All About Witches and Cats...

Taylor finally decided to get his back checked out. He's been having mid-back pain for the last year. Although it is hard to find out the actual cause, we found out some interesting thing about goofy Taylor: he has a goofy back. It fits him well! :)

For example, this picture says it all. The spine is only supposed to have 5 spinous processes (the bone alignments in the middle of the x-ray). Taylor has 6.
Also, if you look at the last vertebrae before the hip connection, his transverse processes (the wings) are different sizes. The one on the left is three times as large as the one on the right. It even overlaps with the hip!
That's pretty tight, eh?  X-Rays are awesome!

And Taylor and I got a new pet: a Ruger LC9. Soon we will be concealed carriers!

We took these pics after Taylor brought our girl home. We've already taken a Basic Firearm Safety Course, and have our concealed carry course next week. 

Ready for action!

On Saturday, October 10th, we celebrated Canadian Thanksgiving early because we had a campout planned on actual Columbus Day. We decided to make Jigg's Dinner, a traditional Newfie favorite.

Taylor wrapping split peas in old shirts to create pudding bags. The beginning of pease pudding.
Also, the big 'ol corned beef is soaking pre-cooking. 

Ready for boiling!

 Three hours before the meal, we began boiling the beef and pease pudding. We had so much food, we had to use two pots, and invited my parents over to help eat it. We won't see them this Thanksgiving, so we thought it was appropriate. :)

After two hours on the stove, we added the parsnips, cabbage, potatoes, turnips, and carrots. 

Oh SO good!

For dessert, Tay made blueberry duff.

Again, wrapped in a pudding bag for boiling.

All wrapped up and ready to go! I love blueberry duff. 

One hour to go!!

And for the first time ever, we added dumplings to the meal. 

The whole plate! Taylor even made maple acorn squash. 

Blueberry duff! Tasty!!

 That night, Tay went through a scary transformation. Taylor turned into an orange kitty-cat thing.

And suddenly gained amazing make-up skills.

Okay, I admit it. I'm a witch. I made him my kitty for the night. My magic was too good. Taylor even started acting like a real cat, forgetting his human nature.

I had to leash him up for the public's, and his own, safety.

In every picture, his cat side showed through.  

He began hunting around every corner, and brought me this muskrat as a gift. 

Kinda weird, but at least my kitty husband loves me.

And Cat-husbands do have their uses. Taylor's instincts allowed him to kill this fly out of thin air.  No really...he actually killed it in the air.

Happy cat!

At least he maintained enough human nature not to eat it...

One Wedding, Two Throw Ups, And Three Scouts

DeMarie and Cody got married at the SLC Temple.

 (I really didn't feel well, but I think I made myself look pretty good)

The Drakes

We met Taylor's namesake: Taylor Drake Nielson (Mike's cousin).  He had a really special gift for Taylor.

He gave Taylor the scriptures of his Great Grandfather, Herrick Munson Drake. They were passed down to Taylor 1 before Great Grandpa Drake died, and because the note inside was written to "Taylor", Taylor 1 saw it was only fit that the set was passed down to Taylor 2 (my hubsters).
The note talked about how Tay's ancestors showed the mummies of the Pearl of Great Price to visitors back in the early church. That's how we're connected there...

The next day, Saturday, Taylor threw up in the bathroom...and it got all over the floor. Before he could clean it all up, I stepped it in.

On Sunday though, I got him back by throwing up in the middle of being set-apart...and he had to hold an empty trash can for me, in the bishop's office, and then wander around the church halls with it trying to find a bathroom for me, and a place to clean it since it didn't have a liner...

Thank goodness for washing machines - and washboard abs.

We witnessed the Supermoon Blood Moon.

We taught the scouts how to build a fire, and then cooked smores.

We started decorating for Halloween.

When this cool cat was all done being made, he started giving some attitude.

So now he's in the dog house on the front porch...

We made some honey wheat cinnamon rolls for General Conference.

Yup, tasted like honey wheat cinnamon rolls...

Taylor left me a note in the shower.

Can you read it? Guess what it's written with:
My hair.
Ew-some and romantic.

And Tannin didn't want to be left out of all the holiday celebrations, so one night she stuck a bunch of pumpkins and spiders to her walls.

"Hey, Mom and Dad!  Did I scare you?"

And I got some more injections in my back...

Yay for modern medicine! 

War of the Colonels/Kernels

A few weeks ago, Taylor accidentally exploded a bag of popcorn kernels in our front closet.  Since then, we've found so many kernels in so many places....You think you picked them up all up, and then BAM! you step on one.  It's ridiculous.  And it hurts.  We can't even have buttered popcorn!!!  It's just taunting us...

They can be found anywhere, not just where they were originally exploded.  Bathroom, washing machine, bedroom, under the couch...

Tannin has been enjoying confused by trekking through empty cardboard boxes.

Lorien and I threw DeMarie a bridal shower in West Point with Michelle's help.

I didn't know kids were coming...

After the shower, we had fun visiting Grandma and Grandpa Drake's home where we met their 150 year old grand piano, and received some wonderful music books from Grandma.

Taylor has been really sick lately and then kindly gave it to me.

He always tells me he loves sharing experiences...

We went to the InstaCare because his throat was bleeding down the back of his esophagus.

But luckily I did not get sick until after I went to a conference for work.

We've been making lots of soups in bread bowls because it's hard for us to swallow.

 We also had fun making tomato basil soup from scratch.

We joined the wonderful wizarding world of Pottermore because you can't do a lot when you're sick.

I'm a Hufflepuff, with a unicorn hair wand. 12.25 inches and slightly flexible.

Taylor's a Gryffindor; with a phoenix core wand, 13.5 inches and brittle.

We are so cool!

Taylor found out how to make Tannin really relax.

Belly rubs are the best!

 We decorated a corner of our apartment for Fall.

Hello harvest animals!

And Taylor got his first med school interview for Tufts University-Maine track!

We got called into Cub Scouts and have been having THE BEST TIME.

Our first day with them we got to carve soap.

A duck (Kelsey) and horse (Taylor).

 We went to the Drake Parent's and got Taylor's old uniform for me, and Mike's old uniform for Taylor.

Tannin loves that we match her now.  We're just missing the orange badges down our back.

 We had fun taking the boys hiking by Red Butte.

We only have 3 Webelos right now.

This is one of the boys goofing off with Taylor.