends again instead of all this through the week stuff. I'm pretty easy to track down since I'm home ALL THE TIME. Working from home is great and all, but sometimes its nice to have an excuse to go to town. And I don't mean Tremonton town. My mom is on her way back to Utah next week, so that will give me someone to hang out with. Lewis (my dog) is great company and all, but I get tired of the one sided conversation, but it is nice that he agrees with everything I say.

Jami and Amanda threw Sunee and me a combined baby shower last week at Grandma Peterson's house. It was fun. We were given some nice things for our babies and had fun hanging out with Coby & Riley's aunt's and cousins. We are both pretty close to being ready for the babies to come, they were hoping to have their little boy on the 24th but it didn't happen. She's pretty close so he could come at anytime. I sure wish I was that far along! I've reached the stage of constant swelling up and if something is on the ground or the floor I have to really want to pick it up since bending over is getting tough! I have lots of kicking and turning going on in my belly right now. Funny though when they are moving around I tell Coby to hurry and feel, but when he puts his hand on my belly they stop instantly. Maybe they are shy. So, he's figured out if he wants to feel them kick he pokes my belly a little and they'll kick at him.

I've been pretty busy with my own work, I'm an Independant Contractor for three companies right now so its been good. I'll probably cut back to one once the babies come, I want to slow work down, not be ramping up.

Sorry this has kind of been a boring post. I can't think of anything exciting to blog about today. Life is good and being bored isn't always a bad thing...

JUNE Birthday's, Family Visits, Weddings & Showers

We've had such a crazy month that I got behind on my blogging! First off, it was Coby's 35th birthday on June 17th!!! Holy cow, luckily for him he's aging gracefully and still as handsome as ever. We didn't do any big celebration for it, just some presents and his much requested ice cream cake.

Stacie and my mom have been in town for a couple weeks, Stacie has headed back to Texas for her 4th of July rodeo run. Mom is staying up here for the summer. We had a great time together, its not very often you get us all in the same place at once. It was fun and we'll all be back together again this fall once the babies are here. We stayed super busy while they were here, we spent quite a bit of time in SF, came to Tremonton a little too. Stacie bought a barrel horse from me so we all went to a jackpot in Preston and did a little baby shopping. Wow, who knew baby stuff was so expensive!

I had a nice baby shower thrown for me this month too, it was so fun to get together with old friends and everyone was so generous with their cute little pink and blue outfits and blankets. It's a big help to us to have so many nice things given to us. There again, who knew baby stuff was so expensive!

The crazy amount of rain we've had this month sure kept this pregnant lady comfortable. The couple of hot days we had I seemed to swell up a lot, so I consider myself lucky to have got another good month behind me. So far this whole being pregnant thing hasn't been too tough. Seeing all the baby gifts really makes things seem real that we'll be parents here in just a couple more short months! Time is going by really fast right now since we are so busy and that is good!

Bryson and Kristen tied the knot last week and we had a good time visiting with family during it. They had a nice wedding dinner and ended up moving the wedding indoors because of the rain the next day. They say rain on your wedding day means good luck, so even though things didn't go quite as planned for them, they'll have a great marriage. They looked beautiful together and it all worked out great. This family picture documents me at 6 months pregnant!

This week and the next few weeks Coby is on the rodeo trail, I'm just going to hit and miss a few with him. Fighting huge crowds and having no where to sit at rodeos is no fun as I found out at Lehi's rodeo last Saturday night. I ended up sitting in the stairwell and the committee people were nice enough not to evict me from my 'seat'. He was up in the slack at Oakley last night and 6 hours of slack sitting in bleachers was not real comfortable, never mind the ride home. I ended up sleeping on the way home, and I know that isn't smart since Coby isn't much of a late night driver. That was always my shift. Not this year I guess!

Oh Boy....

