&t The Taylor Family: February 2012

Wednesday, February 29

Sure, I play violin

For some reason I picked up Bresa's violin and started playing it. Peter thought this was really awesome so he brought out the full size violin for me to play.
Javan got all excited and wanted to play too so Bresa went to get her old violin that is too small for her so he could play. Bresa thought it was really funny that I was
trying and told me that maybe I should ask Lexi (her teacher) for some lessons too. In the pictures Javan is playing Bresa too small violin and I am playing the violin Bresa uses now. Peter took some video of me playing the full size but I don't want to insult your ears by posting it.

posted by We are the Taylors @ 8:05 PM   0 comments

Saturday, February 25

Settlers of Catan

Tonight we went over to our friend's, Kim and Eddie's, house. It had been a while since we had gotten together and we were
excited to show them the new game that Peter got for Christmas. We had a good dinner and while the kids were all playing their games us adults played Settler's of Catan and ate some chocolate covered strawberries that I made earlier in the day.

posted by We are the Taylors @ 8:59 PM   0 comments

Monday, February 20

Chocolate Covered Strawberries

The farmer's market had a really good deal on strawberries so I bought half a flat. When I got them home I wasn't real sure what I was going to do with them and after we ate some for lunch I decided to make a nice dessert. We are having some friends
over tonight to play some board games so I thought chocolate covered strawberries would be a nice treat. I have made the kind where you melt the chocolate in the microwave and put them on wax paper to harden but that chocolate tends
to get lumpy and the paper creates a flat side on the berries. I did a little research and decided to concoct a double boiler (I don't have one) and then let the berries harden upside down so they are nice and round all around the berry. I was only going to make milk chocolate ones but Peter asked for white chocolate, his favorite, and since I ended up having both milk and white I made them pretty with swirls of the opposite chocolates on them. Mmmm.

posted by We are the Taylors @ 5:34 PM   0 comments

Thursday, February 16

Abbi and Javan

Abbi
loves to read to Javan and he loves being read to. This arrangement works out really well. Abbi gets practice reading aloud and Javan gets to learn by watching and listening to Abbi's wonderful example.

posted by We are the Taylors @ 4:47 PM   0 comments

Tuesday, February 14

Happy Valentine's Day

I hope everyone enjoyed a wonderful Valentine's Day with their sweetie! Peter and I don't really celebrate too much on this day. When Peter came home from Puerto Rico he brought me a dozen beautiful yellow roses and we still have a ton of chocolate that I haven't really been eating so I am not looking for any more goodies today. Bresa has her violin lesson tonight and Peter was supposed to have Worship Team
Practice at church but after listening to the set he decided that they had enough guitar coverage for the songs that were being played and he called to tell Pastor Jason that he was taking this week off. I was happy because he had just spent a week with Jason on a tropical island and I really didn't like the idea of him spending Valentine's Day with him too. :) This morning before leaving for work I set up a little surprise for the children. A couple of Valentine's cards for the girls and a box of chocolate for each child. I sure do love my babies and I remember when I was little my mom would always give us each a little something for Valentine's Day and it always made me feel so special.

posted by We are the Taylors @ 5:50 PM   0 comments

Sunday, February 12

Brothers

Peter's brother, Chris, came down with his wife from Michigan. They were just taking a little road trip to come see some family and friends. Peter was in Puerto Rico during their first part of the visit but luckily we got to see them before they
headed back up. Today Chris came over with Tim and the three brothers hung out just talking and catching up for a while. We were hoping to be able to together again for dinner but with such tight schedules we couldn't find an open night before Chris and Debbie headed back up. We did decide to meet for lunch in Sanford on Tuesday so that I can come from work and get to see Debbie too.

posted by We are the Taylors @ 6:44 PM   0 comments

Friday, February 10

PR- Coming home!

