Taylor Turns Twenty

 So the baby boy leaves the teen years behind today.  He got a lot of attention when he was born because there was a pretty big gap after Jessica and Nicholas who were born 18 months apart, and then an 8 year wait for little Taylor.  He was adored by his older siblings and they were a great help in watching over him.

He was a funny kid.  Lots of personality from the time he was just a baby.  He LOVED singing and dancing to all my old Disney records and knew all the music. He loved costumes.  He was VERY into dinosaurs (I always thought this was because we took him into Jurassic Park as an infant...I remember nursing him in the theatre) and he could do a spot on imitation of a velociraptor.  Seriously dead on imitation.

He also went through a phase where he HAD to wear a hat.  Not just any hat, but THIS particular green hat.  Wore it everywhere.  For years! Would get very upset when I wanted to wash it because it required him actually taking it off so I could do it.  He said the hat gave him confidence.

 He loved Lego's and making videos.  He and his friends would make little movies and he went through a phase where in every photo we took, he was doing this "hand on the chin" pose.

He took skiing lessons with his cousins then switched to snowboarding, but decided he liked skiing better and went back.  He, like the rest of the family never caught that Utah "Oh I HAVE to ski every weekend" bug.  We are once a year skiers.

He's the only Eagle Scout in our families.

He's traveled a lot.  When Tom was on active duty we would go see him in DC and in California when he was there, not to mention trips to New Jersey and NYC, so Taylor has a lot of miles on him.  He's also traveled with Tom on Coast Guard Trips and took a trip to China with friends from high school.

Taylor and Tom in Branson

Taylor, Maddie and Matt

 He's a musician, plays guitar, bass, bongos and is a great vocalist as well.  If you can get him to sing.  He attended The School of Rock and then played in a band with Nic and some friends called FLOW.  We think he has replaced his hat wearing fetish with a need for having long hair.  He's concerned about the environment, what we eat, how animals are cared for and doesn't look at the world exactly as we do.  He's exploring his spiritual options, reads a lot, loves buying old record albums and is genuinely troubled by the state of the world and it's focus on capitalism.  He wants to live off the grid.  He wants nothing more than his own little plot of land (preferably our back yard in Farmington) to grow his food.  He is our little hippie. But we are crazy about him and he makes us think, laugh and look at the world in a different way every day.