This is what I do...

...when I go to Vegas for a wedding.

Here is my good buddy Worf.

Perhaps you recognize him. He is the tactical officer and the Chief of Security on the USS Enterprise. Actually, he is the Lieutenant Commander.

Worf is not all about titles though.

His true passion is World domination!!!

I told him that I was going to go to Vegas for a wedding and he was all over it.

Texting me again and again that he HAD to go with me. That he was going to take over Vegas and realize his dream.



What could I do?

He has a hippo for a phaser...and a drink stirrer for another weapon.

You don't mess with power like that.

So I took him with me to Vegas. He really enjoyed the view from our room at the Luxor. Kept asking me to break the glass.

What a freak.


It didn't take long before he was running off. I followed him, just had to see what he was up to

I turned the corner and there he was. Standing at gun point.

Surprise, surprise.

Who goes for a walk to try to achieve world domination and ends up with gun in his face?

Obviously Worf does.


Not so tough now with out your hippo phaser now are you?

I had to do something. He had the room key after all.

So, I followed them. Worf was tied to a TREE!

What?

How is he going to get out of this?


As I peered a little closer I noticed.....

He had dropped the room key! Salvation!

"You're on your own, sucker!" Was all I could manage to shout out to him as I ran away.

Taking a last look, I saw him. He was free, and angry.

I am going to be watching my back for a while now.

Shannon bo Bannon

Get your party hats on boys and girls, because it is time for....

SHANNON'S BIRTHDAY!!!!

Woot woot!

There she is... a precious little baby in my Moms arms. Such a little sweetie.

(yes, I stole these pics off of Shannon's blog, but it was an old post...I need new Shannon pics ok?)

She was an amazing kiddo even then.

Here she is now. ---------------------------->

27 years older and so wonderful. (that's out nephew Wyatt with her)

I always write about my family members on their birthday's ..here is proof. http://coopercomics.blogspot.com/2008/07/happy-birthday-shannon.html

So, sorry if I repeat myself. :)

My sister is kind and genuine.

I feel at home with her around.

She is really special to me.

So, anyone mess with her and I will toilet paper your house sooooo good, your Momma'a Momma will be picking up paper for a month!

All this emotion!

What is my deal???

It must be because my baby sister is 7 months pregnant and I am a wee bit overprotective.


<--------------------Doesn't she look smashing, even in a sliding glass door reflection???? Everyone I know has heard me go on and on about how excited I am about my nephew coming soon. I am serious about his arrival. He is going to bust into this world and we are all going to love him to BITS! That is a fact.

How does the birthday girl Shannon feel about this????

Ahhh. I see.

Two thumbs up.

Love you sooooooo much Shay-bah-bons.

*Sigh*

I must just have the summer blahs.

Blogging hasn't been up there on my list of things to do. I love writing about our adventures...so, it is weird not to.

I think it is the heat.

Awesome news alert!

My bestest friend since I was 14, Polly Page came to see me.

She drove all the way from Tucson. Pretty sure that is 9 hours away form here. She even brought her super cute and fun daughter Felicia.

I know...amazing friend huh?

She is.

Zion was our destination on a hot Tuesday. Kelly had a fun time riding with Felicia. Such patience for an 11 year old. I admire that.

We saw a really smashing goat. Or is it a big horned sheep? I am really not sure






Did we do any hikes? See the hanging gardens?

Um......no.

It was too hot!

Bleh..the heat.

I am such a cry baby about the heat lately. I lived in Tucson for a couple of years. We kicked it in Henderson Nevada for 4 years.

Pretty sure I wore out my heat tolerance.

Anyway....we went to Springdale and had a yummers lunch. that town has changed so much. Such a tourist trap.

Love it.

Kelly drew a picture for the waiter. It is of her...on top of a hill. She is pushing an alien off of the hill. This is drawn often, not really sure why.


I made my standard paper crane. My mom got me a really awesome origami book with lots of different things to make. I need to practice the new things more.

But, I make the same crane 10 times a day. Working on changing that.




Now Polly and Felicia are back home.

I am pretty sure that this is what it looked like from the back seat.

Love them.

Kindergarten Circus!!

Behold the awesome strength that is the legendary "Colossal Kelly Cooper!!!

Strong-girl, and kindergarten graduate.

The Kindergarten Circus here at Kanab Elementary has got to be the cutest kids program on the planet.

<----- Check out Kel with her teacher Mrs. McFadden. Aren't they the most epic pair ever??? Kelly loves her teacher, I am really glad that they are close, because Kelly takes a while to bond with people. We will miss her...**sniff**



When her class started to practice for the different parts Mrs. McF came up to me and told me that Kelly might be perfect for the part of Strong man.

