Tuck Taylor

I wrote the following post several months ago but wasn't quite ready to publish it. It is almost Christmas now and I have been feeling the absence of my father-in-law. The holidays are hard when you've lost someone you love and I miss him. I want to share these memories now for my sake and for everyone else who loved him.

(Written Aug. 2009)
Forgive me for a very personal post but I think it's important for me to try to write what I can about Glenn's dad and the details surrounding his passing. Tuck passed away on Saturday July 18 early in the morning. It was quite sudden for us and we were completely devastated when we got the call. In hindsight we realize that for the last 3 weeks of his life he was very sick. We found out earlier in the summer that his leukemia was back so he was supposed to start chemo again in June. Instead of being able to start though he just kept running into complications which kept him in and out of the hospital for those last few weeks. He never complained about any of it he just kept doing what he could to get better. On Friday the 10th his vitals were so bad that they admitted him to the ICU and they had to use the defibrillator at one point to stabilize his heart rate. Fri, Sat and Sunday were some of his worst days as they fought to keep his vitals stable. Glenn and the kids were up that weekend for Good Neighbor Day and they visited him on Saturday, the 11th. He really couldn't visit with them but he knew they were there and Glenn and their former Bishop were able to give him a blessing. Dylan and I did not go with them to Idaho and of course now I seriously regret that decision. It was particularly painful to miss that last chance to see him. Tuck got better throughout the week and they were able to move him out of the ICU on Thursday night. We were encouraged and thought that he would continue to get better. The details are sketchy but early on Saturday he became sick again, (he had been fighting an infection in his stomach and began throwing up again) they called Kathy to let her know that he wasn't doing well and she asked if they could move him back to the ICU. The nurses began prepping him for the move but he did not make it that far. The doctor called Kathy back to say he was gone. I'm sure his vitals were plummeting again and with his bad heart he just wasn't strong enough to make it. He and Kathy had had a chance to talk about resuscitation earlier in the week and had decided against it so there was not much that they could do. Like I said it was a complete shock to us and we are still coming to terms with it. We know he completed his mission and that he is well now and happy but it will take awhile to heal the hole left in our hearts.
The funeral was on July 22 which was Glenn's birthday. I was worried about it being on that day at first but Glenn thought it would be an honor to share the day with his dad. Glenn mentioned in his talk that he and his dad met 41 years earlier on July 22 and would say farewell on the same day. Glenn, his brother Dale, his nephew Chanse and the family's former Bishop all spoke at the funeral. It was a really wonderful service and was packed to the back of the cultural hall. There was a lot of humor and also powerful testimony borne so I think Tuck would have liked it. There was also great potential for missionary work and he would have liked that too.
Thomas Gerald "Tuck" Taylor was my father-in-law and he was one of the best men I've ever known. We met just a couple of times before "the big meeting" when Glenn and I told his parents we wanted to get married. The first thing Tuck said was "well that doesn't give us much time." He was referring to himself and Kathy because they had not yet been through the temple. It wasn't a complaint or a question, just a statement because he knew and was willing to do what needed to be done. I feel like Tuck was the greatest convert from Glenn's mission. While Glenn was out his dad started making changes in his life that had brought him to the point of being ready to go through the temple. We gave him the reason and he was stalwart from then on.
One thing I'm really grateful for is how often we got together through the years. From the beginning and especially after we started having kids they came down a lot, or we would go up. Some of my best memories are the vacations we took together. After Tuck retired a few years ago they would come down whenever he needed to see William again. He and William were particularly close but he was always close to the little ones. I have so many pictures of my kids with Grandpa. He loved his family so much and we loved him in return. Dylan summed it up well when he said "Grandpa was a stud."
Things that I loved about Tuck:
The candy in his shirt pocket for the kids.
The cane he made William when he broke his leg.
His sense of humor, especially his one liners.
The stories he would tell.
His Western books and movies.
His love of dogs- real, animated and the Hollywood talking variety.
The way he said "that was a pretty cute show" after he saw a talking animal movie.
Watching Tom and Jerry with the kids.
His hat collection.
His shed.
Fishing.
The grape drink he would mix up for William in one of his Diet Pepsi bottles.
The little things he fixed in my house.
Calling me "young lady".
His hands- I can still see every detail of them.
His kindness.
His humility.
His love.
I will always remember these things about my father in law but there is one more thing that I truly cherish. Every single time for as long as I can remember he said the same thing to me whenever we said goodbye. He would give me a hug and say, "Well young lady, take care of them kids, and don't let 'em get the best of you." It seems a simple good natured admonition but I know that "don't let them get the best of you" was just for me. He would look me right in the eye as he said it, like he wanted to make sure I understood. He was a man of compassion and empathy, so I always felt like he was saying that he knew. He knew how hard things are sometimes in life and families and marriages, and he wanted me to take care of me.
My message to him in return is one of profound gratitude which I will carry in my heart until we meet again. I know I will see him again- we are an eternal family.

