Christmas Question

We decorate the Christmas tree on the day after Thanksgiving. Sometimes we got a real tree, but lately we've been using an artifcial tree. Dad has to untangle the lights; it seems to be the men's job to string them on the tree. And then we hang up lots of mismatched ornaments, some that we've had in the family for years. We also drape garland around our shoulders or heads; the problem is that it really itches. And then we put our angel at the top of the tree. We usually have lots and lots of presents beneath the tree, and for the past few years we've put two teddy bears under the tree as well, Harold and Angel.

Emily

P.S. I sent everyone in the family an e-mail. Did anyone not get it?

Mom's list

-- Go to the Gettysburg battlefield and the Jefferson Memorial - these are listed as two things, but we can estimate that they'll both be done next summer when Mom and Dad come out here to visit us. I was looking to see what else we could get taken care of on her list while she's out here. Maybe a lighthouse ... Dad's list has something about watching the 4th of July fireworks over the Washington Monument in DC, if I remember correctly.

-- Reading all the standard works in a year - I read something last year that said if you read 7 or 8 (I think 7) pages per day, you can get through ALL the standard works in 12 months. I was going to do it but then we got engaged and I haven't gotten through Section 50 of the D&C. Isn't Section 76 supposed to be "the wall"?

-- See a Broadway play - Mom, didn't you see Les Mis or Phantom once? Those are Broadway plays and they count. Or do you want to see something ON Broadway in New York City? That's something else entirely. Just to warn you, you have to go INTO New York to do that.

-- Clean and organize the office and utility room - I don't mean to be skeptical, but that, I gotta actually SEE before I'll believe either one. (And suddenly, Mom feels VERY motivated. MWA HA HA!)

I wrote a "wildest dreams" list once but it wasn't very realistic. One of the things on it was to provide a voice in a major cartoon ... that's not likely to happen and it's too out of my control to make the cut for the revised list. But I did do the major thing - live in DC for a year. Of course, when I wrote the list, I was figuring I'd be out here for a year and then go back to Oregon, just like every other move I've made. Adam changed that, and now it's looking like we'll be here for at least 6 years. And then, who knows. We'll go where the Lord sends us, whether that's just up the road into Maryland or to Timbuktu. My only request of the Lord is at that time, that we're able to buy a house. With a driveway.

Go Mom!

I like what you've done Mom. I think it looks absolutely fantastic. Go ahead and add 11/29/04 to your top 100 list where it says "create a website." You've got a great one there!

I DID IT!!

Check out my new page and let me know what you think. I have other vacation stories and of course I'll post more questions as I write the answers. If I'm taking up too much space just let me know and I'll see what I can do.

Random Thoughts

Hi kids,
First I want to apologize for not posting for a while. I've been trying to figure out what I want my page to look like. I have some ideas for changes and I've been working on them but it all takes time.

I was going to ask you what you are especially thankful for, before Thanksgiving Day, but that didn't happen. Somehow I got busy with other things but some of you posted your lists of blessing anyway. I have so much to be thankful for and even though the day we celebrate giving thanks is past I want to let you know what some of those things are. There are, of course the obvious things that I sometimes take for granted, meaning Frank and each of you, the gospel and the Savior and so many other things. I am thankful for the beautiful world we live in and my home and all my friends. I'm thankful I have food and clothes and I'm thankful we have this wonderful communication system that helps our family stay in touch. I'm sure I've left out many very important things and I could go on for pages and pages but I don't think you want me to do that.

I have a Christmas question or two for you. First: Describe getting a Christmas tree with your family as a child, how was it decorated, when did you put it up?
I'll ask the other one after you've had a chance to respond to this one. No, I don't think the answer is the same for all of you because we haven't always done everything the same and there is quite an age difference and everyone has a different point of view and different memories.

HA HA HA

So I was poking around on the internet today, and found a very entertaining website that I just had to share. www.thebricktestament.com I'm thinking the boys will find it hilarious, the girls will laugh, and Mom will shake her head. It's totally worth checking out though! (And it's even appropriate for Sunday.) Enjoy! And let me know what you think!

our Christmas tree is up too

And it looks SO COOL! We got a fake tree at Wal-mart - one with the lights already on it, and we got all white lights. I wound 2 really long strands of red garland around the tree. And except for the blue ornaments that Nathan and Amanda sent for us, all of the ornaments are red and white and green. All of the color coordinating was not intentional, but it looks fabulous. Even the candy canes are in those colors - red, white and green (with also a dark line on them - they're chocolate mint). I took a couple of pictures of it already. I don't have any other decorations up yet - we have these arched doorways into the kitchen and hallway and entry, and I'm planning to put garland around them. I haven't decided where to put the stockings yet or what to put on top of the bookshelves. But our tree is up! Yay!

