January Reunion Update

I was trying to save time by not retyping everything so I just edited the last post not realizing that it would keep the old date and eliminate the previous update.  Oh well - sorry about that.

Now that the Christmas holidays are over and things are getting put away we figured you might have some time to get ready for the reunion. Here is an update on the latest reunion news.   I sure hope everyone is as excited about our Nauvoo reunion as Dad and I are.

VIDEO CHALLENGES

We now have four video challenges and are looking forward to seeing what the rest of you come up with.  

Jump - from Mom and Dad 

Hum (or whistle or somehow creatively present) your favorite hymn (or primary song)  - from Tawnia

Where I Live" - what makes your house/town/state unique?  - from Mindy, Aaron and Aria

Horror Movie Trailer - from Jared, Michelle, Brooke, Bryan and Emma

Best Movies of the Decades
Nominating Committee - get your votes in - send to frankandevelynpalmer@yahoo.com. Remember the committee is the eight siblings. So far we've heard from three of you. If anyone has not been able to access the videos on dropbox, please let us know.

The Retirement of Captain Chaos
Adam came up with this movie idea, remember? The grandkids hear that Captain Chaos is
retiring and they want to take his place so they make audition tapes. The final scene will be filmed at the reunion and edited onto the end so it can be shown there. Please send your portion of the movie to Dad. Also contact Adam with your idea of how you receive the news so he can "send" it from there, since his kids will be the first to know. Any questions?

Apples to Apples
I'm putting stickers on some of the cards to make this the Palmer Family version. Please
email me a definition for each person in your family. Also include schools attended, places you've lived or other things unique to you or your family

Here is my definition for Lafayette "Lafayette Oregon 
A small town in Oregon. Home to the Palmer family from 1979 to 2014. Now home to the Coles"

Clarissa came up with these definitions:

Clarissa Nicole Cole - Yes it’s a stutter but it means clear victory.

Lester Jason Lee Cole - Legion of healers from the meadow of fire.

Scrappy - Half Jack Russell Half American Eskimo - 100% Lap-Ninja

Is there anything I've forgotten?  

the Caudles' house

Family history question 1:
Please describe the home in which you currently live. 

SUMMER
Our house is really, really cool. We have a basement and a really big living room and a HUGE backyard! I have my clubhouse in the backyard. It's in an evergreen bush. Today, the others and I found a really cool place. I discovered it so it's part of my part of the clubhouse. We all have our own part of the clubhouse. I got a higher part than anyone.

MARNIE
Our house is great. Our basement is nice. It's got lots of toys. The toys are mine and my sisters'. My bedroom has yellow walls and my bunkbed is pink. I sleep in the middle and Summer sleeps at the top. Jenna sleeps in a bed that's slid under my bed. It's right at my pillow. My room has butterflies over the closets, and some pretty flowers and more butterflies and a bee on my lightswitch cover. It's white.

JENNA
We have books on the shelf in the playroom. I like to play downstairs in the basement. That's where the toys are. The computer is in the living room. The lights on the living room ceiling are like jingle bells. The kitchen is blond like me. White and green. The frigerator is white like the freezer. When Miriam comes to our house, she eats her favorite breakfast at our house. There's computer games and movies to watch on the computer. The piano has stuff on the top.

TENLEY
Piano.

TRINA & ADAM
We're very happy with our big house! The upstairs has all of our main living space. We have 3 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms. The girls all share one big bedroom, and the 3rd bedroom is currently the sewing and guest room. We have an okay-sized kitchen with an eating area and a sliding glass door out onto the deck. The formal dining room has been changed to our reading room. It has bookcases all the way around. Our very large living room currently has just the computer desk, a couple of small bookcases, and the piano. We're still figuring out furniture for that part of the house. The downstairs is just 3 rooms - a big playroom, a storage room with the laundry area, and the garage.

Outside, we're on a corner lot in the suburbs of Hartford CT. We have 3/4 acre, so our yard is HUGE! We have TONS of trees - over 50. There are oak, hickory, maple, pine, and cedar. We're definitely planning to put in a garden next spring, and Adam is going to build a tree house in the back corner.

family history project

It's General Conference weekend, and I'm currently watching the World Report between sessions. There was a short thing about family history and a comment about how family history is getting a new surge through social media. We've talked about what to do with this blog since it's been pretty dead since we all got on Facebook.

My thought, actually a year or two ago also at General Conference but I never did anything about it, is to use this as our family history repository, and answer questions about current things so 1. we can get to know each other better (for example, cousins that still haven't met yet and new uncles) and 2. so we have it for the future. To start, I'll post a question about once a month for everyone to answer. I hope everyone will participate but obviously this is optional. It would be cool to have all the kids give their own answers, because one thing is for sure with at least my kids - even when they're talking about the same thing, they give very different answers. I'd also love for anyone who is working on family history to post things that they've found on here so the rest of us can learn our distant family history as well. Summaries of what we know about our early history would be good, like the letters Mom sent out just before our first Nauvoo reunion. I found some of the papers she sent the other day, but having them online where they can be accessed would be good too.

