A 3 Hour Tour! A 3 Hour Tour!

So it was kind of a last minute thing but this weekend me, Dave, and my father in law George went on a camping trip to the coast. We left a little after 6 p.m. on Friday night and were a little bit worried about finding a place to camp. At the coast it's first come first serve and of course everything was full, but luckily we were able to get into the overflow at Beverly Beach, which actually worked out really well for us. We had a good spot and still had a fire pit to use as well. It has been almost 3 years since Dave and I have gone camping together. I don't mind smelling of campfire and getting dirty so much as I dislike being cold and uncomfortable on the hard ground. It wasn't too bad though. I had Dave to keep me warm and lesson learned, next time I go camping I am investing in a blow up mattress. It was still fun. George was brave and slept under the stars.

We woke up really early Saturday morning at 5:45 so we could get to Depoe Bay in time to go DEEP SEA FISHING!!! Oh my gosh, that was so much fun! It's a good thing I don't mind being dirty, because after deep sea fishing, you have fish guts all over you, you smell just like the fish, you might be a bit cold depending on the weather, and you might have some bird poop in your hair or on your clothes to top off everything. But I totally recommend it to everyone because it is a lot of fun!


Our fishing boat, named "The Morning Star" left around 7:30 ish and we traveled about 15 miles to our fishing destination. It was so pretty and perfect because the water was so smooth and there was a lot of fog around the harbor and going out to sea. It's a good thing for compasses because at one point we didn't know where the land was just by looking. On the way we dropped 10 crabbing nets that we would pick up on our way back. We spend about 4 hours fishing, and you can only catch up to 5 fish, but you can catch 2 lin cod as well for a total of 7 all together. In the end, George had caught 5 fish, I got my 5, and Dave......well let's say he had a lot of fun! He wasn't very lucky, but he wasn't the only one who didn't catch anything. I think myself and this other lady that were fishing at the back had the most luck with catching stuff. Of course it was the ladies that rocked the fishing! In the middle of our fishing the deck hand came around and put another hook on some of our poles to use as a teaser to help some of us. So I'd had it on for a while, and I start reeling my line in and at first I thought I had snagged it on a rock or something else because it was heavy and not moving, but then I realized I had a fish! I had already caught my first two so I was really excited to get another one. So I start reeling him up and the deck hand kid comes over to bring it up with the net and I had thought I got a really big one. Well once it got to the top I noticed the one fish was pretty big, but the other one beneath it was too!! I had caught two fish on one line! It was awesome! The guy told me he had never seen that happen before.
My two fish I caught on one line!


Most of the fish we all caught were different kinds of rockfish, which are similar to seabass but different. George caught one that had poisonous spikes, which was still a keeper we just had to kill it quickly just in case he decided to jump out and stab us in the eye! :)

Unfortunately we didn't catch any cod though. Only one guy on the boat did, and he was huge! They have sharp teeth too! After we were done fishing we were going back to get the crab traps and all of a sudden the boat slows to a stop. We look over to the right of the boat and not even 20 yards away, out of the water comes a big graywhale! It was really cool to see that. I have never seen a whale in the wild before so it was nice to have one come so close to out boat. He came up and out of the water a few times.
When we got back, they have people at the dock who will filet your fish and cook the crab for you. It is like an art form the way those guys work and how they are able to cut up those fish so quickly! It's a bit primitive how they smack the shells off those crab too. Yikes!
What a great experience that was to go deep sea fishing. Dave has told me about it for years saying he would take me someday, so it was great to finally be able to go and have such a great time doing it. There's another incentive to come to Oregon family!!!

Why do family vacations have to end?

I just love family reunions. The prospect of getting together, enjoying company, playing volleyball, water skiing, and reminiscing about family experiences and funny stories makes for a great vacation. Including the one about aunt Marilyn (my Grandpa's sister) who never could say the word "breast." She would go to the store and ask the butcher, "can I have some chicken chests?" Or when singing the hymn Joseph Smith's First Prayer, she couldn't bring herself to sing the words, "oh what rapture filled his.....(bosom) :) such a lady! But that's how all my Grandpa's family was, including my Grandma, so proper!

Our family reunions on the Taylor side happen every 3 years and we've always gone to Aberdeen, Idaho to my Grandpa's sister's house Carolyn and her husband Frank. Most of us camp out in tents around their big yard, but some of us who can't go without showers and beds opt for the hotel option, which is what we did. The F. Willis Taylor family had great representation this year! All but 2 of his children were there. Of course we were all planning on continuing our own vacation/reunion in Island Park. After our Frank and Zetella reunion, the Frank and Louise reunion convened up there. We split up into 3 cabins with about 49 people!