Okay, time to leave for church. Bye.

Happy "Chicken Garlic Pizza" Day

Hey,

Well, I guess I should report on my Thanksgiving. It wasn't very exciting. I spent the day at home watching movies, knitting, wrapping Christmas presents, and then eating my favorite chicken garlic pizza for dinner... mmmmm... Thanksgiving dinner, well I did have some stuffing that my roommate had made from a box. Anyway, somewhere in there my friend Bob stopped by and invited us to go and see "Saints and Soldiers" at the dollar theater... so I went. It was a good movie, but kind of sad. Anyway, then I went home and invited a few friends over for banana cream pie. It was good.

Then yesterday I spent the day basically the same, only I went and saw "The Incredibles." It was a great movie, and Violet is my favorite. I also did some laundry yesterday (yippee). Today is pretty much the same as the rest of the weekend (can you understand why I'm actually looking forward to Monday when I go back to work?!) Only I get to drive to SLC to pick up Annie from the airport, hooray! Only problem is that it decided to snow finally... though it's not sticking yet, it's at least staying steady for a lot longer then it has before, and it's supposed to continue through tomorrow.

Anyway, Happy Chicken Garlic Pizza Day everyone! What? You had turkey? How boring!

-Tawnia

Emily Corps

This will be my corporate name: Emily Corps, a Division of Insanity Inc.

Thanksgiving was great, and I will list a few of the things for which I am grateful:
1. Community college
2. Pumpkin pie
3. My new computer
4. The entire family
5. Being able to belong to the church
6. Glasses (without these I would be blind)
7. The surround sound system Dad just installed in the family room
8. Beautiful green Oregon

Emily

Speaking of trees...

Announcing the all new Insanity Incorporated logo contest! I would love to see a submission to this from everyone. The current logo will remain on the homepage for the time being, and it will also be a candidate in the contest. All Insanity Inc logos, past present and future, and encouraged to apply. Please email your submissions to Jared or post them directly into the ftp folder called "logos". I'd like to get all the submissions in by December 20 ... and then wait to see what happens for Christmas! And while I'm asking for submissions, please get your corporate divisions to me by then as well (see the comments under my last post). Anyone who doesn't give me a name will be stuck with whatever I make up. Until I change it for you later on. Please work with me, since I do actually have a couple of projects in the works over here.

I have a tree!

Today Jason and I went shopping, and we got more Christmas lights and some ornaments (including a super cute Precious Moments one), and pretty wrapping paper, and other various Christmas and non-Christmas needs. Then we went to our friend Aaron's house, and borrowed the same fake tree that we used last year. I pulled out all my other decorations, and Christmas CD's (I have a total of three, not including the entire Nutcracker score that I got in Russia). The tree is up, but not perfected. Things are started, but next weekend we'll probably go shopping again, and I'll find more stuff to add to make the house Christmasfied. It's a start. Maybe I'll make a bunch of cookies tomorrow. Still working on Christmas cards and presents .. the goal is to have all of that mail next Saturday. Only four more weeks until Christmas!

Trina - I took your advice and changed the thumbnails .. now it kinda bothers me that Sadie is the only one facing the opposite direction. Ah well, I can always change that later. Thanks for looking at my site though, and actually commenting on it! I did notice your new picture and yes, it does remind me of a giant pez-dispenser, especially from that angle.

got it, J

So you know, Jared, we've been tossing around ideas on the sisters blog, for Clarissa anyway. Chill out - it's the holidays - people will get to it. And for the record, trinadam will NOT become trinadamatthew ... because then we'd need a W name for the 2nd kid to keep the string going, and there are just no good W names. (Again, see the discussion on the sisters blog for W names. I have vetoed Winkie.)