Creative creations

The creative juices have been flowing at the Taylor household. Here are a couple of creations from last week.
The first is Garrett's BYU pie. Hopefully the dust has settled from the big game and the aftermath to safely post these pictures.


We were scheduled to make a peanut butter pie for our friends who are Ute fans when they showed up at the door with a big U cupcake. Of course that made Garrett want to do the pie up BYU style. He made the pie filling and decorated it all himself. Good job bud! I can handle the friendly rivalry like this but when the media and everyone else perpetuates the cycle of hatred and bad behavior I get pretty disgusted. With Max Hall's post game comments this year was especially bad. Nuff said.
Moving on we have Bunny cupcakes.

No it's not Easter but we owed our bunny breeding neighbors a thank you for help with our bunny so this is what we came up with. Cute and easy = two thumbs up.

Goodbye potstickers

Well my number one blog fan has been hinting (ok complaining out rightly) that the potstickers post is getting very old. Since I am lucky enough to even have a blog fan I decided I better update or risk fading into blogging oblivion and possible friendlessness. I'm just going to work backwards until I run into the potstickers again so here we go. (BTW we just had potstickers for dinner and they are still two thumbs up!)
First we have Halloween, here are the costumes:

Abby was a Devil, Emily a witch, William an Army guy and Otis was a squirrel. Otis actually killed a squirrel last year so this was his penance. We think it was an accidental death but it was a good excuse to buy the dog a costume.

This is Will at his first costume parade:

I loved having Halloween on Saturday because it felt like we got an extra day which is really what you need to fit in all of the Halloween activities. Friday was the school costume parade, and a ward party and Saturday was carving pumpkins and treat or treating. Glenn's mom came down for a few days and it was fun to have her involved in all the madness and mayhem.
At our ward party we did trunk or treating and we were supposed to decorate our cars. I was thinking more along the lines of dressing up our car as if in costume and came up with dressing it as a Mormon Assault Vehicle. You know, the big SUV filled with a bunch of kids and the Families are Forever bumper sticker? Glenn made the wood paneling stickers for me and the kids and I made a bunch of faces to stick in the windows. I don't think anybody really got it, it must have been too close to normal but I couldn't throw everything away without at least documenting it.


Mid Oct. was UEA weekend so the kids had a couple of days off school. Since Glenn was out of town we didn't do anything until Sat. when we spent the day at Gardner Village. It's a historic little village that is now a trendy shopping area built around an old mill. In Oct. they deck it all out with witches so we wanted to go check it out. It was so busy that we luckily couldn't get into the shops to spend money so we just walked around, did the witch scavenger hunt and then let the kids run through the mini-corn maze.


We thought this sign at the petting zoo was pretty funny. You might have to click on it to read it.

