MOM! I can't believe you just said that!

So my Dad and Russ were out of town today so my mom and Amanda came over for a girls Sunday dinner.  It was a typical Sunday dinner where we talked about our past weeks, about our church lessons, and about what's coming up.  We had a really good time.  

After dinner we went outside because my mom wanted to pick some yummy apricots off of our tree.  She had a handful so we all started to walk back inside to put them in a bag.  All of a sudden she pulled a fast one on us.  She turned to Amanda: 

Mom:  Did you know that there are male apricots and there are female apricots? 

Amanda: What? Really?

Mom: Yeah, this one is a male apricot.  (She shows Amanda the deformed apricot.  Mind you, she said this with a straight face.) (See pictures of the deformed apricot below.)

Amanda: Oh my gosh! No way! 

Debbie:  What? Let me see that!  

(A big smile appears on Mom's face).

Everyone: Non-stop laughter!  (I can't even stop laughing while writing this.)

Amanda: MOM! I can't believe you just said that!

For all of you who know my mom, she is the sweetest, kindest, most amazing woman ever.  But she has a little secret....  She occasionally likes to play jokes on people.  It doesn't happen very often, but when it does, it is always absolutely hilarious!  So thanks mom for a good laugh! 

Russ, the funny man.

So if you had to sum Russ Taylor's daily ideas in one word, it would be F-U-N.  I just downloaded this email he sent out for his brother, Scotts upcoming bachelor party.  I had to laugh... See what he's doing below.  

"I wanted to invite you to participate with the celebration of Scott Taylor's Bachelor Party. The Bachelor party will take place on Friday June 26th starting at 8:30pm until late. The party will start at the Lucky Strike Bowling center in Bellevue. Lucky Strike is located on the second floor of Lincoln Square across from the Bellevue square mall in downtown Bellevue. (see map link below). After a few games of bowling we will go to the Snoqualmie Casino for some good old fashioned gambling and if your lucky you might win a couple of extra bucks (most likely the indians will end up with your money).
Please RSVP asap and no later than June 6th if you will be attending as I would like to get a head count for the Bowling. The cost should be around $20 (excluding gambling) I will let you know at Lucky Strike what the cost is for the night. Once you have RSVP'd I will be sending out an additional reminder a few days before the Bachelor Party.
There is a slight catch................The Bachelor Party is a Costume party. I will be picking out Scott's Costume and he will have no say on the choice AT ALL (any recommendations) and everyone else will need to pick out something funny, scary, or whatever. The better the costume the more that Scott will know your his friend. You won't be granted admission to the party without a costume so bring something. This should make the night a bit more interesting, and since most of us are from out of state it won't even matter. But Scott lives there so it should be fun for him the next time he goes back to Lucky Strike. So get creative and have fun.
If there are any questions please feel free to email me at this email address. I look forward to meeting you at the event and at the wedding and please RSVP and respond back to me if you will or will not be able to attend. Thanks, Russ"

Then he sends out these hilarious pictures and says:

WHICH ONE WILL SCOTT  BE????? 

Memorial Day Weekend in Palm Springs

Reasons why Memorial Day Weekend Was Awesome

1. Rob and Megan invited us to go to Palm Springs.

2. Baking in the heat, lounging by the pool and taking naps in a 69-degree airconditioned hotel was amazing!

3. Met up with Rok & Narine for Dinner Saturday night with Rob in Megan at a delicious Mexican restaurant. 

4. Watched Night at the Museum 2, which was pretty cool, but we were the only two couples there without kids!

5. Room service for breakfast. Yum!

6. Memorial Day church pic nic, where Valerie surprise visited us! And I got to see my sister Kristen!

7. Catching up on the last few episodes of Heroes.

Dinner at the Cheesecake Factory. We all got a little red from the Palm Springs Sun.
Walking around Indian Wells--good old Abe was right there with us to celebrate Memorial weekend!
Russ and Rob hitting up Albert Einstein.  Rob didn't like his advice. 

Venice Beach

So Russ had to keep me from getting jet lag so when I came back, he took me to a car show at Venice Beach in LA. We checked out the cars, walked a majority of the strip, and then had lunch. It was a lot of fun.

London--favorite pictures

So I've finally posted my photos!  I can't believe how long it's taken me to do it!  We had such a fun trip.  These are all backwards, going from the end of the trip to the beginning, so sorry they're not in order, but here they are! I want to give a special blog shout-out to my mom who took us on this trip and showed us all of these amazing things.  She is such an amazing person.  Thanks mom!    

Stonehenge-- Yes, I finally made it, and no it's not in Italy as I originally thought several years ago.  It was actually really really really cool. I'm really glad we made it out to here.

Group shot!
Here we are at Bath. Through my love of Jane Austen this was quite an experience seeing it in person. It was stunning and also amazing how the Romans built the water system and pools.   
Windsor Castle.  The queen was actually here this day!  Even though we didn't see her, I waived for Russ (who asked me to send her a graduation card when he graduated, and we received a reply from one of her ladies in waiting). It was really neat to be here the same time she was!
Behind us is where the queen was when we were there!

LONDON--favorite pictures

Mom and I went to go and see the play Grease.  It was absolutely amazing.  We were second row and it was so cool to see the show in such intricate detail.  The actors would smile at us and point at us. We were so involved with the play that the show went by so fast! We thought it was an awesome play!

