picture this...

this full time job thing is great- but i feel i have fallen behind on our updates. sure, i'll blame work. in the words of my dear friend laney, "the life of a professional is not an easy one." thanks, lane. in leiu of a post full of photos, here are some textual teasers that will hopefully hold you over until i get some proper documentation in...

i finally braved the cold water of the old provo river with cade and some friends. last time i floated that river, i got a leech between my toes- so i think i was pretty brave to take a second plunge. odd- i dont remember it being that cold before.

one fabulous trip to denver where i spent all my time loving little addy and owen while fearing a sooki attack. yes, i am afraid of kittens and i am really working on it. i love my sister. and popcorn.

cade's weekend-o-fun while i was away: golfing, lagoon, repairs, family and friends. he'd make a great bachelor if he wasn't so married.

cade and i both got new haircuts. impulsively, i just chopped all mine off and i am not looking back with remorse. it has been too long since my hair has had a good style to it. think about all that time i've wasted drying my long, stringy hair. i am getting it all back now, folks. one day at a time.

photos to come... and hopefully something that is actually a little more interesting than all the above.

the taylors love you.

music and donuts

there have been some fabulous concerts around lately and while i wish cade and i could attend all of them (sorry about tori, kate) we have been able to see some fantastic freebies.

if you live in the salt lake area and have not been to a twilight concert at the gallivan center- shame on you. now before any of you start thinking this has anything to do with vampires and edward- just know it is only named the twilight concert series because it happens at twilight. stephanie meyer probably stole her title from this event. it is a great free program put on by the salt lake city arts council and i am always so pleased with the performers. last thursday we were able to see jenny lewis and bon iver who were both brilliant. i knew more about jenny lewis going into the concert but left completely blown away by bon iver. what a great band. coming up, there are a bunch of favorites of mine performing: including iron and wine and okkervil river. if you are looking for a great, cheap date- look no more.

a few days later my boss at work gave me some free tickets to the utah symphony performance at thanksgiving point. the weather was perfect and we just laid on our little blankie soaking it all in. we are so cultured.

to further prove our cultured lifestyle, cade decided to enter a bike race here in utah county called the tour de donut. in this bike race, you ride 3 laps which are seven miles long. inbetwen each lap, you stop back at the starting line and eat as many donuts as you possibly can before riding on. for each donut you successfully eat, 3 minutes is taken off your final time. cade recruited a few friends...

they stretched out...

and entered the race.

cade was on his single speed- but he still made great time in his first lap. as he rolled in and grabbed his first donut, he knew he was in trouble. you see, cade isn't the best competitive eater. he once entered a scotsman dog eating contest at utah state and managed to eat only 2 dogs which he had carefully dressed in ketchup and mustard. to him, the contest was nothing more than free lunch. in the case of the race- the donuts were nothing more than a free snack.

miraculously, he pounded down three after his first lap which left him feeling like this:

nevertheless, he hopped back on his bike and made another loop. as he rolled into eat his second round, cade yelled over to me that he was thinking about not eating any more. i reminded him of the time difference and he reluctantly tried to eat another donut. every bite was followed by a tortured dry heave- but somehow another donut was in and cade was off for his final lap.

in the end, the winner ate 28 donuts and pulled in a negative time for the race. we are both proud of cade's 4 pwned donuts (is pwned still cool?...wait- was it ever cool?). he was sick- but pleased with his ability to compete with all the fancy road bikes while he was only rocking the single speed.

why didn't i participate, you ask? oh, just because i am still riding the bmx and there is no way i am riding 21 miles with a rocky gut on that thing. tempting though... maybe next year.

so there you have it: music and donuts....

oh, and harry potter!

happy fourth

i am late giving america a well-deserved shout out.

here's to playing at "the lake"

great music

delicious food

and fireworks with family.

happy fourth.

a last hoorah- of sorts

we knew our life of ultimate freedom was coming to a close, so we had to go out with a bang. in the midst of packing and hauling stuff to our new apartment in orem, we took time to smell the poppies.

here's us just trying to look natural in a field of poppies. completely normal.

eddie and kylee invited us to go to a condo in eden for a few days. it was fabulous. eden is a beautiful little city nestled clear up in ogden canyon. we played mini golf, swam, hiked, slept and just enjoyed having nothing to do. it was a great escape.

cade and eddie found some cowboy hats somewhere, much to the girls' delight.


a bunch of friends joined us as well for dinner and the evening festivities. as you may notice, it was a bit chilly for a june evening.

it was perfect to get away and enjoy time with our friends.

