One down

This morning I had my British history final. We had some multiple guess questions and true or false, and then there were the essays. One asked about the History Channel series on Britain. Since I had spent five hours on Thursday and Friday watching the documentary, I decided to regurgitate what I saw. I don't think that's the wrong verb. I wrote quite a bit, and my hand hurt by the time I was finished.

I spent a lot of time today going over all my German vocabulary -- several hundred words. And I spent an hour with several classmates going over diplomatic history. I have both of those finals tomorrow. Then I will be done for the semester, and I'll have a few days to relax before the start of Maymester.

wow

So Amanda certainly hadn't read the latest posts yet...sigh. Oh well! :c)

Amanda says...

Hi all,
This is Amanda because I forgot my password and it's taking google too long to email me with it. I just wanted to remind everyone that there is the first part of the documentary "The Mormons" on PBS tonight at 9pm eastern time. Not sure if anyone knew or cared, but it should be pretty interesting. It's two hours tonight and two hours tomorrow night. Just thought you might want to watch it!
Also, our darling little baby is losing his red hair. At least for now...we'll see if it comes back red or some other color, but he's still stinking cute...receding hairline and all :c) Hope everyone likes the calendar - Nathan is doing an amazing job of updating it.
Oh - Joshua learned to make happy noises today...well maybe he already knew before and we just hadn't made him happy yet...but they are kind of a coo and an "oh" combined, and super cute. It is so wonderful to see him being happy, rather than just staring blankly at me...not that that isn't cute, but it is so nice when he responds!

Ok well I hope everyone has a wonderful rest of your day and know that we love you and miss you and can't wait for everyone to meet our little guy! Besides grandma and grandpa, aunty Tawnia will be first!

Love you,
Manda

No TV Week

So the national No TV week was last week, but I am having one with my class that started on Friday afternoon and will continue until this coming Friday. At that point, if they bring me a signed note stating that they did not watch any TV for the week, they get to participate in an ice cream sundae party. Mindy wants to be able to join in, so she isn't watching TV either. Therefore, neither of us will be watching the PBS special. Is anyone planning on recording it? I was planning on watching it, I just didn't realize it was this week.

Read my other posts to hear about what I've done instead of watching TV this weekend.

-Tawnia

"The Mormons" on PBS

I hope you've all heard about this by now - there's a 4-hour documentary on PBS tomorrow and Tuesday night (2 hours each night) by Frontline about the Church. It's on at 9 pm Eastern, so check your local listings to see when it's on for you. Our ward mission leader is encouraging everyone to watch it, if for no other reason than to know what was shown if people have questions about it.

As far as I know, Church leaders did cooperate with the making of this film, and it is supposed to be very fair. BYU-TV had commercials for it between sessions at General Conference. Adam and I just watched the preview on the internet, and the section talking about the missionaries had lots of clips from the "Called to Serve" video.

The preview is here: www.pbs.org/mormons/ We thought some things were a bit off on the phrasing. I find it odd that they said the exodus to Utah was the Mormons telling the US government to kiss off, and then we apparently "decided later" that we wanted to "come back" to the US. Mmm hmm. That would be why we sent people on the Mormon Battalion DURING the exodus to Utah to help the US military, and why Utah applied for statehood 800 times before they granted it 40 years later or something stupid. And the picture of the Angel Moroni, when referencing the visions about receiving the gold plates, had to be from anti-LDS stuff because that was super creepy. But for the most part, it looks like it will be okay.

Hope you get a chance to watch at least part of it, and please share later if you get in any missionary-type conversations about it.

I've been busy

I've been working on the timeline and on my page. I'm moving all of the vacations to the timeline and taking them off my page. I've also added some pictures to my 100 list. I have more work to do there, too. Trina sent me a list of things to add to the timeline the last one said "Sept. 1, 2006 - Trina became a stay at home mom. (You don't have to add this one if you don't want to, but it was a big deal to me.)" My response is that if it's a big deal to anyone in this family it can go on the timeline. I finally answered the last question I asked so I thought I'd put up a new one. What is one word on how to live successfully and why did you pick that word?

Today Dad and I hiked at Willamette Mission Park - right across the river from the Wheatland Ferry. (I'll get that list updated soon.) Then this evening was the Gold and Green Ball, so we got plenty of exercise today.

Love you all,
MOM

I painted a picture of Stevie in Photoshop. Hope you like it. (And I hope I have Eric and Laurel's permission to use the picture, even though it is after the fact.)

