Summer Vacation!!

We got home a few days ago from our wonderful family vacation. We drove to Montana again this year. I wasn't as excited to drive this year because it seemed to me like we just did it, but it turned out to be great, as usual, and the kids were better than ever for the long trip. We left on a Wednesday morning, drove almost non-stop and got there Thursday evening. I actually love the drive across this great country. The landscapes change, the industries change, the sunsets and sunrises - ahhh. Steve drives all day and I usually take over about 11pm and drive until morning. I love to drive at night. The traffic is so much lighter, the occupants of the suburban so much quieter, and hours of my own choice of radio stations - YESSS! We arrived by the 4th of July and awaited the arrival of the rest my siblings and their families for a wonderful reunion. It always amazes me how you can go for so long without seeing someone and the minute you get back together with them it's like no time at all has passed. We LOVE getting together with family and staying up way too late laughing, talking, teasing and reminiscing. We spent countless hours up at Grandpa Phil's golf course (Sleepy Hollow Golf Course) golfing, mowing, eating, riding carts, fishing, setting off fireworks, weeding, and just plain relaxing. It's the most beautiful spot in the world, as far as we're concerned, and we just don't know what we'll do with ourselves if Grandpa sells the place. It hardly seems right to have to actually pay for a round of golf anywhere else! And my sister and her husband brought their boat over so they could take us for a spin out at Clark Canyon Reservoir. What a beautiful evening that was! When everyone but us left after the holiday we spent the rest of the week relaxing, touring ghost towns, hunting for crystals at Crystal Park, eating at Taco John's (which we love but don't have out here) and hanging out at the golf course. Thanks, everyone, for the great time in Montana! We love you!

Heading out - only 2 hours late. Yay!:

Favorite activity at the golf course:

Boating at Clark Canyon Reservoir:




Waiting for the fireworks:

Exploring Bannack, MT:

Finding crystals at Crystal Park:

Fishing at sunset:

The girls are hard at work:

Uncle Thatcher:

Golf, golf, golf:

Our favorite:

The family:

On The Lord's Errand

Seth has been in Brazil on his mission for over a year now and he's been doing so well. Something he said in one of his last emails made me laugh so I wanted to share it. Here goes:

"Can you believe I will be here for one year on Thurs.? It is passing so fast and I can't believe my mission is already half over. A dude works for 19 yrs. to make it to the mission and now it is almost over for me! Well, tell everyone I said Hi." Not particularly inspiring but cute. Here is some of his last email:

"My mission book. Chapter 1 MTC. Ch. 2 Itaperuna. Ch. 3 Itaparica. Ch. 4 Anchieta. Ch. 5 ??. Yeah, I was transferred again. Actually, me and my companion were transferred together and there will be sisters going to this area. It was a big shock to us. But we had a sweet baptism Saturday. Gilmara was baptized and it was in the ocean again. I baptized 4 awesome ppl here in Anchieta and it was an awesome experience working with a group of ppl. Who knows what will happen next??"

It's just so wonderful to see Seth growing and becoming a more compassionate person who really loves the people of Brazil. What an amazing life experience that we are so happy he is able to have!

Turning over several new leaves...

So... there are many excuses I could start with as I try and explain the fact that I haven't posted anything here since, um, last September. But, as stated in the title of this post, I'm turning over several new leaves in my life and one of those lovely leaves just happens to be making less excuses for things. I would like to be so courageous as to say NO more excuses but I'm not quite there yet. Hence, another leaf is to have more courage. (And I'm not even sure I'm using the word "hence" correctly in the sentence, but it sounds good to me.) So, with that out of the way, I feel ready to begin sharing a little bit of us with you again. I hope you're all still out there and I know some of your blogs have since become accessible to invited readers only. If that happens to be you, please, please, please can you invite me to read your blog. It would be greatly appreciated. :)

And since I don't really know what to start with, for tonight I'm going to post a completely random picture and hopefully I'll have something eloquent and inspiring to blog about tomorrow. I love these gals.

Hello again...