Well, after the 'big' ultrasound yesterday we found out that the doctor's initial findings were wrong, we were surprised with a girl and A BOY! So, looks like we get one of each! At 16 weeks he was sure it was two girls, and at 19 weeks he again confirmed baby A was a girl, but baby B that is up high was transverse, looking down and he couldn't get a clear shot to verify it. I didn't really think anything of it, then when we went in yesterday the tech wiggled my belly around until she got a good picture of it, and sure enough, its definitely a boy! We're really excited and it will be fun to raise one of each. He is really wiggly in there, it took a long time to get all the pictures because he's so active. Its funny watching them push each other around in there trying to get the space they want. Its going to be pretty cramped for them here soon! Everything appeared to be healthy and where it needed to be with no concerns. Now its time to start a list of boy names...

Coby's Bum Ankle

Last weekend while practicing Coby had a fresh horse buck and he twisted his foot in the stirrup and tore the ligaments in his ankle. It swelled and bruised up pretty bad. We took him in for x-rays to make sure nothing was broken. We probably looked pretty funny with the pregnant lady helping her limping husband into the doctor's office! He got some crutches to get around on after that for a few days, but is walking pretty good now. In fact, he even rode tonight, so it must be healing fast. He still has an occasional limp, especially if he steps on something and twists it a little. I understand the ankle stuff all too well, I know how hard it is to get them feeling really stable again. Hopefully, its going to be strong enough he can start entering some rodeos in a few weeks. Time will tell.

Memorial Day

For Memorial Day weekend this year, we didn't have any jackpots or rodeos to go to in, well I don't know how long. Years and years, that's for sure. This year we spent Saturday working in our yard and the horses and that evening Cort and Amanda and the kids came over for a little hot dog fry. We were going to go out and do some more work, but we got a major rain storm that kept us inside all night. It was a crazy rainstorm, we don't get rain like that in Utah very often. The next day after church it started raining again, so we quickly packed our bags and headed up to Rigby and stayed with Jami & Bob. Cort & Amanda were up there too, and we had a fun stay. The weather was decent, so Monday the guys did some roof work on their outdoor dining area. I sat in the sun watching and before I realized it, had really sunburned my legs and especially the tops of my feet. Ouch!! I think I'm sunburning easier than usual this year. It was a nice little get away and a lot more fun that sitting and watching it rain here!

This month has went by fast and here towards the end we're doing a little celebrating. My mom's birthday was on the 20th, so we'll do something fun for it when they get here next week. Haggon (Staci Sue's son) graduates High School, which is a neat and monumental time of life. He also comes and mows my lawn for me which is nice. This coming weekend we are headed up to Ryker & Stacy's to help them produce their first Team Roping at their arena. Should be a good and busy weekend. Coby is shaking the dust off his ropes and I'm shaking the dust off my secretary skills. We go in for the 'big' ultrasound tomorrow to make sure the babies are really girls and that they are growing ok. It will be Coby's first chance to see them moving around in there. So far all he's seen are the blurry still shots. It will be fun for him to see them.

Baby Bump

Well, as you can see, my belly is growing. Unfortunately, so is my butt. Maybe its so I don't get too front heavy and fall forward.

These are before and after pic's of our remodeled back bathroom. The before pictures don't do it much justice just to how scary that little room was. The floor pretty much had to come out completely before we could even tile it, and the little vanity was barely thigh high and the sink was all chipped and broken. Now its a cute little room.

Its been a crazy week, I'm officially on my last day of work today. Supposedly, signed contracts are coming in today for a buy out but its hard believe because that's what we've been told for 2 months now. I'll still be doing a little contract work for them. Not sure exactly how its going to work out, so we'll see. We've got 3 horses we are actively working on selling and its been a full time job just fielding calls on them and putting videos together to send out. We've had great response so maybe we'll get them moved soon. In fact, we have two people coming to look at the same horse this weekend. Not sure how that's going to work out! Guess first one to write the check gets him! Its pretty hard to sell barrel horses when the barrel racer is under strict 'no riding' rules. I've never had to sell horses like this before, usually I'm the one getting on a horse to tune it or show it. Now, I get to stand at the fence and watch. Here a couple pic's of the cute horses we're selling. I don't have one of Charley, but he looks just like Kinney. Cute, huh!