Caudle update

April was a big month for Summer. She finally has one tooth that has cut through, but everything else is still just sitting there. Fun fun fun for us. She's walking more - going back and forth between people for 4 or 5 steps at a time, but then she'll sit down when she's done with that game. She still doesn't let go of furniture when she's working her way around the room. She's also a lot faster with her crawling, and is up on her hands and knees now. She still does the commando belly crawl quite a bit, particularly when she can't get good traction on the hardwood floor. The only actual word she has said so far is "Mommy," and a couple of things that sound like baby and help and up. But I'm not convinced that she connects it all together yet so we have no "official" first word.

We're working on planning her birthday party. It will be Sat. May 19 (scheduling hassles on the 12th, so we moved it) and it will be a pool party with a baby pool. I'm excited for it - it will be darn cute!! Depending on how many pictures we take (and I plan to just keep shooting the whole time), I will probably have Mindy do a whole page of pictures on the website for the party, instead of just emailing a few.

The new baby is doing well. I had another brief ultrasound at my 2nd appointment earlier this week, which I was not expecting. We saw the baby kick in a very similar way that Summer does when she's being obnoxious during a diaper change. Excellent. Another one. The "girl or boy" ultrasound is scheduled for June 15. I was thinking at first that this would be another girl, but now I'm not entirely convinced. A couple of close friends think it's a boy. I'm 14 weeks tomorrow, so here we go with the 2nd trimester. The 1st was bad with extreme tiredness for about 2 months - this week has been a definite upswing in my energy level. Hooray! I had to start wearing maternity pants about a week ago. They're still very loose, but my regular pants were long gone. Regular shirts and skirts are still fine, and I'm not showing yet. But no more jeans.

Adam's first final is Tuesday, so he's been studying a lot. I've been busy with various projects here and there. A whole lot of things had been pushed off while I was so tired all the time, so I've been getting caught up this week.

Classes done

Classes are over -- though I still have three finals next week: British history, diplomatic history, and German. And then I'll have a few days to relax before the start of "Maymester." Today's classes were either hearing what's going to be on the final, or presentations of papers, or parties. We had so much cookies and stuff in creative writing that I took leftovers to German. And most of my classes got out early. (Except for diplomatic history, but that's because we got into a lively discussion of Tom Clancy novels; one of my classmates wrote her paper on that.)

Happy Birthday Amanda!

For Amanda's birthday, I made a picture of Joshua. You can see it on my page. It's more of an impressionistic style, but still really neat. I'll probably do a different style later, when he's a little older, but this was a fun birthday present. Hope everyone enjoys!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY AMANDA!!!

Here is one for the wifey.

Happy birthday to you!
Happy birthday to you!
Happy birthday Dear Amanda!
Happy birthday to you!

Good job being so old. You're doing a great job as mother.

See you wiggle soon.

Love,
Nathan

thank you, thank you

I just wanted to thank Nathan and Amanda for regularly putting up pictures of Joshua. Tawnia and I look every day to see if there are more pictures, and we are very rarely disappointed. We also got our baby announcements today, and THANKS for putting TWO in the envelope (and acknowledging that Tawnia and I won't always live together so we can't share everything).

Thank you Eric too, for the new movies. VERY cute! Post more as you have the chance. And thank you for emailing me those pictures. I'll probably start working on Brooke's picture soon, so I can wait for the other picture you wanted to send.

And my other news is posted on the sister blog, because it was feeling neglected (the blog, not the news).

Oh! And Jared's comment about the timeline reminded me that I hadn't told everyone that I graduated from Chemeketa. I now have my Associate of General Studies. Yippee! As for what I'm doing next? Something art related, but I'm not sure which particular field, or which school I'll study it at.

An update from Eric

I know, it's very late. But I took a three-hour nap today after the NICU reunion this morning. I don't know why I slept so long. I'll be turning in soon. Anyway, I've made a few updates to the timeline, a first for me. I also want to suggest making it current, so we don't have the end of 2007 and all of 2008 on there. But that's just my vote. I won't force the issue, and if we want to keep it the way it is, that's fine. I think it's a cool project anyway. See if you can find my changes (a few hints: 1973, 1999, 2005).

