Happy 4th of July

What a busy and awesome weekend. We had so much fun celebrating the 4th of July with family and friends this year. My sister Andrea and her family came up from Queen Creek and my other sister Amber came up from Mesa and we had a great time. We woke up Friday morning and headed to the 4th of July Fun Run/10K. Amber, Rick, Brody, Brett, Noelle and Dick did the Fun Run and Rustin and I did the 10K. I can honestly say that this 10K was harder than the Whiskey Row 10K. Maybe it was because I hadn't really trained that much since I ran the St. George Marathon in October, but it pushed me. I was sweating it up. Little over an hour, not bad for a crazy trail course.


We headed back to our house to get ready for the World's Oldest Rodeo. When I was a kid, we would go to the Cedar Fort Rodeo over the 24th of July. Kids rode sheep, kids caught a greased pig, et cetera, et cetera. Eat a greasy hamburger from the concessions. There weren't even bleachers to sit on. Just pull your car or truck up onto the terrace and sit in the back and watch. I'm not a big rodeo person, but I really had a great time this year. It was really fun to watch Brody get excited about all the horseys. It rained on us last year and it also rained this year, but it was fun.

We headed back to my house and everyone came over for a BBQ. Well, it wasn't really a BBQ because I decided against hamburgers and hot dogs and with everyone's help we had Cafe Rio salad. Yummmm!! There isn't a Cafe Rio in Arizona, at least not that I know of, but a friend of mine gave me the recipe, so if you want it, let me know. Delicious.

Nic smuggled some sparklers over the Arizona border from her trip to the Motherland. So while we waited for the fireworks to start, we let the kids do sparklers. Nic and I were talking about when we were kids our dads would light them up and we would run around like crazy people, writing our names and chasing each other and nobody was concerned. We were all hovered around our kids like we were vultures. LOL.

We live right down the road from where our town sets off the fireworks, so we can just stay home and not fight the crowds. It's nothing like the Stadium of Fire, but we enjoyed it.

The next day was just as action-packed as the previous one. We headed off to the parade. Now, I really love living here, but I do have to complain that the parade here is soooooooo long, 160-something entries. It's not like the Lehi Round Up Parade, floats with flowers, all the cheerleaders, bands marching, royalty et cetera, et cetera. Here it is like a huge commercial with lots of horses and lots of Congressmen asking for your vote. Oh, and lots of pooper-scoopers. I love Utah parades. Brody loved it. He was pointing and oohing and aahing at all the animals and even though he isn't a big candy eater, he collected quite a bit.
Next we headed over to the courthouse square and walked around all the booths and then headed to the "Treat Store" to get some popcorn. Amber always gets carmel and I get white cheddar. Scrumptious. We then went to Rick's folks' house for the traditional artery clogging LOL fry bread. Oh so delicious. You make them with taco toppings and then for dessert --- butter and honey. YUMMMMMMM!!

Amber and I then headed to Fashion Bug for a little shopping and then we all went home.

We sat outside for a while on the swing and were visiting. Now, I have this really bad habit of playing with my gum. I don't know why I do it. It's really kind of gross, but I do. Andrea and I were sitting on our porch swing and for some reason, I can't remember, she had her arm up. Reverting back to my instigating days of my childhood, I stuck my gum to her armpit. Oh, can I laugh any harder. The gum was so sticky, I had to get a baby wipe to get it off. I did the best I could, but her arm kept getting stuck to her shirt. Andrea was not impressed but she was laughing until she cried, in true Balle fashion. It was a great weekend and I love it when my family visits. Happy Birthday America!!

What is a Court Reporter??

Last month marked my 11th anniversary of graduating from court reporting school. To this day, I still get asked, "What is a court reporter?" Well, to answer that in a simple way, it is that person in the court room that writes down everything that is said verbatim. Verbatim? Yep. Every uh-huh, every hmmm, every huh? You got it. That is what I do.

The next question that soon follows is, "How did you get interested in that?" Well, when I was a senior in high school, right around graduation time, I had a scholarship to Utah State and was planning on going up to Logan to figure out what I wanted to do with my life. I was toying with Special Education and a couple other things, but my heart really wasn't set on anything specific. That last semester of my senior year, in Ms. Adamson's business procedures class, she had us take a career aptitude test. When my results came back, in the top five careers of my choice, based on how I answered the questions, was a court reporter.

Now, I had no idea what that even was or what they did, so I did a little investigative work and found out. My plans for college soon changed and I enrolled in court reporting school and started one week after high school graduation. About ten months into it, I transferred to a school in Phoenix, Arizona, where I would later get my bachelor's in court reporting and here I am, 11 years later and I still love my job.

I'm not a court room reporter. I do depositions, which are a question/answer session that occurs during the discovery process of a lawsuit. I go to attorney's offices and take down their depositions and then I go home, review the transcripts, print it off and turn it in. I love it. It has been such a good career for me and now that I'm a mom, it is even better because I can go to work for a few hours and then do the rest from home. It is such a huge blessing and I can help supplement our family's income when I need to. I feel really blessed to have sort of stumbled on this career and I just love it.

So, the next time you are watching Law & Order and you see that person sitting there supposedly typing, think of me. PS You type more than one key at a time. They need to hire a real court reporter to come and be an extra for those shows. Sheesh!!