Girly Get-Together

Laiklie has some great friends and she begged to have a late-night with them on Saturday. There was a ton of screaming, giggling and eating going on in the basement. They went and played cops and robbers in the barnyard and made s'mores to wrap it all up. It was fun to watch them have a great time together. Just what they all needed as they go into the last 2 weeks of school!

Daphnie, Kenlee, Laiklie, Chassi, Chelsea, Taylor and Blaire

Shooting

On Saturday this past week Ryan and I took the kids up to the ranch to shoot guns. It was chilly so Laiklie and I mostly hung out in the truck, but it was fun to watch from there even. I did get out and shoot a couple times and made Laiklie as well. Rhett took his camera and those two went out and took a few pictures while Ryan and Dallin shot. Such a fun afternoon spent together. I love simple days like this. 

6th Grade Track Meet

Laiklie had the 6th Grade Track Meet last week. So sad that we are having all these "lasts" with her being our baby. I have loved watching the track meet over the years and this year was no different. The weather was warm, windy, but warm. The kids from Ucon did a great job! Laiklie is the 2nd fastest girl from our elementary so she ran the 100, the 4X100 and she did the softball throw. She came in 3rd on the 100 in her heat and her relay team did well. She got 2 throws with the softball and released one too early and one too late, but threw average (right in the middle of the pack) in comparison to the other girls. Such a fun day to spend with some great friends!

D & Diesel

We've had a muskrat in the canal we see about daily and the boys have tried shooting it several times. I love that I captured D, his gun and his dog one day out watching for it. It's images like this that I want to always remember. 💓

All-American 2019

I always dread Nationals. It makes me stress to the max and a nervous wreck for days before. I HATE, HATE, HATE that the All-American awards all come down to ONE DAY and ONE set of judges. Oakley has made the All-American team 5 years in a row, but going into this year we knew her chances may not be as good. She had to do everything on her own this year. With her duet partner living in Utah she had to learn and practice it all by herself. It was stressful knowing she had put SO MANY HOURS in and not knowing if it would be enough?!?!

Laiklie on the other had has never made All-American. Last year was the first time she was even able to dance off for it. So this year I was extra nervous for her as well. Her duet partner made it last year and Laiklie wanted it SO BAD so this year I prayed like crazy that she too had done enough to make it.

ANNNNNNDDDD.......THEY DID!!! Laiklie qualified for All-American in TWO events, her long duets (both with Oakley and Ellie) and her Line solo. Oakley qualified for the All-Star All-American (the higher level!) in FIVE events! Freestyle, Short duet, Long duet, Line and show solo (plus when they posted it a week later online it said Traditional solo too which means 6 events!)

These girls deserve these awards! They work so hard over the year and should be recognized as some of the best of the best. I am so proud of the hard work and dedication they put into dancing.

The Catapult

Rhett and Grandma Hawkins were the only ones who went with us to Lagoon this year. They were troopers following the dancers from stage to stage, standing in long lines and finding things to keep themselves entertained. Rhett mentioned a couple times that he wanted to do this catapult and his sweet grandma decided to buy them tickets to do it. She is seriously the best! She climbed in the ball with Rhett and they were both nervous, but all smiles! I didn't even hear them scream. They said they did, but I sure didn't hear it. It is insanely high how far up this thing goes. 

 After watching them Laiklie decided she HAD to go, so we pulled Oakley away from the awards show for just long enough for a quick catapult ride. They were also nervous, but all smiles. Everyone loved it and said if they didn't have to pay they would totally do it again! Such brave kids & grandma!

Oakley's Small Team

Oakley met Logan and David at BYUI in her clogging class. They were 3 little misfits all coming from different clogging studios and not really knowing where they fit this year....SOOOOO....they created their own team. :) They spent an entire Saturday choreographing this dance and worked hard to get it ready to compete. It was such a cute dance and you could see that they loved dancing it together! I'm proud of them for knowing what they wanted and going for it. 

Oakley also did all her usual individual events and duets with Brooklyn, plus a long duet with Laiklie. She danced her guts out at Nationals this year too!

Nationals Instructor

I'm probably the only mom who goes to Nationals to watch the dance instructor. Hahaha! She seriously is so cute and so good at what she does. These little dancers love her being their teacher. I'm so proud of how far she has come over the years as a teacher. 

Laiklie & Ellie take Lagoon

These two cuties had a great weekend at Lagoon dancing their guts out. They worked so hard putting several extra practices in preparing for Nationals and it paid off. They got first on everything including High Golds on several of their duets. I'm so proud of them. It is so much fun to have a great friend as your duet partner. What a blessing little Ellie is to Laiklie. She makes her a better dancer. 

Dallin's Fishing Trip

Dallin and a couple friends got up early one morning to run to the little pond in Idaho Falls to fish before school.  About 8 am he text me this picture. Glad he let the little guy go because he sure would have been stinky sitting in his truck at school all day. ;)

Working Heifers

Ryan and Dale decided to AI heifers again this year. Whenever we AI it takes all of us to get the job done. Ryan ran the chute and did seeders, Dallin kept cows in the chute, Dale did shots and bangs/number tags, Rhett did fly tags, Laiklie was the secretary and I kept the shots and tag guns loaded. It is always dirty work, but fun to work together. This was the first of many days with the AI'ing process. Most were cold and miserable, but glad to be finished!

Ryan's Accident

On May 7th Ryan and Dale got up early, branded and loaded a group of pairs to haul to Ozone. Just as they were coming into Iona with a loaded trailer this 18 yr old that was driving his siblings to school ran the stop sign and hit them. He ran his car along the entire side of our flatbed truck hitting both tires and both doors. He hit them hard enough it took both Ryan AND Dale to pull his grill out of the door. Both the doors were damaged enough they wouldn't even open. No one was hurt and luckily he didn't hit the loaded trailer. We are now out a truck until it gets fixed which makes hauling more cows tricky. We are grateful he had insurance to cover the damage though.

Branding

Ryan and Dale decided this year to just take small groups of pairs to Ozone here and there as we had calves ready so instead of running them all through the chutes and branding the same day they decided to just brand the 10-20 calves in each group by hand. I had no idea this is what we were doing when Ryan told me to come help. I have not laughed so hard in a very long time as I did watching these 3 brothers and Dallin tackle, hold down and brand these poor calves. Half the time Dale and Chase were tackling each other. One time Dale went down, the calf on top of him and then Chase jumped on top of both. Dale was laughing so hard he couldn't get out from under the calf. It was totally worth going to help just for the laughs! 😂 I secretly hope we brand like this every year from now on.