I also posted a new movie to my youtube page: www.youtube.com/ericpalmer

Like I mentioned above, this morning we attended a reunion for the families of babies who stayed at the CHOC NICU (Children's Hospital of Orange County Newborn Intensive Care Unit). We saw a couple of Stevie's nurses, and had a lot of fun visiting with the other parents and watching Stevie work the crowd. He sure is a social baby.

I'm enjoying my new job more and more as I take on more responsibilities. It's good to be busy.

Laurel is showing a little more now, and everyone who didn't already know at church figured it out last Sunday. She's doing a good job of not doing too much, though she did put up new curtains this week.

Stevie gets into everything. And he's a beautiful baby.

One other bit of news. Laurel and I are alumni ambassadors for the Ricks College/BYU Idaho Alumni Association. We attended a dinner Thursday night with Kim Clark, the new president of BYUI. He was very inspiring and gracious, in spite of being very tired from travelling across the country. (He'd been in Baltimore that morning.) There's a lot of exciting things happening at BYUI. Let me know if you'd like to know more. But it's awesome.

I love you all. I've really enjoyed reading everyones' updates. I love being part of this family.

new picture

I know that's all I ever seem to post about, but that's the exciting part of my life that I can share with you guys. This time you'll all appreciate and enjoy the picture because it's of someone that you know. Now that I've finished him, I'm going to work on his sister. And I need to go back and tweek Summer again.

I need a picture of Stevie though. Something straight on and somewhat .. serious. I know those types of pictures are hard to come by, but it's just the look I'm going for. If anyone has any, PLEASE send them to me. Mom already tried, but there really weren't any I was happy with. I may have some on my harddrive, but I don't have that in my possesion just yet. So Eric, or anyone else, please send me any pictures you have of Stevie, so I can complete my series .. I'll wait on pictures of Joshua, until he's a little bit older.

Good Evening

Hello. Amanda and I will try to not add pictures to days that already have pictures or that did not have pictures before but now do after following days got pictures. By the way, I am talking about the Joshua Calendar. Just so you know I added pictures on April 8th, and one on the ninth. Other than that I think everything else is the same and will stay that way. I was just adding pictures that Mom and Dad had taken. Amanda wanted me to announce that Joshua has graduated a diaper size due to his big belly. These diapers are pretty big, but atleast they fit around his equator. I got to use the stroller with him for the first time today. Amanda has used it before, but I was always at work when she went out with it. Pretty exciting times. He slept almost the whole walk. On Tuesday I took Joshua with me to the post office and to get gas. That was the first time it was just the two of us. but it was at most 15 minutes.

Nathan

Jared's trip

Well, Jared, that depends. It actually takes anywhere from 2 1/2 to 4 hours to get from DC to Philly, depending on time of day, traffic, lines at the toll booths, etc. If we're talking a whole day to visit and do some sight-seeing, that can probably be arranged. No Adam - he's studying for finals. But just a visit for a few minutes while standing in line at an airport - not so much. DC and Philly aren't THAT close. Maybe Baltimore, but not Philly. How long are you going to be out here, anyway?

Clarissa - glad to hear that you're doing well in Cali. I also like the view from the top of the Oakland Temple. One year, I watched the 4th of July fireworks from up there. We could see about 8 different fireworks shows in different cities all along the edge of the bay. It was really cool. You should make sure you do that this year if you're there for that holiday. And let us know what happens about the Temple Pageant choir!!

Spring Break

Hooray! We have the today through Friday off of school! And then we'll have five weeks left of school. That's twenty-five days left of school. And they will go very quickly, because there is SO much left to do this school year. Along with school assessments and state-testing. We also have two field trips, a medieval banquet, and all those last week activities. And I am still supposed to teach a bunch of stuff to these kids.

But I don't have to worry about that today. Instead I am going to relax with a good book because although we are having SPRING break, the weather isn't being very SPRING-like. We're supposed to have snow today. My plans for the break include, going back to the school to do some stuff (grading, planning, cleaning, etc.), reading, cleaning my room, and visiting with some friends. It'll be nice and go quickly, but that's okay.

Anyway, I hope everyone else is doing well.
Love,
Tawnia

Two months and a day...

