Olympus High School Class of 2000 Alumni Website

Let me set the stage…

Rewind 5 weeks ago when Spence ventured to Spain for a business convention. He had 17 meetings in 4 days. He was bound to arrive in Spain around 10am and his first meeting was at 4pm with three meetings that afternoon.

Well of course American Airlines being the stellar airline they are (said with heavy sarcasm) canceled his flight to Spain out of Dallas. So after sitting in the Dallas airport for 8 hours and after several delays, his flight is canceled because the plane is broken. Well no worries, they have a backup plane, and guess what? That plane was broken as well.

So after much convincing, Spence grabbed a flight to London, and then they re routed him to Madrid from London on British Airways. Well obviously, he arrived in Spain very late that first day and missed his first three meetings. And the icing on the cake – well his bags didn’t show up. Well British Airways just happened to be the airline that took him from London to Madrid, so they told him to go and pick up some “necessities.”

Well when you are going to a business convention and having huge meetings, you very well can’t show up in a pair of sweat pants. So, Speen went on to buy a new suit, coat, shoes, shirt, cuff links and three ties. He was excited because all of his suits are huge on him because he lost so much weight this last year, so this new suit actually fit. I was a little concerned because let’s be honest, the chance of getting reimbursed from an airline for over $800 I thought was pretty slim to none.

Well imagine our delight on Saturday when this baby showed up in the mail (all $839) with a note apologizing for the inconvenience it caused Speen. So all in all, a new wardrobe was definitely worth a missed flight and late bags.

(ps, doesn’t Speen look great in his new Spanish suit?)

I do however find it very ironic that it was AA’s fault that he and his bags arrived late, but it was British Airways who had to pay for his new purchases… However, I strongly believe had it been AA, there is no chance we would have seen a reimbursement.

So, moral of the story: British Airways ROCKS!

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Thank you British Airways!

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Philadelphia Sessions

Where to begin?

For starters I LOVE my doctor, and really wanted him to deliver me. Well, unfortunately he had two trips planned and was only going to be home really for three days between my 37 and 38 week. Considering the fact the he told me the middle of my 35th week, it looked like I could deliver any day, I was thinking he probably wouldn’t be there to deliver me.

He was leaving Thursday morning at 7am, so that gave me Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday to get things moving!

What did I do on Monday?
*Canned applesauce *Made and frosted a million sugar cookies *Picked Pumpkins *Went speed walking for 2 hours! *Delivered cookies to neighbors.
Tuesday:
*Grocery store shopping *Made tons more cookies *Went shopping for “ghost supplies” *Prepared neighbor “ghost” baskets *Made a kick A dinner *Frosted a million more cookies *Went and delivered all the cookies

*-*-* Needless to say going into my appointment Wednesday morning, I had stayed extremely busy!

Well, Wednesday morning, I get checked and my doctor says I am dialated to a 3 and 100% thinned, and the baby is coming that night. He said I would probably start to feel contractions anytime, and at the start of my first contraction, come into the hospital because he thinks that once I start, I will go very quickly.

I am kind of freaking out that I haven’t had any contractions, so I went home and did the following:

*Ran on the treadmill at a 15% incline
*Went to lunch with a friend
*Came home and worked out on the eliptical at level 15 hoping to at least get 1 contraction…

Remember folks, my doc leaves at 7am the next morning, I am on a tight timeline here!

Well 3:30 rolls around, and no contractions. I feel great! My doc calls and asks if I have had any contractions, I say no, they tell me to come in anyway and get checked again. So I go in, and what the heck, I am dialated to a 5, and still haven’t felt one contraction! He said he had a feeling that I may be one of those rare people that dialate with out contractions… I know, lucky me!

So, I go down and get admitted. Get an epidural. I know, why get one, when I am not even in any pain, but heck I didn’t want the pain to start. Doc comes in and breaks my water, and I am already dialated to a 7 (still haven’t felt a contraction). About an hour or so later, he comes in – I am at a 10, literally one push, and she is out.

I was really really blessed with a super easy labor and delivery. The only problem is that because I pushed her out so fast, she didn’t have time to clear out her lungs of amniotic fluid in the birthing canal, and so they had to watch her breathing for a little while, and she threw up and spit up a ton yesterday (they said she is clearing the gunk out of her stomach), but thankfully she is doing way better today.

Name? Spence and I are really bad at deciding names. In fact, one of our nurses at the hospital was such a nag, every time she came to the room she was like “have you chosen a name yet? It is so important to get a name soon! You want a strong name. You don’t want a name that spells out bad words… blah blah blah,” it was so annoying. Anyway, we finally decided on…

TALLIE JO TAGGART

So, here are some pictures of our little Tallie…

Right after birth!