later on, we were also able to attend the conor oberst and the mystic valley band show which was playing at library square in slc. cade is a huge bright eyes fan and i have been wanting to see conor in concert for a long time now (we even tried to go in paris while we were in europe). we were able to meet up with cade's cousin, dylan, and had a great time.


after that- the only thing left to do was get some aggie ice cream and make the move official.

for those of you who don't know, cade found a fabulous job as a marketing analyst for a company called xactware in orem. we were excited to move- but i was worried about getting a job myself. after applying to a few companies i ended up with 2 offers that were great- but i was having such a hard time deciding which offer to take! one job was a writing position and the other was in human resources. after much debate, poll taking and prayers- i chose the hr job. this decision shocked some people because i have always wanted to write- but i just felt so good about the hr job. plus- this means that cade and i will be working at the same company again! the hr job was at xactware as well. we couldn't have planned it better. even though we work in different departments and rarely see one another at work, it is fun to be with xactware together. we were the first husband and wife set to start on the same day. ya, we're pretty cool. but really- we are liking the jobs and excited about the future. here we are on our very first day of work in front of our new apartment.

and thus begins real life.

ahhh yes, the cruise.

every year, my dear grammy takes the whole family on a vacation together. she has taken us all over the world and we love every minute of it. this year, our travels took all 23 of us to the caribbean for a pretty sweet cruise. this is a picture overload- so if you don't really think we are all that cool, just go ahead and skip to the next blog you were planning on reading today. i won't be offended.

so we flew into orlando in small, separate groups; yet, we somehow all manged to find our way into orlando's ghetto where super 8 rooms are a cheap 25 bucks a room (that even includes breakfast, cha ching!). despite the sketchy neightborhood, we all felt safe and right at home as we crammed into one another's rooms to catch up and hang out. little owen was as high as a kite until at least 4 in the morning.

the next morning, we all packed into the vans and headed out to board the ship.


cade was 'the most excited person on the entire cruise ship' and he let everyone know it. here he is making his first step from the gangway to the boat.

the first day we spent getting to know the ship and exploring as we sailed off to our desitnations.






our first stop was in the bahamas. we went out to atlantis resort on the island and visited the aquarium and such. they had cool statues and stuff, so we took a few jumping shots. yes, to answer the question i can already hear you asking, there was a crowd of people watching us jump of this ledge. but to see my grammy jump like this is priceless.



these are the jellyfish cade got to see because he snuck into some restricted area. he took a picture for the rest of us because there is no way anyone else but cade could get through without being caught. that's just cade's life.



the next few days at sea were spent gorging ourselves on delicious eats.




cade made sure to weigh himself before the vacation to measure how much poundage he could put on. in the end, it was a full 5 pounds. i wasn't that excited about stepping on the luggage scale at the airport so the ticketsales guy could shout out my weight for the record- so i will just assumed i gained 20 poounds or so... at least that is what i feel like.

nana and gramps loved spending time with the grandbabies.

our next stop was st. thomas. it was beautiful there. we did a little shopping and then boarded a ferry to another island, st. john, where we went snorkling. i wish i would have taken more pictures but we literally spent all of our time in the water.




our final stop was st martin. we had so much fun here. we all rented jeeps and took off to some great beaches. the unfortunate part was after just a few photos, our camera died and my sister left hers in another bag... so trust me when i say this place is great. here is one of 2 photos we got, and while it may look like we are safely enjoying the beach- a few seconds later a big wave took both of us out.

the coolest beach was about 50 yards off of the island's main landing strip. we would play on the beach and watch as all the planes would come flying in to land. it seriously looked like they were going to land on us. there was a huge jet that was getting ready for takeoff and we all foolishly decided to stand behind it as it powered up. dirt and rocks pelted into us and the blast sent one guy tumbling backwards into the ocean. if you ever get to st. martin- go to this beach! <- click that link to see a youtube video.

the rest of the time was spent on the boat as we traveled back to florida. cade was sure to keep a daily schedule in his pocket as to not miss anything. this resulted in a first place win in the ping pong tournament,


and our participation in bean bag toss competitions

mini golf tournaments


and free throw contests. cade didn't miss a thing and it was a blast being on a cruise with him.

on the way back to the airport, cade lied to my grammy and instead of taking us to get food, he took us all over tampa and even to his old apartment complex. i laugh now because i can still hear my grammy's voice yelling for him to turn back around because we were 'lost.'


really though, i am so thankful my grammy has these vacations every year. it is so fun to be with the whole fam and to make all these crazy memories.

i wonder where we'll go next year...