Also, a comment for Mindy's page - in the section of thumbnails for "portraits," I noticed that you framed everyone's face very cleverly. It looks really cool. However, with Sadie's and Dad's portraits, you have just their eye and it looks weird. Just an inconsistency I noticed that I thought I'd point out.

We have a new picture on our homepage - the "pez dispenser" at the Kennedy Center. Check out the picture and ponder the Animaniacs with the bust of Lincoln: "Look, a giant pez dispenser!" That was our first dress-up date to the symphony last Feb/March (I can't remember off the top of my head). We still haven't done the wedding pictures or the baby update. It's coming ... probably during Christmas break and after my work conference. We'll have more time then.

This is Jared blogging.

Guess what! Someone finally made a comment to the guestbook! You can see it there now. I have also updated my page with the calender for December.

Also, I made an odd request a while back, and no one ever responded. So just in case you all somehow missed it, here it is again. As business consultant for Insanity Incorporated, I believe it is time to once again expand the "business" profile of our organization. We have a mission statement and a values list, which seem to have been ratified by the shareholders (since no one suggested any changes). I think that each of the satellite branches needs a division name to maintain the corporate image of Insanity Incorporated. (I'm not saying our family has a corporate image, just that Insanity Inc. has one. There is a difference.) For example, the Texas office is Jared Palmer Unlimited, a division of Insanity Inc. The DC office is Trinadam, a division of Insanity Inc. Maybe in a few months we'll rename that division Trinadamatt. Or Trinadamolly. Anyway, I need branch names for the Utah office, the Canada office, the California office, and the McMinnville office. I don't want functional names, like the legal dept. or dept. of education or Ministry of Magic. I want these names to stick with you even if you move across the country and change careers. Get it? Thanks.

SUCCESS!

I have another thing to be thankful for - that my constant queasiness eased up yesterday and did not pester me through Thanksgiving. Hooray!

Our very first Thanksgiving dinner that we cooked all by ourselves turned out FABULOUS! The turkey was done properly and not all dried out. The apple pie turned out really good. We also had mashed potatoes, gravy, stuffing, green salad, biscuits, and fruit salad. Then we took Sarah and the missionaries (who had dinner with us, and Adam sent them home with most of the leftovers) to the monuments: Jefferson, Lincoln, FDR, the new WWII memorial, the Vietnam Wall (and we found Elder Bean's uncle's name on the wall), and the Korea memorial. We also went to the Einstein statue and the Awakening statue (ask about Tawnia's pictures - it's hilarious). Back home for dessert - pie, pie, pie. Apple, pumpkin, cherry, blueberry and banana cream. It's been a very, very long day, but a fun day.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving!

It's morning time so we're doing various prepwork ... and somewhere in there, I need to clean because our house because it's a disaster. But in the meantime, here are the top 10 things I'm thankful for right now:

1 - Adam
2 - the Palmer clan
3 - Matthew
4 - that I've met all of Adam's family and I'm getting to know them
5 - the gospel
6 - the temple so we could get married for forever
7 - computers and the internet because they make it so much easier to communicate over long distances
8 - all of our supportive friends
9 - our home and that people GAVE us so much furniture
10 - my paycheck so we can survive while Adam goes to school

Mom's Page

It took some doing but I finally got my page up and running. Most of the things on there you've already seen. Now I need to learn how to make a link to another index where I will list "The many travels of Evelyn" Maybe I should put the link to that page in another color or font so it's different from the rest of it. Let me know what you think of it so far.

Love ya,
MOM

By the way, Nathan and Amanda are fine. He just bumped the car in front of them and it was not damaged at all. Their car has some minor damage but no one was hurt. They were shook up a little, emotionally as expected. They were going fairly slow.

Update from Eric and Laurel

Well, lots has been going on here. Sorry for not posting more. I've enjoyed reading everybody's posts. Except I feel bad for Bryan getting a macaroni up his nose. And for Nathan getting into a car accident. Is Nathan okay? Anybody heard?

Just now Laurel was frustrated because Skeeter was out of his cage and wouldn't go back. So I walked in the room and said "Get back into that cage young man!" And he flew right down from the ceiling fan and into the cage.

Laurel's sister Kathleen (aka "Soy") spent all last week with us. We took her to Disneyland and the Wild Animal Park (near San Diego). It was a fun time. Soy is 13 now, and has that sullen teen thing down pat. She also had fun playing with Rachel's kids, so it's obvious she still has some little kid in her. I taught Rachel's kids how to play Sardines on Sunday night, and they really enjoyed it. Okay, so I also have some little kid in me.

