Most Enduring Nicknames: Ria or Squirrel
D.O.B: September 10, 1982
Place of Origin: Tacoma, WA
Parents: Terry Rosales and Kenny Brown originally, today my parental units are known as Ken and Pam Brown and Bob and Terry Taylor.
Siblings: Brian, Ben, and Edward Taylor
Mom hails from southern California, daughter of Richard and Lucy Rosales. Youngest of 5 boys and 6 girls.
Both went into the USAF not long after highschool. They met in Tops in Blue, which is basically the Air Force's traveling talent showcase. Dad played several instruments and Mom sang.
They married in 1979, but around the time I was two, they separated. Luckily I was too small to have any issues with that today.
The happiness my Mom and Dad could not find with each other, they found with other people. In February 1991 my mom married Bob Taylor, and in June of the same year my dad married highschool sweetheart, Pam Thornton. Both marriages are still going strong.
So technically Edward is my half brother and Brian and Ben are my stepbrothers by Bob.
Yeah, technically.
It means exactly bunk. These are my brothers, and I love them as much as if we all had the same parents, period. We've been together for most our lives. Ben and Brian are simply referred to as "The Boys". For some reason Eddie is not one of "The Boys". Maybe because for the longest time he was too little to be included in anything they did. For instance, if "the Boys" were going to ride their bikes to the park, that didn't mean Eddie because he couldn't even walk yet.
And it's not like we ever called him "the Baby", but it's just understood in our family that when you say "The Boys", you're talking about Ben and Brian. And then there's me, the only girl. I suppose that had its advantages and disadvantages. For instance, when we moved to Virginia, I got the biggest room out of the kids because I was the only girl. :-)
I got to be a little bit of a tomboy as well. I didn't mind dirt, playing with woodland creatures like frogs, turtles, or even snakes, and I played hours of video games. The Boys and I spent a lot of our childhood hooked up to the original NES playing Mario Bros., TMNT, and World Class Track Meet. You know what's funny? When we're at home, we still play those games.
I already told you that I was born in Tacoma, Washington. It's one of the largest cities in the state, and yet nobody east of the Rockies seems to have heard of it. Well, for those of you clueless people--it's near Seattle.
I lived there until I was almost 9 years old, and I haven't been back since. Someday I would love to go back and visit, just so I can see Mt. Rainer off in the distances again. I didn't appreciate that beautiful view at the time.
Mom and Dad (Bob Dad) were stationed at McChord Air Force Base and were both in the Air Force Band. When they found out that the band unit was to be shut down and disbanded, they chose to marry sooner rather than later in order to ensure that we would all go to the same place. So, Mom, Eddie, and I moved into the Taylor house and on February 1, 1991, we made our family unit official.
To kill time, Mom and Dad took us to see a lot of places. I missed the drive from Washington to Virginia because I was in Ohio with my Dad--he was marrying Pam. I rejoined the rest of the clan just in time to drive down to Florida and make my first visit to Walt Disney World!
When we got back to Virginia, we lived in some motels and temporary base housing for awhile. I think it was a sheer test of will by God. Four kids, two rooms...yeah, we got kicked out and told to go play outside for most of the daylight hours. I'm a real homebody who enjoys her air conditioning, so let me tell you I wasn't always thrilled about it.
That summer we also got to see St. Augustine, FL, Myrtle Beach, SC, and we went to Busch Gardens Williamsburg.
Yeah not really! We moved to Germany in August 1995 and I just about went nuts. I felt so out of my element. I returned to the states in November 1995 and moved in with Dad and Pam in Cranberry Township, PA. That's where I've claimed residence ever since.
Totally for sure.
Favorite TV shows: He-Man, She-Ra, Alf, The Care Bears, Chip 'n' Dale Rescue Rangers, Ducktales, Fraggle Rock, Ghostbusters, Heathcliff, Inspector Gadget (ULTIMATE FAVE), Jem, Kids Incorporated, Dumbo's Circus, Mister Rodgers, Muppet Babies, My Little Pony, Pinwheel, Pound Puppies, Pee-Wee's Playhouse, Reading Rainbow, Rainbow Brite, Sesame Street, Super Mario Bros. Super Show, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, The Simpsons, The Smurfs, The Snorks, You Can't Do that on Television, Cosby Show, Family Matters, Step by Step, Perfect Strangers, Full House, Roundhouse, Just the Ten of Us, Wild & Crazy Kids, Double Dare
Favorite Movies: An American Tail, Annie (I related to the short, curly hair), Back to the Future I, II, and III (still faves today), BeetleJuice, Big, Care Bears movies, E.T., Ghostbusters, Goonies, Gremlins, Honey, I Shrunk the Kids, Howard the Duck, Indiana Jones series, The Land Before Time, the Little Mermaid, Muppets movies, My Little Pony movies, The NeverEnding story, Oliver & Company, Pee-Wee's Big Adventure, Sesame Street Presents Follow that Bird, Weird Science, Who Framed Roger Rabbit
Music: I won't go into specific songs. Most of the 80s music I listen to know, I actually didn't really listen to as a child. Back then I was big into whatever my parents listened to as well as what was popular. I loved Whitney Houston, Madonna, Janet Jackson, Michael Jackson, and Stevie Wonder. Later in the decade I was big into the New Kids. My brothers actually introduced them to me . We used to lay a blanket in front of the tv as a stage area and perform along with the concert tapes. I always assumed the role of Joey, my favorite. My next favorite was Jordan, then Donnie, then Jonathan, then Danny. Recently I've had a NKOTB revival and I can say without shame that I STILL love them!