We woke up, packed everything up and headed to the airport (we never did get the suite we were supposed to have). When we got back to the car rental lot we had forgot to get gas first. The guy there told us to go get gas and come back since it would be a lot cheaper than paying them for it. We drove about 10 minutes before we found a gas station, then went back to the lot. We were at the airport pretty early and had some time to kill before our flight. John, Pete and I ended up exploring the whole airport on our quest for food. That was our last adventure of the trip. The flight was fine and then drive home uneventful.

posted by We are the Taylors @ 4:09 PM   0 comments

Thursday, February 9

PR- Thursday

We all got up around 10:00. The maid tried to come in and clean the room and almost hit Mike with the door. Hung out for a bit and then worked on Song 3. Went to KFC for lunch, where Jason started to try and order in spanish on his own. Pete ended up helping him out though. After lunch we went back and worked on song four. Later we went back to the beach and played peg ball again. Then we hung out in the water at a cool shallow spot where the water met. For dinner Pete wanted to treat us to authentic PR food so he took us to a little bar and tried to order 4 chicken empanadas and 1 beef empanada. After waiting for about 20 minutes the guy handed us four baskets of chicken and a pile of cooked beef and said we owed him $37. Pete called his mom who talk to the guy and found out that he just didn’t understand what we wanted. He said it was okay and we didn’t have to buy it. We left and went somewhere else where we could see the food we wanted. It cost us $10. When we got back to the hotel we went in the pool, showered and then wrote another song. Pete took some NyQuil before we started playing and fell asleep. A bit later Jason said something about McFlurries so we woke up Pete and made him drive us to McDonald’s at 12:30 in the morning.

posted by We are the Taylors @ 11:59 PM   0 comments

Wednesday, February 8

Goose is waiting for Peter to come home

posted by We are the Taylors @ 8:05 PM   0 comments

PR- Wednesday

I woke up around 7:30 and waited for everyone else to get up. I heard other guests eating breakfast and then breakfast being cleaned up. It got quiet before everyone else woke up. We went outside and did pushups as some sort of team building thing or something, then we went inside and worked on song two. We went out for food again and a frisbee on our way to the beach. Found a cheap frisbee type toy at a dollar store but decided not to get it. Instead we bought a pack of tennis balls at Walmart. We went to the beach and made up a game of catch over a volley ball net where if you drop the ball you have to touch the net before someone pegs you with the ball. We had been working on changing our return flight, but found out we can't leave Thursday. We also again didn't get the suite. We went back to the hotel and swam in the pool, which was still freezing. Came back in and showered then watched a John Piper sermon. After that I went to bed and the guys went outside and wrote another song.

posted by We are the Taylors @ 7:05 PM   0 comments

Tuesday, February 7

PR- Tuesday

We got up and drove to an address we got from Pete's mom for the Fajardo Inn, about 45 minutes east. Nice drive, pretty scenery, only had a couple of direction issues. We got there and it wasn't it either. Pete called his dad and finally got info for the real place and started driving back the way we came, about 20 minutes. When we got there we discovered that the suite we were supposed to be staying in had been rented out to someone else. We moved our things into a hotel sized room and went off to find food, snacks, and a frisbee. We checked out PitUSA and Amigo; no frisbee. We stopped at a little strip of bars and got taquitos and then played on the beach with bamboo. John and Pete jousted. John tried to open a coconut. The hotel was quite nice, right on the water. The staff were all really cool. The pool was freezing though. The room we were in had two queen size beds. Mike took the air mattress again on the floor by the door. We were told that we would have to stay there that night and could move into the suite in the morning. We were under the impression that food was included, but apparently it’s only breakfast. Later in the day we finally got a chance to sit down and work on some tunes. We ended up with our first song. We were all up pretty late.

posted by We are the Taylors @ 11:04 PM   0 comments

Monday, February 6

Peter's Puerto Rico Guy-Trip (written by Peter)

Puerto Rico was an adventure. I wasn’t sure what to expect, but it didn’t seem to matter as the trip was full of surprises. I won’t bore you with all the details, but here are the memorable high (and low) points of our 4 (ha ha) day trip. I tried to take notes as things happened and though I’ve had a bit of time to reflect on the experience I will try and report the trip as I experienced it.

...

