Timothy Wyatt Taylor!!

I am VERY pleased to announce to those of you who have yet to hear. . . Timothy Wyatt Taylor finally entered the world at 9:09 A.M. today (9-12-09). His Mommy, I'm sure, is very happy to finally have him in her arms after an all night labor! He surprised us all by arriving a month before his due date, but he and his Mommy are both healthy, so we are pleased!

Pining. . .

To make a long story short, Jon and my dad are gone for 9 days to help Bud (my brother) drive cross country to California where he has a new job and apartment. The company is paying movers to move all his things out and paying for food and lodging for his trip out, so Jon and my dad get basically a free ride to CA and then fly home. They're going to see all the sights of the west and my mom and Joy and me are "stuck" at home alone for over a week. We decided that while we were sitting around "pining" (well at least we let THEM think so), we'd have some fun of our own, so today Mama and I went to Lake Placid (Joy and a friend relaxed at home). We had intended to go up Whiteface Mt., but it was so overcast it wouldn't have been worth the money to go up, so we stopped and checked out a couple places (some that sold reeeeeally good chocolate! : ), had lunch at A&W (a long time favorite of Mama's) and then shopped til we were ready to drop in Placid. It was a good but MUGGY day!!

Happy Birthday to my big brother!!

August 2nd is both my nephew, Austin's, and my brother's birthday. Austin turned 5 and Bud (Timothy II) turned 24. Unfortunately I don't have any birthday pictures of Austin, but here are a couple pictures one of Austin from about a month ago and one of Bud from his Birthday (Sunday).

Logan William Catton

Well, I don't have any pictures partly because we didn't take a camera and partly because even if I had, I wouldn't want to steel his parents' thunder, but. . . Last night Jon and I went to Plattsburgh to see the brand new nephew Logan. He was born a little before 4:00 yesterday (7-15-09) afternoon - right on his due date! Daddy was very pleased to show off his very full head of thick black hair and Mommy was just pleased in general! Today, the new Mommy gets to "celebrate" her birthday sitting in a hospital snuggling her baby and catching up on sleep! Happy Birthday Melissa! And Happy Birthday Logan!!

Welcome Tandy & Andrew!!

With camps and other summer activities, we (the church) just got around to formally welcoming Tandy and Andrew back into our congregation. Tonight after church everyone went to Kendall and Joyce's house for cake and ice cream. We gave them the wooden wall sign (below) and a card signed by everyone. We also all pitched in to give them gift cards to Wal-Mart, Hannahford, Subway, and Applebees.

Joy's Piano Recital

Joy had her Piano Recital Monday evening. After the recital, Momma, Daddy, Heidi, Joy, Jon, and I went to Italian Affair to celebrate.

Pictures... Pictures... and MORE Pictures!!

I won't bore you with details of all these, but they were all taken at Spring Mill State Park in IN. You'll notice one of all four grandkids and Rach. . . We tried to get her to lay down so we only got the 5 grandkids :-) but she was afraid she wouldn't be able to get back up if she layed down behind the kids! :-) Bud was the only one not able to make it, and as it turns out, we're fortunate to still have Bud as a part of our family!! To make a looooong story short, he and a friend went white water rafting and got caught in advanced rapids made worse by flash flooding. They abandoned their boats and spent three days hiking on one day's food supply before they found ANY civilization. We are once again thanking God for His protection!!

Vacation!

Just a quick hello from hot and humid Indiana. It's very late, and we have more fun things planned for tomorrow morning, but I just wanted to post and say hi! Loads of pictures to post later. . .

Momma

These are from the Monday after Mother's day (a little old) but I thought they were fun, so. . . Momma was scolding me for posting this picture of her with her tongue out (Of course I told her!) and then got tickled when she realized she'd been had again! :-)

Surprise!

To make a long story short. . .

