Happy Birthday, Joshua! And Confrence.

Sorry it's a day late, Joshua, but there is a time difference here, and by the time I got the phone call, the library was closed. I can't believe I actually guessed within forty-five minutes of your birth time. But I don't think anyone thought you would weigh almost eight pounds. You're a big baby boy, and you're so cute. Thanks for getting those pictures up. Ah, the wonders of technology!

Anyway, I attended General Conference today, and I hope you all did as well. It was really good. The afternoon session in the Tabernacle was neat. I remember sitting on one of those hard benches -- right behind a pillar. And I remember seeing the Young Women's conference from the balcony. I remember when President Hinckley walked into the Young Women's conference, and we all stood up and were still. I don't think I'll ever forget that.

If I can be bold enough to ask a question: Do you have any special memories of the Tabernacle?
Here's another question: Which talk (or talks) stood out to you? Elder Bednar gave the parable of the pickle, and Elder Holland spoke about controlling the tongue. I wrote down his maxim: "No hardship is so terrible that whining about it won't make it worse." And Elder Scott gave a beautiful talk on prayer and being patient while waiting for answers. But I was most deeply impressed by the talk by one of the Seventy on the memory and remembering.

Joshua is Here!!

The pictures are up under "What's New" - enjoy.

Classes, or not

What is it with classes being canceled during this week? There are three days with no German classes (Friday through Tuesday, due to the fact that the teacher is a coach), and then there won't be creative writing on Thursday because the teacher has a doctor's appointment, and there was no ballet yesterday either. This means I have more time to work on history papers.

The weekend was great. I went up to the temple. I asked if they needed help in the baptistry, but they didn't, so I (along with several others) did a session. It was very spiritual.

On Sunday, there was a "fireside" -- well, they claimed it was a fireside, but it was really an award ceremony for the Marriotts. The choir sang, and they were great. But it got boring listening to how absolutely wonderful these people are . . . for two hours.

Thanks

Thank you for all of the birthday wishes everyone! I really appreciated them. Trina wanted me to post what I did for my birthday so here goes.

Thursday was the last day of the third term so I decided to start the partying that day. At school I gave the students that had completed all of their writing assignments an extra recess (it was about 40 minutes long) and I went out with them. I had my assistant stay inside and work with the kids that had work to complete. Then that afternoon my room mom came and we had a party for the entire afternoon. It was a surprise for the kids, but I think they thought it was really a surprise party for me. We had lots of cake and ice cream and then played musical chairs and a game where you try to unwrap a present with gloves on. Some of my kids said it was the most enjoyable history and science lessons they ever had. (It said history and science on our schedule.) Thursday night was tap and ballet. I was pretty hyper through both classes, but still enjoyed them.


On Friday I had a training meeting in the morning and then had to finish up my report cards that afternoon. I had actually kept things up to date on the computer this term, so it only took about an hour to finish things up on those. Then I went and did my laundry and went to the store to get some last minute things for the weekend. That night Mindy and I went on a triple date with our friend Natalie. First we had dinner (chicken enchiladas) with just Mindy and her date and me. Then we drove into Provo and met up with the others at Natalie's house. From there we walked over to Comedy Sportz. It was a very enjoyable show. I laughed a lot which is what they want you to do.

Saturday morning I had a few friends (all girls) over for breakfast. We had muffins and smoothies. (Mindy had spent most of Friday baking.) Then Mindy and I went to Orem and did some shopping. We walked around the pet store (it made me want a puppy) and then went to Bed, Bath, and Beyond. We'd never been there so we figured we could go and walk around. I got a really nice blanket and a little massage thing. Next we hit a few clothes stores... but all we bought were some cool camo pants. We plan to bring them to Cali if we make it down there this summer. We bought lunch at Wendy's on the way home and then came home to relax a bit. Mindy then made four dozen cupcakes and a regular cake. The cupcakes were for my party that night. We had a small group to begin with but as the night went on more people from my ward showed up. We ended up with about 15 people and we played "Scum" for awhile. Then at midnight they all sang happy birthday and it took me several blows to get all the candles out.

