Taylor Reunion 2009

My sister-in-law Suzy was the official photographer of our family reunion last week. Good thing, because my camera was rarely handy. Here's a slide show she made at Scrapblog.com



As an explanation for what you're looking at in the slideshow: Friday night we had bounce houses set up in my sister DeeAnn's back yard. Big hit. Especially when someone "accidentally" shut the blower off and one of the bounce houses started to collapse on everyone in it. Uncle Nate played nice and rough with the little kids in one of the bouncies and ended up with a black eye to prove it!

Saturday was rainy so we went to see UP in 3-D (David's first movie theater experience!), and between storms the guys played football and Ultimate Frisbee.



Sunday afternoon we played a Father's Day game. Each wife wrote 5 clues about her husband, and we mixed them all up in a "fish pond" (paperclips and a magnetic pole). We had the Dad's sit in a row (I sat in for Nathan since he didn't attend), and when we read each clue we had the kids line up behind who they thought it described. It was a lot of fun.

Monday morning we did a service project for my parents, who just bought the house next door to my sister the week before, weeding their very overgrown beds and digging out their basement window wells. The clay and gravel was right up to the sill down there, so when it rained, all the water ran under the windows into their basement.

Now, you'll see some rather funny photos. Like DeeAnn holding her 12-year-old son, Taylor, down and forcing his mouth open. See, Taylor thought it would be funny to throw a worm at his cousin Madison, who in the process of flailing to get it out of her hair, had it land in her mouth. The boys were rolling in laughter at her ensuing screaming (I admit, we all were chuckling when we found out what happened). But to discourage further pranks, DeeAnn pegged Taylor and put a worm in his mouth. That started a whole round of the boys thinking it was cool to lick slugs and put worms in their mouths, and a couple of them even swallowed some. Yuck.

The Reunion officially ended Monday afternoon and the Nevada families went home. Monday night Preston's family went up to Nate's farm and rode their ponies. Tuesday we were all left to do our own things. I went to Farmington and visited Nathan's Aunt Jeannie. The boys enjoyed seeing their horses and goats, and catching a fish in her pond with a mini-marshmallow as bait!



Wednesday morning those remaining celebrated two birthdays and a baptism. Then the boys and I flew home Wednesday evening.

heart wrench

So a few minutes ago I was milling around the house tidying up, getting dinner ready, etc.  Basically going in a lot of directions, and David was right on my heels the whole time.  After almost tripping on him several times as he followed me upstairs, into several different rooms to drop stuff off and back downstairs again,  I turned around and said, "David, please go find something else to do."  To which he replied, "But you're setting a good example for me; that's why I'm following you."

Amazon's Universal Wish List

I posted this on my Rants and Raves blog, but this was too good to hide behind a link:

In Short:

In Depth:

I'll let Amazon describe it for me. These are screenshots from their website:

Click here for the Universal Wish List button link shown above

All I have to say is, I love it. It's super convenient for when I stumble upon something cool online, or even to browse for items of interest when I get a catalog in the mail, hop onto the catalog's website, and add stuff to my Amazon wish list. Later when I'm ready to buy, I have one-stop shopping. No more catalogs kicking around for that day I might decide to splurge. No more trying to remember where I saw that nifty item online.

Thank you Amazon!

Natals Rants and Raves

I've been ranting and raving again.  This month's topic: potty chairs.  (Can you believe Daniel has started potty training?  I can't!)  So anyway, that milestone reminded me that I had some things to say about our variety of potty seats.

Check out my reviews of Safety 1st seats here, BabyBjörn seats here, and updated comments on The Family Seat here.

http://natalsrantsandraves.blogspot.com/

New York, New York

At the beginning of this week I got back from 5 days in New York City with Nathan's mom and sisters.  Just the girls; no kids or husbands.  We had so much fun!!  Here's the rundown of our trip:

Tuesday:  Gathering.  The western Nashites flew all day to arrive in New York in the late afternoon.  My flight from Raleigh arrived about 6:00, and my shuttle pulled into the hotel in Midtown/Manhattan just in time for our dinner reservations at San Martin, a fantastic little Italian Restaurant our concierge recommended.  It was a late meal, so afterwards we just went back to the hotel and turned in for the night.

Wednesday:  In the morning we acquainted ourselves with the subway system on our way to the Manhattan LDS temple, where we spent pretty much all morning.  Then we wandered down to Times Square for lunch and our first show, Blithe Spirit, starring Angela Lansbury and Rupert Everett.  It was a fun and witty show; we really enjoyed it.