So here's our first question:

Please describe the home in which you currently live.

early planning for next year in Nauvoo

Since Mom and Dad are already making the reservations for our reunion in Nauvoo for next year, I thought I'd throw this out there. The proposed schedule I saw on Facebook is for us to be in Nauvoo from July 4 to July 9. If possible, could we change that to July THIRD so we're not spending the 4th traveling and getting settled into the lodge/house and all that logistical stuff?

See, we've discovered here in Connecticut that most communities celebrate Independence Day on the weekend, not on the 4th itself, so we have to wait until Saturday to see any fireworks (unless we wanted to drive an hour down to New Haven. No thanks.) So we spent the whole day unpacking and cleaning and shopping for house stuff. Adam put up a pegboard in the garage and unpacked his toolbox, and I worked on clothes in the girls' room. It was productive, but now that I'm seeing everyone's next-day posts on Facebook about all the cool things they did yesterday to celebrate, I'm feeling a little gypped.

So next year, I want to have an AWESOME Independence Day. Red, white, and blue outfits for the kids (and grown-ups if they choose). Have a flag raising and sing the National Anthem and say the Pledge and have a reading of the Declaration of Independence. Water balloon launch contests in the afternoon. Have a barbecue dinner and strawberry shortcake for dessert. Go to a fireworks show. The whole shebang, the whole day. We can fill it all in as we go, but this is the direction I'm thinking. Since we'll be in Nauvoo and the Church promotes American patriotism, they might even have some of these activities for us to participate in, but if they don't, we can do all of this ourselves. We have enough people! OH. I forgot fire-works!

P.S. Summer just read this and reminded me that we need to have a cake that looks like the American flag. We'll add that to the list of requirements on the day. (And we can put birthday candles on it for Grandma.)

Hello all

I have recently rejoined the land of blogs - both posting and reading. So check out my posts if you wish.

2014 Reunion

I know there's been a lot of talk about the 2014 Reunion that Mom and Dad have been planning for Nauvoo next year. Let me just say this: I am looking forward to this so much. It is going to be awesome. I hope hope hope that we can all be there together. 2011 was awesome. I didn't expect to have such an amazing experience. I guess I don't really have anything new to say here, except that I am really looking forward to this trip.

Reunion 2013??

I don't know what I want from Mom and Dad's yet but I am planning on being at there place for the month of June and the first half of July.  It would be really cool if EVERYONE came.  I'm still willing to fly out and drive Trina and her girls across the country if she wants me to do that.  If we all gather together then we can all go through things together and hopefully everyone will come out happy and relatively unscathed.  Also, it would be fun to go on a bunch of hikes and take a trip to the coast and do all that other great Oregon stuff that we won't be able to do as easily once Mom and Dad are no longer living out there.

Any thoughts on this idea?

Oh wait, I thought of something I want, my strawberry shortcake blanket.


 

A favor

Please do us a favor and post your requests here.  They'll drop out of sight much quicker on facebook, than they will on here.

As for the items that have thus far been requested - I'm not sure I want to give up the piano yet.  It depends on whether there is room for it or not.  Also, Nathan, the white lamp will probably continue to hang in our room after we move so you'll have to wait a little longer for it to be yours.  Mindy, I'm sorry, but I promised the nativity to Clarissa years ago.  I made that decision right after I got it because she loved it so much. But I may keep it for a while yet.  I'll see what I want to take with us because we'll have an apartment so I'll need some kitchen stuff and some furniture, though we'll have way more of both than we need.  I'm pretty sure that all of the toys were either brought inside or given away.  I actually have two sewing machines.  I'm going to see what it will cost to fix the Bernina.  I've had that machine since 1970.   Any items you left behind that were yours - just let us know if you want them. like Trina said - maybe we'll even find the flute.

If anyone has a VHS player we'll be getting rid of all our purchased tapes and we're putting the videos we made onto DVD as quickly as we can.  I don't think I'll have room for all of the photo albums so we'll be scanning them and you can divide the originals and negatives however you want.  We'll choose the books we want to keep and get rid of the rest.

One thing I don't want to have is stacks of boxes of things I'm keeping that just sit in storage forever.  That's just silly.  I think I've got my work cut out for me for the next year or so.  Lots of things to go through and decisions to make.  I'll welcome the help when any of you come home.

I guess that's enough for tonight.

Love ya,
MOM

I have a question for all of you.

I think I'll try reviving this blog once again.  Next summer Dad and I will probably be moving to Idaho.  Nathan and Amanda would like to buy a house and we'd like to not have to pay utilities when we're going to be gone a lot.  We'd also like to have our belongings in a safe place.  So we are going to help them and they are going to help us.

In getting ready for this great new adventure we need to downsize.  That means getting rid of STUFF,   Much of it will be given away or thrown away and some will go with us but the question is - What do you want to have?  If we still want to hang on to the items you personally want we can at least make note of it and reserve it for you.  Of course, there is the possibility of everyone wanting the same things but it's better to work that out now than when we're gone and you're all emotional.  So that's the question for you to think about.  As we're going through things  we may be asking if anyone wants a particular item but for now if you think of something you'd like, let us know.

Love ya,
Mom and Dad