Cali Girls!

Wow, where to begin. I was lucky enough to meet up with some of the best girls this last weekend. My roommates from my sophomore year of college and I met up in sunny California for a quick vacation. :) It was great to see the many ways these ladies have grown and developed over the years, and yet, they really are the same girls I fell in love with 10 years ago.

I loved talking about old memories and current situations, and I loved making new memories around every corner.

We went to Disney Land the first day and to the beach the second.


Here are a few of the memorable moments for me:

1- I can in fact travel by myself. I CAN navigate my way through an airport, get transportation after, etc. I was quite proud of myself.

2- Seeing people that I love after not seeing them for about 8 years makes me really happy. My heart even raced as I watched for my girls to come down the airport stairs. :) VERY fun!!!

3- Waiting for a shuttle for 45 minutes on the pick up curb at the airport is o.k. and goes quickly while chatting and catching up.

4- KY time and LA time are TOTALLY off!! :) I was up about 3-4 hrs before my roommates were. :)

5-Disney land is fun at ANY age!!!!

6- my feet and back hurt after walking for 13 hrs.

7- the wonder of color show at the end of the day was totally worth sticking around for. It was amazing watching the water and lights show while projecting the movie clips on the mist of water.. .. VERY COOL! Here is a clip of the finale!



8- I really like dancing. I always have. I probably always will. I loved loved loved the Disney celebrate parade.




9- I LOVE the ocean.

10- Never believe someone, even if it's your old roommate, when they tell you the beaches are cold and windy this time of year. Maybe in N. Cali, but the beach we went to was BEAUTIFUL and we were wishing we had our suites. oh well, it didn't stop me from playing in the water. :) I really couldn't resist. It was sooo gorgeous.

11- iphones do not survive falling in the ocean. But nice Apple people replacing it for free helped me survive my stupidity. :)

12- Sea Shells are really fun to collect.

13- Sunglasses will fall off your head and be swept away into the ocean, but sometimes really nice natives see them from the pier and swim out to get them for you (or my roommate in this case!! :) I was impressed someone was that nice. He even told us sincerely to have a nice day and we deserved the glasses because we were working so hard to get them ( well, we had forgotten about them and were continuing to collect shells, but it was nice of him anyway.)

14- Jenny still really likes shopping and spilling all our stories to complete strangers!!. :)

15- Eating out is always fun!

16- saying goodbye is tough, but planning Paris for our next 10 year reunion makes it feel better!

17- It's always fun when my family gets excited that I am home.


:) :) :) :) :)

and for your viewing pleasure, here is a slew of pictures in no particular order! :)

This free photo slideshow customized with Smilebox

Soccer and the park

We went to a new park last night and Lo had a game today. Hopefully I'll catch J's game next week. :)

This thing was pretty cool. It was kind of like a caterpillar teeter totter, it was all hooked together, but the humps would teeter at different times.. . cool.

I'm almost there!!!!

The BIG race. . . I think Lo got a head start!

Here we gooooooooo.........

Meg has never sucked on her toes before, but I guess she really liked the taste of DIRT!

Lo is loving soccer. He only has a couple of weeks left. He will be sad when it's over.

When the cat's away, the mice will play!!!!

o.k., so not that J, lo, and Meg are cats to z-man, but it just so happens that He and I have about 2 hours all to ourselves in the morning while J and Lo are at school and Meg is asleep. How do we spend our time you ask???

We dance and party, of course!!! LOL

When we wake up early, we have time to . . .

do this!!!! Everyone was ready for school this morning and we had time to spare, so Z-man and Meg got a ride!!! :) Meg liked it the first time, she wasn't sure after that. :) Z-man could have stayed in forever. :) oh to be a kid again!

Our budding soccer stars!

Well, we have two in soccer this season. J and Lo. They love it! They look forward to practice and games and are pretty sad if they have to miss for some reason. Well, I get little peaks and glances at them and shout a good job every now and again, but for the most part, this little lady (and z-man who is too fast for footage right now) keep me in 20 different directions. :) :) Although Meg is getting to be quite the soccer star!!!

(After she falls down, she is calling for DAD. She can't quite get to a standing position unless she has something to pull up on. . so she's calling for someone to come help her up..... silly girl)

!

When she isn't practicing her amazing soccer skills, she is excavating in the closest baseball diamond. She has found many 'treasures' there. :)

It's just normal life!!!!