That's how long I've been in California. It's great here. Sarah and I have a lot of fun together. We have a library just down the street, so that's good for book and movie needs. And behind the apartment there is a park, which is full of ducks, geese and pigeons. I'll put pictures up sometime.
Work has been keeping me very busy. I'm up to about 30 hours a week.
I'm going to Oakland Temple Pageant auditions Saturday morning. I'm going to try to get into the stage chorus, but if not I'll be in the balcony chorus, which you don't have to audition for.
I've been to the temple here once, I went to do baptisms last Thursday. It's different then Portland in many ways but I love the Oakland Temple. The view is breath-taking. You can see all the way to bay from the top of the temple, that's where the all the flowers and bushes are. And I went at night so the view was even more beautiful.
I'll post more when I have more to post.

Travel plans

I'm traveling for work next week. I'm visiting a part supplier in Princeton NJ and flying in via Philadelphia airport. Any chance I might run into a sister while I'm out there? Philly doesn't look too far from DC on the map...

teething help?

Summer is right on the verge of cutting 3 teeth - we can actually see them, but they haven't cut through yet. She's going berserk. We're using orajel on her gums and that helps some, but man alive, she is one whiny kid these days. Any suggestions on how to get these teeth cut quicker? I'm getting a headache.

Cute pictures of Joshua, Nate - good job, you two!! Some pictures of Brooke and Bryan and Stevie more recent than last summer at the reunion would be nice as well ... I'll second Mindy's request.

The weather here continues to be weird. It's like the seasons got shifted by about 2 months. November and December - normally cold, but temps in the 70s. Really nice fall weather. March and April - normally warm and gorgeous, but have been very cold including with snow. The bad weather that's been on the East Coast the past few days has been mostly a wind storm here in DC. It's supposed to be nicer by this weekend (which I certainly hope so, because we're supposed to go to a friend's barbecue for their baby's 1st birthday) but that's the first nice anything we've seen in weeks. Last week, we broke a record for the most spring days in a row under 50 degrees - the record before was from the 1800s. Freaky. I really hope this breaks soon, and I really hope that we don't skip the nice spring and go straight into the disgusting summer humidity.

The Final Stretch

Well, family, I've been extremely busy, and the next week or so is going to be hectic. I'll be spending most of today working on my diplomatic history paper on Kissinger's visit to China. I've gotten done with most of my creative writing projects; we have five poems due on Thursday. I read one of them at our ward talent show last night. I couldn't really sleep last night, so I finally gave up around 4:30 in the morning and did some reading, including a chapter in my British history book on the religious turmoils during the 1500's. And we just got handed the final for my institute class. Just one more reminder that time is running out, but for some reason I can't think much past Monday when this paper is due.

MORE PICTURES!!!

Alright. You asked for it. It has been cleared by Eric to copy his html codes, so there is now a calendar of Joshua. Just go to Skippy and Goblin, Pictures, and click on the pictures of Joshua William Palmer. Some of the pictures are repeats from mom and dad, and the pictures that were up there before are up there still (I think). I hope you enjoy them. We will do our best to keep it updated, but please be patient with us. We have a two week old baby to take care of, a full time job to do, and a move soon. Plus birth announcements to mail out and make, a home to keep in order (at least good enough for Ashley not to freak out and never come back), and a two week old baby to take care of... did I mention that? Anyway, we love to show him off so there shouldn't be too much lag time between pictures.

Josie

Meet my new piggy bank, Josie. She's number 36. Isn't she cute?

more pictures

First of all, I want to see more pictures of Joshua! I know Mom and Dad were down there last weekend, probably with the camera. He's over two weeks old now, and I want to see how much he's grown. And well, I'd love to see pictures of the rest of the kids too - Stevie, Brooke and Bryan. Trina is pretty good with sending updates of Summer, so I won't bug her this time.

And my other thing is that I've put up more pictures. Over the last two weeks I've been drawing my class at work. I've never had such good practice drawing from live models. I took a couple of the pictures and scanned them into my computer, and played with them in Photoshop. Lots of fun! So there are two new pictures up, and there will probably be more over the next week. I won't do my entire class like this, just my favorite drawings.

Hi Ho!!!

Well I hope everyones' weekend is as good as ours has been so far. Joshua got up this morning and turned over in his little laundry basket and said, "Mommy, I have to go potty." It was a giant step forward in the toilet training direction. We are so proud of him.

I hope you feel better soon Michelle. It is never fun being sick, and I can only imagine being sick in Texas... oh yeah, last time I was there I was sick. Well, I still hope you feel better soon.

