&t The Taylor Family: September 2013

Monday, September 23

Wild Turtle

We met our friends for dinner at Moe's and had a great meal and conversation. On the way out Abbi found a little turtle just wandering the sidewalk.
She picked him up and then we took him over to some grassy/wet area where we figured he would have a better chance of surviving. Not sure how he wound up on the sidewalk of the strip mall but hopefully he is happier now.

posted by We are the Taylors @ 7:40 PM   0 comments

Friday, September 20

Celebrating Straight A's

The girls had excellent progress reports and since we had coupons for
free dinner at Texas Road House for all the children we decided to take them out. Bresa got straight A's and Abbi got all A's and one B. I am super proud of both my children. They are trying so hard and really paying attention and working hard.

posted by We are the Taylors @ 6:30 PM   0 comments

Thursday, September 19

Open House

The children have all been in
school for a month now and they are doing great. The girls really like their classes and were excited to show us what they have been working on. We walked over to the school after the PTA meeting was over (we aren't interested in all that) and went straight to the girls' classes. Abbi has a new teacher this year and she loves her. We hadn't meet her
yet because Peter and I were out of town on our cruise for meet the teacher day and Grandma brought them over for that. Abbi showed us all the things in her class and on her desk and then we went to Bresa's room. Bresa has the same teacher she had 2 years ago for 3rd grade, which works very well for us. This teacher is no nonsense and doesn't give into Bresa's dramatics and manipulations.
Her teacher told us that Bresa had already tried to pull the drama card the first week of class but the teacher put her in her place and Bresa's been great since then. Both the girls seem very happy and we are excited to see what this year has for them.

posted by We are the Taylors @ 7:30 PM   0 comments

Friday, September 13

Cleaning

One of the Crime Scene Technicians at work quit last week so now it is just down to me and Jake in our office. The CST that left was a bit of a pack rat so when she quit she left a ton of stuff behind and didn’t clean out anything. I spent 6 hours one day cleaning out her desk and filled three trashcans with junk and papers she left. Jake worked hard and cleaned the lab up really nicely. It was long and very aggravating cleaning up someone else’s mess but in the end we were very happy with the results.

posted by We are the Taylors @ 5:22 PM   0 comments

Thursday, September 12

Work shirts

At church tonight, I realized Peter and I both had shirts on that represented our professions.

posted by We are the Taylors @ 8:22 PM   0 comments

Wednesday, September 11

Snowballs

A new shaved ice place opened up at one of the entrances to our community.
A friend told me that they were cheap so Peter and I decided to check it out. After dinner we told the kids to get shoes on and then we drove the 2 or 3 minutes it took and then went in to see what was offered.Everything is shaved ice but they had a ton of flavors to choose from (I think the guy said 90). The girls looked and looked and I read off a few for Javan and once everyone was decided we ordered.
I didn’t get anything but the children each enjoyed a small cup for $1 each and Peter got a medium for $2. Can’t beat that. We sat outside in the shade and enjoyed the evening. Abbi didn’t like her flavor that she had chosen but Javan traded with her so everyone was happy in the end and had brightly colored lips and tongues.

posted by We are the Taylors @ 7:21 PM   0 comments

Saturday, September 7

Swimming in the Rain

We went to a friend’s house for a birthday party today and the kids
had a blast swimming. At one point it started raining but there was no lightning or thunder so we let the kids continue. It made me think of the times when I was a kid and we would swim in the rain. I don’t know why but that was always so much fun for some reason. Maybe because in FL it is rare to have a good rain without lightning. The kids had blast though and they swam until it was time to go home.

posted by We are the Taylors @ 3:17 PM   0 comments

Monday, September 2

Legoland

All day Saturday and Sunday the girls asked us about the Lego people. We just said it was a surprise and they would have to wait. Last night, I got everything we would need together for our trip
today and took about 43 mini-figures with in a Ziploc bag for traders. The children didn’t see me getting things together so they still had no idea what was happening. We got them up early (for a nonschool day) and told them to get dressed in shorts and socks and shoes. We all loaded up into the car and then drove to Sanford where we stopped at Panera for breakfast. Once we were filled up we hit the road again and headed toward Lakeland. The girls kept making guesses as to where were going based on the signs we passed (we had to pass all the theme parks: Disney, Universal, SeaWorld) but they didn’t know what our plans were. Eventually they quieted down as we drove through some rural areas
of Winter Haven and they read the books they had brought with them. Finally, we came to a entrance of Legoland and I told them to look. Javan saw the sign and said, “Lego City!” Abbi corrected him and said “Legoland” They could barely keep in their seats as we found our parking spot. We lathered everyone up in sunscreen and then started our trip. September is Police Appreciation Month so I got free admission and paid only $40 for up to 4 guests to go with me. That was perfect for us. Normal price is closer to $90 and there is no way we would be able to afford that, which is why we hadn’t gone yet. We were told that we could bring our old Lego mini-figures and trade them with the employees which is why we worked so long on getting all those lego people together the other night. We kept the ones that we only had one of or that we liked a lot and brought with us the ones that we had multiples off or that were worn and sad looking. Peter had a ton of spacemen that were all the same so we took about 20 of those and still left a couple dozen at home. Right away we started looking for traders and enjoyed going into the shops because the
AC felt so much better than the heat outside. After a few trades we headed toward a rollercoaster. On the way we walked though the area where they had Lego replicas of towns and cities. It was really cool to see all the detail in the buildings and accessories. Once we were tired of standing in the heat we made it a point to find a ride. We had headed toward a rollercoaster but apparently we were on the wrong side of it because we couldn’t find the entrance. Instead we got into the first line we saw which was just a little ride but it was a perfect start to get us warmed up. Javan kept saying he wanted to go on a rollercoaster so we set off to find one. We came onto a Dragon coaster and measured Javan up. He was a couple inches taller than required so we got in line. We watched as a couple cars loaded and unloaded and then it was our turn. I sat next to Javan and was probably more afraid for him than he was. I made sure the bar was as far down as it could go and then I put my arm around him. The coaster wasn’t anything scary for me but he is only 4 and my little boy so I wanted to make sure he was safe.
He held on and then as the coaster reached the top and then dropped you could see Javan’s expression change from excited to scared to relief when we got to the end. He was quiet for a little bit when we returned to our starting point but once we were out of the kart and moving on he said he liked it and wanted to do it again. Brave boy. Rather than doing it again we sought out a different ride. We went from ride to ride and then took a break for lunch near another rollercoaster that looked a little scarier than the last. It started to thunder though so we had to wait for the park to reopen the rides which they do after 15 minutes has passed with no thunder. Finally it was that time and I rode with Javan again. Bresa rode by herself in front of me and Abbi and Daddy took the car behind us.
This coaster had a big drop and when we made through the dip and back to the top Javan yelled “MAMA!!” It clearly shook him a bit but when we were through he wanted to do it again. We played around the rest of the park for a few more hours. We went on the rides we could while we were free of thunder. We stopped for ice cream and then went to a store on our way out and each of the children picked a Lego keychain to buy. The park wasn’t open late but we had to drive for an hour and a half to get home and still needed to get dinner so we left for the day about an hour before the park closed. We all had a good time and enjoyed the new park we got to explore. It was fun to do something totally different and I was
happy that Peter came with us. He is not into theme parks so much so this was a nice treat for me too.

posted by We are the Taylors @ 10:07 PM   0 comments