I'll admit, I watched it

Yes, I watched the Michael Jackson memorial service today. Since I only have an antenna, there weren't a lot of options this afternoon on T.V., so I turned on the memorial service while I worked.

I have never been a huge Michael Jackson fan. But, for some reason, I couldn't stop crying through the whole thing!! It was a lovely tribute to an undisputed world icon, but it was also very moving to get a glimpse into the person behind the icon. I nearly lost it when his daughter, Paris, spoke for just a moment about how much she loved her dad. Very sweet.

There is no denying the impact Michael has had on the world through his life, and he will certainly be missed. It is remarkable to me, though, how fanatical people can become over just one person. I can't pretend to understand what it must have been like to live every day of your life in the spotlight, whether for good or bad. Maybe now, he will get a little peace and quiet...

Farewell, Michael!

SUPER, MEGA, ULTRA, HUMONGOUS BLOG POST...

...OR The Taylor Family "Mini-Vacay"

So, someone (ahem, DAD) pointed out that I haven't blogged for a few months & it was time for some new material.

HERE IT IS FOLKS...

The Taylor family week in review:

Cory was on vacation this week, so we decided to take a short vacation up North. Tuesday afternoon we headed up to Sandy. On the way, we stopped at the...

DINOSAUR MUSEUM

at THANKSGIVING POINT

T-Rex

Ahh...don't eat me!

SHARK! RUN!!

Archaeologists in the making.

According to the advertisements, it is "the largest dinosaur museum in the world!" The kids really enjoyed seeing all the dinosaurs, playing in the sand, and of course the gift shop!

It was late by the time we were through, so we headed off to the hotel in Sandy and crashed for the night.

Cory had a meeting for work on Wednesday, so we woke up early in order to get some fun in before he had to go.

First, we drove out to South Jordan to go to the...

OQUIRRH MOUNTAIN TEMPLE OPEN HOUSE

Lovely little temple with a stunning view.

The fam on the temple grounds


The Oquirrh Mountain Temple is the 130th temple of the church. And, South Jordan is the first city to have 2 temples inside the city boundaries. It was so nice for the kids to have a chance to go in the temple. They all thought it was very cool and can't wait until they are old enough to go inside again.

After our lovely visit to the temple, we decided to take a quick drive up to the...

LIVING PLANET AQUARIUM in SANDY

We saw...gorgeous tropical fish,

funky starfish and other creatures,

even more tropical fish,

and, awesome sting rays

The coolest part (I thought at least) was the large sting ray pond where you could reach in and touch the sting rays. Sometimes they would even come right up and say "HI!"

The aquarium was really cool. We saw a lot of beautiful fish (even Nemo and Dory were there!), stunning jellyfish, a big cool octopus, awesome sharks, and we even watched a little show with live parrots, snakes & tarantulas.

After the aquarium, we had to drop Cory off at his meeting. The kids and I decided to go swimming in the hotel pool. Zach couldn't do a whole lot with his broken arm (Oh, yeah. That will have to be another post) but we still managed to have a great time. The pool was incredibly WARM, and we were the only ones there the whole time. I didn't get any pictures because I was too busy having cannonball contests with the kids!!

When we had our fill of swimming, we got dressed and decided to take a drive up to my old homestead on Sego Lily. The house looks COMPLETELY different!! It was a little sad, actually.




Then, we drove up the street to...

BUTTERCUP PARK

Ah, memories!

Andrew as "mini-man"

Havin' fun!

I won't frighten you with the picture Madison took of me sliding down the bars, but be assured, it was pretty scary!! It was SO fun for me to show the kids where I used to live and play when I was their age. We had a nice little afternoon together. We finished up with an ice cream at Baskin Robbins and then headed back to pick up dad.



We did a little more swimming with dad before heading off to bed for the night.



Thursday morning we slept in! When we finally got up, we got all dressed in our hiking clothes and headed up to...

TIMPANOGOS CAVE

beautiful scenery...

exhausting hike!