  

After the show we did a little shopping before our dinner reservations at the French Restaurant Bistro Moderne.  It was like something off of the Food Network.  We were glad we were in dresses when we walked in.  Off to the next and my favorite show: Wicked.  Wow.  

  

Thursday: We got up VERY early to make the 8:30 ferry to Liberty and Ellis Islands.  We went to Liberty Island first.  It was cool to go up in the statue; we were excited when we heard on the news the next morning that visitors can go all the way up to the crown starting July 4 this summer.  

  

That night we went to Bobby Van's Steakhouse.  Waiter was very friendly.  Perhaps a bit too much, truth be told.  It was a bit weird.  He tried to warn me away from my selected entree, which I didn't hear but wish I had.  Mine wasn't very good, but everyone else enjoyed theirs.  Dessert made up for my disappointment, however.  Our show for the evening was The Little Mermaid (YouTube highlights here).  I thought it was cute, and I was totally blown away by Flounder and highly entertained by Scuttle, Flotsam and Jetsam.  I think I enjoy it more in hindsight than I did at the performance.

Friday:  After three early mornings and late nights, plus everyone else being on Pacific time, we were all pretty wiped out.  So we slept in...because we could.  Sometimes that's the best part of vacation.  Later we went to the Metropolitan Museum of Art.  Our favorite part was the recreated rooms of a Baroque French hotel. I also really liked this fella:

   

Just down the street from the Met were a bunch of street artists/vendors.  Sarah stopped to look at one particular artist's work and she, Bethany, and I ended up each buying one of his paintings.  We even turned around halfway through Central Park and went back to get second prints.  I can't wait to get mine framed and hung.  That afternoon we enjoyed more down time.  Bethany exercised, Sarah napped, I think Marianne read, and I decided to take advantage of a Washington Mutual across the street.  We still bank with WaMu/Chase, but I'm in the process of switching banks because neither WaMu nor Chase has any branches in North Carolina.  It's been a pain.  So I took care of closing a bunch of accounts and switching stuff to our new bank.  (When the teller asked why I was closing accounts and I told her there wasn't a branch within 1000 miles of where I lived, she kinda raised an eyebrow with a look that said "What do you think this is?"  Ah, New Yorkers.)  Meanwhile I also learned through email that my gym had closed overnight, so I was on the phone with one of my friends who was also a member trying to figure out recourses for my prepaid membership and training contracts.  Later in the afternoon, Bethany, Sarah, and I wandered uptown a few blocks to explore Bloomingdales and Dylan's Candy Bar before dinner.  That night we ate at another little Italian restaurant.  Sorry--I don't remember the name at all.  At first glance on the menu we weren't particularly impressed, but upon closer inspection--and taste--it redeemed itself well.  Then on to our next show: Guys and Dolls.  What a fun surprise to get there and see that it starred Oliver Platt and Lauren Graham!  I've never seen any rendition of Guys and Dolls before, theater or film.  It was an enjoyable performance. 

 

Saturday:  We met up with my brother Sean, his wife Jenny and daughter Anne Elyse, who live in Connecticut, and my childhood next-door neighbor/practically sister Keely, who lives in Queens/Astoria, for brunch at a little restaurant called Good Enough to Eat.  Yum!  Then we all headed over to the American Museum of Natural History.  That museum is the setting for the movie Night at the Museum.  I must say it looks totally different inside.  But we still had fun.  Then we headed over to 5th Avenue to explore some famous stores.  In truth, our objective was to get Jenny into Tiffany's so Sean could surprise her with a bracelet he'd bought as her graduation gift (graduating Memorial Day with a Masters in Nursing at Yale).  She was certainly surprised!  From Tiffany's our group split up; Mom Nash, Sarah, and Bethany went off to do their own exploring while I stayed with Sean, Jenny, and Keely.  They took me past St. Patrick's and Rockefeller Center. 

    

We also stopped by American Girl Place for Anne Elyse.  Sean thought one of the dresses might look good on him, LOL.

Everyone met up again back at the hotel.  Keely had to go grade term papers, but Sean, Jenny, and Annie joined us for our last New York dinner.  We decided to revisit San Martin because we liked it so much the first night.  Then we said farewell to them and headed off to our final show: 9 to 5.  Marianne had seen the movie and thought it was really cute, but the show had a lot of raw content, so we opted to leave at intermission and did some more shopping around Times Square.  Then we had our final big bang in the Big Apple: dessert at Serendipity3.  MMMMMMMM, yummy!  I'm so bummed that we didn't think about taking a picture in front of this famous restaurant.  We were so tired by this point!  I thought I was going to fall asleep just waiting for the guy to come take our order.  So you get internet pictures.  Sorry.