The results are in....


Since we never gave our blog address out to many people to get many votes, I am combining these results with results from my office.


Overall Votes:


10% Girl/Girl
50% Boy/Girl
40% Boy/Boy


I have the exciting "unofficial" results from the doctor, Girl/Girl! So, in this vote, majority loses! I have the 'big' ultrasound in a couple weeks and they'll confirm. The doc was quite sure, so shopping for little girls has begun! I realize why so many people were for sure that they would be boys, no one in Coby's family has produced girls yet and he has no sisters. The only thing I can say bad about this situation is Coby might expect me to go through this again one day to try for a little bull dogger. As for now, we'll start with these two and see how it goes.


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This week I am posting a really good dinner recipe. I adapted it from a cooking show to include/exclude stuff we like.


Steph's Cheesesteaks


Meat:
1 lb. flank steak (or some sort of steak)
1/2 c red wine vinegar
1 lime, zested and juiced
1/4 c. chopped cilantro
1 TBSP hot sauce
1 tsp Worcestershire
salt & pepper


Combine all this and let sit for a half hour or so while prepping other stuff. After it marinates for a bit, pan fry the meat, then slice on the bias into 1/4" strips.


Cheese Sauce:
1 TBSP butter
3 TBSP flour
1 chipotle chili in adobo, chopped (2 if you like a lot of kick)
1 1/2 c. cream
1 c. grated cheddar cheese


Melt butter in sauce pot. Add flour & chipotle, stir to combine (makes a roux). Add heavy cream slowly, stirring. Add in cheese and stir until melted. Let sit on low until ready to build sandwich.


Other ingredients:
1 sliced avocado
Gyro bread (round greek bread located at the deli counter in the grocery)
more cilantro & lime


Build the Sandwich:

In a warm pan with a little butter, warm the gyro bread. Then put some of the meat on it, be generous with the cheese sauce, add some avocado slices and more cilantro. Maybe squeeze a little extra lime on it too. Serve with homemade french fries or potato chips. Yum!


Now, if you like grilled onion and/or red bell pepper you could add that to the sandwich, it could also be built on a hoagie roll, but we love sandwiches on the soft gyro bread. Happy cooking.

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Here are some old pictures of the ImPRA finals I just found while cleaning up my work computer. We both won the round and averages that night.

HEDGE YOUR BETS

Ok, anyone want to weigh in what they think we're having?

Baby A: boy/girl

Baby B: boy/girl

Post a comment and I'll tally them up and show results in a week or so!


Other stuff going on, ummmm, in my last post I was saying I didn't think I was showing that much. This week, I'm definitely showing! My belly started really sticking out and its hopeless to try and do my regular pants up now. Thank goodness for long shirts to hide my elastic bands and un-done zippers! But by hell I'm in a pair of Wranglers and my cowboy boots today (nice office attire, huh? I told you my wardrobe was shrinking!) Probaby dumb since my ankles have started swelling. Hope I can get my boots off tonight...

My work has been really hectic, I've been full time in the office for about 3 weeks now (no telecommuting). They laid-off just about the whole company and production has been shut down at all facilities across the country. Here at corporate we are down to 7 of us (at one time there were 130), so I've been involved in all sorts of stuff I wouldn't normally do. They are close to finalizing negotiation to split the company and merge with two more stable ones, if that goes through I'll be the Project Manager on both buy outs as well as 1 of only 2 of us here that know how to programmatically extract data out of our mainframe. Its way busy for me, but its nice because it makes the time go fast. Luckily, I've felt up to the challenge too. A month ago I'd have never had the stamina to work at this pace!

It sounds like Stacie has put an offer in on a really nice house in Texas pretty close to where she is living right now. Sounds like you can find good horse property and houses in TX a lot easier than in UT. Hopefully she gets it bought, she's been looking for a while now. My mom and John will be back up in Utah here in a couple weeks for a stay, they've got some Senior Pro's in NV.

I need to post some picture's and a couple awesome recipes I run across, I'll try to do that this weekend.