Snowshoeing

NFRs

Every year for 10 days in December Vegas turns country, as cowboys and girls gather for The National Finals Rodeo! It is the best of the best, no messing around true rodeo. We went down for the weekend and went to the final Saturday night rodeo, a ton of fun! Spend a lot of time at Cowboy Christmas, which is where vendors from all over gather in the convention center to make up a country shopping extravaganza!

The christmas decor in the various hotels is amazing this time of year. With a few days until Christmas I'll leave you with some pics of decor from the Bellagio, enjoy!

Holiday Giving

This past weekend I got together with some girlfriends for our annual day of wrapping presents for The Forgotten Children's Fund! It is a great seasonal organization that raises money to purchase, wrap, and deliver gifts to needy Children.

Each child receives a new winter coat, a bicycle (if desired), helmet and at least three toys! Food staples and warm blanket are also included for the family. The gifts are delivered on Christmas eve and day from Santa and his team of elves. They are currently serving more than 2,900 children in 800 families.

Make sure to check them out if you're looking for somewhere to volunteer for the holidays, its fun and for a good cause!

Over the last couple of years for Christmas, John and I have gone shopping for toys and donated them to Toys For Tots, this year we asked people to bring a toy to donate to our Apple Cup party. We dropped the bundle of toys off over the weekend, Thank you to everyone who brought something! Wish we could all see the look on the kids faces who receive them.

Wow!

Where has the time gone!! Last I blogged it was early spring, now as I sit here writing this the snow is falling and the holidays are fast approaching. Since that time we've had a lot of fun, which means there is a lot to share. We finished planning our wedding and got married, in fact today 1 year ago John proposed, crazy to think all that has gone on between now and then.

I love this time of year! We thought things would slow down after the wedding but they haven't and December seems to be just as packed. We'll be kicking off the first weekend with Apple Cup, the next weekend we're headed to The National Finals Rodeo and hopefully to win big in good ol' Las Vegas and that leaves one weekend to enjoy the holiday festivities with friends and family before Christmas day. Seems to go by faster every year!

Enjoy the snow!

oh, and I just saw Yankee candles is having a buy 2 large jars or tumblers and get 2 free! Pretty good deal...

Pound For Pound Challenge!

Finally feels a little like summer today, yay!! It seems this time of year everyone has the workout bug, I know we do especially with our wedding almost 2 months out. Right now you can do something to help feed the hungry in America, and help yourself in the process. For every pound of weight you pledge to lose, the Pound For Pound Challenge will donate 14¢ to Feeding America® — enough to deliver one pound of groceries to a local food bank! You can pledge through June 30th. There is a large amount of kids who now that schools out will be going with out breakfast, lunch and some dinner. If you are already working towards a goal or have wanted to start, make a pledge and make someone else's summer a little better.

Photo Session!

We thought we'd see how photogenic we are together before the big day, so we got together with our wedding photographer Kristen Honeycutt for an engagement session! We met up with her at Golden Gardens, home of our first date as well as where John proposed. Enjoy!

Walk for Multiple Sclerosis in Coeur d'Alene

Last weekend we participated in our second annual Hein Family MS walk in Coeur D’Alene. Although this has been a family tradition for almost 10 years, this marks the second year Penny was brave enough to join the family chaos walk. Along with Buster and newcomers Scott and Miriam Brown, the team accomplished the 5-mile (with a few shortcuts) fundraising walk in freezing, blustering winds. The local walk raised over $30,000 so far. Penny was the most prepared for the walk, having completed the Seattle MS walk just a few weeks earlier with good friends Megan and Leslie.

After the walk the team headed back for a BBQ and a relaxing afternoon that included a few naps! Penny, Buster and I plan on making this an annual event and are hoping one year we actually get nice weather!

Branding

The other weekend we headed to "The Farm" my parents place in Ellensburg for the 2010 Brown Branding! John went last year and helped while I was out of town. That was his first time branding, there were some great stories and he was more prepared this year for the work it takes to wrastle these little or not so little calfs!
The Momma's making noise for their babies!
This one thinks he's getting out...
Working Hard!!
Lil' Buckaroos in Training
3-Day Old Calf

Play Ball

These words kicked off the 2010 Mariner season. This is the second year we have gone to the Home Opener. In honor of this we both took the day off, did some wedding errands the first half of the day and then headed to the game early to enjoy the opening festivities! Was fun to have some of the old gang open with Randy Johnson throwing the first pitch to Dan Wilson. It was a packed house to kick off the season, looking forward to enjoying more M's games this year!