People actually live like this?

Last night we were invited to our friend Preston Palmer's birthday party. It was held in Salt Lake at one of their friend's houses. I've never seen a house this big in Utah! You can see part of the main house in the background of the pics of the girls riding the ponies.
Here is Samantha riding Cookie Dough. Everytime they made a lap around the corral, they would ask, "Do you want to go again?" Of course she said YES! I lost track of how many times she went around.

Shaylee riding Cookie Dough.

Shelby riding Snickers.

After the girls rode the ponies, we saw an emu and some really cute ponies next to the barn. The girls went over to the fence to say hello. They were scared of the emu even though it had a look on it's face that said "Please pet me!"

It looks like Shelby is talking to the emu and it is totally dissing her by looking away....here's what really happened... Shelby was standing there, thinking about petting the emu, but her fear was getting the best of her. Suddenly, one of the ponies said HEEEEHEEEEEEE!!! Right then, Chris snapped the picture.

This is a picture of the "BARN" where the party was held. This picture only shows the top two floors, it actually had 3 floors. Behind the "barn" is the guest house, which was probably at least 3 times the size of our current house.

Inside the "barn", here is Sami standing on the stairs.

This fireplace came from Europe. (I wonder how old it is)... They cut it into pieces to ship it to Utah and then reassembled it in the "barn".

These gorgeous doors are on the main floor of the "barn". It's hard to judge the size, but you could have driven a car in these doors. The woodwork, ironwork and windows are exquisite.

This hay in the corner of the ground floor is the only resemblance of a "barn". But notice the wood and stone work! I still can't believe they call this a BARN!

Here is the birthday boy, blowing out his candles!

Preston's mom, Christy and me. She looked so darn cute in her cowgirl outfit!

V-day Fun

We intended to take the camera, but were so excited about our night out that we forgot it. So just imagine the fun we had...

Chris and I decided to celebrate Valentine's Day on Friday, the 13th instead of on the 14th because we thought maybe we'd miss most of the V-Day crowds. We went to Ruby River for dinner and ate at their Anniversary table. It's a small table for two at the top of the stairs, and it's kind of tucked into the corner of the balcony so if you didn't know it was there, you'd miss it. We know the manager so Chris called him ahead of time and reserved the table. This is where that old saying "it's who you know, not what you know" comes in handy! But I don't think you need to know the manager, just know that there is an anniversary table that can be requested. It was cool to walk in with people waiting everywhere and be escorted immediately to our table! We should have dressed up like the rich and famous!

Dinner was fabulous and then we headed off to Layton to go Go-Cart Racing. The racing was fun, fast, and a bit expensive. But it was worth it for a special experience. Chris totally kicked my butt on the track. It took me a few times around the track before I figured out how to go around the corners without sliding around the track. Of course, Chris mastered it right away. Our top speeds were right around 22mph, but in a go cart, inches from the ground, it felt like we were going 60!

Shelby's growing up...

It's happening already! Shelby has been 13 for 55 days, and already she's behaving like a teenager... We finally decided to let her have a phone after what seemed like years of asking for it. We were pretty set on making her wait until she was 15 and able to pay for it herself. But there are times when we need to get ahold of her. Plus she's getting pretty good grades. But the real deciding factor was that the phone was on sale for $29 (after the mail-in-rebate), and Shelby had the money saved up to pay for it. So we decided it would be a good time to get her a phone.
The rules are that she has to maintain good grades (only A's & B's, with more A's than B's), she can't talk on the phone until after 6pm unless whoever she's talking to is on the same network as us, and she has to pay the bill every month.
She's a pretty responsible girl, so so far we're happy with her having a phone. Except for the fact that she is ALWAYS texting someone. (Thank heavens we have unlimited texting!)

Last night we took Shaylee & Sami to see Madagascar 2 at the theater in our neighborhood. They are reopening and had a FREE movie night to celebrate! Yay for us! They even gave out free popcorn and candy! It can't get any better than that! Shelby didn't go with us because she had Young Women's and had went to the free movie the night before with her friends. (There's proof of the teenage thing again!)