Abby's birthday was Sept. 28th. About mid-summer she decided she wanted a bunny for her birthday. To fuel her fire our neighbors who breed bunnies started showing her their bunnies and told her they'd have baby bunnies by her birthday. Oi! Abby had a wad of babysitting cash and she offered to buy the bunny herself if we got the hutch for her birthday. Her finagling worked and we added Roxy the bunny to the Taylor household. Abby chose Roxy who was a few months older over the baby bunnies because she was ready to go immediately and she had a really mellow disposition. Because she was the last of the older litter our neighbor wanted to give her to Abby for free, but I insisted she pay something so we got Roxy for $1.00. Quite a bargain because she really is a sweet bunny.
Abby took these pictures:


Of course we had to do another fun cake. She chose the butterfly. It was yellow in the book but we made it pink. Grandma and Grandpa Williams stopped by to drop off Abby's present and we convinced them to stay for dinner and presents. It was a fun night.

Right before Abby's birthday we squeezed in a weekend in Boise for a mini reunion with Glenn's family. Our niece Jamie and her husband James had moved to Nampa and Glenn's mom suggested a get together up there for a change in scenery. It was a grand idea and we had a great weekend.
Here are pictures from the Boise zoo:






The elementary school's annual Pumpkin Walk was Sept. 23 and 24 just in time for the first cold weather of the season to blow in. It was so freezing cold on those days and then the next week it was beautiful again. We were troopers and made the annual pilgrimage. The kids are always so proud to show off their pumpkins and the whole thing is always cute and very creative. Some of the teachers have used Glenn to make their banners so he is always proud to show those off too. (Sorry honey I didn't get any pictures of the banners.)
Here are this years pumpkins and their proud owners:



Well I have now run into pictures that I've already blogged about so I think that's it. So long potstickers, you have served me well.

Potstickers

A little know secret about me is that I'm addicted to The Food Network. I don't usually go for the cooking shows with their fancy recipes and what not, but there was recently an episode of Alton Brown's Good Eats that caught my attention. He did a show on Potsticker's, (which is something that Glenn happens to love) and the recipe seemed pretty easy. So I bought all the ingredients and enlisted the help of my trusty sous chef Garrett and we went for it.
Garrett is always my accomplice in my adventures because he likes figuring things out and he is especially game if it involves food. Two years ago when I was canning peaches for the first time Garrett and his curious nature happened by and my sidekick was born.
The fun part about potstickers was the unsticking. The first batch quickly attracted the girls and William and we had an audience for a while. First you cook them in the pan for two minutes and they end up sticking to the bottom, hence the name, then you add some chicken broth and cover the pan and let it steam for 2 more minutes. Then they are unstuck just like magic! When you add the broth the pan steams and sizzles like crazy so that's the exciting part.

Here's the recipe. I'd recommend it, it's easier than it looks and quite tasty! On the adult scale I'd give them a 10 and about a 7 on the kid scale. Our kids had a split vote because they were a tad spicy. I think it was mainly from the black pepper because our pepper grinder leaves it a little course.

Perfect Potstickers by Alton Brown

Ingredients
1/2 pound ground pork
1/4 cup finely chopped scallions
2 tablespoons finely chopped red bell pepper
1 egg, lightly beaten
2 teaspoons ketchup
1 teaspoon yellow mustard
2 teaspoons Worcestershire sauce
1 teaspoon light brown sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
35 to 40 small wonton wrappers
Water, for sealing wontons
3 to 4 tablespoons vegetable oil, for frying
1 1/3 cups chicken stock, divided
Directions
Preheat oven to 200 degrees F.

Combine the first 11 ingredients in a medium-size mixing bowl (pork through cayenne). Set aside.

To form the dumplings, remove 1 wonton wrapper from the package, covering the others with a damp cloth. Brush 2 of the edges of the wrapper lightly with water. Place 1/2 rounded teaspoon of the pork mixture in the center of the wrapper. Fold over, seal edges, and shape as desired. Set on a sheet pan and cover with a damp cloth. Repeat procedure until all of the filling is gone.


Heat a 12-inch saute pan over medium heat. Brush with vegetable oil once hot. Add 8 to 10 potstickers at a time to the pan and cook for 2 minutes, without touching. Once the 2 minutes are up, gently add 1/3 cup chicken stock to the pan, turn the heat down to low, cover, and cook for another 2 minutes. Remove wontons to a heatproof platter and place in the warm oven. Clean the pan in between batches by pouring in water and allowing the pan to deglaze. Repeat until all the wontons are cooked. Serve immediately.