Dinner at TGI Fridays.  Gotta love American food in Europe! 
At the top of St. Pauls Cathedral. 
I couldn't believe I did it.  After around 400 stairs... I made it to the top. I was so proud of myself that I had Amanda take a picture of me doing a victory jump. 
 Amanda snuck this picture of me inside the dome at St. Pauls Cathedral right before the guard came over and told us no cameras.  The dome has a whispering feature like no other.  You can stand on one side of the dome and whisper against the side and the sound carries right to the other side. It's amazing.  Amanda and I had a ton of fun whispering to each other by saying each others names. 
The British Museum houses quite a few mummies.  I loved looking at all of the tiny details carved on the caskets.  I can't believe that the bodies are still preserved this long over time.
In front of the Rosetta stone. It's amazing what this one little stone did for translation and for mankind.  Without it, we wouldn't have been able to read the bible or many other great works. 
And yes, the Jonas brothers.  We were heading to TGI Fridays before Grease when guess who appeared... the Jonas brothers!  Jeni got some really good shots, which I have to get from her, but this will do for the time being.  All three of them walked by us. It was pretty cool.  I thought Amanda was going to faint, but surprisingly she said it wasn't "that big of a deal" and that Jesse was going to die when she saw the photos.  
Amanda and I at the top of the St. Pauls. We did the cathedral together and it was so much fun! 

London--favorite pictures

I couldn't help but put this one in of Jeni with the egyptian mummy monkey at the British Museum.  Priceless.

Can you tell that I am blowing out the candles on the cake?  Pretty cool!  Piccadilly Circus was a fun square.  It was pretty crowded during rush hour, when we went shopping for Amanda's prom dress.  
Sisters next to the River Thames with Big Ben in the background.
Here is tower bridge.  The first day we tried to go, the elevator fell ten feet hurting 5 tourists, so they closed it down.  Mom was sad because she never had climbed up the stairs to the top and she was hoping this was the trip she could do it on.  Thankfully we didn't go to the bridge about an hour earlier, otherwise we would have been part of those 5 tourists!
Mom on the bus! She loved sitting in this little seat!  Isn't she cute?
Me on the London Eye giving my best scared look.  It's supposed to look like I'm falling to my death, but I guess I didn't do a good enough job of faking it!

London--favorite pictures

In the London Eye.

On top of the London Eye.
Jen and I hanging out in London Tower.  There was an exhibition of the armor of King Henry XIII.  We were shocked to find that the armor had very large special places for the men's uhuh.  Especially when these men were only like 4'5" back then... we were like yeah right.... 

The tower jewels were also so amazing to see.  I thought I had some nice jewelry... but I can't believe that those are real stones in all of those crowns, staffs, bowls, etc.  What a waste when those perfectly beautiful stones could be on my hand! Oh well.  
We went and saw the play, Dirty Dancing on Amanda's birthday.  Aren't we cute?
Here is mom in front of the BYU Center. She wanted to take us in.  But I kinda threw a hissy fit because Jen and Amanda were all upset about me wanting to go to Portobello road and didn't let me stay when we got there.  This was right after, and I was like, if I can't stay at my place we can't stay here.  Sorry mom.  I was kinda rude!
In front of Harrods.  They weren't kidding when they said this place was expensive.  We walked into the candy area and I felt like I was in Willy Wonka and the chocolate factory!  Even though we didn't buy anything here, we did use the bathrooms!  

London--favorite pictures

On the bus tour around the city--we took the Big Bus Company tour. It was great because you got to see all of the sites from atop a famous red bus! You could also jump on and off whenever you wanted so we got to see a lot of London this way!The infamous London Eye... 

The National Gallery which housed beautiful paintings including Rubens, da Vinci, Raphael, Seurat, Rembrandt, Van Gogh, Monet and a non-complete Michaelangelo paintings.

Parliament was cool to see from the outside.  It's right next to Westminster Abbey... and when it came time to do the Abbey tour, my mom said she had already seen it enough times so she was just going to wait outside.  Guess what she saw while she was waiting?   Prince Charles and Camilla!  She noticed a little commotion so she went over to Parliament to see what was happening, and lo and behold here come Prince Charles and Camilla 10 feet away from her walking to get into their car!  Camilla was waiving!  She was so bummed because we had taken all of the cameras inside of the Abbey with us, so she doesn't have any shots, but how lucky was she?  SO COOL!
We stayed right next to Marble Arch, about a 10 minute walk.  This is a shot of us on our first day!
Hello! I'd like to make a collect call to the United States please!  Isn't this a cute shot of us?

Laundry Baxter!

Hidden between the white sheets

Goodbye Love Fern

So on our one-month anniversary, September 16, 2003, russ brought home
this love fern. We've had it for 5 1/2 years. It lived in parkway
crossing with us, in San Antonio Texas, in our condo in Utah, in our
appartment in Lake Forest, and now in our home in Mission Viejo. It's
been with us through our trials and our triumps, sitting in the
kitchen growing with us every day. It's had a good life. Today I had
to throw it away as some black moss took it's life turning it brown
and making it smell horrible. We will forever love this little fern.
Goodbye love fern.