The Tales of Taylor Pool

Summer always brings fun and interesting tales, especially funny ones that you never hear anywhere else! There have been many such occurrences this summer and so now I will share the top 2 for 2009.

Story number 2 occurred yesterday. I am also just going to be describing someone, so please take no offense, there is kind of no other way to describe what went on. I started the day guarding the main pool, and right when we opened there weren't too many people swimming in the main pool, so I would occasionally glance over to the diving boards and watch the people dive. There was one such person that was a great pleasure to watch, this fat black kid who is about 16. Watching him try to dive into the pool was hilarious, I can't quite describe it, but it was far from a dive. Just because you put your hands up, doesn't mean you are going to go in head first! I then went inside for my break and continued to laugh about this story and I ask the guard who was at Dive what he thought of the awesome diving abilities of this young man, and he got a kick out of it as well. Well later on while I was at Dive one of the other lifeguards came out to swim some laps and he stripped down into his drag suit. A drag suit is almost a speedo but not as high cut. As he did that someone yelled out, "Speedo!" When he was done he got out and scolded the kids that had yelled speedo. He told them to not disrespect the lifeguards and to make sure they clean up after themselves. He then made the statement (because the big fat black boy was in this group of kids) "Forgive me for trying to stay fit!" Some people are just jealous that they well never look good in a speedo. The kids then got out of the pool and headed over to the snack bar with their heads down to go pick up their mess. It was great.

The greatest story of the summer happened a few weeks ago. I pull up to the pool to go teach swim lessons and there is a cop car sitting in the parking lot, so I was like hmm, I wonder what he is doing. So I walk into the office and my manager Lisa informs me that someone broke into the office and so the cops were here investigating. They really didn't take anything, just left a mess, tore up the locks in the doors. The CSI guy then showed up to take pictures of the scene and look for fingerprints. It was kind of cool to see them work. One of the guards then walked in and was asking what was going on. I told her the CSI guy was here getting fingerprints and such. She was like cool, but no one died unfortunately. Meaning she wanted to see what happens when there is a body, like what we see on tv all the time. It was hilarious.

That is about all, oh wait one more thing, this is kind of just a venting. I have gotten really tan, such is the life of a lifeguard. people comment on my tan and I reply, Thanks, I get it from lifeguarding. Then people ask me if I wear sunscreen. Um yes hello I do. What do you think I am? Yes I know the dangers of the sun. Who are you to tell me about sun safety? I have been a lifeguard for 8 years. I know how to protect myself. ok now I'm stepping off my soap box. I just had to let that out!

Summer where did you go?

I can't believe how fast summer has gone by, but I was also in Florida for half of it, so it kind of explains it, but not really! Thursday was the last day of swim lessons for the summer. The pool is only open till saturday so now I really need to find a teaching job. Hopefully I can!

The other day we got to babysit Abby while Kim and John went to the temple and dinner. It was great fun. Little Miss Abigail is so fun to play with and is developing quite the little personality. Her smile just melts you and then she starts talking, it is great! She fell asleep and Marilee also decided to take a nap on the couch. I just had to take a pic of the two babies sleeping. It was very cute!



Marilee and I are having fun partying while my parents are gone in Ireland for the next week. It been fun, we like haven't had to cook yet since they've been gone because people keep inviting us over for dinner, it's great! Let's see what life throws at us this week!

We are the Champions!

This week has been a super busy week, I haven't been so busy for a very long time! On Wednesday and Thursday Marilee and I both worked the City of Mesa divisional qualifying meets for the summer swim league. It was great fun and very tiring and did I mention VERY HOT! Good ol' Arizona summers! Thursday I thought for a second I was going to die. I had fun though, I got to line up the little kids and walk them over to their race. We had to end early Wednesday night because a storm was starting to blow in, how I love Monsoon storms in the summer! It was nice but by the end of the night I felt that I was covered in dirt. The good thing about working these meets is I'm getting lots of hours, for the first time in a month I worked 40 hours.

Yesterday was a way fun day. I worked 11-6 and then the rest of the staff came around 5 and we ate a delicious Ned's party sub and then we left for Lifeguard Olympics. Each year we do a synchronized swimming routine, but they changed it this year and each pool made a movie and we did a little synchro in the movie. There was a pool really upset about not doing synchro and so they were out front protesting. It was funny especially since most of them had on intense synchro suits, and real ones that girls wear for competition are intense, you should google them if you haven't seen any. The first event of the evening is the rescue tube relay (a team of 4 swims across the pool, saves a baby)and we won. We were in 2nd place going into the last 2 events from previous events a few weeks ago. The only thing left from keeping us from our victory was our movie. It is a pretty funny movie and hopefully I will be able to post the movie later. We ended getting 3rd place for our movie, but the one that won was so good, I would agree it was better than ours! Each pool got an "Oscar-pop" award (kind of like otter pop, which lifeguards live on during the summer!) After they gave out the Oscar pops they announced the final standings and who won, and we were so excited to hear that we did. It was great fun and a nice accomplishment because we are a "small pool" meaning we have a small staff since we don't have any slides or anything too exciting.

