Natural History Museum

So we had a 3 day weekend.  It has been miserably cold.  It's totally deceiving.  You look outside and you think that it is a beautiful day.  As soon as you step out you realize that it is in the 30's and the wind is blowing 20-30 miles per hour.  The wind chill is into the low 20's.  With these conditions in mind we wanted to go out and do something.  We heard from Chris and Bri that the natural history museum at the Norman Campus was really neat.  We went saturday morning and we were really surprised at everything they had there.  The coolest thing they had was actually a full skeleton of a Pentasaurus.   They had it stored in their archives and it sat there for 50 years.  When they finally took time to prepare it, it turned out that it was a world record for biggest dinosaur skull ever found.  They also had several other full skeletons including an Apatosaurus, Allosaurus, and a Wooly Mammoth.  One of Tricia's favorites was the howling mouse.  The little guy could really hurt your ear drums, she's weird like that............

They don't make them like they used to?

I always thought that this was just a saying. It turns out that this is completely true. In our back yard we have an old post up that was once used to hang up wet clothes to dry. It was probably put up when the house was built. I started to dig it out thinking that it was probably only about a foot deep. I started to dig around the concrete and I kept digging and kept digging until the ground got too hard to dig and the thing still wouldn't move. I actually broke the pole off trying to push it over. We were left with this huge block of cement in the yard. We finally broke down and went to Sears to buy a sledge hammer. I went out there today and started pounding away at the cement block. The cement block broke easily enough and I thought to myself, "Nothing that good old fashion muscle can't take care of." I reached down to pull the pole out and it didn't move an inch. To make a long story short a humbling hour later I pulled out the tube. It turned out that it was cemented down 2 1/2 feet. I am sure that it made the original owners feel good to know that a tornado could tear the house apart but at least their clothes line would still be standing. Tristan (returning back to the gym with humility)

Christmas Vacation

So finally I can update this now that it's almost one month overdue. We returned from Utah about 3 days ago. It's 70 degrees here and I love it! We had all the snow we wanted in Utah. I even went sledding down Tristan's parent's front yard. I took Thomas down with me. I guess dogs don't really like sledding. And finally for the first time in so long it snowed Christmas Eve and it was a white Christmas and the snow stayed on the ground for...well, at least until we left. It was beautiful! When we first headed out for Utah, we took a detour to Phoenix to meet up with Ben and Brittany and their 3 girls. We picked oranges from the trees but they were so hard and unripe, we had to wait about 10 days to eat them. They were pink inside but SO tasty! On the way from AZ to UT we stopped at the Grand Canyon. It was awesome! It was quite the grand canyon. hehehe... One night we played Cranium all night and I always struggled through the red cards, so we went through them to practice, and now we can't play anymore because I know all the red card answers. To solve this, Ben and his wife Brittany were a team, and Tristan and I were a team. When we landed on red, the husbands would answer the question while the wives had to hold a shock ball. It was a gift Jake gave Tristan for Christmas. If the wife dropped the ball before the question was answered, they lost. I dropped the ball. :( Not that it hurt, but it was so scary. Anyways, here are a few pictures from the trip. Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! Love the Taylors.

My REALLY fat cat, Freddy

Happy New Year 2008

Ice Storm

YAY!!! Our camera works....for now. We finally could go take pictures outside. On Saturday night it started raining and everything froze over night, so church was cancelled Sunday and today school is cancelled. They are trying to keep everyone off the streets. This week is finals for Tristan and since no one can get to school they moved today's final to Thursday.


About every 5 minutes there is a cracking sound...what you hear when a tree is being cut and starts to fall. Only the sound suddenly stops and you aren't sure where it came from, you just know that sooner or later something is coming down. It's kind of exciting, huh?! But at the same time makes us nervous.
(So while I was posting pictures, one of the branches above our house broke. We heard it hit the roof and then land on one of the lines out back. We're not sure what the line is, but it held up. We went out to take it off the line and our backyard is like an ice skating rink! Have you ever tried pushing a boulder while standing on ice? There's no grip. Until our next update....)


We've been lucky to not have our power go out or anything damaged, but we're still keeping our fingers crossed. Isn't it amazing that it keeps raining but once it hits the ground it freezes? Our cars are giant ice cubes. And it's a solid piece of ice...we can't even get into our garbage can. Every seam is sealed off. I'm glad I have a good book. :)

Getting Ready for Christmas

......... We finally finished our stockings and ornaments. We'll take the stockings to Utah, but our tree we've decorated to make it feel Christmas-y. Our idea for ornaments came about on our honeymoon when we wanted to find a souvenir that wouldn't be just a knick-knacks lying around the house. On the side of the road in CA we noticed HUGE pine cones...so we decided to collect pine cones from wherever we were and put a bow on it and hang it on our Christmas tree. So far we have cones from CA, Mississippi and Oklahoma...oh and one that smells like cinnamon from Utah, but that's probably not where it's originally from. And as for our stockings, we drew our own design and I sewed them and we bought a bunch of felt and decorated them.