Sunday, my actual birthday, I went to church. After the meetings we had a "break the fast" meal as a ward. It was lasagna (almost as good as Mom's) and Mindy brought the left over cupcakes and the cake (which was a jell-o cake) for everyone to have. And after I got home I spent the rest of the day talking on the phone with all of you.

And that is what I did for my birthday.
Love,
Tawnia

Happy Birthday!!!

We hope you have a wonderful birthday, even if Joshua decides he doesn't want to share a birthday with you. I'm sure you'll still be his favorite Tawnia, too. I just tried to call but you must be out celebrating somewhere, or maybe you're resting from all the celebrations you've had so far. Take care and have a wonderful day.

Love ya,

Mom and Dad

Happy Birthday Tawnia!!!

Hi everyone,
Just wanted to say Happy Birthday to our favorite Tawnia in the whole world :c) Now Tawnia, I've been telling this little baby how important it is that he is born today so that he can share a birthday with his aunty Tawnia, but so far he hasn't given me much indication. I've been having billions of contractions - last night they were very strong, but sadly, they went away, as they keep on doing. We'll see, though. Well, everything is ready now - the baby stuff is all set up, the apartment is amazingly clean, our hospital bag is packed, and certainly grandparents on both sides are VERY anxious for the big event. So all we need is a baby. Oh, and we are completely happy with Grandma putting up pictures of Joshua on the family site - probably she'll get them up there before we can. I keep on looking at the pictures of Stevie and Summer when they were first born, and I think it is so amazingly true (especially with Stevie) that newborn babies change what they look like almost daily! I'd love to do that same kind of calendar thing, so everyone can see him changing and getting cuter by the moment. I wrote draft text messages that just need to be sent, so hopefully very soon after he is born, the word will spread to all corners of the country via text message!

Well we love you all and Tawnia - have a wonderful birthday!!
Manda and Nathan

What's New

I updated my What's New page again. I wanted to let everyone see it before I put up pictures of Baby Joshua. I'll want to get them up soon after he's born, which will, hopefully be soon. That is, of course, if I have Nathan and Amanda's permission. I've made a few other updates, too, adding some games and my newest hike.

Keep us posted on the latest news, everyone.

Love ya,
MOM

all clear

Just to let you know, our news is out so you may all talk freely amongst yourselves now. It took a while for me to corner Clarissa, but I finally talked to her today. Hang in there, Amanda - you'll get through this! Good luck with the final days here - you're almost done! And then the fun begins ... Thanks for putting the video clips of Summer up, Mindy. I hadn't seen them yet either. Not much going on around here. Just taking it easy tonight and watching basketball - Georgetown is in the Sweet Sixteen of the NCAA tournament. They had a crappy first half, but they've been doing a lot better 2nd half so far and just tied the game.

EDIT: Georgetown won. Hooray!! On Sunday, they'll play the winner of the USC/UNC game. The Oregon Ducks, if they beat UNLV tonight, will play against the Florida Gators, who are the defending champs from last year.

I said, "ATTENTION"

Well we could have had our baby by now had everyone submitted their guesses. We were at the hospital last night and the doctors were ready to go and then Amanda said, "WAIT!!! Jared and Clarissa haven't guessed when he is going to be born yet!" The doctors understood and told me to stop jumping on Amanda's belly - which I was instructed to do to help with the birthing process.

So please get your guesses in. At least now you know not to guess with mom.

Nathan

Summer Movies

I've just uploaded three new Summer movies. If you would like to see them, check them out on my You Tube page here. If they aren't there yet, wait a little while and try again, so they can finish processing. Tawnia took these videos when she was in Washington DC in February.

