...but this is going to be about the last day of June...

It was a really long day I thought. Haha. I got up and started cleaning right away. The night before I had gone home a lot earlier than I usually did because Kevin was exhausted, but that was fine because it gave me more time to get my room ready to move the furniture. I worked for a few hours until about 1-1:30 am or so. I had some really great progress, so it wasn't so bad in the morning. While my dad and brother were exchanging the furniture, I ran out to Food Lion for chocolate soy milk. My mom makes these really good Chocolate Strawberry Smoothies made with chocolate soy milk. YUM! It's really healthy too. After all the furniture had been moved, and I was happy with it, I went over to Kevin's house! Shortly there after we left to go to Kevin's little brother's fifth birthday party. Daniel was so cute. He opened his presents first. (All pictures are provided by Kevin Cupp, thanks! :) )

He wanted to know why everyone was "hiding" his presents (in the wrapping paper) and he wanted windows. Haha. He was very cute in opening all his presents. If one present wasn't working the way he wanted it, he'd leave it for someone else and go on to the next one. Haha. He had a spiderman themed party, because he loves spiderman, of course he got some for his birthday!

Then it was cake time!!! It was a very good cake, white icing and chocolate cake, a la mode too!

We ate and hung around until it was time to eat hot dogs, we watched some of Daniel's birthday when he was two. It was really cute. Naturally, haha. Turns out, there was one more present for Daniel that he didn't know about! He had to go outside to find out what it was, but he didn't even know there was something out there, then he discovered it!

So it was a lot of fun. Kevin and I left later and drove down by the river. It was pretty!

~Taylor~

Hope you're weekend is going well! :)

There, that should get your attention.

Seriously though, I've added stuff to my wish list, and I hope to one day have it all. But really the gift cards are really just for Charleston...so if you want to help me out getting food on my birthday, the gift card would be a good choice. Haha. Both of those restaurant we are going to on the 26th, so getting them to me before that date is crucial...or we won't be able to use them for quite some time. K? Thanks. But seeing as how I'm not expecting a present from anyone, nor should they feel the need to get me anything, it's not a big deal! Haha. This is just, if you're feeling nice and want to put a smile on a girl's face on her birthday...or before it. Haha. This is just blabbering, I'll shut up.

Anyway, naturally there are threadless shirts I want. (I'm a girly small...just for the record)
One being this one:

It just makes me laugh, so naturally I want it. :)
And this one:

It makes me laugh really hard, and I love the colors! :)
AND this one:

I think this is adorable! It makes me smile and go, aww! :)

On another note, one of my gift wishes has been filled by none other than Kevin himself. I am pretty sure I've already said something about that. But yes, he got me the bookcase I've been wanting! It is put together, I just need to figure out where I want the shelves to go and then I'll take pictures of it. Because I know you all are dying to see a bunch of slabs of wood nailed together!

Yesterday morning I went to church for the first time in a couple years. My mom had issues with the church we had been going to, and we stopped going. But she has been wanting to go to church again, just not that church. Someone who had been going to our church and had switched called my mom the other day. She found a church in Christiansburg and she really liked it. St. Thomas it's called. So we went, and it's smaller than our church, but everyone was really nice and it is very similar to my church. I think the only real issue I have with it, well...other than it being in Christiansburg...is that they say the more modern version of the Lord's Prayer. I prefer the original more traditional version.
This is the version I like:

Our Father, who art in heaven,
Hallowed be thy Name.
Thy kingdom come.
Thy will be done,
On earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread.
And forgive us our trespasses,
As we forgive those who trespass against us.
And lead us not into temptation,
But deliver us from evil.
For thine is the kingdom,
and the power,
and the glory,
for ever and ever.
Amen.

This is the version they say:

Our Father in heaven,
Hallowed be your name,
You kingdom come,
Your will be done, on earth as in heaven.
Give us today our daily bread.
Forgive us our sins
As we forgive those who sin against us.
Save us from the time of trial
And deliver us from evil.
For the kingdom, the power, and the glory are yours
Now and for ever. Amen

But I guess I can get over that...haha.

