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.