In other news, I'm DONE WITH SCHOOL! Yippee! I took my last test on Tuesday (and got an A!) .. so I'll be (probably) getting three A's and a B. I'll get the B in Art History, because I had a mental shutdown for my last weekend, so I couldn't write the paper I would have needed for an A. I'm honestly happy with the B though. I'm now done with all the requirements for my Associates Degree, I just have to wait for processing, so I'll officially get it later this spring (May?).

And besides that, I've added another picture to my page that I did on Sunday, because I wanted to get something done (but wasn't going to do homework). I'll probably be adding stuff more often, especially now that I'm done with school. But not this weekend, because I've got to throw Tawnia an excellent birthday weekend!

Back to class

And I'm as busy as ever. I have a German test on Wednesday, I need to work on my term papers, and I have to finish a book of poetry by Tennyson and write a poem by Thursday and go over my classmate's poems, and I've got history reading to do.

Today I also signed up for next semester's classes. I will take German, biology, Am Civ II, and write my senior paper on nationalism. Fortunately, thanks to a wonderful teacher I had at Chemeketa and the ridiculously small class size (two of us showed up -- me and Clarissa), I know what nationalism means as well as anyone can.

Long Time, No Post

Well, So I know you've all been wonderin' where's I've been, but I know where I've been all along. Here in Utah... well... except for that week that I was in Washington D.C.

Life is good. I have been staying busy with work. I went to D.C. for a week and thoroughly enjoyed myself. Then I came back and was sick for a week. (It was really weird...I was just really, really dizzy all the time.) Then I finally got back in to the swing of things at work. This is the last week of the term and then we only have ONE term left for the school year. I can't believe how quickly this school year has gone. I really love my class, but they've been stinkers lately. I think they are making sure that I won't miss them so badly when they're gone.

The big birthday bash is coming up this weekend. Being that my birthday is on a Sunday I'm planning on partying ALL weekend long. But go ahead and call me whenever because my phone will be on all weekend.... except for when I'm sleeping.

Okay, so now you know I'm alive.
Tawnia

Attention

alright everyone. It is time for all of you to get your guesses in about when the next Palmer will be born. The day is getting closer but we haven't heard all of your guesses. So let us know so we can get it documented and see who is the closest. You can also guess times and weight and length.

Mom wanted me to post about my job. I have one. Now they are telling me it is time for dinner. So I will post about the job later. But here is a little bit of info about it: the job is working in the audio department for Braille Plus Incorporated. I record tapes for the visually impaired. These tapes tend to be notices from the state about different updates on the impaired person's medical information. I can't think because Mom is bellowing now about it being dinner time.

but that is ok because I am hungry.

Nathan

More going ons

Hello, family. I'm still here in D. C. On Wednesday, I went with Trina and Summer and their play group to the zoo. We saw elephants, a panda, a rodent of unusual size, hippos, and sloth bears. We were only there for a couple of hours, but it's free and I've seen it before. There were six women, seven babies, and five strollers in our group.

On Thursday, I went to the temple in the morning with Trina and Adam. It was only my third time. On our way out, I saw a guy who's in my institute class who was on his way to do a session.

I really haven't done a lot of sight seeing this time. The weather was good on Tuesday and Wednesday, but it's not really good today -- rather miserable, in fact. And I've seen a lot of what's downtown. Instead, I've been spending time with Summer, Trina, and Adam. I'm glad I'm here. Otherwise I wouldn't have been able to witness Summer standing on her own for the first time.

New Job

Hi all.

I got a new job. I've accepted a position as Sr. Instructional Designer at Washington Mutual. If you'd like to know more, give me a call and we can talk. If you don't want to know more, don't give me a call.

I know you were the last one to post Emily, but keep us posted on your spring break goings on. I'm sorry I couldn't be with you guys in DC this week.

Gettysburg

Hello, family.