Later that day, I went to the weather station. It was quiet because it was a beautiful day with no rain to speak of. Dennis showed me this new project he is starting to work on called CoCoRaHS. It's interesting, they educate ordinary citizens to record rain, hail, and snowfall everyday. I think it's to find out patterns and such around the US. It's just now coming to our area, so not very many people are doing it in VA yet. So it's Dennis's job to get the word out! Then we went out and Phil has a new toy. It basically is a device that connects him to weather and such via satellite when internet or phone service isn't available. After that he showed me pictures and videos of his trips to GA and CA where he helped predict weather for people who were fighting the fires. He explained how he got into it and it was all very interesting. I just didn't end up leaving until around 10, and I was suppose to leave at 9. Haha.

~Taylor~

So, a few posts ago, I told you about FOUND and how a fellow threadless user suggested it to me. Well, it is very interesting what people will find randomly. It makes me want to go out and walk the streets looking down the whole time to find something! Anyway, I thought I would share some of the funny stuff I've found on FOUND. Haha. :)

This is a find by Mr. Slag in Washington:

This one makes me laugh really hard, someone didn't take something too well...it was found by Moira Mosher in Highland, Michigan:

This might be my favorite that I've seen so far...it was found by Grant in Los Angeles, California:

Someone was pretty desperate to make this! Found by Christopher Mims in New York, New York:

Anyway, that is enough for now. I highly recommend that you browse through them, it'll be entertaining, I promise. If I'm wrong, then just stop looking, haha. I'm thinking about looking into this FOUND Magazine. Might be something good to get. :) Maybe even a good birthday present? Haha.

Have a nice day!

~Taylor~

I got up way early this morning, and I have no idea why. I didn't even realize it was so early, haha. So far today there has already been a parade. Right in front of my house! Apparently someone in my neighborhood thought it'd be a good idea to have a neighborhood parade...firetruck included! Here are some pictures:
Getting ready to march down the street:

Firetruck pulling onto my street after the parade to let the kids see it:

At 2 there is the Blacksburg parade too. I should be meeting up with Dawn and hopefully Dixie later. Maybe with our guys, maybe not, haha.

Stay tuned!

~Taylor~

Oh! And the bookcase is all finished!

And today's FOUND was found by Tom Watters in Hollywood, California. It's July Fourth related, so naturally I'd like to show it!

UPDATE!
Kevin and I went to the parade. It was alright, no Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade or anything. We tried going to Sub Station afterward, but it was closed. GOSH. So we ran over to Food Lion and got some food there and went back to his house. We watched Friends and things and he went to a BBQ and I met up with Dawn and Dani and their boys. After we walked to the park Dawn, Dani, and I scoped out the food. I settled on pizza while they got some hot dogs.

Not to long after that Amanda came! I was so glad to see her! :)

We sat around and ate and listened to music. Beatle Mania started around 8:15 or so. They were really good, looked and sounded just like the Beatles! Kevin met back up with us and he went up to the stage to take pictures, he got some really good shots. After that all of us played with sparklers.

Dani and I got Kevin to take pictures of us writing our names with them. (these are his pictures)


That was fun. Finally it was time to go see the fireworks!

More fireworks pictures, and here are Kevin's! They are so much better than mine! We walked back to our cars, and Kevin and I went to his house and watched more Friends, and then the day was over.

All in all, it was a pretty awesome day :)

Here is another find, just for fun from FOUND! This is by Jen in Atlanta, Georgia, it's cute :):

~Taylor~

This time next week, I'll be roaming the streets of Key West, FL.

Next Wednesday I'm leaving with my family and going on a cruise! We're driving to St. Augustine.

We're spending the night there, so we don't have to make the trip down to Ft. Lauderdale all in one swoop. We are staying at a cheap hotel, because when one is going on a cruise, one doesn't have a lot of money to pay for much else, haha. Anyway, that should be a fun 9-10 hours worth of driving. Hopefully we will stop in Savannah on the way down. I love that place. That's where we would stay when we left on cruises from Port Canaveral. I've never driven so far down into Florida before. Just down to Orlando is probably how far. I've been to Key West before, just on a cruise, not driving. But I'm sure that would be awesome going down Route 1 or whatever it is. I was at that famous Mile 0! Now that I'm camera crazy, there will definately be a lot of pictures when I return! From St. Augustine we'll hope back on the road and head to the docking station in Ft. Lauderdale.