Jason, John, Mike, Pete, and I were off to stay in Pete’s grandparents condo in PR to getaway and write some music for church. There was a little confusion about what time the flight left so we left for the airport a little later than we were originally planning since there was a little extra time. We managed to pack two acoustic guitars, two electric guitars, four laptops, a small MIDI keyboard, a few microphones, a couple of mic stands, and clothes for five people and four days into 5 carry-on and 5 checked bags. It was quite a squeeze to get everything in John’s Camry, but we managed with a few items having to sit in our laps. We went to the airport and through security to our gate. While we were waiting Jason was curious about what time we would return on Thursday and asked to see the itinerary. That’s when we all found out that we wouldn’t be back until Friday. There was a small error made when booking the flights. We figured we might be able to get the return flight changed, but we would deal no matter what happened.
The flight was a little rougher than usual, nothing too bad, but light turbulence most of the flight. When we got off the plane and found the rental car place. It took a little while to get the car and it was a bit smaller than the Camry (Mitsubishi Lancer). After a bit of work we got everything in with a guitar, mic stands, and three bags on top of Mike, John and I in the back seat. As we were leaving the car lot the rental guy felt sorry for us and offered us a Kia Sedona at same rate. We gladly accepted and moved our gear into the van. When we left, Jason tried to find the address we had by putting it into his phone’s GPS. The phone didn’t like the address. I tried a different app I had on my phone and it didn’t work that way either. Pete said he thought he knew sorta where we were going, but hadn’t ever driven when he had visited. We ended up driving around for about three hours in various directions and neighborhoods. Every time we tried punching in the address it seemed to say it was somewhere else. We eventually ended up at a mall and waited there for Pete’s cousin Saul (pronounced sa-UL) to meet us there. Saul spoke no english. He had been on the other side of the island when we first called, but we didn’t have to wait at the mall too long, which was good because it was closed.
We met Saul in the Sears parking lot and followed him, we thought to the condo. We ended up at his house because someone else was staying in the condo. His house was a bit run down. The guest room we (all 5 guys) stayed in had seen better days. The main outlet was coming out of the wall, the bathroom shower was missing a lot of tile, there was no hot water, and there were a lot of water stains on the ceiling. The room had a queen size bed in it. Mike and John set up on Pete’s air mattress in the corner with the most room while Pete, Jason and I lay sideways across the bed, which was really hard. Before too long it started raining outside and water started to drip from the ceiling onto Mike and John. They ended up moving the mattress to another corner near the door. At some point someone saw a roach out in the other room the size of a small puppy.

posted by We are the Taylors @ 9:59 PM   0 comments

Nothing like having a boy in the house

That play set we put together out back has been worth it's weight in gold but we may need to buy a new washer and dryer to keep up with laundry produced because of it.

posted by We are the Taylors @ 7:04 PM   0 comments

Saturday, February 4

Pinkalicious

Today after Peter got some more work done we headed to Orlando to see a play at the REP theatre.
This showing was Pinkalicious about a girl who eats too many pink cupcakes and turns pink. Both the girls had read the book (yes the play is based on a book) so we thought it would be cool for them to also see the play. They both thoroughly enjoyed the show and Javan was a very good boy and sat nice and quietly on my lap the whole time. After the play I had prepaid for Sonny's Dinner at the theatre so we enjoyed a nice easy meal at no additional cost. We stopped at the Altamonte Mall on the way home and Peter had his new iPhone 4s replaced because the speaker didn't work very well at all. This new one seems much better.

posted by We are the Taylors @ 8:57 PM   0 comments

Friday, February 3

Happy Birthday Daddy!!

Today is Peter's birthday and he has been working really hard to make up for not being able to last week. I don't work on Fridays but the girls had school so it was just three of us at home for the day. Peter still worked a lot during the day but around 12:30 we had to pick up the girls early to go to a doctor appointment that Bresa had. After the appointment we had to hurry home because Peter had a client or two on the way but after that we decided to go have some fun. Peter chose to go just down the road to Family Fun Town where they have miniature golf, batting cages, an arcade,
go-karts, and a bounce thing too. We have been there to golf before but the last time we went was before they had the go-karts. This time we wanted to try the go-karts out. The girls weren't tall enough to drive alone but they could ride with Peter and I. Javan also could ride so we had to take turns. Peter and Abbi rode together while Javan and I rode the first round too. After we got out Peter took Bresa for a run while Abbi, Javan, and I watched on. We had a really good time and the girls really enjoyed it. They had never been on go-karts before and now they want to go again real soon. When we got home Tina and Noah
came over with a bunch of fun party food and games. Also, our friends Joe and Jana came over. I been asking Peter what he wanted to do for his birthday and ultimately he decided he wanted to play a big game of Settlers of Catan and just have a small informal gathering with some friends. For dinner I bought a large ring sub from Publix and Tina brought a bunch of sides and then made some apple slices dipped in chocolate and coated in granola. We played a great game of Settlers and Jana took the win! Peter really enjoyed his day so I am happy. Another year older and another year I get to spend with the man I love.

posted by We are the Taylors @ 11:30 PM   0 comments