activist in the making

We made it to the picket line to support UCSC staff and their negotiations for a better contract, well in their case to just keep the contract they have. If you want to see an article and more pictures go to this page. In one of the pictures you can find Chris pushing Enzo in the stroller and me on the crutches.

road bike

ok, so I pretty much ride my bike everywhere. Biking (or "cycling" I guess) is a big part of my life. My bike is my best friend. It's name is "Iguana" (it's dark green.) But I feel kind of bad because, although I love my bike, lately I've developed this creepy obsession with road bikes. I don't know where it all started, but lately it seems like everywhere I go, I see people riding them and I can't help but notice how sleek and cool they look...not to mention that the people riding them are always speeding past me and it seems like they're not even pedaling. I really want one, but I've never ridden one before. I'm curious if any of you have had any experiences, and have any thoughts on the matter. Is it different than a regular mountain bike?

In honor of Aaron

Aaron is the person you want when you want a long arm picture.
The quality will probably be totally awful but just a little clip
of what Karen talked about, Aaron as a Shepard on Christmas eve. Classic Aaron!

Aaron Austin Lipman

Today is Aaron's 33rd birthday! So, if you read this I hope your birthday is great. You always make things better. Thanks for coming for Christmas Eve and for wearing a wise man costume and for great hugs. Love to my tallest nephew. Karen

A typical morning in the Palmer household in Santa Cruz

5:45/6:00 Chris leaves to go surfing and brings Enzo a bottle.
7:00am Enzo wakes up and starts jumping on top of me
7:05 Enzo stops jumping and goes to his room to get some books
7:05 and 1/2 he's returned with books and starts throwing them on my face.
7:10 after being abused by baby I finally get out of bed.
7:11 change Enzo. Every morning I regeret dearly that I didn't get up when he got up and changed his diaper right away because now his jammies have absorbed the pee from his diaper.
7:12 I pop in the same sesame street video for Enzo to watch. I always feel guilty because he's seen the same video a trillion times and I try to convince myself that today is the day that I'll go to the library and get some new ones.
7:15-7:45 Enzo watches his video I continue to wake up, get dressed, brush teeth....
7:45 we go downstairs for breakfast
8:00ish Chris comes home from surfing, Enzo is super duper excited to see him, decides daddy is way cooler than breakfast and leaves his cereal in his bowl to become mush.
8:10 Chris has taken a quick shower and is now downstairs feeding mush to Enzo.

but today.....
6:00 Chris got Enzo the bottle but did not go surfing
7:00 Chris woke up and baked scones for his class
8:00 Enzo and I woke up (he slept in because he went to bed at 10:00 last night)
8:01.... I won't give you minute by minute detail of the rest of the morning but seriously from 8:00-9:00am Chris was grumpy. I don't mean grumpy I mean totally and utterly upset. He printed out his article that he "had" to read before class, kept complaining that responsibility is over rated, kept interrupting his reading with comments about how Anthropolgy is this and that.... He got very little read, came back upstairs checked the surf report screamed. Screaming when he checks the surf report is pretty common. Was totally ticked that the surf was good and made the absolute worse decision in his life to be responsible and read before class and bake scones since it was his day to take food and left the house in the worse mood I've seen in a long time. I tried to take him very seriously as I could sense that this was an urgent matter but as soon as he left I laughed. It's so obvious why he's so dang concentrated on his work at night when he has to get things done, because he can not miss a surf session at the expense of yet another reading. How on earth is he going to survive 2 weeks in Sao Paulo next month?

Mmmmm

Happy 92nd Birthday Mimi!

I have always been proud to be named after my grandma Mimi. My mom says that I am like her in some ways. I hope that is true. I love and admire Mimi for so many reasons. Here are ten (in no particular order).

1. She taught me how to play Scrabble.
2. She has an awesome relationship with Grandpa that we can all look up to and try to emulate.
3. She has ten kids and managed to stay sane and intelligent and gorgeous. (I only have two and I've lost it all.)
4. She writes poetry.
5. She makes good bread, pies, pomegranite salad, etc.
6. She is generous.
7. She's good company and tells good stories.
8. She is faithful and strong in the gospel (still reading the Sunday school lessons and commenting in class).
9. She taught me to be frugal.
10. She is adventurous. Not only did she travel the world with Grandpa, but according to the slides she wasn't afraid to take the kids on roadtrips all over and she's still going to Hawaii and swimming at the beach!