Despite the difficult hike up, we had a great time in the caves! Unfortunately, as Cory was handing our camera to the tour guide to take our picture before starting the tour, it fell on the ground and broke! This wouldn't be as sad if we hadn't JUST bought the camera two days before!! So, we didn't get any pictures inside the cave, but the other people that were on the tour with us said that they would happily email us some of their pictures. So nice!!

All in all, we had a FABULOUS time. The kids were really quite pleasant in the car & on all of our adventures. Even though it wasn't a far-away trip, it was still a lot of fun!!

HOORAY FOR FAMILY VACATIONS!!

**is that good enough, Dad??

The marvels of modern science...

...OR, why do Mentos & Diet Coke do that??

In fifth grade, all the kids get to make volcanoes & set them off at school.

Madison brought home a paper explaining the materials she could use to make the volcano & also the different ways to make it erupt. I was quite surprised when I read "mentos & diet coke" next to the old stand-by "vinegar & baking soda".

Of course, given the choice between a large shooting geyser of diet coke, or a pathetic, dribbling ooze of vinegar, who wouldn't choose the former? Madison said no one in her class opted for the vinegar approach. DUH!

Unfortunately, I was out of town the weekend that the volcano was to be constructed, so Cory & Madison had to fend for themselves. They did a pretty good job, eh?

Cory spray painted the salt-dough volcano & Madison added some orange lava streaks for dramatic effect.

Then, it was time to set them off. Unfortunately, Madison was a better picture-taker than her friend, so she got a great picture of someone else's volcano erupting...

...but this is all we got of Madison's volcano erupting.

Oh well, she still had a great time. But, they still didn't explain why DO mentos & diet coke do that? Guess I will have to look it up...

Car Troubles

I will start off by saying, I truly LOVE my new car! Just a few days before Christmas we got a brand-spakin-new company car-a VW Jetta-and it is FABULOUS!!

With that said, however, I didn't realize how difficult (or expensive) a simple oil change for a car could be. Would you believe $130? Yup! Thank goodness we aren't paying for it, but still, honestly? Apparently, Volkswagen has decided that the 2009 Jetta's need new, expensive, not-easily-available-in-the-US oil. It took Cory about 2 days just to find somewhere in Cedar City that would be willing to order in the super-special oil (it comes in a gold bottle even!). We are VERY greatful they were willing to order the oil for us, because the next resort would have been taking it to the dealership for an oil change, in LAS VEGAS (a mere 2 1/2 hour drive)!!

Now, the check engine light is on (has been since my drive home from Phoenix last weekend, which reminds me, I need to post about that trip too...) and they tried to figure out why when they were changing the oil, only it was giving out a "Volkwagen specific" (another term for super-secret) code that Tunex didn't have the skills (meaning: up-to-date computer database) to "decode".

So, we called the dealership to see if they could tell us what the code meant, so we could decide how quickly we needed to take it in to get checked, and they (the dealership) don't even know what the code means because it is so new. They told us we will need to bring it in and have them hook it up to their "special secret-decoding machine" to figure out what it means. GEEZ!

Like I said, I LOVE the new car, but all of this has been a little ridicuous. Hopefully by the time we are ready to buy the car, all of the kinks will be worked out, and we won't have to fork out $130 for an oil change either!

Thanksmasyear

It's time again to play my favorite of all games; "CATCH-UP" (or is it Ketchup??)! Either way, the time has come once again.


First, let us go all the way back it time to November, 2008. Remember that month? We took a trip down to sunny Phoenix to visit my parents & enjoy snow-free festivities for Thanksgiving. As usual, my dad made a fabulous Thanksgiving dinner, complete with a brined turkey. And, despite all the teasing we doled out, the turkey was DEEE-LICIOUS!! Thanks, dad!


Just for fun, my mom, Cory and I braved the crowds for the 4am Kohl's sale on the day after Thanksgiving. Cory gave up after about an hour, walked back to my parents house, and crawled back into bed. But, my mom and I spent over 3 hours there & got some great deals! I am normally not a "Day-After-Thanksgiving" shopper, but since Kohl's is so close (like I said, walking distance) to my parents, we decided, "What the heck!"