She told me that, every time Kelly pretended to lift heavy things all of the kids laughed.

The only deal was that it is usually for the boys. Kelly's class has only 4 girls in it, and they are mostly tightrope walkers, or acrobats. They had to spread the girls out. So she might not get to be the strong-girl.


I told her that either way, we would practice at home and make our best effort.

Then the part assignments came in Kelly's back pack.

Kelly was going to be a juggler...uh, ok.

(obviously, you can tell by the pictures that she WAS the strong-girl...but I wanted to tell how it worked out...it's kind of silly)





My little girl was not really excited to be a juggler. We worked on learning to juggle everyday. She would get so frustrated. It was starting to be not so fun.

Then, to top it all off she was going to have to wear makeup.

Clown makeup.

Kelly thinks clowns are all around creepy, and was not loving the idea at all.

Apparently it was translating over to the class practices. Mrs. McF pulled me aside one afternoon and told me that Kel was frustrating her juggling partner. He was taking his roll as a juggler seriously, and Kel would rather dance around.

The decision to switch Kelly to the strong-girl was made.

Hooray!!

(See? <-----even stong-girls hug their Grandpa's) We then started on her outfit. She needed to have muscles. That is pretty much all that we knew.

After rummiging around in the old larriette costumes for a bit, I found an outfit from one of Ali's dances. I think that she was a mermaid.

Then me made the arms, and decided on our hairstyle. It is called the girl-hawk. I love it.

D.J., my Mom and I went to watch her at the circus. I think that I was more nervous than she was!

She put on quite the show. Even the songs that they all sang together...she rocked all of the dance moves. Not too many other kids did that.

I swear that I laughed the whole time, she was such a great actor.

Afterwards we went and had cookies with all of the other parents. I had a few of them come up to me and telll me that she was so funny, and that she did a great job.

I even had a couple of them ask me where I had gotten my ideas for the treat days this last year.

All I could say is that I found them online...I wish that I could say I made them up myself...oh well.



All in all, it was a great experience. Kelly had a sweet kindergarten year. She learned to read, write and do so much math.

We all are excited to see what else she will do next year. :)

She is annoyed at the idea of summer break though....she wants to be in first grade NOW


I took a few really funny videos of the circus....but this one is the best because you can watch her to her strong-girl poses. Admit it. You wish you were a kindergartener too!

Salamanders and gnats are icky

It is true. ----> (Kelly is actually holding a salamander)

I spent last weekend with Kel, and my niece Jesee. They were happily playing outside, and I was keeping cool inside by the air conditioning.

Typical me.

I was watching them out the window the whole time...you really need to do that with silly little girls. When I was there Jesee got a HUGE bloody nose, and Kelly scraped her elbow.

That was all in the first fifteen minutes that I was there.

Ugh.

Then the little sweeties went on a salamander hunt.


I do not know about you, but those things creep me out. They are all slimy, and their eyes poke out of their little heads a wee bit.

Blick!

Jesee loves to hunt for them. Kelly just recently showed an interest in them. Normally she would scream at a mere bug, but lately she has been sowing some real guts.

I really had to take a picture of her holding the salamander, because I wasn't' really sure if tomorrow she would go back to the old Kelly and run away shrieking. Photographic evidence was needed.

The girls kept trying to bring it inside. I was firm with them...NO salamanders allowed in the house. They seemed to be willing to listen to me and I only had to tell them a few times to keep it out.

When I left I noticed that it was not in the bowl on the porch where they had left it. Sneaky little sneakers took it inside without me knowing. Kelly told me that they hid it in Jesee's room.

It was lost in the house...

My sister said that if you smell something icky in her house...in Jesee's room, then that is where the salamander ended up.

Oh well I guess....

Really icky side note.

I did Kelly hair like this <--------- that day when they were outside all day. (that is not the icky part) See all of the parts in the hair???




Well, out where Cynthia and Rhett live there is a crud-load of gnats. Some people call them no-see-ums, either way they still suck.

I didn't know that they were in season...and I REALLY didn't know that they were in love with Kelly blood.

They bit her and bit her soooooo much! I tried to take a picture to document the feast that was Kelly, but the camera failed to capture it correctly.

The mistake was made when I said to someone that she had been "eaten alive". Kelly overheard it and did not take it lightly.

There was some pretty powerful arm flailing and head scratching, followed by a pretty strict warning to me to never tell her that she was being "eaten alive" again.

I agreed.

Now- after all of that nastiness, you could use a mind cleanser. How about a picture of my newest sweetie-pie niece Taylor???

Pictures of angel babies always make my brain feel better. I hope it has the same effect on you.

She is just sooo cute huh. :)

Kel's first Zion trip :)

This last Saturday, we decided it was high time to take Kelly to see Zion National Park.