We had a lot of fun doing things like floating down Big Springs which is very calm water, and then later in the day floating down Box Canyon, which had some very rapid waters. And, it was Samantha's first floating trip! The worst part was really just the first 10 minutes and she cried most of that time because everyone was screaming from getting wet. We were in a raft with my uncle Alan and all his family, most of them clinging to the side of the raft in tubes! Samantha didn't much love having to wear her lifejacket either. I think I may have surprised a few people by taking her out on the water, but it ended up being a fun adventure and after those 10 minutes, she fell asleep for the rest of the trip. :)

Each night we would get together for dinners and we all took turns cooking for everyone, which worked out really well, and each family made great food! The rest of the week included activities like golfing, West Yellowstone, Old Faithful, Mt. Sawtelle, and swimming at Buttermilk Reservoir. We had a lot of fun with all the Taylors. Samantha loved all the attention she got from everyone....well most everyone! :)

We also celebrated Samantha and Annie's birthdays while at our cabin too, which was great to be able to do so with my side of the family. Her official first birthday was on the 20th, so she is now officially a year old! Where has the time gone???

The very last night we were there with just my family, and we did something that we have never done as a family before. We floated down Big Springs in 3 rafts at 10:30 at night! it took us about 2 1/2 hourse but it was so fun! We thought it would be fun to listen to the sounds of nature at night, but mostly it was sounds of laughing, talking (loudly), screaming (loudly), and singing (very loudly). The screaming came because we thought the big moose we had just seen was going to eat us because Ben pushed us into the side of the river where the big animal had just been and was probably waiting to attack! There was probably a bet among the bears and moose who could eat us first just to shut us up! So after that moose we didn't see much else, because of the fact that we were so loud! We did hear trees cracking and bushes moving which was just as scary though. It turned out to be a lot of fun though, and will hopefully be a yearly occurrence after this year!

It ended up being a great vacation with all of the family. I am definitely proud to be a Brewster, and a Taylor! Thanks for all the fun fam!

SOOOOO excited!

So tomorrow I am off to Utah! Hooray! Back in April when we moved here I thought that July was forever away and that it would never come, and now it's finally here and it actually went by very quickly! Of course I won't be spending most of my time in Utah. Idaho mostly. But at least I'll be with my family!
But before I go, I have to mention our wonderful birthday party we had today. It was a girl princess party, and we celebrated Samantha, Natalie (my niece), and Kristin (my sister in law's birthdays. We had a party outside and ate some of Nancy's homemade quiche, listened to the Enchanted soundtrack, and stuffed our faces with birthday cake (literally)! Nancy bought this huge pink buttercream frosting cake! So good! It was fun celebrating with just the girls and opening up presents!




Nancy made this beautiful quilt for Samantha!

More and more pictures!

After posting pictures of my mom, I thought it would be a good idea to post some pics of my dad. Going through his pictures growing up, he was the cutest kid, and I think his sisters were even jealous of him because how likeable and cute he was, and still is today of course! Seeing pictures of him as a little boy, I definitely see a lot of similarities in a few of his grandchildren.

This one looks exactly like Logan to me!


I can see a bit of Caden in there too!


Dad hunting easter eggs as a boy.....very serious business!


Dad's birthday thinking "Am I really that old?"

Happy 4th!

Happy 4th of July!
What a fun day to celebrate our freedom by setting off fireworks and eating as much as possible. It's been a fun day.
We hung out with the family at the Demcak's house in the front yard all day eating food, riding motorcycles, playing with waterballoons, jamming on guitars, and enjoying each others company. The best part of the day was when Nancy (my mother in law) rode on the back of Mark's beamer scooter with Alan driving. None of us thought she would actually take a ride on it because it scared her enough watching other people taking a ride. Go Nancy!
Also with the pictures I've been working on, the 4th of July makes me think of my cabin because most of our 4th of July's were spent there, so I thought I would post a pic from our cabin days.

More Pictures

Here are my pictures of the day. I was going through more pictures and there are so many pretty pictures of my mom, that I had to put some of them up.

Pictures I love

One of the things that make me feel close to my family is looking at pictures from growing up and all the Taylor family pictures.
For the last......while, I've been working on family pictures for my mom. First, gathering all her slides (at least 3,000 of them) and converting them to the computer one by one. For those of you who have a lot of slides, you need to buy the machine that my mom has! It's cool because you put one of your slides in this little machine, it copies it and puts it on your computer! So I did that a few months ago, but now I have to go back through them all and convert them one by one to jpeg files instead of tiif's because they are huge files! And that along with photoshopping, cropping, and trying to fix all those extra special pictures makes for a long job, and a bit tedious. But honestly I love doing it, because those pictures are so special. I love to go through the pictures of my grandma Louise Taylor and my grandma Naomi Brewster. I never knew either of them and going through their pictures and seeing them with their kids gives me a connection to them. It probably sounds weird but working on those slides for so long and seeing them over and over makes me feel like I know them a bit better. There are so many pictures of Louise that I love with her small kids, and the trips they went on, and with Grandpa Taylor that makes her seem so real to me because I never knew her as a person. So I wanted to post one of the many many pictures of her that I love.

I love this picture of Grandma Louise because from what I was told, she loved her horses and horsebackriding, and she is so beautiful!


I love this picture of Grandpa Taylor because he was such a great doctor and I think this picture is a representation of the hardworking doctor he was, making house calls (back in the day when doctors used to do that) and still having his family close by (pic on his desk of the boys)


More pics to come!