Saturday morning we went to Grandma's 94th birthday. She was looking very well and actually seems more healthy, alert, and coherent than she has in years. Gary and Karen took us out to lunch afterwards, along with T and Ray and the girls, and Leigh. It was a good time, but we had to get back to load up the car for the trip to Redlands.

Laurel got a call from a gallery (actually, a hair salon that also sells art) in Redlands that they want her show now, and not in January. So we framed the pictures this week and drove out to Redlands on Saturday to hang the show. They look really good. You can see them on the web when we get them up. Ben Majors came over to photograph them Friday night.

Anyway, this morning the gallery owners called to tell us that a lady came in and bought four of the paintings for her house in Palm Springs. They said there's a lot of interest in them and we haven't even advertised yet! So Laurel is gearing up to paint more and I'm really proud of her.

And the job search is... still going on. I have a lot of homework and job searching to do this week. It keeps me busy, which is good. I'll keep you posted on all that.

I'm still not quite sure what we're doing for Thanksgiving. Theresa is having dinner at her place, so we may swing by there. I think I might play football with the ward in the morning... it should be a good day.

I am thankful for my wonderful family. I love you all.

Eric

I hear you Michelle

When Jared was little he got his foot caught in the spokes of a bicycle and his Daddy took him to the emergency room. When he got back he told me, "I went to the hospididdle and the foot dentist put a seat belt on my foot." (It was an ace bandage.) It certainly lightened up a rather intense moment. Two year olds are wonderful. I just hope Bryan isn't as accident prone as his Daddy is.


I guess I should tell what my favorite dessert is. APPLE PIE! I'm not as crazy about making it as I am about eating it, which is probably a good thing. Apple Crisp or other apple dishes are great, too. What I really wish I could figure out is how my mom made her apple cobbler. I tried an experiment on Sunday but it wasn't right. When I figure it out I'll post it for everyone. It was the best dessert in the whole world and I never got the recipe.

My not so fun day with Bryan

Raising a 2 year is never boring. This morning I went to the grocery store with Brooke and Bryan. I waited for 10 minutes for the stockers to finally bring a gallon of milk (which is very annoying-why should any grocery store be out of milk). Then as I was watching them finally put the milk in Brooke and Bryan ran across the store. Brooke came back. Bryan didn't. I was running through the store screaming his name. After a few minutes finally, a women was leading by the hand to the front of the store. Man, that was scary. I was so relieved.

Next during lunch, Bryan decided to shove a piece of macaroni up his nose. He didn't understand how to blow it out, so I called the doctor. While I was getting the kids shoes, they started fighting over a music box, so Brooke bit him. At the doctor, the physician assistant couldn't get the macaroni out with the instrument, because the macaroni was to soft and too far in. They scheduled me an appointment with a specialist for tomorrow to have it suctioned out. While, they made several phone calls the macaroni worked its way lower. The PA got a softer, less sharp instrument and finally got in out while Bryan squirmed and screamed. At least its out. Bryan told "Daddy", "I put a macaroni in my nose and the doctor got it out with a pencil."

Wow, this is deja vu. It's all coming back to me. I had almost forgot what it was like to have a 2 year old. Good thing Bryan is here to remind me.

Michelle

PS-Brooke got a really cute hair cut this morning. Since she has so much wave and curl to her hair (thanks the Palmer gene), they gave her layers that give her a lot of body. Best of all, it is a wash and go hair style.

okay, maybe not

I did not have an ultrasound today. The doctor just looked inside me with a big flashlight and asked me a lot of questions about our medical history. We had to schedule the ultrasound for another day, and I can't get out of work at all for the next 2 or 3 weeks because of the conference in Savannah (which I am coming to dislike rapidly). It will be on Mon. Dec. 13, as soon as I get back from the trip.

I've started reaching a pregnancy book, and 48 pages in, my strongest conclusion thus far is that pregnancy is not for the squeamish, and labor and delivery are worse. Conversation about every body part under the sun and every possible function is laid right out on the table. When discussing pregnancy with your doctor or your friends or even with people you barely know, anything is fair game. It's interesting, that's for sure.