Gettin' Lucky in Kentucky

I was able to go to Lousiville, Looavul, LouEville, Luhvul, Looeyville (who knows how you really say it... we asked several people and they all gave us different answers) Louisville, Kentucky. Anyway... I was able to go therefor 5 days for a work conference. I had so much fun. My friend Cassie came and kept me company. I only went to conference for 2 days for a couple hours each day and the rest of the time was ours to explore life in Louisville. Here are a whole load of pictures of our trip.

The very first picture of our trip I made Cassie take. For those of you who love LOST... I kept talking about how us waiting to get on the plane reminded me of all the flashbacks on LOST where it shows all the individual lives of all the characters. WELL...right after saying that I looked over and saw a John Locke look alike! For those of you who don't know John Locke he is one of my favorite characters. I had to get a picture with this guy without letting him know what we were doing. You can be the judge but I thought it was a sign we were going to be the

next flight 815.

My very first taxi ride ever (Man are they expensive... Good thing the district gave me their credit card...buses are much much cheaper.)

As you all know they have the Kentucky Durby in Kentucky...therefore ALL OVER

Lousiville they have horse statues about every block. You will see several of those in this blog.

These are our cool shirts that we bought... "May the horse be with you" and "I used to be cool"

...and a couple more horse pictures

The view from our hotel was looking over the Ohio River. The river is about a mile wide and on the other side of it is Indiana. One night we went out on the open space they have to overlook the river and took a bunch of pictures. It was beautiful. They also had random statues here that we took advantage of taking several pictures with.

This is a random statue of a guy with a gun and dead ducks... they

have some pretty weird statues in Lousiville...but we liked them.

This is 4th street live. It's famous in Louisville because it "comes alive" at night. You can only get in with an ID after a certain time and they have tons of entertainment. It is a really cool street and we had a lot of fun. We went and ate at Hard Rock Cafe too... Mmmm.

This are just some random pictures taken throughout our many adventures.

If you look closely you can tell that this limo is totally blinged out. I don't think there was hardly any of it that was not covered with jewels. Southerners like style I guess...

This is me contemplating why the heck there is a random chandelier hanging at the street corner as if it were a light post.

Now this was by far my FAVORITE place in all of Kentucky. The Louisville slugger museum. The tour was amazing. It had some really cool artifacts in it and then we went on the tour and saw them make all the bats that they make for the MLB. While we were there they were doing an order for Andre Ethier. It was amazing...got me excited for baseball season.

Me and Babe Ruth. They had a really cool actual game bat of Babe Ruth's there that he made a mark on every time he hit a home run in a season. That was one of my favorite artifacts. It was an amazing museum.

Me holding Micky Mantles game bat. That was pretty cool... you have to wear special gloves so the oils on your hands don't get it dirty over time.

The giant bat outside of the Louisville slugger museum. The bat is 120 feet tall!

We went to the Louisville Science center. While there they had a HUGE Star Trek Museum that was going on that we got to tour through. They wouldn't let us take any pictures in the actual museum though because of copyright stuff. All the stuff in the museum was the original artifacts used through the filming of Star Trek. It was awesome. Beam Me up Scotty!

They also had this cool contraption at the science center. You could enclose yourself in a bubble. This is the best picture we could get.

This is Cassie and I at Church Hill Downs. We didn't get to see any horse races but it was so cool to see where they hold the Kentucky Derby. It was beautiful there!

And finally...back home in the Salt Lake City airport. It was a gr

eat trip and I have decided I LOVE the south and back east. Such nice people. We had a great trip! Bye ya'll!

Christmas and New Years

I know its a little late...I have been meaning to blog for quite awhile now. I have a ton of pictures to share with everyone from Christmas time so I'll just start right in... Before the Christmas break my staff and I decided that we wanted to buy Christmas for all the families that were enrolled at my preschool. For those of you who don't know the preschool program I am in is for low in come families that are either trying to learn English or finish up their schooling. Many of the families have little to no income and they are so hard working that we wanted to surprise them with Christmas! It took a couple months to plan and put together but it was a blast and the families were so appreciative. Here are a few pictures from the project. (Also thank you to all who donated money or took on a family to provide Christmas for! I couldn't have done it with out you! We were able to provide Christmas for 20 families!)

Wrapping up all the gifts!

The big bag of presents for all the families! The office was full of them!

Some of the kids from my preschool before the Christmas party.

This is me and two of my staff members! It was so fun to work with them on this project! It was a lot of work but we did it!