Road Trip Down Memory Lane

On Saturday Glenn and I took my dad on a road trip to Malad ID, where he grew up, to take pictures of the houses where he lived and to record some of his memories. It was a really fun day. It's about a two hour drive which is not too long and traffic and weather were perfect. Like most kids back in the "good ol' days" my dad ran free through the whole town and has some great stories. Some favorites are running a small gambling ring, their shoe shining business, stealing their dog back from another family and of course rolling a tire down the court house hill and right through the door of the corner tavern.
Malad is still very small and quaint. There has not been much growth there which was good for our purpose because most of the houses and buildings were still there. I loved the old brick buildings like the hospital, court house and High School.



This yellow brick building was my favorite. There used to be apartments on the top level and the bottom was a drug store with a soda counter. It doesn't get any more "small town USA" than that does it?

Dad's family lived in the apartments when he was about Jr. High age. The door that he's standing by used to be the entrance but it is closed off now.

I had to take a picture of the Dude Ranch Cafe because we ate there once when Dylan was little and he still remembers it as the best milkshake he ever had. I think it was because they brought the leftover part out in the metal mixing cup and that made an impression on him for some reason. It's funny to see a big teenager get all excited about "the milkshake in the metal can".

On our way home we had to complete the trip down memory lane with lunch at Maddox. I decided to go nostalgic all the way and get the chicken fried steak like I did when I was little. It was delicious. World's Finest Beef you know:)


So a big Thank You to my dad for letting us hijack his Saturday, for footing the bill for lunch and for an all around wonderful day! Love you Dad!

Ouch!

Well it's official, Glenn's car is crunched!

Glenn was driving home from work yesterday and went through a green light only to be stopped shortly after by backed up traffic from the next stoplight up the road. The girl behind him didn't stop for the backed up traffic from the next stoplight up the road and plowed right into him. He then hit the car in front of him and they hit the car in front of them. That's right 4 cars total, ouch! The girl was only 16 so we felt terrible for her. She says she sneezed, hmmmm, I haven't heard that one but she was definitely distracted for a minute and that's all it takes. She was driving an SUV so our little Accord was no match for it. Glenn was on the phone with his friend Brett when it happened so Brett called me and we both went down to check on things. Our car had to be towed so I was able to clean it out while Glenn worked on the paperwork. When we were free to go Glenn got in the car and said "you're taking me to the hospital". His back was hurting pretty bad and we wanted to make sure everything was ok, mainly as a precaution for all the legal crap that follows this type of thing. The x-rays did show a mild compression fracture so they ordered an MRI for today which will show whether it is a new injury or something that he'd done in the past. He really got the run around with getting the MRI done but I won't get into that whole story. He's doing ok but just ok. He's really sore today from the seat belt and nauseous and generally feels yucky. His back is best when laying down because it takes pressure off the vertebrae but of course Glenn doesn't lay down much. He was really surprised when he got up this morning because it didn't hurt but soon after being upright the ache started in.
We are pretty sure the car will be totaled. Especially because it's a hybrid and the batteries are in the back and they are extremely expensive.

Glenn's laptop was in the trunk so he managed to pry it open and get it out. Luckily the laptop was fine.
We were surprised by the buckling clear up to the top of the back windows.


The front end doesn't look too bad but you can see the bumper is detached on the right side and the hood lines aren't snug like they should be.

Well that's it for our little adventure. Please be careful driving out there and especially remind your teenagers to slow down and never, ever, ever text while driving. (I'm not saying that she was texting, just a friendly reminder.)

William walked through the kitchen carrying a blue bandana and casually stated, "I'm gonna decorate the dog."

Good thing Otis is such a good sport.

Don't worry a little beef jerkey will cheer him right up.