It is now time for a new week. Oh I had an interview on monday, needless to say it didn't go the greatest and I am still looking for a job. There are still some districts I am waiting to hear back from. Hopefully I will find something soon! We'll see what this week brings!

Boy does time Fly!

It has been a month since my amazing internship ended and I headed home to Arizona. Some days I really miss Florida and just want to go back, and then I have to remind myself that I need to move on and find a real job. There are so many things I miss about Florida, which I will list later. Luckily we have texting and facebook to keep us connected!

In the past week I've had 2 interviews at some schools in Phoenix. Interviewing is not too fun and neither is filling out applications. Can I just have a job already?

I can say that I love being a rover this summer for lifeguarding. Since I was missing more than 5 days of the season I had to be on the rover list where I am a sub people call me to fill in for them. So i basically work when I want to, it has been wonderful. It has been quite relaxing, and I still go to the pool and work and play with the kids on occasion. After 7 fulltime summers it's been nice to have a break.

On Friday my niece Cali came over and we went to Kim's friends house to go swimming with my other adorable niece Abigail. We had a ton of fun, especially since Cali doesn't really know how to swim we all took turns working with her a little. Then we took our turns with Abby.

Yesterday was my mom's birthday and it was a splendid day. I made another delicious cake. We had the grandparents and my siblings come over for a low key BBQ. Afterwards we were chilling in the front room and I started dancing with Cali. Abigail got such a kick out of it, she sat there laughing at us and looked so intrigued at what we were doing. I would have picked her up and have her start dancing with us but she just had just eaten and shaking a baby that has just eaten is not a good idea if you know what I mean! In a few months she'll dance with us more. It was so much fun, I love spending time with my family and that is one reason that is keeping me from going back to Florida! Those are my thoughts, hopefully someday soon I'll have good news of a job!

Hilarious

So my little sister Marilee is probably going to kill me for posting this, but I just had to because it is way too funny not to. Marilee and I are both lifeguards here in Mesa, she coaches at a pool and I do management stuff at another. Well last night was the relay meet and at the end the coaches from each pool compete in a relay as well. Marilee quickly grabbed her suit as she ran out the door for the meet. It then came time for the coaches relay and she went to change into her suit and as she was putting it on she realized she had grabbed mine instead of hers. We both have black suits with the lifeguard logo on them but different brands, so it isn't too hard to tell which is which, but she was just in a hurry. We are definitely not the same size, she has the more gorgeous athletic body shape unlike me. She ended up having to wear clothes on top of the suit so as not to accidentally give someone a show as she was swimming. When she called to tell me what she did I was almost on the floor laughing. So there is your comic relief for the weekend!

Happy 4th of July!

I love the 4th of July and the time that we have to look back on the history of our country and remembering the sacrifices that have been made for our freedom. I love being American and celebrating that. One thing that I love the most is the American Pavilion at EPCOT. Yes it is related to Disney, but Disney just has a way of making everything really good. At the American Pavilion they have 2 things that do the best of celebrating America, the Voices of Liberty and the American Adventure. Voices of Liberty is an amazing A Capella group that performs about 6 times a day before the showings of the American Adventure. They are so good, the harmonies they use are so good. Then you go watch the American Adventure. It can put you to sleep after a long day playing in the park, but thats ok, some parts in the middle are quite boring. The best part is at the end when they highlight some important people and events to one of the best songs ever, Golden Dream. It gives me goosebumps every time I hear it. So for your listening pleasure I have a link to Voices of Liberty singing this song.



I also realized something this week that makes me a little sad, and yet makes me sound really weird. I have now celebrated every holiday at Disney World except for 4th of July. I'm not too sad that I haven't been there because a, it is way to freaking hot to be in Florida right now, and b, there are too many freaking people visiting the parks right now. The only reason I would want to go for the 4th is to see the awesome fireworks, because come on, who does fireworks better than Disney? Good thing we have youtube and I can just watch them from there, but it just isn't the same. I will survive, I wouldn't want to miss the annual Riding family BBQ and swim anyways!

Can you say Delicious?

I made like the most delicious cake the other day. It turned out so much better than I thought it would. I made it for work for our weekly challenge. Each year the City of Mesa Aquatics chooses a theme to make the summer more exciting and give us something fun to do. This year we are celebrating the holidays and my pool is Valentines. So I made this delicious cake, and we won so we got a box of otter pops. It was great fun! PS it did taste as good as it looked!






Yes I am a little proud, I just had to show how pretty it turned out.