Nathan

Houston happenings

I thought I would actually post. We are doing fine. Kids are good. Brooke got another stellar report card. All As and Es. Bryan is still as active as ever. With the spring weather I have been able to get him out more. I am very proud of my children. Trina, I agree the the crazy weather. We were hanging out in the low 80s for several day, then plummet to 35 just in time for easter. Now we are have unseasonbly warm weather mid to upper 80s. That good for laundry. We got to were different clothes. I haven't had to do laundry. Always welcome. Congratulations Amanda and Nathan. I'm sad that I can't be there to see him right now.

I am currently fighting off a sinus infection with antibiotics. I'm starting to feel better. No complaints from me. Life is good.

Michelle

Summer Pictures

Summer's page is finally updated. Trina has been wanting all of Summer's month pictures on one page, and now they are. Watch her grow up right before your eyes! Yes, Trina has seen this and was going to tell you herself, but right as I finished and was talking to her Summer decided to be upset, so I'm announcing it instead. So everyone, go see her new page, so you can see her new Easter picture!

what the ...

Okay, so earlier this week, it was 80 degrees and we had a lovely afternoon walking around in shorts and flip-flops to see the cherry blossoms around the Tidal Basin. Last night, it snowed. SNOW. What the heck!?!?! So I guess we'll see about getting nice outdoor pictures of Summer in her Easter dress tomorrow.

Summer had her first Easter egg hunt on Thursday with our play group. All the kids were under the age of 2 - about half of the kids are turning 2 this summer, then a jump down to Summer and 2 other babies. So obviously the eggs weren't really "hidden" - just put in the edges of shrubs and in taller tufts of grass. Summer wouldn't actually pick up the egg - she would just look at it. I had to pick it up and hand it to her, and then she'd sit there and shake it quite happily. Good thing the first couple of eggs we picked up had jelly beans in them. Or she would hit 2 of them together because that made a cool noise too. I forgot my camera but other people took pictures of Summer for me - I'll send them out in an email when I get them emailed to me. It was all very adorable.

We have stake conference tomorrow - it's supposed to be in May, but our stake president was sustained to be an Area Authority Seventy last week in General Conference. So we're getting a new stake presidency tomorrow. And then we're having Easter dinner at Beth's house. Not much else to report - it's been a tough week as far as me having a severe lack of energy and sleeping a lot, or just sitting in the rocker zoned out.

I just want to make a note that I think the cracks about Americans in Disney movies are hilarious. In the shark support group in Finding Nemo, where they commisserate with Marlin about Nemo being taken by humans who "think they own everything," one of them follows up with "Probably American!" And now I'm watching Mary Poppins and when Mr. Banks gets fired at the bank, he says that the tea in Boston Harbor was unsuitable for drinking, even for Americans. HAR!!

Happy Easter

I hope everyone is prepared to enjoy their Easter celebration. I'll be singing in choir, teaching my Primary class and then we'll take dinner down to Nathan and Amanda's so I can hold my sweet little grandbaby. Today we need to get ready for all of that. First thing this morning our new refrigerator was delivered. The one we bought for $50 from Craig's list died this week so we decided to get a brand new one this time. Later we'll be going to Sam and Deb's to color Easter eggs and get my hair cut. We were going to go for a hike but it's raining this morning so we'll postpone that for a week or so. Maybe I'll go find me a new Easter dress instead.

I have been doing a little bit of updating on the timeline. Please add pictures and dates that you want to share, like Nathan did. He added their trip to Europe with a link to the pictures. I'm adding pictures as I get them scanned into the computer so far I'm up to 1975. Hopefully I'll get more on there soon. I also need some help with the games page. Please add rules for games that don't have them. You can also add more games that you enjoy playing. No one has added recipes for a while. If you want to add something to any of these pages and you don't have the time or the know-how to put them on the page, email them to me or someone else who can help. Let's keep our site new and exciting. I love seeing what everyone is up to.

Love ya,
MOM

Pictures of baby

Hello everyone. Everything is going well here. I have added some new pictures of baby Joshua under my "pictures" section. I hope that you all get a chance to look at them. Mindy, your artwork is amazing. The picture of Summer looks great. Was that done completely in PhotoShop? Keep up the good work, and let us know when you get new stuff on there so we can look at it.

The tabernacle - I went to some general conference sessions in it. I think I went to a priesthood session and perhaps another. I don't exactly remember off the top of my head. I have been to some in the new conference center also. I remember recognizing Tawnia up in the choir when I was sitting in the crowd. I could pick out her voice too . . . but not really.

