Garrett and Shereen

So this post is dedicated to Garrett and Shereen Taylor. They are husband and wife, hence the same last name. When Matt and I decided to go to France this summer, we told and invited everyone so we'd have a fun posse over there. Understandably, a trip to France was not in most of our friends' time and budget constraints, so they had to respectfully decline our invitations. I told Garrett about it, and he sounded interested, so I emailed him our flight info so he knew when we were going. Then I didn't hear anything from him after that for about a week, and I figured it was just a fool's dream thinking we'd have any other friends come with us (besides Dan, he almost bought his tickets within the hour that I told him we wanted to go, before we even knew the exact dates. I talked him into waiting for a week before he bought the tickets so we could work out everything first. Dan, I like your enthusiasm...) Much to my surprise, about a week or so later on March 9, I received a text from Garrett that said, "Hey we got tickets to france i emailed our flight info." That was it, and just like that. I could hardly believe it, so I called him up and called him out on his bluff. Turned out he wasn't bluffing, and sure enough, Garrett and Shereen flew into Paris two days after Matt and me (I thought it was the next day that they were flying in. Matt and I spent 3 frustrating hours searching and scouring through the Paris Charles de Gaulle airport before a worker pointed out to me that we were there a day early. I felt stupid, but I don't feel stupid anymore...). I will just come straight out and say this right now, Garrett and Shereen were the perfect duo to have with us in Paris. Seriously, I can't think of any other wife that would be willing to come skate with us for 12 hours straight in Paris while she could have been spending all her time in museums and stuff. Not that they didn't sight see, but she spent a solid 2 weeks skating all over Paris with us. And when I say skating, I really mean that she was riding around on a skateboard with us. And when I say riding around, I don't mean Garrett was helping her balance on her board or something, I mean we had to try our best to keep up with her as she weaved in and out of dense Parisian sidewalk traffic. She was the first to hop on her board when we were in the subways in Paris, she'd throw down and take off, and we'd all have to throw down behind her and catch up. It reminded me of a video game where you have to follow some guy that leads you to a helicopter wreck so you can save the wounded, or he shows you how to get to the next level or something; no matter how fast you go or how hard you try to keep up, you just get glimpses of them as you go around a corner and they're already rounding the next one. I just looked for long red hair blowing around in the hallway, and I followed that. I think I got the perfect idea of how cool it would be with Shereen around when I picked them up from the airport and she ran through the train ticket controller section with another person while Garrett and I were trying to buy tickets to get through. She had all the money, so we ended up having to run through with her. I'd say that that started off our trip on the right foot. I can't think of any other friend's wife I know that could pull that off for a couple weeks straight. AS a random side note, I was just solicited by a character of a John Grisham novel, came to Matt's front door with books to sell... Back to Garrett and Shereen. So I've known Garrett since I was 17. The first time I met him, he looked like a lost dog skating with a bunch of my friends. He saw a bunch of us skating on the side of the road and he came to skate with us. I recognized an unfamiliar face and went up to talk to him, and we've been really good friends ever since. I even had the honor of being one of his groomsman at his wedding which gave me the opportunity to have a dance-off with one of his grandma's workers at her soap factory. I will have you know that I've never had so much on the line during that dance, and I've never danced harder. I won... I've been on more road trips with Garrett than anyone else besides Matt, and we've never had any kind of argument or anything. I've never gotten mad at him, been annoyed with him, or been sick of hanging out with him. True story. That's how laid back and cool he is. Garrett spent 90% of his time in Paris with a camera strapped around his neck, filming cars, people, buildings, and birds. I've got pictures to prove it... Something funny I learned about Garrett on this trip, Garrett can't smile on demand. Something has to happen that makes him laugh in order for him to give a genuine smile. Any time he had to pose and smile, he got this creepy joker smile that scared us all. So we'd try and do something to lighten things up and make him laugh. I put in two pictures above of him and Shereen smiling together. The first is a posed smile, the second is a real smile. Now you can see the difference... Garrett and Shereen, we're super glad you guys came, and Garrett, we're ready to film you some more for your part in the up and coming "Bolts of Thunder Gone Wild" video.