Vacation pt.2

Before I talk about the 2nd part of our vacation, Danica had asked about the Banana boats. I had never heard of banana boats before that day either, but it will definitely not be the last time I eat them! All you do is take a banana still in the peel and make a slit down the center lengthwise (making sure you don't pierce through to the other side). Then shove inside any type of these toppings: Chocolate (chips, bar, whatever you have on hand), peanut butter, and marshmallows (mini or cream). It will be pretty messy since you obviously can't get all of it inside the banana. Then, you wrap your banana up in foil and lay it on the hot coals next to your fire. After it's completely heated through and your chocolate is melted, it's time to eat! Just eat the insides of the banana with a spoon! It's sooooooooooooo amazingly good!

Alrighty then, on to the rest of the vacation:

After spending time with Shane's family, we then started the long drive to Michigan.



Along the way we stopped at a couple of different places. In South Bend, IN we stopped at a really cool chocolate factory to do a tour. I only say it was "cool" because the tour and the samples were free. However, the tour was really lame. Since there was no one working in the factory that day (it was saturday), there was nothing cool to see. Just a bunch of empty conveyor belts and boxes. But hey, the kids still thought it was cool. After that we drove another couple of hours and then stopped in Holland, MI. At first we were going to visit the Little Holland park thing, but it was going to be almost $60 for us to get it! It was kinda cool, but not $60 cool! So we decided instead to check out the outlet mall that was right next to it. The kids had to go to the bathroom, and the only bathrooms in the whole place were located inside a laser tag/game business. I'm glad we stopped in though. We bowled a little bit, played some air hockey, and did some miniature golf. While playing air hockey, Kelly exclaimed very loudly "This is the best vacation EVER!" Best $14 ever spent.

After playing around, we drove the rest of the way up to Hart, MI to meet up with our friends the Romney's. They have a distant relative who lives there and was willing to rent out a small trailer they owned for just $5 a night. Check out that beauty:


Now come on, how freakin' awesome is that??? LOL! OK, it wasn't freakin' awesome, but it was cheap and really really funny for memories sake! I really wish we had taken some pictures of all of us crammed inside. The trailer was really built for just 2 people and we had 4 adults and 3 kids in there. Oh yeah! We really only slept in the darn thing. It was just too small to do anything else. It was nice really nice, though, having our friends there. In the evening when we would put the kids to bed, we would stay up playing card games and just DYING laughing at the stupid voices that Justin and Shane would make up. Just so you guys know, if you ever want to watch the funniest game of scum or phase 8, just play with Justin and Shane!

The rest of the vacation was spent going to Lake Michigan, cooking out on the grill or over an open fire pit, doing the touristy thing, and just having fun with the kids. The whole trip was soooooooooooooooooo relaxing and it just made it better that the kids just kept saying over and over again, "This is the best vacation EVER!"

Vacation pt.1

Okay okay okay... I know I've been quite the blogger slacker this summer. I'm not exactly sure why, I guess the laziness in me was just starting to come out. Oh well, I'm here now and hopefully I'll keep it up again.

So almost 2 weeks ago we left for our summer family vacation. It was SO much fun!!!! Our main vacation was going to be spent in Michigan, but since Shane's parents house was along the way, we decided to leave a couple of days early and spend some time with them. The nice surprise was that his Aunt Karen and Uncle Von and his cousins Mandy and Kristy were there visiting as well! We hadn't seen them in a couple of years, so it was nice to do some catching up!

Isabelle cooking with her Aunt Karen

mmmm.... banana boats! I had never had this awesome dessert before and now it's my new favorite!!!!

Okay, a couple of funny things about this picture: I thought it was really cute that 7 adults came outside to brave the heat and humidity to play kickball for two little girls. Too sweet! But what's really funny is that when I first met Mandy I was convinced she was adopted. I mean, come on, she totally doesn't look like the rest of the Taylor kids -- am I right people? Anyway, I knew I was wrong when I saw this picture of her and Von banishing Kristy to the outfield. It's like she's Von's "mini-me". Definitely a Taylor.

I'm baaaaaaaack!

Okay... so I took a slight hiatus from blogging. I think I just got so stressed out from preparing for Girl's camp and actually doing girls camp (more on that at a later time) that I just needed a bit of break from everything. Apparently while I was gone, I have been tagged twice by some pretty fun tags. Today I'm going to do one from my friend and old roommate Tamara. Basically it's just showing pictures from your past and the story behind them. Oh, and just so you know, if you click on any of the pictures, you can get a REAL good look of everything!!!! :-) Okay, here goes:

Photo #1: 4th grade class picture
I'm the little beauty right in front in the gold outfit with the parachute pants. Remember when parachute pants were cool? OK, they were never cool... but I sure loved them! I even had a green pair. Sweet.



photo #2: This picture is of me, Tam, Marlena, and Julie at Ricks. I'm not exactly sure how to explain this one. For some reason we found anything butt related really funny.




Photo #3: This was a game we played at Marlena's birthday party -- pin the hand on the butt! I told you, we had a weird fascination with butts at the time. This is a picture of Troy playing. Aaahhh.... Troy. good times. If I recall correctly me and Julie actually found a little kid and traced his hand for the game. So unbelievably sad.....