Love,
N Dad

Artwork

I know, I talk about this subject a lot. I'm just so excited about what I do sometimes that I just have to share it with everyone. I put up a new picture this evening that I want everyone to see! Go look now! You'll like it, I know you will!

To go along with that picture, I want to do a series of pictures. You'll see that the picture is of Summer, and Tawnia requested pictures of all the nieces and nephews for her birthday. One down, four more to go. I don't particularly care what age they are done at, but I need really big, clear pictures to work with. Even if I have to have Mom scan some of the professional pictures of Brooke and Bryan from several years ago, I'm okay with that. And I don't have any big ones of Stevie (recent would be FUN!). I haven't actually done pictures of anyone smiling yet, because I'm nervous about doing teeth .. but I'm sure I'll make it through. So send me lots of pictures, or don't be surprised if I call you in the next little while, so I can get these pictures done.

Wahoo

Hooray for Joshua! I was actually watching the Joseph Smith movie at temple square when Nathan called with the news so I missed the call.

I spent the weekend up in Salt Lake City. Friday evening I hung out with some friends from my Logan days. I hadn't seen some of them in about four years. It was nice to just talk. We ate pizza, watched the movie at temple square, and then sat around talking for about two hours.

Then I went to Stephanie (McGougan) Brown's home and spent the night. We stayed up talking for another several hours. The next morning I babysat her daughter while she went to work. Elly and I watched conference together... or rather I watched while Elly played. She's three. Elly took a nap during the afternoon session. Stephanie gave me a massage and then fed me dinner. Then I came home in time to go and watch a movie with some people in my ward.

On Sunday Mindy and I stayed home and watched conference. Between sessions some people unexpectedly came over to visit. We then spent the afternoon just hanging around at home.

My memories of the Tabernacle. I can remember going there several times throughout my life when we visited Salt Lake. I always liked to go inside just to sit down and enjoy the peace. I think I have heard the Tabernacle rehearse once and I heard a portion of an organ recital... but I never attended a session of conference there.

Anyway, I need to run. Loves.
-Tawnia

where did everyone go?

We've had some serious lag time in posts in the last couple of months, and nothing at all from about half of us. What gives?

We enjoyed Conference. Adam missed everything on Saturday because he had to be at school to help judge a high school moot court tournament. I watched those sessions at home on the internet. We went to our bishop's house on Sunday - he has satellite TV. I didn't really have a favorite talk, but I felt that the Brethren were even more blunt than they usually are. No softening things at all - very firm tone, and just saying things straight out. Whew!! Lots of things to go back over in my notes and do some self-evaluating.

To answer Emily's question, my special memory of the Tabernacle was that I was there at the session when President Hinckley introduced the Proclamation on the Family. If Eric still has the letters I wrote to him on his mission, my immediate reaction is in there. I wrote to him about it the next day - I remember sitting on Temple Square writing that letter. (Eric, if you have those letters, I'd be interested in seeing them.)

Thanks for the pictures of Joshua - very cute!! And a redhead!! After 4 blonds, we get a redhead. Cool. Before I saw the pictures, I was happy that Joshua is here finally, but mostly I was relieved for Amanda that it was over. Now I'm REALLY relieved for Amanda. No wonder she had trouble - look at the size of his head!! And I suspect that Amanda will have similar thoughts to mine over the next few weeks - no matter how uncomfortable the healing process is (and it gets pretty bad some days), NOTHING will ever be as bad as the actual birth. Good luck with the next phase, Amanda, and if you need to whine about it, call me. It's still a pretty fresh memory for me so I'm very sympathetic ... and now I'm getting ready to do it again. Oh boy.

The baby is home

Amanda and I and Joshua got home around 2:45 today. We had a safe ride from the hospital which you can see from the top floor of our building probably. The room that Johsua was born in looked out at the capitol building and we could kind of see the building we live in. There were some trees in the way. Amanda is doing well. She is really tired so emails would be better than phone calls. We are still trying to figure out how to turn our phones' volumes down. Joshua is well and loved being held by grandma and grandpa Rozen and especially loved it when grandma R changed his diaper. Or was that me that loved that? I can't exactly remember right now. Well I need to get to sleep so I know that I get sleep tonight and so I can get to work early tomorrow.

Thanks for your prayers and thoughts. Keep them up.

Love,
Nathan, Amanda, and Joshua