I don't know how many times I've been asked what is going on, and all I can think of is, "It's just normal life." OR how many times I've asked others and hear the same response. Well, I'm sure that in only a few years time, my 'normal life' will change to a different 'normal life.' I've thought capturing a 'normal life' day on video just so I can remember what a normal day was like at this stage of life. Although I haven't done that, I do have a few pictures of 'normal life' at the palmers house. ... ... ..

Life starts out getting J and Lo ready for school. They each have their own morning tasks that they do to get ready for school--breakfast, pack lunches, brush teeth, do hair. . . etc, etc.

Once J and Lo are off to school, we start with the gym and then move onto a little cleaning.. ... . or dumping out the tupperwear drawer. Ya know, whatever you feel like. Z and Meg are good little buddies (most of the time). They make each other laugh a lot. And NOTHING beats the tupperwear drawer!!!!!!

After lots and lots and lots of 'play', it is nap time. . . oh how we LOVE nap time!!!

Pretty soon everyone starts to come home. Lo comes home mid day, J comes home a few hours later, and FINALLY D comes home after work. Everyone RUNS to the garage when they hear the garage door open. D is VERY loved and I have to fight my way in for a kiss when he comes home.

Of course we can't pass up a beautiful afternoon rain to play in!!

Then pretty soon, it is time for dinner, cleaning, bath and bed. :) (unless we have soccer practice. . or some other equally thrilling event!!!)

J and Lo are waiting to be tucked in.

And then the kid's day is done, but it seems that there is so much more to do... D has calls to make and church work to be done. I have more than enough house work and catching up to keep me busy many more hours (which I usually try to put off!! ;) D and I have a few minutes to hang out together. . ya know, watch the stars come out, check how much the trees are growing, turn the sprinklers one, walk around in circles in our cul-de-sac, talk to neighbors, etc. We read our scriptures (try to) and head to bed.

Life seems so busy to me right now. I guess it's a good thing, but I feel I'm being pulled so many ways that I do everything mediocre and nothing superior, but I will keep trying and doing my best and hope the rest is made up somehow!

I love my family. I love living my life with them!

(Sorry for the quality of pictures. It seems like 'life' happens when my camera is put away, so my phone is most accessible.)

Peek-a-boo Meg!!

I thought this was so fun. Meg was playing peek-a-boo with herself in the reflection of the stove! I love her little fake laugh (turn your volume up, it's kind of hard to hear.)

I can't believe how big she is getting. She is toddling all around and wants to do everything everyone else is doing. :)

Tennis TIME!!!

D and I were able to go to a tennis tournament last night with some of D's colleagues. It was so much fun. D works with great people and the tournament was great. We were on row 4 and it was really quite incredible. I think the highest serve speed we saw was 136 mph. CRAZY!!! I can't imagine trying to return that! But it was so much fun to see!

We watched Roger Federer (which, by the way, everyone cheers and yells for Roger as if they are best friends with him. . . funny), the Bryan twins from USA!!!, as well as a wheelchair exhibition that was really cool!

This is me and ROGER!

Bob and Mike Bryan!

It's amazing how fast they can go in the wheelchairs! Really fun to see!

First day of SCHOOL!!!!!!!!!

". . . . .you have a duty to learn as much as you can. Please encourage your families, your quorum members, everyone to learn and become better educated. If formal education is not available, do not allow that to prevent you from acquiring all the knowledge you can. Under such circumstances, the best books, in a sense, can become your “university”—a classroom that is always open and admits all who apply. Strive to increase your knowledge of all that is “virtuous, lovely, or of good report or praiseworthy.” Seek knowledge “by study and also by faith.” Seek with a humble spirit and contrite heart. As you apply the spiritual dimension of faith to your study—even of temporal things—you can amplify your intellectual capacity, for “if your eye be single to [God’s] glory, your whole [body] shall be filled with light, … and [comprehend] all things."

-Dieter F. Uchtdorf:

And so.... off they go for a great year at school. J is in 2nd grade this year! WOW!!!! And my Lo is in Kindergarten. They were so excited to go today. I know they will do GREAT!! It is, however, a bit hard to see my tiny Kindergartner walking into those big doors with all those big kids, just hoping he remembers where he needs to go (J was with him, so that helped.) They both woke up at 6 a.m. this morning and were all ready for school by 7 a.m. .... we don't leave until 8:15 and their school doesn't start until 8:55!!!!! LOL oh well, we got the house clean this morning. :)

My silly goofs. They really are such great buds!