I zoomed out a little from what Map Quest gave me so you could see where I was going compared to everything else. Then we should be boarding Enchantment of the Seas. Which looks like this!...if it were to be a cartoon anyway:

According to the itinerary, we should be in Key West at 7:00 AM Friday. I suppose that'll mean I'll be getting up quite early :-\. Haha. It should be fun. After Key West, we get back on the ship and head over to Cozumel. I think we decided once we get to Cozumel, we'd hop on a ferry and then a bus over to Cancun since there is more shopping over there. (Go to that link I put on Cancun, it's a gorgeous aerial view of Cancun!) But I'm sure we'll have time to be in Cozumel some and Cancun since we'll be there for 9 hours. After we get back on the ship we won't get off again until we are back at Ft. Lauderdale. Which means a day at sea! Those are actually pretty fun, there are a lot of different things you can do on the ship, and one night, i'm not sure which night, probably the day at sea night, there is a formal night. Where everyone gets all dressed up. I'm still not sure what dress I want to take. I have resisted and not actually bought a new one! Haha. So I'll figure it out eventually. I hope I don't end up taking them all, haha. Anyway, once we get off the ship we'll head up the coast to Charleston. YAY! Where I hope to get a preview of my birthday trip. And ironically we're staying at a hotel I had been looking at for the trip, until I decided on the B&B. It is the Shem Creek Inn which is in a marsh in Mount Pleasant. So that should be fun. It appears they have wireless internet, so I'll try my best to go ahead and start uploading my cruise pictures to flickr so all my lovely readers my see them, since I am sure there is much anticipation. :) I should be back home by the 17th. And 9 days later I'll be off on my birthday trip with Kevin to Charleston!!! :-D

Have a nice Friday!

~Taylor~

P.S. Maybe I'll find some stuff for FOUND down there!!! In the mean time, laugh at this one from Ashley in Brooklyn, New York:

(since it says "I think you're pretty" common sense would think a guy wrote it to a girl, in that case, that little boy has some pretty good hand writing!)

So my weekend was pretty boring. Not much to say about it. Saturday I woke up and helped clean up the house until Dawn called. She needed to go to Home Depot and get some flowers and such to make her yard all pretty. Haha. We stopped by Wally World and then went over to look at flowers. We were out in the garden section for a while, I got a sunburn :(. But it's alright just as long as nothing touches my shoulders...haha. We went back to her house and I got to meet her yellow labs Honey and Jade. I got a text from Amanda saying she wanted to go shopping, so I left a little later and went out to Christiansburg with Amanda. We went all over the place. She needed jeans, haha. We went to the Mall to go to American Eagle where she got a pair of jeans and a pair of capris. They were really cute. Then we went back out through Belk and they were having a little bake sale. I asked why they were doing this and the sales lady said one of the employee's dad was sick and they were helping raise money. So I got some cookies. They were SO yummy, homemade and everything! We went over to Goodies to see if they had any good deals. I saw this adorable dress for $60 on sale for half off!!! But I'm broke, all my money is reserved for the cruise, and I'm not sure if I'm willing to part with $30 of it yet. So we'll see. It's just so pretty and so me! So I'm mourning that missed buy. It'd just be so beautiful for the cruise and everything. I can't find a picture of it anywhere online. Anyway, then we headed over to Wal-Mart (I know, twice in one day!) because she needed a wireless router. We got there and just stared at them all. A sales guy came over and told us the Belkin Wireless Router sucked and they were always brought back. So we grabbed the Linksys, which I know my Aunt has and it worked really good. I know Kevin had gotten something from Wal-Mart but I couldn't remember what, and since he was out of town and really busy with his conference I couldn't call him to ask him. So we went and bought it, and it came up more expensive than the price tag had said on the shelf. That confused us so Amanda ran back to check and I waited in the customer service line to get it checked out. Turns out it wasn't shrink wrapped like it should have been and the cd inside was all scratched up. She said it shouldn't have been back out on the floor, and told everyone back there to make sure they knew that. Haha. So we went back to get another one to exchange it, but they were out of that one kind, so Amanda was forced to get the more expensive one that she was originally charged for. AH! She was online at one point, but I don't know if it is still working. I'll send Kevin over there to get it working. :-P After all that we went over to Play it Again Sports for some maroon and orange soccer socks for football season!!! It's a band geek thing :). We finally went over to her house and she gave me three trash bags worth of her old clothes to see if they fit, I still have yet to do that. So I'll get cracking on that soon. I went home and just relaxed the rest of the night. I ended up going to bed at like 10 I was so tired. Kevin finally called a little after mid-night. I was really happy to hear from him! Sunday I cleaned some more and watched "Clean House" ALL day. It was just really interesting! And I was waiting until 5 when they were showing the messiest house in the country. Haha. I also made some frozen Oreo treats for work. YUM! A little before six I left for the weather station, I knew it'd be boring because it was beautiful out just like it had been for the past few days. They let me do the TAFs which is a forecast for pilots, depending on how the weather is there are rankings on who can fly, so they are very important. I didn't do them totally myself, obviously. But it was really interesting, and I learned a lot. But after that...there was NOTHING to do. So I sat around for about 2-2.5 hours. I did pick which hurricane I thought would be the biggest headliner. I guess it's just something fun they do to see who picked right. I finally got out of there at 8:55 and I practically ran to my car to see if Kevin was home. I had a missed call and two texts from him! I called him right away and told him I was stopping by Wendy's and then I'd be over! I'm so glad his back! But then again, I'm leaving the day after tomorrow. But Key West and Cozumel/Cancun should be fun!