 

We thought we might swing by the next morning to take a picture in front of the restaurant but...

Sunday: Another morning to sleep in, very, VERY late (10:00!!!).  We then had to hustle to get packed, check out of our hotel, and catch our shuttle to the airport.  Once there we had to wait around for hours.  And I had to wait even longer because my plane was under maintenance.  Then an hour on the tarmac.  I was originally scheduled to land at 7 pm, so Nathan was going to keep the boys up and bring them to come get me, but with my delays he put them to bed and asked my friend to stay at our house while he picked me up (thanks Jennifer).  

So there's my trip.  Fun as it was, I was glad to get home!  Many thanks to Mom Nash for sponsoring such a fun trip, and to Mom Taylor for watching my boys!!

Natalie


"No matter what you've done for yourself or for humanity, if you can't look back on having given love and attention to your own family, what have you really accomplished?"
- Elbert Hubbard

Fax Fun

About a week after we moved into our house, we started getting calls from a fax machine. And not just one call a day...no... they have it set to auto-redial something like 5 times. Just about every week. It drives. me. NUTS!!! So when it's a fax day I turn off my ringer. We didn't have Caller ID so I had no way to know who was trying to send us a fax.

A couple months ago I talked Nathan into upgrading our phone service to include Caller ID. It was only a dollar more! I was very happy when the next fax day rolled around to be able to get the number so I could do something about it. Unfortunately, it's unlisted so I have no way to find a phone number to talk to a human.

Today is another fax day. And I suddenly realized, I don't have a phone number for them to tell them to stop calling, but I could send them a fax back. Yes, I know you're all saying "du-uhh," but it was a moment of insight for me. I asked Nathan send them a fax from work. He just IM'ed me and said he sent the fax, but no answer. So he set it to auto-redial 15 times. Take that!!! Mua-hahah!

Super Troopers

This morning we participated in a 5K for Lengthen Your Stride, a service project throughout the Southeast that also involved a food and clothing drive. I walked with the boys in the stroller, but they got out and walked at the end. Daniel got an award for the youngest participant! There were other little ones in strollers, but I guess he's the only one who walked part of the way--or at least the youngest one the awards committee saw. :P The boys were troopers and fairly patient, although their enthusiasm waned considerably by the end. But we finished!! Yay! 

Muchos Gracias to my friend Christy for sending me the above photo.  We had all kinds of cameras pointed at us this morning, but none were my own!  I'm told event photos will be posted on the web. I'll post them when I see some.

More Paint & Carpet pictures

Fireplace with its accoutrements.  :)  This painting completely influenced our choice of green paint.  It had to work with the mat.

We had the painter repaint the built-in cabinets, too, so they matched the rest of the trim.  Before they were kind of grayish-white and started to look rather green with the green walls.

Nathan's cousin Ben and family were on Spring Break from OSU and stayed the night on their way home from Myrtle Beach (we had so much fun!!).  The kids quickly discovered our stairs were a fantastic perch from which to watch the carpet installation without being in the way.

Dining room with new paint and new carpet.  I'm still debating if I like this new orientation of the table, though.  To its credit, it saves our walls from all the dinks of kids knocking chairs backwards. :)  Now to figure out what to hang in here...

Since I couldn't get a picture of the "during painting" process for the dining room, and since many have said they can't see a difference, here's a picture of the old and new paint cans.  Can you see how the old paint (left) looks faded, or even pink, compared to the new paint?

David showcasing the new living room!  He really likes the new recliners.  So do I, hehe.  I'm still trying to decide how I want to dress the windows.  I don't want anything too frou-frou, but I do want to soften them up.  Maybe just some sheer swags?  Eventually I'd love to replace the mini-blinds with faux wood ones.  Or perhaps kill two birds with one stone and do roman shades, except then I couldn't control light and privacy as easily.  Ponder, ponder, ponder.  With limitless funds, I'd replace the windows with those fancy Pella windows that have blinds built in between the panes ($$$!!!).  Riiiiight...

Old vs. new carpet.  We liked the basic shade of the old, obviously, minus the stains we inherited.  Old carpet (top left) is short looped pile, new (bottom right) is softer, deeper frieze (sp?) pile, plus you can see that it's speckled in order to better hide dirt and stains.

Next on the agenda: replace ivory switches and outlets with white ones, and replace brass light fixtures with brushed nickel.  Hoping that will help update the home. My sister-in-law informed me that in their recent house hunt, she observed all the new homes have oil-rubbed bronze fixtures now.  A great tip. I think that would be very pretty with what I've got, but it's too pricey for my dwindling reno budget.  I guess my "update" will just have to be passé from the start. :)