Dating After Marriage?

I love going on dates with Tristan, especially since we've been married when we aren't courting anymore, and sometimes it might not seem important. I think continuous dating is very important.
HOWEVER, I think some people in this world feel dating is important after marriage...that is-too other people's spouses. When did this become acceptable!? Why do people feel even after marriage, girlfriends and boyfriends, or wives and husbands, are up for grabs?!
Why am I on this rant, you ask...well, yesterday in Walmart I had an experience. The clock in our bathroom died, so I went to get another one, and while I was standing there in the aisle deciding if I wanted the red, black or white one, a big black man, about 30, came and stood behind me. I didn't realize later that he was positioning himself. As I turned to leave he "bumped" into me. Then he turned, "Oh, excuse me...Hey, are you athletic? Do you play sports?" he asked. "Uh....no, not really," I answered. "Oh, well you look like it," he said. "Yeah, people have said that," I muttered as I tried to walk around him. "How long have you been married?" He said, stopping right in front of my cart. At least I had that if I wanted to ram him. :) "Oh, about 9 months." (I didn't need to tell him that, but I panicked because by now someone leaves.) "Well, I'm a physical trainer...do you work out?" What I said- "Yes, with my husband once in a while." What I should have said- "Get away from me, you weirdo. I don't want to talk to you!" Anyways, he finally says, "Well, if you need someone to train with, call me....or for a movie or something." And he handed me his number and walked off.
Why did he think that was acceptable?! Does a wedding ring not mean anything anymore to some people? I wish I'd have given him a piece of my mind, but he caught me off guard, and I can't think that fast. Tristan thought it was funny when I told him, but I didn't.

Another One Bites the Dust

I have to apologize for lack of pictures. My digital camera decided that it was tired of taking pictures...personally I blame it on the jealousy of our new video camera. So, I have nothing to post. And then last night my computer decided to bail, too. But this morning I got one last breath, long enough to backup all our pictures, music, documents, finances...and most importantly, update the blog. :) So hopefully it stays with us long enough for me to finish a family video I've been working on for months and am just days away from finishing. Keep your fingers crossed.

Tagged: Tristan

I think I finally get the concept of blog tagged. Man...I was frozen forever. (Another game another time.) I was tagged about a month ago and now this second one comes, I'll answer for Tristan and then a different one for me.
What is his name? Tristan Gregory Taylor
How long have you been married? 7.5 months
How long did you date? 9 months
How old is he? 26 in human years
Who eats more? Is that even a question? Tristan dominates unless it comes to potatoes in any shape or form.
Who said I love you first? Tristan
Who sings better? Both of us prefer to turn the radio loud enough so no one can hear our voices.
Who is smarter? Tristan for sure. I tend to not care unless it directly affects me. However, I am more up to date on the news...except in sports.
Whose temper is worse? Is that quantity or quality? I'll claim the quantity.
Who does the laundry? I clean it, but he can take the cake on getting it dirty. That's doing the laundry too, I guess.
Who does the dishes? Same as laundry question.
Who sleeps on the right side of the bed? If you're standing, facing the bed....it's Tristan
Who pays the bills? Me...it's like pulling teeth
Who mows the lawn? Well, when we have lawn it's Tristan, however, I've gotten my feet green once or twice.
Who cooks dinner? Me unless it has something to do with steaks. Or we make it together if it's calzones or hoagie sandwiches.
Who drives when you are together? Tristan, although it's more like flying low.
Who is more stubborn? Me
Who is the first to admit when they are wrong? Me, I feel guilty and it's usually true.
Whose parents do you see the most? It's about 50/50
Who proposed? Tristan
Who has more friends? Tristan, he actually sees people during the day at school.
Who has more siblings? I do at an amazing 9.
Who wears the pants in the family? Do scrubs count? I do until Tristan puts his foot down.

Thanksgiving

Last Tuesday Tristan and I packed up ourselves and the dog to drive to Utah.
We had just previously found out it was a 17 hour drive. We were hoping to cut out an hour or two. 17 hours later we pulled into Utah. No matter what we tried we couldn't shorten the time. And we almost got stuck in Albuquerque. At the gas station we lost the keys to the car! How is that possible?!! Worst part was that we only had a few minutes of light because the sun had already set. Turns out they had fallen out as we walked Thomas around a field for a potty break.