I vaguely remember liking Tiffany and CoCo (KoKo?), and I loved Milli Vanilli.
Oh, and all those TV shows? Well think of the toys that went with them, and those were my favorites too. Add Popples and Lady Lovely Locks to that list.
I read a lot. I was bookworm and I knew it and I didn't care. I would read whatever my mom brought home from the library for me, for she is a big reader a well. I also got into some of the popular series everyone else was reading, like the Baby-Sitters' Club and Sweet Valley Twins/High. I guess those were more early 90s than 80s, but if you consider that I couldn't even really read big books until 1987 or so, it makes sense. I also liked the Berenstein Bears and Dr. Suess a lot. I didn't care so much for the Boxcar Kids or that series about horses, or any of the other generic pre-teen series out there, and I for damn sure didn't like Baby-Sitters Club Little Sister series. That Karen just irked me!
I liked to play Pretend, House, Store, Barbies and all those other imagination dependent games with my brothers and classmates. The Boys and I even came up with our original game about running a jail. LOL! We played Jail! How messed up is that?!? I think it was Brian's idea. Somewhere I still have the record books.
I was a drawing machine. I mostly liked to draw cartoon characters, like the Super Mario Bros. and Disney princesses. One of the first stick-figures I can remember drawing is Cinderella, and that must've been when I was around 3. Sometimes I drew elaborate bedrooms like the ones I saw in JC Penney catalogs, so for awhile there I thought I wanted to be an interior decorator. I have tons of old sketch books that I filled with stuff, mostly girls in fancy clothes. For a long time I fancied myself becoming a fashion designer when I grew up. That fancy actually lasted until my second semester as a freshman in college. But I'll get to that later.
The Boys drew too. Sometimes we'd collaborate our efforts and put our characters onto one page. We even had a name going for ourselves. I think it was "BMB Studios" or something like that. I had two characters named Maggie and Dawn. Maggie was born when I was trying to draw Maggie Simpson and I made her eyes too big and her face too narrow,so I gave her body that of a teenager and thus Maggie Eyestone was created. I gave her a friend, Dawn,just 'cause I felt she needed one. Brian had a guy named Big-Eyed Ed. Why we had characters with large eyes, I don't know. Sometimes Ben and I would get together and draw Super Mario Bros. characters having a big blow-out war on a large piece of paper. Drawing was the bane of my existance, really.
I loved Chuck E. Cheese. A day at Chuck E. Cheese with my brothers was a day in heaven, indeed. The one in Tacoma was pretty big, or at least it was to me. I used to go into my own world among the plastic tunnels and I wanted to live in the Ball Pit. Somewhere at Mom's house there's video footage of us at Chuck E. Cheese's and there's definitely evidence that Ben brutally pushed kids into the ball pit.
Speaking of that, in the 80's our sibling dynamic was basically this: Brian was the oldest and the responsible one who bossed us around if he felt like it. Ben was the middle child who lived to be a pain in our necks and perfect the armpit fart. I was the Girl, the other middle child who might as well have been the youngest because Eddie was only a baby. Brian and Ben got into knock-down, drag-out fights (did I say that right?) every half hour or so and one or both of them usually wound up bawling. I would sit idly by and wait for Dad to come teach them both a lesson for fighting like alley cats. Then they were both guaranteed to be crying. Heh heh.
rarely fought in the physical sense with either one of them. When I did it, it was usually pretty bad. Brian will never let this one go--one day we were both in the bathroom getting ready for something. He was tormenting me, so I smacked him upside the head with a plastic hairbrush. I think he was more suprised than hurt but he'll never let that incident die.
Then there was a time when Ben and I were teaming up to get on his nerves, so he flung a Dr.Suess book in our direction. It hit the floor, slid, ricocheted off of another object, and flew up and hit me in the nose, causing me to bleed profusely. I, in turn, will not let him forget that one.
Several years later, one of my physical altercations with Ben had me in such an enraged frenzy that I actually forced him to the floor and proceeded to scratch up his face. It was a dirty way to fight and I got in trouble for it later, but I was so proud of the fact that I forced my big brother to the floor that I didn't care.
I turn into such a maniac when provoked. Again, this is probably why I didn't fight with my brothers often.
Then there was poor Eddie. I picked on him like there was no tomorrow. You'd think I wanted to throw him in a sack and plunge it into the river, but I really didn't. If anyone outside the family came near him in a less-than-friendly way I got quite protective. Poor kid. The Boys and I still pick on him, but he remains a good-natured kid, so maybe we've desensitized him in some way.
Coming Soon!