Daddy and Tallie bonding

Yay – My doctor was able to deliver me, and still had 12 hours to spare before his flight!!!

The cheering section!

Eyes open! Yes, she is a clone of Lance.

First visitor (minus fam) was my friend Sar. She has been the sweetest thing to me this pregnancy. She came and brought me a million bows and headbands, and seriously they are the cutest things in the world. Luckily she gave me 9 headbands, so she can actually wear the clips before she turns 2 and grows some hair! Check out her business at:
sallysclippies.blogspot.com

Leaving the Hospital. Welcome to the real world Tallie!

And finally, first time meeting big brother Lance! As Murphy’s Law would have it, Lance got a runny nose the day before she was born, so unfortunately we didn’t bring him to the hospital, but luckily he had cleared up by the time we got home.

Lance absolutely LOVED her. It was so cute. He kept saying “Baby, open your eyes!!!” It was so funny.

Family of Four – wow, that’s nuts!

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ThE DeTaILs!

I’m not a huge fan of Vegas.

Vegas takes a lot of energy and a lot of money. It also has the uncanny ability to make you feel like everyone else in the city has more energy, more money, more youth, and less body fat than you ever will. Vegas is what I imagine Disneyland would be like if I had a really bad hangover.

That being said, I was looking forward to this trip to Vegas. Chris and Kristen were getting married at Caesar’s Palace and they are two of my absolute favorite people. Plus, Kyle had never been to Vegas, so I figured we could take in the sights together and that would quell some of my anti-Vegas vibes.

Unfortunately, Kyle had to go to Ohio, as you all know, and this threw a bit of a monkey wrench into our plans. We had been planning to drive down, but I didn’t want to make the five hour drive through the desert by myself, so at the last minute I booked a plane ticket. I figured I’d pop in on Saturday morning, go to the wedding, and then pop back out on Sunday afternoon. I even convinced Jed to make the three hour drive from his new home in Irvine, CA, so we could pop in and out together.

On Saturday morning I caught an hour long flight and got into Vegas early in the morning. I had booked a room at the Marriott by the convention center to avoid all the traffic on the strip, so I was able to settle down in my quiet hotel room as soon as I got in. Jed was still on his way and it was too hot to do anything so I snuggled up in the king size bed and watched hotel room television.

Jed got to town in the afternoon and we dressed up in our finest and headed to the strip. We had some time to kill, so we went to the forum shops at Caesar’s Palace and shopped for a bit before grabbing some pre-wedding snacks. Finally, at six, we headed out to the gardens for the big event.

But…

When we got outside, there was a wedding going on and it was NOT Kristen and Chris’s wedding. Nobody around looked familiar and there was a general sense of things not being as they should. Jed jokingly asked if I had the right day and all of a sudden it all sunk in…Kristen and Chris had made a big thing about getting married on 9-6-09. They even filled their invitation with confetti nines and sixes. And we were there on the 5th.

I have no excuse, other than that the events of this summer had scrambled my brain. I, the wedding queen, totally showed up a day early for the wedding. For no damn reason at all.

There was a lot of panic and shock and cursing and general chaos on the way back to the hotel, but after a hot shower I was able to get things under control. I had to change my flight and book another night in the hotel, but it all worked out and Jed was such a trooper that he actually stayed an extra day with me so he could be my date for the wedding. We ended up hitting the town that night, taking in the strip, and grabbing a really terrible steak and egg dinner at 2AM, just because we could. Hey, when in Vegas…

Read more here:
What Happened in Vegas (Part One)

UTAH

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Logan was a great traveler. We had two stops on our way to Utah so I was a little nervous. For our longest flight…4 1/2 hours he slept the entire time minus 30 minutes and those 30 minutes were him eating a bottle and treats. Our flight should have only been 3 hours but we had to go around a storm during the flight so it added an hour and a half onto the flying time. Customers were pretty upset but I was just grateful the pilot was getting us to our destination safely. I might have felt differently if Logan was crying and upset but he was great!

He loved having his stroller along for the ride. He would put his feet up and check out all the fast moving stuff.

Once we arrived in Colorado to catch our next flight we realized that we had just missed it. So there we were at 12am finding a hotel room. Thanks to my aunt Marlene we stayed in a great hotel and were able to get some shut eye…well Logan did anyway. As you can tell from the picture Logan is wrapped in a blanket in his stroller because it was SO cold in CO compared to FL. We weren’t expecting that at all. Once we got to the hotel Logan thought it was time to play…again you can tell by the picture of him sitting on the bed. He was laughing and rolling around like crazy.

We had a fun BBQ at my parents house with all my friends including my Tallahassee friend Kaitlyn who just happened to be in SLC for a wedding at the same time I was there. It was fun to see everyone and to have everyone meet Logan for the second time.