She is six years old, and STILL had not been there.

This year we are trying to take her to see as many parks as we can fit into our busy driving-back-and-forth-from-Cedar- schedule.

Ugh. :(






We got the idea from Emily. She was going to be hiking in Zion that day with the Thebeau clan...maybe we could meet up and hike with them too???

Well, that was the plan anyway.

We took off for Zion at 10:30. I was told to be ready at 10:00...but anyone that knows me, knows that I am ALWAYS late. I am pretty sure that when people plan things, they tell me a half an hour earlier so I will be on time.



I am ok with that.

D.J. and I haven't been to Zion since around 2000. That was before they added the shuttles. They are an interesting addition.

I think that I would enjoy the ride on the shuttle a wee bit more if I wasn't so claustrophobic. I took it all in stride though, and did not stress in the least.

It is pretty hard to stress out in Zion.



Deejer pointed out interesting spots along the way, and informed me about the different hikes. They all sound fun.

NOT Angel's landing though. That one is absolutely not for me. I got the willies just from looking at it in the shuttle. ON THE GROUND.

I could see teeny tiny little people on the edge, at the top, and I could not bring myself to even picture myself up there.

All right, enough of me going on and on about what a world class weeenie I am.

We decided to just go with the river walk.

• It is short....1 mile to the end...1 mile back.
• Mostly flat.
• full of flowies, and nature.
• Right along the Virgin river...really important as you can see here --------------------------->

We had lunch by the river bank. It was incredibly nice. Kelly got to cool her aching toes and we all got to enjoy the sound of the river running past us.


After watching Kelly walk for 2 miles, I realized that she needs to move up a size or two in the shoe department. I would buy some for her now, except it is only a couple of weeks until school is out. Then it is full on flip flop time.

I adore flip flop time.

No socks to fold...no worries about sweaty feet. Kelly really does not like having hot feet. Who does really???







On the more pleasant list of things that Kelly DOES enjoy....

ZION NATIONAL PARK!!!
(tttaaah daaahhh)









We DID meet up with Em, Doug Mia and all of the kick booty Thebeau family. Not an easy task. There was about a million and a half more people to weed through to find them.

We round a bend in the trail and there they all were. Kelly thought that it was pretty magical. There was lots of hugs and screams of delight.





They were all just going down the river walk, and we were done for the day...so we parted ways and made plans to meet up later that night. (the shish-ka-bobs were amazing)

Back on the shuttle. Kelly really liked being able to ride around without a seat belt.

Freedom!!!




Here is one of the only pictures where Kell Bell is NOT striking pose. That is a trick though....I asked her to look out the window.....so it is technically a pose.

Like her hair? It has lots of cute twisties. I get my ideas from this blog. The story of a princess and her hair.

This lady is a kids hair goddess.


The BAD part about this hair style is that I forgot to put sunscreen where Kelly had parts..and she now has lots of sun burns on her scalp.

Owie!!


Lastly...today was my REAL last treat day of kindergarten history. I thought that it was last month, but I was incorrect.

We made SNAILS!!!!

They are...

• rolled up tortillia's with peanut butter and jelly for the shell
  
• a cheeto for the bady
• chives with a knot on the end for the eye stalks.
  

I was going to make them with lunchmeat, cheese, and mayo...then have a pickle for the body...but I ran out of $$$.

Bummer.

The kiddo's liked them though. :)




The front yard here at the Casa is blooming.

The back yard is plated and ready for a HUGE garden this summer.

We are looking forward to a great summer. :)

Flat Hannah

We have had an interesting visitor here at the Casa.

She is ...

• flat
• multi-colored
• quiet
• cute
• full of adventure

Her name is Flat Hannah. She was sent here to Casa de Coop by a little girl in California.

Why did she send her?

Well, her school is doing a project based on the book named "Flat Stanley". They made their own "Stanley" and sent them off to different parts of the country.

Our little friend Hannah knows Nicole, and she suggested that Flat Hannah be sent to our house. Cole knows that we will do our best to show Flat Hannah a good time.

Show her a good time is what we did!

MarciaMickMom ended up taking her on a ten day tour of Utah's most wonderful National Parks. Here she is...on the bus.....






....Reading up on Checker board mesa in Zion...










...Becoming a Junior Ranger in Bryce...











....Riding a boat on Lake Powell with a guide named Danny...









...Gasping at Rainbow Bridge....










...About to take a hike to see Delicate Arch in Arches National Park...











...checking out the deer at Capital Reef....











...enjoying the incredible view at Landscape Arch....










...Chilling with a Navajo Hoop dancer...












...Catching some sun beside a hogan...











...and lastly trying to figure out the petrogylphs.







We will miss you Flat Hannah. Hope that you had a wonderful time!