After school got out it was time to get ready for the holidays and family to come...but before we get to that I would like to introduce all of you to Bobby. He is our new cat...against my parents desires. As in mostly my Dad. You see what happened is that Bobby came to our house one day looking really hungry and lost. My parents continually kept saying ... "We can't feed him or he will stay around and we are not having a cat as a pet!" Well, a couple days past and every time I went to the door Bobby was standing there looking at me with his sad eyes and I could tell he was just starving. I couldn't do it anymore! I am too much of an animal lover. I secretly gave Bobby some tuna fish. Then it just went down hill from there. We started letting him in the house so he wasn't so cold and now ... we have a pet cat. Despite my parents not wanting a pet they have actually really enjoyed B0bby. The grandkids all go nuts over him and just love him to death. They decided Bobby needed to have a middle name. So they all call him Bobby Rock.

Im a major dog lover...I never have really liked cats. But Bobby Rock has grown on me.

Now to Christmas festivities... My family had two Christmas Eve celebrations and then waited til the day after Christmas to celebrate Christmas. We did this because my sisters family couldn't make it down because of conflicts with Marks work. So...we did a Christmas eve celebration on Christmas eve...and then another when everyone was able to be there. Anyway here are pictures from all the Christmas events that went on this season.

Some of my nephews watching the polar express after our big Christmas Eve Dinner. I thought it was a cute picture.

Christmas Eve PJ's. We did our first Christmas eve celebration at my brothers house in St. George.

My nephew Eli did a performance for us on the piano. Ha.

Mom Dad and Grandma Lyman enjoying the Christmas Eve happenings.

Now these are the pictures from Christmas Eve where EVERYONE was able to make it...

Acting out the Nativity Scene

Everyone listening to Grandma Keate tell the traditional Christmas Eve story we read of my Grandpa Lyman being born on Christmas Eve.

Christmas Eve Pajamas #2. Don't I have the cutest nieces and nephews?

The mass chaos of opening presents

It was such a fun Christmas. I'm glad all of my family was able to make it. We had a great time. I brought in the new year with all my friends watching all 3 Lord of the Rings movies in a day plus lots of games and food. It was a lot of fun. 2010 was a good year but I'm looking forward to see what 2011 has in store for me! Happy New Year!

My new Love...

The new love in my life is...



For all of those out there that are looking for a fun work out... Do Zumba! I went to zumba for the first time about a month ago and have been going religiously ever since. Its so much fun and a great work out! The one I go to is across from Lins on main street.. the gym is called Iron Sports Acadamey I think. Its Monday, Wednesday and Thursday nights at 8 o clock and also Saturday mornings at 8 o clock. Anyone who is interested should definitely come! It's free your first time and after that just 3 bucks! Let me know if you want to come...and I mean anyone!
(For those of you who don't know what zumba is ... its a lot of dancing mixed in with some excersize moves. The class I go to we do some latin dancing and some modern music. Its great!)

Beautifying my Bathroom

My bathroom was completely out dated with floral wall paper and with even more hideous counter tops and more....until now. This was my little project (with the help from my parents) I painted over the wallpaper, we had the countertop replaced with granite, got a new sink, new door handles, took down the floorboards and put up new ones, new light fixtures, and changed the color scheme a bit. Here are some before and after pictures.

Before...

After...

And there you have it. Went from old and ugly to an updated fresh look! It was a fun project to work on.

My Car Accident

I got in a car accident on Monday night. I was coming up the hill to come home and a guy rolled through the stop sign and didn't even see me. He T boned into my car. I was lucky that it wasn't by my door or I would have been badly hurt. It could have been a lot worse if it would have been a few seconds later so I'm very thankful for that. His truck sure wiped out the front of my car though. He was in a HUGE truck ... it didn't even scratch the truck but it totally dominated my nice new car. I sure can feel the effects of the crash though. My whole body is very very sore from the whip lash and I have some very deep bruises where my seat belt was. I couldn'tbreathe very well when it initially happened because my body was in such shock...the rest of the night I was dizzy and nauseous. I'm doing fine now...like I said before just very sore and some deep bruises. My car looks pretty bad and the tire is even bent inwards... its not drivable but hopefully she will be fully recovered within 3-4 weeks.The guy who ran into me was super nice and very cooperative. He fully admitted it was his doing and so his insurance is covering everything. They are even able to give me a rental car until my car is done being fixed. Thanks everyone for your concern and calls. It means a lot. Here are a few pictures of the damage done.