I'm up in D. C. with Trina and Adam for spring break. It's Adam's spring break too. So today, we all went up to Gettysburg. It's about an hour's drive away. We took a driving tour of the battlefield. It was pretty amazing. It's one thing to read a book about the Civil War and quite another to climb among the rocks of Devil's Den or look out across the fields from Little Round Top or see what's called the High Water Mark which was as far as the Southern army got. There are monuments all over the place for different regiments or states, cannons, markers where prominent men fell, and statues of generals. Adam knows a lot about the Civil War so he was telling lots of stories.

Three years and going strong

This is to note that on March 9, 2004 the first post was posted on the Palmer Family Blog (later to become insanityinc.net). Congratulations and thanks to everyone for making this wacky little experiment a means of growing closer together as a family. Everyone has contributed in their own way to make this a really wonderful website. I love that it keeps growing and changing and that there's always something new to find somewhere.

In honor of all the wonderful things on the website, I'd like to refer you to a special page. I recently reread Grandma Beers' recollections on visiting her childhood home, and I was struck by what a gift for words she had and what a great legacy that has been to her children and grandchildren (and great grandchildren now). Check it out.

http://www.insanityinc.net/evelyn/Travels/1971/1971.htm

the non-journal recipe and other stuff

Nathan, the recipe that didn't make it into my journal very will could have been acid reflux delight. It was lemon pork chops in the crock pot, which sounded kind of cool ... until the recipe instructions also added chopped up tomatoes and tomato sauce. It was the combination of lemon and tomato that created a ton of acid for Adam, and I didn't like the taste of it. I had to eat all the leftovers, because I wasn't going to just throw it all out and Adam wasn't going near it. Blech. No more lemon pork chops with tomatoes for us.

We're glad Dad is fine from totalling the car ... but I can't say we're going to miss the Geo. We drove that around the 2 times we've been to Oregon together, and man alive, how was that thing still going in the first place? Piece of junk!! We hope you actually get some insurance money for it!!

We're still cruising right along here - same as always. Adam is at school all the time. He's now in the middle of a writing competition which is going to eat all of spring break next week. Lovely. Summer and I have been mostly staying home for the last little while - a pretty nasty cold has been working its way through our house. I think we've just about shaken it though. I hope so. I'm tired of all of us taking turns being sick.

Summer will be 10 months old tomorrow, and we figure that she'll be walking by her birthday. She's sure trying hard! She has started to pull up on the furniture. She also is figuring out the sort of "next step" in some of her playing. We of course think it's the most adorable thing in the world, and we all clap our hands and say "Yay!! Good job!!" She can take all the rings off of her stackers, but yesterday was the first time I saw her put one back on. She also takes a cloth off her head to play peek-a-boo but also yesterday, she put it over her head for the first time when we were playing. She likes to read stories - we need more board and cloth books. Anything longer is too much for her attention span, so we read the same 4 or 5 books over and over. She likes them fine, but Adam and I can recite them. We want more board books because we're getting a little bored with them - you can take "Go Dog Go" and "The Very Hungry Caterpillar" only so many times. So if anyone wants to get us something inexpensive for her birthday ... board books! I'm already planning a party for Sat. May 12, because Adam's last final is on the 11th. We'll do something with just the 3 of us on the 9th, her actual birthday, but we'll save the party for that weekend.

Joy to the World!!!

Hello everyone. I hope that you're all doing well. Since I had trouble posting comments on the girls' blog last time I figured I'd just ask Trina here. Oh yes... and thank her for the blanket and clothes for Joshua. We appreciate them very much and it is going to be hard to give that blanket to Joshua and not just keep it . . . anyway. My question for you is about the recipe that didn't make it into your journal: what was it? The only clues I have are that it gave Adam bad heartburn and you didn't like the combination of flavors. If I were to guess it would be chili noodle soup. Or maybe acid reflux delight – but that could be a combination of any heartburning ingredients.