Oh and I have all of this week off! So that should be good to help get some things I need to get done today and tomorrow.

~Taylor~

Would you like another find from FOUND? Well, you're getting one. How about today's? It was found by Eric J. Moore in Santa Monica, California:

P.S. I want this!!!

(added to Wish List)

So I thought I would take advantage of this "scheduled" publishing thing while I was on my cruise! When I have this posted I will be on the road down to St. Augustine, FL. Probably somewhere in North Carolina or South Carolina.

Check out my twitter link over there in "Me Around the Net" to see updates of my travels!

~Taylor~

The ship is departing right now! Imagine me on the deck along the railing watching the ship pull out of the Ft. Lauderdale port. Awesome :)! You won't have to imagine it for too long because when I get back I will definitely post pictures!

Check out my twitter link over there in "Me Around the Net" to see updates of my travels!

~Taylor~

We've arrived at Key West! I'm in for a fun-filled day of shopping and site seeing in the southernmost point of the continental United States!

Check out my twitter link over there in "Me Around the Net" to see updates of my travels!

~Taylor~

P.S. The ship is leaving port at 5:00 and we'll be on our way to Mexico!

At Cozumel, Mexico!!! My first time to Mexico! We're going to get on a ferry and then a bus to Cancun. That'll be fun! :)

No texts to twitter in Mexico! I don't think my phone will work, and even if it does, major roaming, don't you think? haha.

~Taylor~

P.S. We leave at 7:00.

Traveling back to Ft. Lauderdale on the ship all day. So I'm somewhere in the Gulf of Mexico. Or the Caribbean Sea, which ever it is. Tonight is formal night, I get to dress all up!!! I'll be back to the States tomorrow morning.

~Taylor~

Back at port in Ft. Lauderdale! I'm not sure when exactly we'll get off the ship but we have to do that whole customs thing to make sure that we actually belong in America! That's always fun, ha...then we'll head up the coast to Mt. Pleasant right next to Charleston, SC! I should have wireless in that hotel, so you'll hear from me later today!

~Taylor~

Oh, you can watch tweets again!