Photo #4: This is a picture of a friend and me lip syncing to Milli Vanilli. Yeah... I was cool in High School. BTW... that is a mop spray painted "black" on top of my head to look like dread locks. It was really really gross, but the skit was funny!




Photo #5: After my first year at Ricks I went on this program called "Discovery". It was super super super lame. Basically we camped all around Utah, Idaho, and Nevada for a month and 1/2 all while doing 9 credit hours of classes. We had so much school work that you really just spent the majority of your time in your tent studying rather than hiking and stuff. Lame. Anyway, once in a while we would get out and find something fun to do. This is one of my favorite pictures from discovery. My friend and I stumbled upon this old Outhouse. Now, this was not just any outhouse. This was a two-seater outhouse. You know, in case you and a loved one don't want to be apart for more than a second. And the best part? In the back it had a sign that said "Beware of black widows". I remember we were terrified to take this picture thinking we were going to die at the hand of those black widows. So worth it.



Photo #6: A good majority of you guys are in this one. Remember when we did sumo wrestling for FHE???? Okay... lets see who's in here -- Keri, Danica, Sandy, Amber, Heather, Radene, and Daniel (I'm pretty sure Radene and Daniel are on blogger????) My favorite memory was when they called out Danica and Steve Wood to compete against each other. Danica is super short and Steve is super tall. Out comes Danica stuffed to capacity bouncing around all over the place and then totally pounced on Steve and took him down to the ground!!!!! I don't think I have ever laughed so hard in my life!


Photo #7: This is from an 80's dance at Ricks. For those of you who know Shane, he's not the type to get dressed up. He's not exactly an attention-grabber kind of guy (unlike the girl he married). Anyway, Heather and I begged him and Steve to go to the dance but they didn't know what to wear. I told them to go as Run-D.M.C. -- you just wear some track suits and some gold chains. Pretty simple. Well, when we were at DI they found this horrible wind breaker that you see me wearing. They dared me to wear it to the dance. Of course I accepted. I also took it to the next level. I crimped my hair, teased it, wore bright blue eye shadow, hot pink lipstick, and super pink blush. I was hot. Well, Shane didn't exactly think so. He later told me that that was the only time he ever found me unattractive. Nice honey.



Photo #8: This was taken during my lesbian haircut days. Yes I know... what was I thinking? I don't think I really was thinking clearly at that time. Ew... I want to vomit just looking at it.


photo #9: This is a picture of me 6 months pregnant, barefoot, in a robe frying hamburger. I am a true Kentucky girl.



These are picture of me and Shane when we worked for the Salvation Army at one of their summer camps. We actually got engaged at this summer camp. LOL!!! Anyway, I was a lifeguard there and Shane was a camp counselor. I remember when Shane asked my dad if he could marry me and my dad said "You want to marry my daughter and you do WHAT for a living???" Good times. Anyway, I just totally remember how skinny he used to be and how I just thought he was the hottest thing that ever walked the earth (still do)! Love you babe!



photo #10: This is a great picture. This is our 2nd apartment. It felt like a mansion because it had two bedrooms and it was just the two of us. Anyway, we wanted to decorate the 2nd bedroom, but being broke college students we had to do it on the cheap. We found all of these super old outdated maps at the DI for like 10 cents. We put those up along with army men every where and called it our "war room". The best part of the room you can't even see. As a wedding present, my grandma for some reason gave us a a WWII and Vietnam war veteran commemorative blanket. It had a picture of two soldiers with planes flying over head saluting an american flag. Perfect for the war room.

Well, that's it! I won't tag anyone in particular. Just do it if it looks like fun!

Gettin' my ears pierced!

Okay Jennifer and Britany -- I finally did it! Monica wouldn't let me chicken out this time. I'm pretty sure I would have been strangled by her if I didn't do it. Can you say peer pressure??

Get Yer Free Doughnutt!

It's a sweet blessed event today.... Get yer own free doughnut from Krispy Kreme today only! Woo hoo! I love Doughnut day!

The fonz and the HONK!

This is real people.... a bona fide PSA from back in the day. Gotta love the Fonz and his new friend Tanya!

We won!!!!!

Yesterday we went to the family story time at the Library. We usually don't go to the family one because it is at night and it's an hour before the kids bedtime. However, we went this time because someone from the cast of The Little Mermaid was supposed to be there to read to the kids. We had no idea, however, that they were going to have a drawing to win 4 tickets to the Derby Dinner Playhouse to go see The Little Mermaid. When they did the drawing first, someone else got picked. However, the mom felt bad because they had actually just gone to the Derby dinner playhouse the weekend before and wanted someone else to have a chance to go. So they re-drew and they pulled out Kelly's name!!!! We're soooooooooo excited! Apparently the Derby Dinner Playhouse is one of the largest and oldest continuous dinner playhouses in the country. Pretty cool, huh? So yeah, our tickets include parking, breakfast (or lunch, depending on what time we want to go) and then the play. The kids are totally excited and so am I!!!!