June Trip

We had quite the long vacation in June if you could call it a vacation. Brent worked and worked and got Michelle a new workshop in her new basement and even got a new deck partially done on Dad's house. The old one was dangerous. I love this picture of Dad and Percy. I don't have very many, and I am realizing that I don't have pictures of older people in the family (including us) and on the other hand, lots of pics of the grandchildren. Not that I don't want those pictures, as they are so precious. I don't even have a picture of me to put on my facebook, so one of these days, I will try to get one of me.

We are home now, having spent most of the month of June in Utah. Missouri is a green jungle as always. We are just trying to survive the heat, humidity and bugs. September is my favorite month. I'm just waiting.

Emma and Barrett? Emma and Barrett WHO?

Surely you will all forgive me for my continual neglegence of posting on not only the family blog but also my own shop blog. I don't have any good excuses (mostly because my new goal is to not say, "I'm busy!" because I hate that excuse). I have simply not done it recently.

SO....I don't have any REAL news. We still plan on going out West sometime but don't know when, and I promise to give all of the pertinent people as much notice as I possibly can.

But I figured that I would throw a few pictures up anyway.

You can see here that you cannot seperate Weasel from Barrett. Ever.

Here is a teaser of what I am posting on my shop blog: The toads are Barrett's parents.

Here is Weasel and Barrett, of couse, and Ursa chewing on a bone...of course. Note the Christmas tree that we finally took down a month ago. You can see the Mr. Toad doll in the upper left hand corner as part of the tree decoration.

This is me hugging my oven which I LOVE! Since this picture we have hung all of my cast iron above the stove.

Anyway, I hope that you all get a kick out of these photos. You sure learn a lot being married, you learn a lot "going without" electricity (it will be a full year this June) and you learn a lot traveling to different places and meeting different people. I would love to share all that I have learned, but I think it all sounds like cliches' that EVERYBODY has heard a hundered times....but it doesn't make them any less true. But I think it is mostly the type of learing that must be done by each person for themselves. If I ever think of a way to share what I have learned; not only about cooking on a wood stove or learning the best way to pee outside without filling up your shoes--but more about morals, integrity, true worth, and a good attitude--I will share it. Till then, I'll just keep learning.

Lots of love!

--The Taylors

New Recipe

For any of you who are interested, I published a smoothie recipe on my other blog (pennywise mom) and it's really good. Look at it and see if you want to try it.
Mom

A long time

So, everyone. Here I am, finally getting something on this blog. It's not for lack of time, but totally one of ineptitude. I tried downloading the memory chip from my camera a while back and couldn't make it load. I tried again today, and for some reason it worked. While I know you would love to hear from me without pictures, I am totally sure you would like to see me even more. So we will all be privileged to see some pictures from nearly a year ago in some cases. I would hesitate to put something that old into this blog, but no one actually ever got to see these pics.
First Pic is obviously an Amish horse and carriage when we were in Shipshewana. Not like nobody has ever seen that. So here is another of the carriages in town. There was horse manure everywhere and all down the sides of the road.
The picture of me is at the beach at Lake Michigan. It was very cool there. Literally.
I now understand that I don't know what I'm doing with this. The pictures are not loading where I want them too. So, the first picture isn't really a horse and carriage. It's really my van, the one I don't have anymore. It makes me sick to look at it.
The second pic is of the kids at Thanksgiving point in Utah. I told them to scream like the shark was getting them. It looks kind of funny.
Anyway, it's been so long since I blogged, I'll have to figure out how to do this all over again. Oh! one last picture. Natalie is usually good at her bread baking. This time was interesting though. I call it, "the can that barfed up bread."

Brynn in an orphan dress

This is Brynn in a dress made from rather drab fabric......as in, the fabric that I happened to have in my "quilt" stash (as if I actually did any recreational sewing these days...)

It's been a completely crap day, so these pictures made me happy. You should see all the poses this girl strikes.

Just so you know...

This is the restraunt where Barrett and I ate lobster up in Maine. It was delicious!

This is me chewing a tree down in Maine. It was delicious!

This is me sweeping the floor of our un-abandoned house...AGAIN! We put in a larger stove, and we are putting in an even LARGER stove soon. We are insulating also. I was just realizing the other day that we have it much easier than our family did in Oakley, and there aren't 6 little kids with us either! Whew! So please don't worry about us. We have lots of food, have HOT showers, piles of clothing, piles of wood to burn, and near-by neighbors who have already offered us a place in their homes if it got a little too chilly. We are looking forward to a snug, low-key winter where all we have to do is all the projects that we are always putting off.

Just so you all know, electricity isn't IMPOSSIBLE, infact it is even on the "to do list", but it is after insulation for sure.

This is the house this last fall. You will recognize Ol' Blue, the rabbit, the horse trailer, and the house hiding behind it all somewhere. If we had had more time this fall, we could have tapped those trees infront for some real mapel syrup. The house doesn't look all that large in the photo, but I'd say that it is about 1800 to 2000 square feet. It also has two seperate basements.

Barrett came in the house and told me today that someone broke into the farmer's barn, stole half of the cow feed and dumped piles of manure in the cows water trough. I was horrified and tried to think of what wacko would go to all that trouble...and then I realized...the wacko was Spanky. And Barrett laughed his head off. Thanks a lot, you obease pony!

Until next time--Chao!

Todd Show and Brynn/ Seattle

This is Brynn helping Todd to take a drink . Isn't that precious?

Okay! See those magnificent bouquets of flowers behind Brynn, as well as the ones she's holding??? Those are only $5 at the Pikes Place Market in Seattle. Holy Face!!!!

Brynn and Todd in vague pirate garb. Todd took that wooden sword he's holding and beat everything in sight. At that festival, they had no less than 3 swords a piece GIVEN to them because they were so cute.