Although it was "cold" by Phoenix standards (which is like low 70's), we still managed to get out & enjoy some fun outdoor activities. On Saturday morning, we went to CrackerJacks for a round of Mini Golf (which I won, by the way!!).


Then the kids took on the bumper boats. They had a hard time figuring out how to get them to do anything but spin in a circle. The worker even had to get in a boat himself & ride out to help them. But, once they figured it out, they had a blast!

Then, it was on to the race cars. Despite some minor "fender-benders", the kids also enjoyed the cars. We all had a great time. Then, it was off to Cheesecake Factory for a yummy lunch followed by, what else, more shopping!

Moving right along...

Next up; Christmas! Christmas Eve we drove down to St. George for dinner, carol singing, and visiting with my family. We had a very nice evening. Then, back home for more celebrating with Cory's family. Oh, did I mention that Cory's entire family (minus his brother, who is on a mission) stayed at our house Christmas Eve? Yup! It was wild, and noisy, and crowded, and lots of fun!

Here's a round of "Cousin Bowling" which quickly turned into "Jump over the Cousin". Lots of fun, and a little scary too!

Christmas morning the kids waited anxiously at the top of the stairs until dad said it was okay to come down.

The kids got LOTS of great toys & clothes this year. They had a wonderful Christmas! (Unfortunately, Cory was put in charge of picture taking, so this is all there is!) After all the presents were opened, we got to talk to Uncle Tyson on the phone for a couple of hours.

On Saturday, the 27th, we drove up to Lehi for a Cannon Family Christmas Party. It was nice to see cousins that we don't get to see very often.

My parents came up for Christmas, and stayed for a week, so we got to do lots of fun things with them while they were here. For New Year's Eve, we went down to St. George again to spend the night with my parents & sister's family. We stayed up late eating lots of great food (thanks Abi!), playing fun games, watching movies, and laughing.

2008 was a great year for our family & we are looking forward to an even better year in 09!

More boutiques...

I will be participating in three Oh Sweet Sadie! boutiques for the holidays. (I know, I am crazy) The first show is next Friday, November 14th in Sandy. Click the picture above for more info on all the shows. BONUS: Mention my blog when you come to the show and get a free face with any band or face purchase! Hope to see you there! :O)

It's Autumn Time...

The last shall be first... I attempted to upload my pictures with this one being last, but because I am blogger-picture-uploading handicapped, this ended up first.

Anyhow, here are the kids and I at the trunk-or-treat. Madison was a slumber party girl, Andrew was an army man, and Zach was a clone trooper. They had a fun time collecting lots of candy from all the cars (probably two or three times per car). After the trunk-or-treat, we went to Cory's parents' house where the kids did some traditional, door-to-door trick-or-treating. Then, it was off to the Enoch Spook Alley...scary sounding, huh? We opted for the lees scary (despite Zachary's begging), or "munchkin" as they called it, version. It was silly, and not scary, but the kids enjoyed it. Madison is quite a scaredy-cat, so it was just her speed. When we got home, Madison and Andrew decided to trick-or-treat some more around the block. They didn't get much candy because most people were either not home or had given away all their candy. All in all, we had a fun night. Now, the days of picking up candy wrappers every time I turn around have begun. That is by far my least favorite thing about Halloween!!

A few weeks ago, we took a ride up Cedar Mountain for FHE to look at the fall leaves, and take a few pictures. It was really cold, so we didn't take tons of pictures, but we had a fun time.

Madison insisted on taking some pictures of Cory & I.

Madison


The boys

Three Crazy Kiddos!

We have been enjoying the fall weather very much. The nights have been chilly, but the days have been very nice for the most part. I know the snow is coming soon, however. Cory has gotten lots of wood for our stove, so we will be able to stay toasty warm, no matter the weather!