I know, I know, it seems as if we've fallen off the face of the earth but we're still here muddling through. I knew my life would be a little stressful after I returned home from my grandfather's funeral but I wasn't prepared for how stressful. I was coming back to two brand new jobs working from home. I had been praying for just such an opportunity and felt very blessed to have found what I did, especially with all the scams out there. With Savanna going to school this year I knew I wanted full-time work but I still really wanted to be able to be here for the kids and to be able to see the their sporting events, many of which start at 4 pm. There was an ad in the newspaper and I went and applied for and got the job doing legal transcription work from home full-time. So I transcribe court hearings from recordings for about 8 hours a day. It's been over a month and I'm finally getting used to it, but at the beginning it was rough. The training for this job was practically non-existant and I had to figure it all out on my own, but I'm finally feeling a little more comfortable with it. I thought I was losing my mind at first, though. The other job is also from home and I am basically an appointment setter for a local payroll company. The great thing about both of them is I can choose my own hours as long as I meet the deadlines. On top of that I've subbed at the school one day and we still clean Huckleberry Inn between guests.

Thank heavens for Steve, who has been such a great help at home. He has been making breakfast and dinner, he's canned pickles, tomatoes and tomato juice and he's frozen 30 quarts of frozen sweet corn so far, with the kids' help. He does laundry, takes care of kids, coaches Gideon's football team and picks up the slack wherever it needs to be. And that's when he gets home from work. What a guy!!

Seth is doing well in Brazil. We get his emails every week and he's happy. He has a new Brazilian companion and they get along well.

The kids at home are all doing well except for the normal bumps of daily life. We've got soccer, volleyball, football, church youth group, friends, etc. etc. etc.

We can't believe Brooke is a senior this year. I can't imagine her being gone this time next year. It brings me to tears. So for some pictures today I've chosen some that I took of her for her senior pictures. We had so much fun trying to figure out poses. We cracked up so many times. We think they turned out great and the biggest problem we have is that we took too many and can't choose the ones we like the best! Let us know what your vote is!

Keith Packer Taylor

On July 30, 2009 Keith Packer Taylor slipped quietly away and returned to his Father in Heaven. Keith Taylor is my grandpa, my dad's dad. He was 87 years old and lived a very colorful and full life. He was a wonderful grandfather to me and my brothers and sister and to my cousins, as well. As we married, he became our spouses' grandpa, too. And of course, he was a super duper great-grandpa. He was fun, generous, loving and had a great sense of humor even up to the very end. We were so grateful to have gotten to go see him two weeks before he died. I had the opportunity to go out to his funeral and it turned out to be a wonderful family reunion - a time of remembering a truly wonderful man and his life. I am so grateful for my Grandma and Grandpa who are stellar examples of love, eternal marriage and enduring to the end. And how thankful I am for Heavenly Father's plan of salvation in which we know that death is not the end, but the beginning of our eternal lives together. With that being said.... "See ya later, Grampa!"

Keith & Rhea Taylor

Wild, Wild West

(Disclaimer: This's really long so if you have something better to do, you might want to do it:)

Okay, so at the last minute we decided to take our vacation out to Montana. We decided on Sunday, the girls left for Girls' Camp Monday morning and Steve went to the Thursday night campfire to bring the girls home. We left Friday morning (July 3rd), drove straight through to Montana, stayed until the 12th and were home on the 15th, just in time for the girls to go to Harrisburg for Youth Conference. Whew!! It was a little wild, but we had a great time and it went by too fast. I know Steve and I are a little crazy, but we love the drive out west. I would hop in the suburban and do it again right now if I could. What a beautiful country we live in!! I love America!

Steve and I have a pretty good routine down for driving out there. We've done it so many times now. We usually get on the road by about 9a.m. and Steve drives until midnight. We stop and have picnics along the way out of the packed cooler. Then I drive from 12 to about 6a.m. That gets us to Wall, South Dakota where we stop at Wall Drug (google it, it's awesome) and have their yummy breakfast buffet. The next stop we look forward to is in Sheridan, Wyoming where we stop and have a picnic at a great little park there. This first picture is of us looking (and smelling) pretty rough and almost to Sheridan. Yay.
Then when we finally get to Montana we are in the home stretch and we can't wait to get there. Here we're almost there and we're belting out Taylor Swift songs. Woo Hoo!!

