Merry Christmas James!

Last Christmas, I gave James a kit for applying an epoxy to our garage floor.  It has been on our home improvement wish list since the beginning, and James was particularly excited about this.  We had to wait until the summer to do this for the temperature to be right to do it.  Then with trek and everything else going on, summer almost got away from us.  So we reserved yesterday for doing the garage floor.  The process actually started Friday.  I cleared out most of the garage and moved everything into the house or into the backyard.  James helped me move the big stuff when he got home.  Then we had to clean and etch the garage floor and let it completely dry to prep the floor for the epoxy seal to stick. 

Our hose isn't very long so we actually had to feed it through our house to reach the garage.  Haha!  It was pretty special around here!  Yesterday morning, as soon as Porter went down for his nap, we got to work.  There was a really tight time frame that the epoxy had to be applied from the time we mixed everything together.

My main job was sprinkling the paint flecks.

Within a couple of hours, we were done!  Now we just can't put anything on it for 3 days and can't park on it for a week.  It looks awesome and we are so excited to have it done!  I've sort of been dreading this and secretly wished James would do it all by himself some weekend that I was out of town, but it ended up not being too bad.  Hurray for completed home improvement projects!

Ladies Night Out at the Foam Glow 5k

Last night I had a little ladies night out to downtown SLC with Amy, Kara, Olivia, and Tricia. It was super fun!  Olivia and I drove up together and met Kara at City Creek for dinner.  Then Tricia met us there right before heading over to the state fairgrounds for the Foam Glow 5k.  Amy met us there.  The race itself was a pretty special experience.  So the whole point is to party it up in foam and black lights which means the race course is dark.  You can't see a dang thing!  It definitely wasn't meant to be a serious race.  We had a lot of fun and it was a once-in-a-lifetime experience.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Since some of us were parked at City Creek, we decided to hit the Cheesecake Factory to finish out the night.  Makes sense...sort of "run" a 5k and back it up with cheesecake!  The best part of the night was just hanging out with all my favorite ladies!  We really need to these ladies nights out more often!

Taylor Family Reunion

We just got back from our Taylor family reunion down at Scofield Reservoir where we celebrated Randall and Sondra's 50th wedding anniversary.  We were there for 4 days, and it was so wonderful!  Almost everyone was there except for our two missionaries.  Sydnee and Ryjul could only come down for a few hours the first day, but we were all happy with any Wren time we could get!

Porter loves little Wren!

The house we stayed at was awesome!  The lake the house was on was less than awesome.  The water was really gross with algae, and it was freezing until the afternoon which is usually when the wind picked up.  We spent most of our days in the house, which is just fine with me!  It was great just to spend time all together and play games and watch the Olympics!

Here is what the water looks like.  So gross!

The first night we were there, it was Randall and Sondra's anniversary.  They shared their dating, engagement, and marriage stories and showed us pictures.  It was so fun to hear!  Then we celebrated with some wedding cake.

 

One of my responsibilities for the reunion was to create a family tree so we could all see how we each fit in to the family and highlight the first converts to the church.  This was the final chart.  We filled in all our names the first night, and then we added all the ancestors on the last night.

We went to church at the Scofield branch.  It was pretty interesting.  When I walked into Relief Society, I was easily the only woman under the age of 60.  The speakers in sacrament meeting had come down from Herriman to speak.  It's fun to go to other wards and mix things up!

My handsome little buddy!

What?! This never happens!!

We spent a lot of time on the deck, in the hot tub, and just hanging out.  The last night we were there, several of James' siblings shared stories about Randall and Sondra's parents.  It was so neat to get to know them better!

These two had twin runny noses all week.

Makeshift baby gate

Wearing cousin, Nathan's, shoes!

Whenever Porter sees Papa in his wheelchair, he says, "Wee, wee", which means he wants a ride.  He loves it!

The last night there we had the most amazing sunset!  It was a perfect ending to our amazing reunion!

It was really such a great time!  I feel so blessed to be a part of this family and that Porter has such wonderful cousins, aunts and uncles, grandparents, and ancestors!  We are hoping to do a reunion ever other year.  Fingers crossed!