Taylor Lake weekend

I am kind of getting my posts out of order since it has been so long since I updated. (sorry everyone!) Pray for me, as my attitude has been suffering!

Josh's Great Aunt and Uncle came to Nebraska a couple of weeks ago the same weekend that Jason and Kim came down with the family. We made it out to the lake for a few hours and had a great time. It was so neat to meet Rex and Julie and of course baby Cora.

All of the kids are getting so big. Callie likes to help with the babies. She wanted to carry Ryan, but he is a little to big for that, so she sat on my lap and "held" him for a while. Collin was having a bad day, but he took a break from being upset and "held" Ryan also. He really wanted Ryan to come out and play with him, and was a little surprised to learn that not only did Ryan not walk, he doesn't crawl yet either. Maybe by Thanksgiving he will be a little more fun to play with.

Camping

We went to the church camp out a week ago and had a great day on Saturday. The kids went fishing, canoeing, tubing, swimming, and jet skiing. I am sure that they did other things too, but those were the highlights. Clifton loves to be on the water and he stayed in the tube until Ray parked the boat. (Thanks Ray!) He then found a new friend to take him out on the jet ski (Brian I think, once again thanks!) When I came to drag him back to the camper he was crying "No! I am going tubing with Jeff now!" This was after he had been in the water for 7 hours with a brief lunch break! Nate also like to be in the water, but he is happier closer to shore. Fishing and a little bit of swimming are more up his alley. (Thanks Ray also for the casting lesson!) Josh and I were worn out from packing to get us there and didn't have much ambition. I did go out on the tube with Clifton for a while and let Josh take care of Ryan on shore. We had been trying to sell our camper so we had to completely repack it before we could leave. Ryan ended up sleeping with us in the double bed (we have a king at home) except for when he slept in the laundry basket beside the bed. He is almost to big for the laundry basket. (see picture below)

We had not tried to use any of the pluming in the camper, but I did figure out how to turn on the water pump Saturday evening. Sunday morning I got up to fix breakfast. I started my fire and got out my dutch oven and turned around to get my eggs when I realized that our coolers were gone. At first I thought maybe Josh and put them in the pick up, but it quickly became clear that some one had taken them. While I wondered if it was a practical joke of one of our fellow church friends we decided no, we really did get robbed. They took 2 coolers, one full of food, and the other with several containers of water. The camp stove that my parents purchased in 1982, a 12 inch cast iron skillet, and a 10 inch cast iron griddle. They left the regulator and the propane bottle for the stove.

While Josh was looking for his shoes to come out to investigate he stepped in a large puddle of water. The whole fresh water tank had pumped out on the floor in the back of the camper. Josh had forgotten to hook up a couple of hoses and I left the pump running out of ignorance. SO.....our camping trip ended on a sour note and I haven't much felt like blogging. Further more some people called and would have purchased the camper that day but we didn't feel right selling it to them full of water, so I guess that we will be keeping it and fixing it up. Josh is celebrating I am bummed. I would much rather take the tents and the suburban. He loves the camper and his big diesel pick up.

Cora Suzanne

Beautiful baby Cora; Callie finally has her baby sister; Cody, Callie, Collin, and Cora; Jason, Kim, and Cora; The whole family (check out the boots on those boys!)

Look what I did!

OK.....for those of you who do not know, I have recently become obsessed with cloth diapering. So obsessed that I have drug at least one friend in with me. LOL! It started out as a way to save some money and has grown from there. Anyway, it can get quite expensive if you purchase them all custom made, so I decided to try to make some of my own. I started out using old t-shirts. Very cute, but he is out growing them already, so time for a new plan that will fit longer. I bought some fabric over the weekend to make a different style of diaper and to make some covers to keep the wet in. Here is my first cover. It is made from very soft fleece. I made it tonight with a little guidance from my Mom. (She did teach me how to sew when I was young, but I am pretty sure she thought that it was a waste of time, but look at me 20 years later! I do still remember a lot of my lessons.)

It's a GIRL!!!

The Nebraska branch of Taylor's has been blessed by a new baby girl today! God is good! Cora Suzanne was 8 lbs 13.6 oz and 21 inches long. Mom and baby are doing well. Congratulations Kim and Jason on your new daughter! Congratulations also to Cody, Collin, and Callie on a new baby sister! We can't wait to meet her!

Day Camp

Josh, Nate, and Cliff went to Cub Scout Day Camp at Lake Malone on Saturday. They had a lot of fun shooting BB guns, Archery, Torpedoes, Milk Jug Volley Ball, and many other activities. Ryan and I stayed home and had a very relaxing day.

A sad day!

We discovered last night that our Beta fish "Dave" had past on. We got him when we lived in McCook, so he had moved from McCook to Palisade to Grant to this house with us in the last two years. We are not sure if he died from old age or starvation, but either way we will miss him at least once a week. (That's about how often we remembered to feed him!) We do still have our other Beta C.B. which can stand for Corn Bushel (he origianlly lived on my desk at work) or Cow Boy because Nate adopted him for a while.