I also got to see my in-laws and my nieces and nephews. My niece Hattie who is 3 had a cute little dance recital while I was there. She was a robot!! At the end she was crawling on the ground instead of dancing! She is too cute!

My other stop was to see the Silva girls and their kids! We had foil dinners and roasted smores in their fire pit. The kids were so fun to talk too.

TRAVELING TO WISCONSIN

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My whole family then embarked on a trip to WI flying stand by…this is not including Corie. She flew from NJ with her boyfriend John. As you can tell from the picture we had quite a bit of luggage that we were carrying on the plane. Having two babies and a toddler made it seem like a little more luggage since we had car seats. We tried to leave on Tues. but it ended up that my mom, my sister Crystal and her baby Austin got out that day on the afternoon flight and my dad, Logan, myself and my nephew Tyson were stuck in SLC until Thurs. afternoon. We finally got on the flight to Houston and then my dad had to stay back while us 3 got on the next flight to Milwaukee. Luckily he got to jump on the following flight which got him into Milwaukee about and hour after us!! OK so that is that.

APPLETON

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The first day after we arrived in Appleton we went to a small theme park called Bay Beach. We drove my grandpa’s van down their and it took about 40 min. We saw a ton of corn fields and farms on our way and I loved it! I felt like a kid again driving in a van in WI with my family. Just seeing the farms made me want to live on a farm for a couple of months. Who knows if I would survive it but the idea seems fun. Anyway the rides were only .25 each and they had a lot of kiddie rides. Unfortunately Logan was too small for most of them but we did get to go on the ferris wheel with my grandpa so that was a lot of neat. It was fun to watch my nephews ride the rides because they were really excited. Especially my 15 month old nephew. He is the one riding the little car in the picture. He cried really hard after he had to get off.

FISH FRY AND BBQ

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While visiting my mom’s side of the family we had a fish fry at my uncles house using the fish that he caught along with fish my other uncle and twin cousins caught while visiting WI. We played foosball, pool and just talked about good old times. Plus I got to get to know Corie’s boyfriend John a little bit better. He is a good guy and was great with the whole family plus the kids!

The next day we had a massive cook out at my grandma and grandpas house. We had the traditional brats, burger and grilled corn on the cob. We had a latter-ball tournament (I was in the fianl round by the way), played a little pass with the basketball and danced to the to my grandpa’s old school juke box. Logan and Austin got a little hot so we let them play in a puddle in their diapers and then adding a bowl of water. As you can see they absolutely LOVED it! Logan was pooped from a long day and fell asleep in his great uncles arms for about 25 min. At the end of the day the little guys needed a bath so I thought, “why not let them play together. They never have done it and won’t have the chance to do it again for a LONG time!” Austin stole Logan’s toys and Logan just splashed in the water. They had fun!

KENOSHA

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Our last stop was onto my dad’s side of the family. We first stopped at the Wisconsin River where we used to go as a family. My dad’s parents had some trailers up there and we would go fishing and dancing at the bar and goof around every summer. The area where the trailers, barn, and bar used to be, is no longer so we went to see what it looked like. It was pretty sad to see it desolate. The river was obviously still there with a HUGE beach so we got out and put our feet in the river and Crystal and her kids swam for a bit. Then we were off to the Wisconsin Dells where you can ride these cool boats…they are buses and boats. Here is a picture of one. Anyway we went up there to shop around and eat some lunch. Afterwards we went to my aunt Mary’s house where we grilled out and hung out by the Lake. We always love visiting my aunt. She is so funny. We got to hang out with her at my uncles the next day too!

Afterwards we went to my uncle Steve’s house where almost the entire family came. Some live out of town so they couldn’t make it. It was neat though because my dad’s siblings have not been together in about 10 years!We played a lot of games and Tyson got to ride on a motorcycle down the street and back. He thought that was pretty cool. I also had a chance to go on a motorcycle ride with my cousin Stevie for about 40 in. It was really nice! My dad and Corie played some tennis with my uncles one of the mornings. They always love playing together when we are in town. One day when I am a little bit better I will be playing with them.

The last night there we sat around the dinning room table listening to part of my family sing songs in Barber shop style! I loved it and Logan must have too because he fell asleep to it. The first song that you heard playing when you started reading my blog is my favorite song that my cousins and uncles sing. Its called, Why Must I be a Teenager in Love. I could listen to is all day!

Anyways, we had a great time. Logan and I flew straight home from WI and my family went back to Utah and New Jersey. Unfortunately it took my family two days to travel home on stand by but I am just glad they got home!

Overall I had a blast. I loved seeing ALL my cousins and my own family. It was cool to have four generations in the same place at the same time! Thanks to everyone that came and made it possible to see one another…love you all!

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Utah and Wisconsin Vacation!