Z-man was SURE he was going to school today. After we dropped them off, he kept saying, "me, school, me!" I would tell him when he's 5 he can go and he would say, "oh." This conversation repeated every few minutes this morning!! He misses them.

I'm flying on an airplane looking out the window watching the world go by!!!

D and I were able to take a VERY quick trip to Denver this last weekend. It was SO much fun to be together all the time. We laughed so hard and had such a great time. I love D so much and it was awesome to just be together for a while. :) We had quite an adventure getting there, the flight was canceled because the co-pilot's chair was wobbly (or something like that). Then, they re-booked us on a flight through Atlanta later in the day. We went home for 5 hrs. and then tried again. This time the flight was delayed due to storms in Atlanta. Which means we would miss our connecting flight. We decided to stick around for a while and see if the connecting flight would be delayed. Sure enough it was, but it only gave us about 15 minutes to make our connecting flight. After much more waiting, we finally RAN though the Atlanta airport and made it!!!!!! It ended up being delayed even more,, but we were happy to make it and we also got to feel cool running through an airport. . LOL

We made it to Denver at 2 a.m. Denver time and 4 a.m. our time. :) CRAZY! We were so tired, but we made it for our friend's wedding, which was why we went in the first place. :)

It was a BEAUTIFUL wedding and it was so fun to catch up.

(no, I didn't mean to wear the wedding color and match the groom. I just noticed how funny this picture looks. oh well!)

After the wedding, D and I took off and headed to the water park. We had a great time!!!!

This is the pirates cove (or something like that). It is mostly for the little kids, but we wanted to do everything at the park, so we ran through the whole thing really fast! :)

This was our favorite 'ride'. It's a half pipe type ride that you go back and forth, but the beginning is pretty much straight down. . anyway, the picture doesn't really do it justice, but it was really fun. :)
This is the City of Denver behind us.

It went TOOO fast, but it was good to be home and see the kids. Thanks to my sister who pretty much stopped her life to come and watch our kids!!! I love you!!!! We had soooo much fun!

look at me mom. . .

I'm walking!!!! Meg took 13 steps totally out of the blue today. We've been working with her a bit on it, but she thinks it's a funny game and lunges at the person in front of her as she laughs and snickers. :) So we turned around today and out of the blue she walked.. THIRTEEN steps. and she hasn't done it since. But we are officially claiming this day as her true first day of walking. She has taken a few steps here or there, but nothing like this. It was controlled (that is a relative term in this paragraph) and lots more than 2. . . . like 11 more than 2. So to our little toddler. . . keep it up!!! We want to go out and play without scraping knees on the driveway and bugs biting in the grass!!! :)

BIRTHDAYS!!!

The summer is the time for birthdays around here. 1 in April (o.k. technically spring, but around here it's quite warm and lovely in April). 1 in June and 2 in July. Lo's and Meg's birthdays are only 5 days apart. We thought we would have a little combined party today for them. It was such a great day. Friends, happy kids, and on and on. :) Here are a slew of pictures from today. :)

Look at these two birthday buddies!!!

Here we go. Can I get all FIVE candles out????
Meg wasn't sure what to think about the candle. . .. She was very mannerly while eating her cupcake. :)
She was so fascinated with everyone watching her, so I had a hard time getting her to look at me. :)
All right!!! All candles are blown! Time to EAT!
This picture cracks me up. Z stuffed his whole cup cake in his mouth at once. Look at J's face watching him. :)

happy birthday to ME!!!!

YUMMmmmmmmm!!!

awwww!!! I needed some milk with that.
Heavy, Heavy Hang over!!!!
A very cool, "make your own bouncy ball" kit!! :)

Very awesome squirt gun!

Hey! What's in here?

Oh, don't I look pretty!
I LOVE the paper!!!
Meg's very first heavy, heavy, hang over thy poor head!
cute, cute doll from Grandma!!!

D reading the book to Meg and Z!!!

I can't believe my baby is one!!! I remember bringing her home wondering how I would be able to take care of 4 children. Well, we have officially made it a year and it just keeps getting better! I love you, Meg. You have been my happy spot so many times this year! I can't wait for another year and many more happy spots to come! :)

p.s. one funny note: Last night I accidentally woke Meg up because I turned on a light that was too close to her room. She was up for a while in the night. Oddly enough it was right around 11:30 to about 12:30 or 1. She really was SO excited for her birthday she HAD to welcome it in in party style! :)