Latino Heritage Festival

The 9th annual Latino Heritage Festival was this weekend. Something new they added this year "Dancing with the Celebrities". I was one of eight competitors to take the stage. We each got paired up with a local professional dancer, they picked the style of dance and song and we had a six hour crash course to learn our dance. I danced the cha cha and had a total blast. This was way outside of my comfort zone and to tell you the truth I was super nervous to dance in front of anyone but my immediate family and dance partner, Manuel Cabrejos. My daughter Lydia watched me practice in her playroom all week and would dance right there with me, lets just say at a year and a half, she has better rhythm.

Manuel was so patient and such a great teacher. Outside of being a full time college student at Iowa State he's also a professional salsa dancer. If you ever need to take any sort of dance lesson I highly recommend him. You can find him at Salsa Des Moines.

So for the actual competition, we all danced one by one and then after the scores were tallied half of us were cut...including me. Ah, it was fun while it lasted. Congrats to the winner Fabiola Pastorino!

As my husband told me, for six hours of learning something I've never done before I did the best I could. I'm kind of sad its all over...hmmm maybe salsa lessons are in my future!

I've talked about this so much the last few weeks I'm sure the newsroom is sick of hearing about it, but I think I have one of the celebrities for next year signed up...my co-anchor Amanda Krenz is ready to put her dancing shoes on! Watch out!

Thanks for reading!

Rachel Pierce

rpierce@myabc5.com

Quite the BASH!

My brother, Wes, got married this weekend and it will forever be remembered as one of the most fun, exhausting weekends of my life. He married his beautiful wife, Sarah, in an outdoor ceremony (the same location my husband and I were married eight years ago).

Here's a photo of my family with the bride and groom, my parents, and sister, Shannon.The boys looked quite handsome in their vests, ties, and Chuck Taylor sneakers.Here's the venue where we had the reception. It was like a fairy tale. A lot of work to decorate and a lot of fun to party in!My mom had the idea to light sky lanterns. It was magical. We filled the night sky with love wishes for Wes and Sarah. It was an amazing moment. I might be gushing about it, I can't help it. It was really beautiful. Congratulations Wes and Sarah!

Zoo!

I'm embarrassed to say this, but today was my first time to the Blank Park Zoo! I kept meaning to go but I always ended up taking my daughter somewhere else. I'm totally regretting it now because she just ate it up! With the perfect weather today and the small crowds it was just a blast for our family. Plus she's just sixteen months old so even the little ducks were impressive t0 her. The zoo is the perfect size to stop in look around and go, everything is so close together. I see more visits in the near future and for sure a membership next year.

Rachel Pierce

rpierce@myabc5.com

Summer

(My 16 month old little girl just loves picking and eating tomatoes out of our garden.)

(Variety the Children's Charity event, Polo on the Green)

Where has the summer gone...okay maybe its not over just yet. Lydia is at such a fun age where she enjoys playgrounds, pools, other kids (sometimes), bubbles, animals and anything outdoors.


We had a blast hosting family and friends in town almost every weekend this summer. We love showing off what the metro has to offer. And my husband and I also got some time to ourselves here and there, like attending the Variety the Children's Charity event, Polo on the Green.


(Ran to the playground for some fun this morning)

Rachel Pierce

rpierce@myabc5.com

ABC5 on The Colbert Report

In case you didn't see this in our newscast, enjoy. It's Brad's little 'response' to Stephen Colbert 'attacking' ABC5 on his show, The Colbert Report. Many of us are fans of the show and have gotten a good laugh out of our debut. Click here to watch the clip from The Colbert Report.

Granted, many people have taken Colbert's rant out of context. But we get the joke and we think it's hilarious.

Living History Farms

(Above: Lydia checking out the chickens and a turkey with the help of one of the farmers, below: Lydia and me enjoying a little snack in the shade of a windmill.)

This week when it was blazing hot with a heat index above one hundred, I decided, heck, lets spend the day outdoors at Living History Farms. Honestly it wasn't too bad, probably because we ventured out first thing in the morning. Lydia, my now fifteen month old daughter, and I met up with a long time friend of mine from Chicago. Since it was so hot we opted for the tractor ride to take us to the 1900 farm. That particular farm is great! There's cows, a horse, chickens, a turkey, pig, piglets and we even managed to find a cat. Lydia loved it! She hasn't seen most of those animals and was actually obsessed with the barn cat. She chased that barn cat everywhere. I told my husband about it and he said it looks like we're going to have to get a cat but he said she has to ask for one first (that may be awhile).

The "farmers" there were awesome too! They helped get the animals out so that we could see them and gave us all kinds of great information. It was a little hot but we stayed within the shade of the buildings and I did dump a bottle of water over Lydia's head and she did not mind one bit.

Lydia was wore out after all the exploring and passed out on the tractor ride back, works for me!

If you haven't been out there, I recommend going. Two thumbs up!

Rachel Pierce

rpierce@myabc5.com

(Above: Lydia taking a look at the piglets and she even got to feed them. Below: Lydia chasing around the barn cat.)

Go Mustangs!

Congratulations to the Davis County Mustangs! My high school Alma mater won the class 2a state baseball championship. I went to the game. My whole family was there at Principal Park to cheer them on, along with everybody else from Davis County.

Way to go Mustangs!