So I got back Tuesday evening. It was a fun, but hot, trip! You can check out my pictures on my flickr account, I uploaded a whole bunch! Something that changed from what I said in my "Where in the World is Taylor" is that we didn't end up going to Cancun. The explorations lady said that after the 45 minute ferry ride to the main land we'd have to be on a bus for another two hours. Uh...yeah...no. Haha. So we ended up going to downtown Cozumel and shopped then went back to the ship for lunch, then back out down the other side of the island to Playa Mia Beach. That was fun. Free open bar! Haha. Anyway, I'll elaborate more later, and I have some videos of the ship and out my balcony!

So...I've been lazy and I haven't uploaded those videos yet. But I'm sure I will eventually! In the mean time, I'll tell you a tale of my weekend.

This sort of weekend begins on Thursday night. Kevin and I decided to go walk around campus. It was a lovely evening. We ended up walking around toward campus, and we were on the edge of campus when we saw some lightening. Now, I wanted to go indoors, but Kevin decided he wanted to stay outside. We got down in the middle of a bunch of dorms. There are a lot of camps going on right now at VT, so there are little kids and random people running all around. That kind of annoyed us a little, but we kept walking. The sky was growing darker, and I was getting more and more nervous. But we decided to stop and take pictures. And I tried out a few HDR shots. Here is one:

Kevin says there is too much noise and I need a new camera. But it suits me for now. Kevin's more of the artsy photographer, and I'm more of a "social" photographer I guess.
Here are some more pictures from that night:
Dark clouds right over head!:

Looking in front of us:

Kevin watching the storm:

I finally talked Kevin to walk over to squires (I had to go to the bathroom pretty bad, haha). After we took care of that, we took a rest on some couches on the first floor of Squires. After we had gotten comfortable a group came over. Orientation group...the leader asked us to please leave the seats so they could have them. We're nice people so we did. My foot was hurting from the flip-flop rubbing against it so much, so we decided to go back to Kevin's house. Right after we pulled out of our parking space it started to pour! (this is about a half an hour later than I said it would rain, Kevin pointed out to me) It was really hard to see the road and what lane I was in. But I got us through, haha. By the time we reached 460 towards Kevin's house, it had died down a lot. So, it was a pretty fun night all in all. :)

Friday Kevin and I watched "Blood and Chocolate." I had really wanted to watch it because I had read the book a couple of times and really liked it. Let me tell you, the only thing that was the same between the book and the movie were the names...and a little bit of the plot line. And this is a very tiny little bit of the plot line. I hated it! I really was looking forward to see everything that I had read come to life, but no such luck there. So I definately recommend the book, and do NOT watch the movie. A little after that we left to go to Barnes and Noble. I was meeting up with Amanda there for the Harry Potter release. We got there and there was a line out the door...because of the fire code. They could only have a certain amount of people in there, so the only way we'd get to go in is if people left. And they did. Which surprised us. Why would you go and then leave before the book came out?
This is what it looked like when we got there:

But we did finally get in and we did that whole count down thing, and the book appeared!

Since I wasn't getting a book at that time, we didn't stay too much longer. I ordered mine off of amazon, and I thought it'd be coming in Saturday. Later when I got home I checked and it said it was going to be there Wednesday! I was so mad. I went to wal-mart and bought one there, and went back home to cancel the order, but it wouldn't let me anymore! So Wal-Mart is getting their book back after the Amazon one comes in, haha. After we left, there was still people waiting to get in:

A funny thing I saw while we were in there is this:

See that pink book in the center shelf, second book over from the left? It's Paris Hilton...in the Bargain Books section! I thought that was pretty funny. :)

So on Saturday, my mom left to go up to DC to meet my Uncle's girlfriend and to see my grandfather. My dad and I went to get new front tires for my car since the tred was pretty low and he didn't want us going to Charleston with bad tires. While we waited, I took the other car over to Wal-Mart to get the Harry Potter book. I brought it back into the mall with me to read. Yay, I have it!:

--Picture coming soon--

Eventually they finished putting on the new tires and we went to leave. While I was driving on 460 I noticed something weird with the hood of my car, but I figured it was the reflection playing tricks on me. Then these guys in a black truck start yelling at me and pointing, eventually I figured it out that my hood was up. Uh oh. That couldn't be good, that could fly up and I could crash! So I got off on the next exit, with those guys still yelling at me, I yelled back that I knew now, thank you. I stoped in a parking lot and shut it. It was actually latched, just not pushed down all the way, so I don't think it could have blown up. So that was good. I got home to my dad already finished with lunch, haha. Eventually I went over to Kevin's house. We watched Deep Impact. I had seen it a few weeks ago, but because my mom had set something to record, I never got to see the ending, and if you have seen the movie, you know you have to see the ending! So I finally saw the ending. Watching that made Kevin want to watch Apollo 13. So we watched that too, the guy in Apollo 13, Bill Paxon who is also in Titanic, made us want to watch Titanic. Haha. We didn't have enough time, so we saved it for Sunday.

Sunday came and my dad, brother, and I watched some of the Tour de France. The bystanders sometimes like to run along side of the bikers, well we were watching these bikers and all of a sudden a guy wearing nothing but a thong runs out into the shot running along side of the bikers. WOAH! Luckily we only ever saw the back...as gross as that was in itself. Haha. My dad said the people who go to watch these races were really weird. I think I saw a guy wearing huge antlers on a helmet. That is pretty weird...and why for a bike race? After Kevin woke up I went over to his house and we started the Titanic, when the time came to change the disc for the second part of the movie, I had to go to the weather station. When I got there they were like, should we have her do the hot seat first? I was confused, hot seat? They took me over to a computer and sat me down infront of this "game" on one of the NOAA websites. It was pretty interesting, and I actually learned stuff out of it, which is its purpose. You should try it. They walk you through it all. And I didn't kill too many people! I don't think...haha. After my three hours at the weather station, I got some food and went back over to Kevin's where we finished Titanic. He had been wanting to watch Back to the Future afterwards, but we didn't have enough time. And since all the movies we had watched this weekend had had a connection (the connection between Blood and Chocolate and Deep Impact was that they were both from Netflix, haha), we discovered a connection between Titanic and Back to the Future, which was Billy Zane, who was in both movies. So we should be watching that the next chance we get.

I think that is all I did this weekend. Haha. Now it is my birthday week! And we are leaving for Charleston in 3 days!!! I'm really excited.

~Taylor~

P.S. How about a little bit of FOUND? This one is from Kurt Benbenek in Long Beach, California:

We had a Luau at work today. Chocolate fountain included!!! The best part was watching people learn how to do the Hula dance. So check it out!!! (Pictures are on my flickr...soon)

I had to use a random aol uploader thing because the file was too big for me to upload it to youtube.

Kevin and I leave the day after tomorrow for Charleston!!!

~Taylor~

If Kevin had his blog up and running I'm sure he could tell you all about it, but he was on TV last night, he made a clip out of it so check it out!

He worked really hard on that book with the others who put it together too, and there are mixed reviews about it that I've seen on the internet. But I think it'll really help to have all that information, and true information, all in one place, and to have the profiles of all the victims and memories to keep forever. So if you want to read it you should definately check it out, it comes out August 28th...there are a few pictures in it too, some Kevin took. He's a great photographer and he got some really incredible pictures in the days following April 16th.

Anyway, there is a cute cat video of Bou coming soon. I need to get it uploaded to youtube. She does this thing where something spooks her, so she feels she needs to wap it a few times with her paw. So I got a video of her doing that to a fan I got from the Luau yesterday.

~Taylor~

Check this out, she's so cute!

Now I need to get some sleep, for I go to Charleston tomorrow!!!!!!!!!

~Taylor~

Why in Charleston of course!

Thursday -- driving down, eating at the Cheesecake Factory (with a gift card thanks to DAWN!) in Charlotte, going to Boone Hall, eating at Bubba Gump!, and walking around

--bloging from the iPhone in the apple store in Charlotte!--

Friday (MY 20th BIRTHDAY!) -- carriage ride, harbor tour, maybe aquarium, maybe IMAX, walking around a lot, maybe folly beach

Saturday -- whatever we feel like and driving back, maybe stopping at P.F. Chang's? (and maybe a pool party at Robin's house! haha)

I hope you have a good rest of the week! I know I shall be! :)

~Taylor~