Once in Utah we tried to sleep, but as we are both combating colds, we couldn't get many hours in between coughing and sneezing. Yet we made a trip to Costco. There isn't one in OKC, so that was the first place we went.
Wednesday night we had Thanksgiving dinner with my family, which was fun but much smaller than usual. Which reminds me of a discussion we had...do you think they ever write "Wet Paint" in Braille...or does that defeat the whole purpose?
The next morning, Tristan joined our old singles ward for some Turkey football. Everyone was so surprised to see him. I wonder why they weren't surprised to see me? Curious. :)
That afternoon we had dinner with Tristan's parents and I can never get enough of the salad!!
On Friday we were up at 6am drive to Evanston, WY for a Christmas tree. My family likes them fresh. :) It was sunny and hardly any snow, but COLD!! And windy! They shimmied across some ice that turned out to be much stronger that we thought, but it was funny to see them do it anyways.


On Saturday we stayed for the BYU game. The first half I thought was awfully boring, but the last quarter was awesome! Especially since BYU won.
I don't think we will ever drive the whole way between UT and OK again. We stopped in Laramie for the night, and still the drive was just way too long. Suddenly I'm more fond of airplanes. :)

MIA Feral

After our Thanksgiving trip to Utah where we deposited our Thomas (he was bored out of his mind here, and I miss him tons, but he has so much fun at Tristan's parents home) we came home to find that our other pet decided to pack up and leave this joint. Not a note or anything! Anyways, hopefully he comes back soon. I realized how much he kept me company with Tristan gone. I used to joke that I would talk to him, and now I'm going to have to pull out my stuffed bear to talk to. Should I admit that? At least Feral was a breathing thing. :) Anyways, it's so quiet around here now that we are down 2 animals.

Feral

I need a section just for this cat of ours. No wonder people write about their kids so much. Feral is so funny and if I can talk about him, I don't have to spill my own dumb happenings and still update this post with somewhat new information that won't bore you...like I did the dishes and made the bed.
So, anyways, after we use the shower, Feral comes running in the bathroom because he likes to lick the water off the bottom of the tub. Well, today the tub happened to be filled, and boy was he surprised to jump into almost a foot of water! It's now over and hour later and he is still licking himself dry while his eyes are set on me with a look of hatred. Hey! I didn't do it!! (But I sure laughed hard!!!)

Tristan Playing Football

I must be pretty quick on the draw. I wanted to catch these pictures just right, but always the picture came out seconds before anything happened. At least in the second picture you can actually see the ball way at the top. Tristan plays football with some buddies every other week and loves it. It's his break from lots of studying.

Halloween

Halloween was really fun this year. We ended up dressing up three different times with different costumes and carving 2 sets of pumpkins. It started when Tricia and I were feeling the need to have some fun so about a week before Halloween we got some pumpkins and watched Halloween movies. We even bought the Garfield and Peanuts holiday cartoons. We hoped the pumpkins might last till Halloween but with the heat we have here they only lasted a couple of days. We went to the ward trunk or treat. I enjoyed the free food and Tricia enjoyed seeing all the kids dressed up in costumes. Halloween night we grilled burgers and carved pumpkins again. We had very few trick or treaters, but we had fun dressing up in our "under-a-dollar-made-of-plastic-tablecloth" costumes. Later we went to a big party the dental school put on. They had it decorated and we had some live music. But before we had completely gone deaf we left. The music was way too loud and the party was at the point of, "either you drink and do dumb things, or leave while staying sober and being safe." We left sober and safe. :)

Top Ten Reasons to Visit Oklahoma

10- St. George nothin'...our WHOLE state has red dirt
9- We have a cool state song (not to mention a musical)
8- It's the number one region in the world for F5 tornadoes
7- Our name, "The Sooner State", and mascot, "The Sooners", are based off land stealing cheats
6- True Oklahomans hate Texas
5- Driving on the freeway is like shooting the luge
4- The wind. Oh wait, no. That part sucks (or blows, however you look at it.)
3- One word....steak
2- See all those Jeff Foxworthy redneck jokes come to life
1- WE'RE here

Fish Story

I am so proud of myself! The other day we went fishing and on the way Tristan told me he wouldn't be surprised if I didn't catch anything because it was rare that anyone caught anything in Lake Hefner. All I wanted to do was practice my cast. So Tristan was going to get some studying done while I cast and reeled in. Twice something was wriggling at the end of my line, but I didn't know about sinking the hook. So I missed it. But immediately I felt a wriggle and sunk the hook and caught a perch! I was so excited. It was my first catch ever. Right after that I caught another. I was doing so well Tristan didn't get any studying done because he had to come down and get the hook out so we could throw it back. I don't like touching them, so he comes with me. :)