So how come Dad and Laurel don’t have logins on the side of the page? I was noticing that for four days nobody posted and thought that was strange because a billion people can post on the page. That is when I counted and noticed only twelve people were listed on the side there. Missing was Dad, Laurel, Brooke, Bryan, Stevie, and Summer. I realize that the three youngest may have trouble with typing and reading . . . and maybe even the oldest – just joking dad – but they all have people that can read and type for them. If only we knew how to spell baby noises.

We had a nice break from the rain these last couple of days. However it has returned. For the first time yesterday I saw Oregon’s state bird. They make a similar song to a red-winged blackbird but don’t look much like them. For those that don’t know, Oregon’s bird is the Western Meadowlark – brown on the back with yellow under-parts and a black band across the chest. I heard it first but couldn’t find it forever. I’ve seen more bald eagles in Oregon than I have Oregon’s bird. What’s up with that?

For those of you who don’t know, Amanda and I got the apartment manager position which we will start in May. It is here in Salem next to one of the parks that I have often gone to looking for birds. We drove to Portland just over a week ago and had the interview and walked out with the papers to get the pre-employment drug test. If you want a drug test story ask me. Since I don’t think everyone wants to here it, I won’t type it. Fortunately we don’t have to go to Portland again. The office was right in downtown next to Pioneer Square and the roads are narrow and one-way, there are too many people, cyclists which come out of no where, and trams that go right along through the streets. Oh how I love Salem.

Joshua is not coming yet – though Amanda is ready. We went to the doctor yesterday and the doctor said not yet but he is head down. So keep up the prayers and thoughts because he’s still cookin’.

Nathan

Yo

Yeah it's me. I have a new e-mail adress so I'll need to send that to everyone. I'm here in California and loving it. I have a job. I'll be working at Safeway. I just haven't started yet, but I will sometime this week or next.
Nothing else really big to report on.

My weekend

Last weekend, there was a young single adult conference here. It was pretty fun. I had to hurry to get done with my homework before heading off to play; I had an essay I needed to write on Friday. Anyway, the conference started out with a concert with The Standards. They're pretty good, an a capella group, five brothers. It was a lot of fun. Then on Saturday morning, there were service projects. I helped move books out of the middle school basement and then joined a group doing landscaping work -- pulling weeds, moving rocks, that sort of thing. We went back to campus for pizza and root beer. Then there were speakers who talked about the theme of the conference -- Come and See. Most of them were good talks (but I almost fell asleep during one). Elder Larsen of the Seventy was our final speaker, and he talked about when he had visited China. It was interesting. In the evening, there was a dance. I had fun; I danced with four or five guys. I stayed there for about two hours, but then I got tired and headed out. I was still the first of my housemates to get to bed, and I didn't turn out the lights until midnight.

New Picture

I just added another picture to my page. It's my friend Ashley from high school. I'm having a lot of fun with this new portrait thing, and hope you guys like it too.

Classes are winding down for me in the next few weeks, except that I've got all the major projects and tests coming up. I've got a list of every single assignment due taped onto my monitor. I'm trying to get things done as early as possible, so I won't be stressed out next week when I start tutoring after school. So far I'm doing really well in my classes, so I'm hoping to end these two years with straight A's again. Just a few more weeks and then I've got my Associate's Degree! Yippee!

New Games

I stayed home sick today so I did a little bit on the game page. I even put some games up that weren't on the list, so if you could add those, Jared, I'd appreciate it. Also, I noticed that you move the games up the list when the instructions are added, but you missed one.

Nathan, I loved your latest bird video and I'll have to take your word for what kinds of birds they are. Your knowledge in that area is much greater than mine.

I also loved Trina's answer to the wedding day question. Dad and I laughed at your perspective. I don't remember you not eating anything. I'll have to be more observant next time.

I think I'll go eat some soup so I can get rid of this awful cold. Clarissa just called and asked me where my voice had gone. I wish I knew. It must be having more fun than I am, right now.

Love ya,
MOM