Birthday Boy 4

And rounding out our summer birthday boy series is birthday boy number 4 Zachari Taylor! (Bet you didn't see that coming.) Zach is our awesome nephew that rooms next to Dylan and Garrett and keeps them in line, he works full time at our business and he puts up with our noisy, messy and sometimes grumpy family. Zach's birthday was August 22. He spent his birthday weekend in Idaho, camping and fishing with his dad (the infamous "Fat Uncle Dale") but we had cake and ice cream when he returned. I won't divulge his age but here are the kids giving him 23 birthday spankings.

Happy Birthday Zach, we love you!

Birthday Boy 3

Birthday boy number three is William! A few days before his birthday he mentioned a friend's name that he was going to invite to his birthday party. You'd think that with 5 kids, all of whom have done this to me I would have been prepared but as usual I hadn't even thought about the notion of a friend party. Some people have a system for this problem like a friend party every other year, or every 3rd year, and that is very wise. We have no system and I always forget that when they are little they assume that "birthday" means "birthday party". Glenn and I quickly calculated that this was William's 5th birthday and that he had never had a friend party so we knew we were stuck. The thought of keeping children entertained for a certain length of time is what always scares me about these things until I actually start planning it. Then the creative juices kick in and it gets kind of fun, especially when the theme is decided and I can adapt everything around the theme. I remembered that I had some left over invitations from a Scooby Doo party that Garrett had when he was 7. I found them and there were just enough. It was perfect because William and the kids had been watching Scooby Doo all summer long so he liked Scooby. Since I'd already done a Scooby Doo party I just had to re-do it basically. The finale of the party was to do a scavenger hunt to find the treat bags and the treat bags were just brown paper bags marked Scooby Snacks. We even had a big cardboard treasure chest that's been sitting around in Glenn's office. Really. I don't know what it's for or why he brought it home but it was perfect for the treat bags. Cool side note: When I did this with Garrett the house next door was being built and a backhoe showed up on the day of his party. I went over and asked the guy if he would take a scoop out of our backyard, (our lawn wasn't in yet) and then I actually buried the cooler with the treat bags in it so the kids had to dig it up. Garrett still talks about it- fondly even.
With the party a go, William prepares the invitations:

William's birthday was on a Thursday so we had a family party on his birthday and planned the friend party for Friday. That gave me a chance to do the the Rocket ship cake that he had picked out earlier. His swimming teacher's family had offered use of their pool on the night of his birthday so we went swimming as a family and had a great time. Will finally decided he could dunk his head under the water and he spent the whole time on the steps dunking his head.
Here are pictures from Thursday. The first 3 are from earlier in the day at his last swimming lesson being dunked by his teacher.



Card and cash from Grandma Taylor:

Opening presents:


The cake:


His friend party wasn't until 3:00 pm Friday so I planned to do most of the party prep on Friday. What's a little pressure? I still had to write out the scavenger hunt, find some filler games, bake and frost cupcakes, hit the store and prepare the treat bags. The only problem was that the night before I had a sore throat and it was still with me on Friday morning. I did the scavenger hunt, found the filler games and baked the cupcakes then set out for the store. At the store I knew I wasn't feeling well and told myself that I better get everything I needed cause one trip was all I had in me. I made it home and put the treat bags together and wrapped a couple of presents. (We were doing a gift exchange instead of having presents come for William, which was a fabulous idea by the way.) By 1:00 I conceded that there was no way I was doing this party so I started writing out an itinerary and all the instructions for the games. Glenn thought he was coming home for moral support but he got the whole shebang. He walked in at 2:30 and I briefed him and then walked out to go to urgent care. I know Glenn and his 3 eager helpers, Garrett, Abby and Emily, did a great job but it was a little disappointing not to see how things went first hand. Oh well I'm just so glad I had Glenn, he is an incredible support to me. (Thanks again honey.) He even got a picture, he knows me well. Party goers L-R boys Weston, Nathan, Will, Braxton, Austin, L-R girls Gabby, Ora, Emily, Abby and Jennica.

Post script: It was strep although I didn't find out for sure until 5 days later. Luckily they started me on antibiotics anyway. Hopefully no one else got it, I was really good about washing and I went straight to my room when I got back from the Dr:)