My sister, Tennille and her adorable family were in Dillon for the Fourth of July. We loved seeing them.

The tradition of taking Senior pictures in Montana began with Seth and hopefully all the kids will have that opportunity. It's so beautiful in the summer around my dad's golf course. This is one of Brooke's pictures. I'll post some more next. They turned out really nice.

Steve and Jake spent the entire week up at the golf course mowing, golfing, helping out, etc. Jacob did not want to leave. He absolutely loved it and wanted to stay there. The golf course looks so beautiful this year. If you're ever in the area try out Sleepy Hollow Golf Course. You'll love it!

Grandpa Phil is giving Gideon a lesson and Savanna is listening in, too

The kids love to go up to one of the ponds at the golf course to swim every time we're there. Savanna has found a great way to relax in the water

Grandma Rebich came up to visit us at the pond.
We loved visiting with Grandpa and Grandma Taylor. We feel so blessed that the kids have had the chance to know such wonderful great-grandparents.

Too soon our visit was over and we were back in the suburban on our way home. Here we are driving down through beautiful Star Valley, Wyoming and we had just pulled over to take pictures of a moose.

We drove all night and made it to Omaha, NE the next morning to the Winter Quarters visitor's center and temple. What a neat experience to see what the pioneers went through on their way out west.

We were so happy to finally reach the motel in Keokuk, Iowa. The kids were able to unwind in the pool and we finished off the contents of the cooler and had a great night's sleep. We were headed to Nauvoo, Illinois the next morning to spend the whole day and see the pageant.

The next morning we started at Carthage, Illinois at the jail and we stood at the window where Joseph Smith and his brother, Hyrum, were murdered by an angry mob.

Then we spent the day in Nauvoo. We took a wagon ride around the city, rode behind oxen, dressed like pioneers, toured original shops and homes of the pioneers and saw the Historic Nauvoo pageant. It was a wonderful day!

After the pageant we headed for home. Steve and I took turns driving throught the night. We're always VERY glad to get to the PA border - only and hour left. We had such a nice trip and we missed Seth, although there was a lot of extra room in the the suburban this time around. And it was a little quieter. What a blessing modern-day travel is, though, and what freedoms we enjoy!

This is our awesome trip to NYC. This is the second year Brooke and I were able to share this trip. We really enjoy going to New York. There is so much to see and do. First, we were dropped off at Bryant Park in the middle of Manhattan. We found a street vendor selling shish kebob pita sandwiches. De-lish! Then the kids went to a Broadway workshop where they perfected one of the numbers from "Guys and Dolls" taught by a Broadway actor. While they were doing that, a group of us mothers just walked around the Chelsea section of Manhattan.

After the Broadway workshop, we walked to Times Square and ate at Bubba Gump Shrimp Co. We love that place. It's delicious and not too expensive and the restaurant has a really fun feel.
After that we walked to the Nederlander Theatre and saw "Guys and Dolls". It was wonderful! Lauren Graham from the TV show, Gilmore Girls, was the headliner. I love Broadway!!

The next day, we had a wonderful time walking around NYC and taking the subway where we wanted to go. We started out at Grand Central Terminal and we took it to the Brooklyn Bridge. We walked all the way across the Bridge into Brooklyn. From there we took the subway to Chinatown and walked through Chinatown to Little Italy. We ate at a quaint italian restaurant and then walked back to the subway.

We then took the subway up to Central Park where some took a carriage ride, but most of us walked through the park and over to the Lincoln Center and we got a glimpse of the LDS Temple. By that time, we were getting pretty worn out so we took the subway back to Times Square and walked to Bryant Park to meet the bus. We figure we walked about 15 miles those two days. It's a great trip, though. So many things to see and do.