Ten Pin Cassie!

As the summer is coming to a close I have become very bored and have run out of things to do. Normally this is a bad thing but in my case it may not be. It has given me the motivation to actually have a social life. I am so blessed to have so many great friends at home this summer so there are plenty of people to hang with. One of my most recent social adventures involved Tallon, Race, Claire, me, Show Low, Pizza Hut, bowling, and ice cream. Best night of the summer! I haven't laughed that hard since I left Provo. On the way home Tallon and Race sat in the back seat singing to The Format at the top of their lungs. Luckily for Claire and I, both of them have absolutely amazing voices so we were in heaven! Good times :)

This is the most normal picture that Claire and I were able to capture of these fellas.....I know, it is so impressive, right?!

We all love our dear Race :)

Try getting dear Tallon to smile!

This was Race's move that he dubbed "the proposal". It started out a little rough but actually ended up winning two out of the three games we played. His knee is a little sore now though :)

And this is the closest thing we got to a group picture of us. It was not planned but I think that it turned out to be a pretty great picture!

Fourth of July- My first rodeo EVER!

The Fourth of July is kind of a big deal where I am from, some people like it even better than Christmas! None of my family came home this year so it was kind of a quiet Independence Day but we still had fun with the family that lives in town. I was a slacker and didn't get pictures of everything but the few that I got I will talk about.

Saturday morning Wendi, Clif, and I were up early to run the annual fun run at the hospital. All three of us ran the 5k. It was killer because the course went up and over graveyard hill- the biggest steepest hill in town- and it was pretty hot. But we all survived and even won medals. There weren't tons of people to compete with so it wasn't too hard for Wendi and I to get second place medals for our age divisions. Clif did get first in his and was the winner of the whole race. Good job all of us!

I have never been to a rodeo before and I grew up with a Dad who used to rope in rodeos all the time. So I decided that it was high time that I experience one. I was only able to talk my Dad into taking me because my brother-in-law, Clif, was participating in a few events. Thanks Clif!

These first two pictures are of Clif in the Pony Express:

Clif did great considering he never practiced but barely lost to his friend Jake Hamblin.
These next two pictures are of Clif in the Keg Race, which is kind of like musical chairs:

Clif got out in the third round but still had lots of fun.

This is a picture of Hunter Hamblin doing the pickup race. No Hunter is not a family member but I thought the picture was pretty cool!

I had a blast at the rodeo and we didn't even stay for very long! I enjoyed having Dad right next to me to explain everything and answer all my questions. I enjoyed watching but, like all sports, it made it so much more interesting and entertaining to have someone I know competing. Thanks Clif! and thanks Dad for taking me!

So it has been a while since I wrote so I will do my best to fill everyone in on the recent happenings in my life. Here goes....

Memorial day was great because it was the first time that I actually celebrated it the right way. Mom, Dad, and I went to St. Johns to go visit my grandparents' graves. My Grandpa Heap fought in World War II so we wanted to remember him and his wife and all they sacrificed for our freedom. It took us a while to find their graves and in the process of finding them we ran across about 50 other relatives in the cemetery. I was amazed and really interested to look around as see all these names that I knew. One of the headstones had the names of my great-great grandparents that I had studied last semester in my family history class. It was really cool to see their graves so I just had to take a picture! (yes, I know that my shadow is in the picture too...oops)

After visiting the cemetery we went and visited the LeFevres for a while, shopped at the St. Johns Alco and then returned home. That evening we had a BBQ with all the family around and the weather was great. After dinner we sat down and talked about why we have Memorial Day and all talked about some of our ancestors who fought in American wars. What a good day!

It was the next day that we learned about the wild fire, dubbed the Wallow Fire, that was started over the holiday weekend. I thought that that was quite a bummer but surely it would be like all the other fires we get around here and would shortly be put out. Nope. It grew and grew until it had traveled over thirty miles in our direction. We had had problems with the smoke from the fire in our valley the entire time but it took about a week before we were evacuated from our homes. Scary! I actually left a day early because I went with my sister Holly and her girls to go to Utah. We had already planned the trip but decided to leave early because of all the fire problems. It was hard to evacuate myself and drive away from my home not knowing what would be there when I returned.

Utah was great though! It was a good break from the smoke and distracted us from the constant stress. It was great to see family again. All seven of the kids in my family were all together! That is rare so we had to take pictures, of course! Unfortunately I do not have a copy of them so I can post them. It also really enjoyed spending time with some of my old roommates. I miss those guys!
On Saturday morning Wendi and Karen ran the Utah Half-Marathon while Jake, Clif, Mel and I ran the 5k. It was a lot more fun than I thought it was going to be!

Clif was the one who came up with the idea for all of us to run the 5k. He had never run a race before but has recently picked up running. Of course Jake and he were speed demons. hehe. Mel and I just went at our own speed and enjoyed the scenery. In honor of Clif's good idea I decided to post a special picture of him and his family :)

After our race, most of us drove down to Monticello for our cousin, Kelvin's, homecoming. It was great to see him and some of the extended family again and while we were there the evacuation on Round Valley was lifted. Most of us drove to St. Johns that night and stayed with family for a bit before returning home. We are now finally all home! What a June it has been so far!

