Cowboy Christmas :)

There are not going to be any pictures with this post - just thought I'd let you all know what a blast we had (and what an adventure it was) ! Well it all started first thing Saturday morning - we were supposed to leave Cedar between 7:30 & 8 but my phone died - so my alarm didn't go off & my mom walked into my room at 8 & said "Wake up!" :) ha ha so I jumped in the shower (I felt so bad for being late!) & hurried & got me & Addi ready. So we left at 9:15 instead of 8.... oops! We got down to St George & went straight to the hospital to see my Gramma - she was sleeping so we didn't stay long but we gave her hugs & chatted with her for a second. (Addi was excited because they let her in as well!) Then we drove to Bloomington to drop some stuff off at Shari's house & pick up Lauren & Ricky. Shari had a lot of prepping to do to get her house ready for little Kaylee's 1st birthday party so she didn't get to go with us! :( Next time Shari! :) So we collect Lauren & Ricky :) - stop at the gas station & head on out of there! We go straight to the Convention Center to get as much Cowboy Christmas time in as we can - it is a lot of fun for those of you who haven't been - good place to buy any "Western" themed presents! They have some amazing stuff there & it's free to the public so it's great to just even walk around. I found some cute stuff there - Addi got new jammies with horses on them (She also got a free pony, chapstick, a bracelet & a pen) I got a couple of pairs of pants & shirts. Well we finished sooner than we thought we were going to so we decided to go to Bass Pro Shops. I LOVE that store - we spent forever in there & didn't even make it up the stairs or to the side with the boats.... crazy I know! I found the cutest shirt for Addi & my mom found the cutest "Fishpacks" (Backpacks in the shape of fish for the kids' fishing gear) for all of her grandkids. They had Santa there while we were in there so it was crazy busy with parents & kids - I would've gotten Addi's picture taken but the line was SO long! After we got done at Bass Pro Shops - we were all hungry so we decided to get back on the freeway & think of a place to eat. Well no one was saying anything so I just told my mom to get off an exit & we'd find somewhere. (Ricky hasn't been to Vegas very many times so neither him or Lauren knew of good places to eat....) So I asked Ricky which motel he wanted to see the inside of - because there are restaurants inside of every hotel & we could find a place to eat wherever he wanted to go. Well there was a lot of mind changing going on ha ha so we drove around for a while until we finally decided on the Cheesecake Factory inside of Ceaser's Palace. :) It was crazy because every time I have gone to eat there it has always been at least an hours wait - but this time we got right in. After we were done eating the show came on so Lauren, Ricky & Addi ran over to watch it - since none of them had seen it. :) (I guess Addi covered her ears the whole time... go figure) We hit a couple of shops inside the Forum Shops before we left - then we headed out on the road. Well after we left Vegas right before we reached Overton my mom's battery light started flashing on her vehicle - we thought something was just shorted out because all of her gauges were fine just the light was blinking. So she just put a piece of paper over it & we kept going. Well right before we hit Mesquite her gauge started to go down - like she wasn't getting a very good charge on her battery - and all of the sudden all of her gauges just went dead & the lights on the dash went off. She let off the gas & they all came back on - stepped on the gas they went off... you catch my drift. :) So we pulled over & Ricky checked the cables on her battery to make sure they weren't loose (we just put a brand new battery in it while we were in Moab in November) well it seemed to be ok after that so we got back on the road & just decided to watch it carefully - we figured if we could get it to St George we could borrow a vehicle until someone could take a look at it and figure out what was wrong. Well after we started into the gorge it started happening again and when the lights would go dim that included the headlights - so we were driving through the gorge with really dim headlights at 11 at night..... not typically a good scenario. Finally we find a place that we can pull over (it was right before the Cedar Pocket exit for those of you who know where that is) and the whole thing just died. I called up Shari & asked her if she could call her parents to bring their Suburban down to come pick us up since there were 5 of us & Shari didn't have a vehicle that could hold us all. We were so lucky to have died in a part of the gorge where we had cell service - and it was good service to. :) Ricky looked it up & said it was the alternator that had gone out - so we sat patiently in the dark and waited for help to arrive. (Luckily Addi slept from Vegas until help got there - then she woke up) Karen & Garrett came to our rescue - they got there about 12:30 and Garrett checked things out he decided to jump it & have my mom drive it to the Cedar Pocket exit so that we wouldn't get a ticket or a tow fine for leaving it on the side of the road. She had to make a run for it because the charge wasn't going to last long & he was right - we got off the exit & up the road to the place we could park it and it died. The boys pushed it into a spot where the road was closed we locked it up & headed back to Gramma's house. We borrowed Lauren's vehicle to take home :) (Thanks Lo!) & we got home around 2:30. Needless to say it was a lot longer of a day than we thought it was going to be - but we are sure lucky to have the friends & family that we do! :)