Saturday, my mom took my youngest sister, Joy, out to lunch for her 13th birthday. Little did Joy know that it had been arranged for all of us girls to meet up with them for lunch. Rachel and Becky both flew in from FL, Lynette drove from IN, and I travelled the couple hours from Lake Placid. We stood there for a couple minutes before she actually realized who we were. I guess when you don't know certain people are in the area, it's hard to notice them at first. When she did notice us, I didn't have to worry about missing the surprised look, because she just sat there for a little while like this!

HAPPY 13th Birthday (today is the actual day) Joy!!

The Answer!

For some time now, I've been pondering the question Becky posted on her blog not long ago - "What should we do about Nettie Gardner?" Well, imagine my surprise to receive the answer in the mail just today! This kind and conciderate advice came from Cottage Living Magazine. I too got Net a magazine subscription for Christmas last year. The answer?

Sunday

And finally, our last activity of the weekend was an award ceremony for a dear friend and former music teacher - Ermina Pincombe. After years of playing just about any stringed instrument and singing folk and sacred music, Ermina was finally recognized and awarded for her talent and for helping keep Adirondack traditions alive and for helping pass them down.

Ermina was one of three award recipients for this year. There was also a Native American beadworker and gustoweh maker and a blacksmith. The other two brought in pieces of their work to display, but Ermina (and her son David) played and sang four songs for the audience.

We left from church Sunday morning, ate our picnic lunch on the run, and made it to Canton, NY just early enough for the 2:00 ceremony. Afterwards, there was a nice reception with certain foods to honor each of the three awarded. It was a very nice ceremony and reception to celebrate the native culture of the Adirondacks!

Here are some pictures.

On Stage and very nervous!

The successful completion of the second song brought a smile!

Receiving her award!

No words - She was so excited and overwhelmed!

Admiring the certificate.

Whew! It's all over with!

The four of us. (After the ceremony and before stuffing ourselves with way too much fried bread, etc.)

Birthday Parties

Nope none around here recently! But I just had one of those moments tonight where I said something from long ago and found myself explaining to my sweet and patient husband. His only question was whether it was a long story or not. When I assured him it wasn't, he asked if it would take me a long time to tell it. . . (He thinks some people take entirely too long to tell a simple story - he should know! But we won't go into that!) This post is mostly for my siblings. Sorry to the rest of you casual lurkers! To make a long story short. . . The other day driving through town, we noticed that these people were driving a car that had been sitting "FOR SALE" in their yard for quite some time. We thought maybe someone might have finally bought it. Well, on the way home from church tonight, we noticed that the car was sitting back in the yard where it has been sitting. Jon commented that it must not have been sold. I said, "Maybe they were just test driving it." Then on second thought I said, "or maybe the owners just needed to drive it for some reason." Then since I was on a roll, I added, "or maybe they just needed to drive it so it wouldn't get messed up from sitting so long." And then I said those magic words that conclude any nosy musings. . . "OR MAYBE they're having a birthday party!" Then I came back to real life and realized that Jon had absolutely NO idea what would have made me say something so random about someone trying to sell their car! It took a few minutes to even remember what started the whole birthday party thing, but it got funnier as I remembered the story! VERY random - I know, but I thought you might appreciate this funny memory with me! And if you need a little memory jogger, think Jeff's, the neighbors, and his mom making beans for supper on his birthday!!

Burlington, VT

This past weekend, Jon's cousin (and my good friend) Aimee took a break from work and came up to visit! Saturday, we decided to explore the fine town of Burlington. This of course included the ferry that took us from NY across the lake to VT, shopping (with little success), and dinner at Olive Garden. Here are a few pictures of our little day trip. I wish I would have thought to get pictures of some of the friendly scarecrows that were all over along the road, but unfortunately I didn't think of this until after dark!

"We're all happy and excited and having a good time. . .!" This was Jon trying to get us all smiling after several tries at this same pose!

These people were nuts! It was really cold on the water!

The boat.

And us!