New Furniture!

Well last week we gave up the furniture that has been in our living room for thirteen years. We took it to the yard sale that the hospital auxilary was having.

Then we were left with a very empty living room that was just no fun to be in. Luckily we only had to live without furniture for a week.

Yesterday the new furniture came!! And here it is....

It is definately different from the floral couches from my childhood but change is good, right?! The only problem that I can find is that the couch cushions and pillows are just a little too fluffly. I guess we need some family to come visit so they can help us break in the new couches (hint hint).

Playing Hair with the Girls

Well I am home in Eagar again for the summer. It has been an adjustment to come back to the slow-paced valley but I am liking it more every day. Today my dear neices came to visit me and my parents. They soon became bored with the adult conversation and started begging me to let them play with my hair. Why not?! So we rushed upstairs and got out my pitiful hair supplies. First they brushed and brushed my hair. Then they styled it. Then Ashlyn started doing her sisters' and her own hair too. Pretty soon it turned into a photo shoot:

This is my awesome new hairdo!

Affie got a stylish side ponytail with a pretty flower.

We tried to get a picture of all of us but the first one didn't quite work out. So we squished closer together to try again and.....

That one didn't quite work either. Aunt Cassie's arm just isn't long enough :)

Affie got really into the picture taking so she insisted on taking lots of pictures of the rest of us. This is one of my favorites! What a fun time we had and everyone got along so it was great! I love being able to be around this part of the family again and I love having the time to be make silly memories with my neices!

Once upon a time it was late on a Saturday night and most of my roommates and I were laying around the living room feeling kind of tired but struggling to get up the energy to put ourselves to bed. Then Deborah remembered that her car was on empty but the next day was Sunday so she couldn't go get gas. She decided that there were 15 mintutes left of Saturday in which she was going to get gas. She asked for a volunteer to go with her but none of us wanted to go. We tried really hard to guilt Heather into going but she wouldn't. Finally someone said that we all had to go. I don't know why that person had such authority but we all listened and bundled up to go out into the snow and get gas. I happened to grab my camera on the way out of the door (I was thinking about this blog that I just started). We turned the trip into a dance party/ photo shoot/ giggle fest. Silly, I know, but we had a blast! I love my roommates! Here are of few of our fun pictures:

I actually do have something to write on a blog!

So a few weeks ago late on a Saturday night I thought about starting a blog. My roommates and I talked for about half and hour about what I should name it but by the time we decided it was two in the morning and time for bed. I thought about it the next day and decided that I didn't have time to do a blog and I didn't have anything to write about anyway so I forgot about it. Two days later I had an adventure that was blog worthy and decided it was fate. Here goes....

I was on campus late doing homework on a Tuesday night. My roommate Bethany had stayed late with me so we wouldn't have to walk home alone in the dark. We finally started home at about 10:30 and I was excited to get home and go to bed after a really long day. On the way home we got a phone call from our other roommate Heather who had been home all day with a sick stomach. She was craving a Wendy's Frosty and wanted us to pick it up for her on the way home. We agreed because it wasn't too far out of the way and we love our dear Heather. When we finally got to the Wendy's it was about 10:45. Trying to open the door to walk in, we soon realized that it was closed and only the drive-through was open. Bethany, determined to do this nice thing for Heather, talked me into walking through the drive-through with her. Unfortunately it was a really busy drive-through. We would get behind the last car, then see another car coming and get out of line again. We did this many times until I told Bethany that if we got out of line again we were going home. So we stayed in line with cars infront and behind us. I couldn't turn around because I felt so silly! We were giggling at the awkward situation and as we stepped up to order our frosty, we ran into a problem. We didn't set off the sensor for the person inside to know that we were there (and it was only later that we found out that it was against the law to walk through a drive-through..oops). We danced around, trying to set off the sensor but it didn't work and we had to shamefully walk out of the drive-through line. Bethany wouldn't give up though and decided to just ask the next car to buy it for us. So we did. By looking at their faces, the two boys in the next car thought that we were really weird but, bless their hearts, they did it for us. We finally got the frosty and started walking home again. The whole way home we were laughing about all that we had gone through to get this silly frosty. We were crossing the last crosswalk before we got to our apartment and Bethany got over excited about the car driving by that she knocked the frosty out of my hand onto the street! We both stood there screaming for a few seconds and then quickly picked it up and finished crossing the street. Lucky the frost had been frozen enough to stay in the cup when it fell and so the lid popped off but none of the icecream had touched the street. We still couldn't believe that after all we had gone through to get the darn frosty we had come so close to loosing it. We finished walking home and had to talk pictures of it before we would give it to Heather. When we told the rest of the roommates the story, we laughed and laughed! Oh what an adventure!