I love you Mimi and hope you had a good birthday.

The Wells

I had a chance to chat with Rebekah Wells today for a couple minutes. It was really nice and the new addition has arrived. For those of you who did not have the chance to meet the Wells they were the other family living at the Palmer compound. They recently moved to Utah. Rebekah seems to be doing really well. She sounded happy and excited.Here are some pictures and I will also post an e-mail that she sent me. If you want to contact her her e-mail is

	♫ rebekah.wells@gmail.com

Caleb Christopher Wells

Born Wednesday, February 20, 2008 at 11:19 p.m. (Thank you, Caleb, for arriving on your due date!)

7 lbs 15 oz, 21 inches long

It was an easy labor and delivery (I had no idea I was in labor). Chris convinced me to go to the hospital anyway. Good thing-- I was already at a 7. Whoops! Once they broke my water, it didn't take long for Caleb to show up!

We are all doing well. Caleb is a cutie. He has dimples (you can't see them in the photos-- they only show up if he's really mad or smiling really big). And he has light brown hair with patches of white-blonde (definitely from Chris). I hope to catch those dimples on film soon. He is also extremely strong. He rolls himself on his side when you put him down and his legs, despite their scrawny appearance, are extremely strong. The nurse today said he was, "the strongest baby she has ever encountered" and broke into a sweat trying to get a blood sample from him. (:

I haven't shared the news with the Hawaii friends, so please feel free to forward at will. I need to get updated contact info from everyone...

Love,

Rebekah

Austin. We saw him first.

I am always looking for good things to brag about on the blog, but mostly our life is not that exciting, except for this weekend. We got to see Austin!!!!!! It was short, but very sweet. We can't wait to see him again. Here are some pics. We had to make him a candy lei since there are no flowers here. It was good to see Daniel and Jeremy too. It was fun to hear Daniel and Austin chat in Russian. We are jealous of Hawaii people cause they get to see him longer.

Bluster Day

It's been rather blustery here in Tokyo. Enough to make a very small animal very anxious. Or to make a mildly hayfever prone Bekah very teary eyed. Every bit of dust and grit is blowing through the air, aimed straight for my eyes. This morning I woke up with giant blobs of gunk in the corners, where my eyes tried a little self cleaning. It wasn't entirely successful.

As Miss M says, the sun is tricking us yet again. (She also says "Bother!" quite a bit as well.) The sun has been shining in bright blue skies, but outside it's freezing with only a few blossom branched trees to hint of spring. These tropical/semi-tropical Palmers are having a very hard time getting used to this winter stuff. M has asked me on occasion "Do they have hot summer days in New York? Because if they do, I'm not sure if I want to live there or Hawaii." Can you see the draw of cousins at work?

I'm pretty bummed we're missing out on the Yosemite trip. Next time, I guess. I'm hoping to drive down from Oregon during August and visit one and all before we start the school year in Irvine. We'll keep you updated.

some thoughts on a very rainy day

We've been having rain none stop. It's hard getting around on rain and crutches. I had recently got a pair of rain boots so now I hop around with only one boot praying constantly that I won't slip. Today we went to the Santa Cruz Natural History Museum. Chris has been wanting to go for a while but I haven't been that supportive of the idea. Museum's with kids just seem like more work than fun. I was pleasantly surprised. The whole thing is totally kid friendly and Enzo loved it. The adults liked it too. We'll have to take you there when you come and visit, you can touch star fishes at the tide pool they have. Enzo's been wonderfully funny and a total joy. He decided that he too can't walk so he hops behind me and my crutches. He mixes up Portuguese and English every time he speaks and we think he's getting ready for potty training. He tells us when he's peeing and pooping and gets a diaper and wipes, lays down on the floor and tells us he's ready for a diaper change. What do you think? I won't start the potty training process till after we come back from Spring break in Brazil and I'll be out of a cast. Oh yeah, I'm in a cast. I got it on Tuesday. It's removable so I take it off at night. It's still totally painful to put any weight on it. I will need to do some physical therapy to re-educate my muscles, considering this is the third fracture on it. My friends come over to help with Enzo and even clean up. My wonderful friend and neighbor Victoria (Avi's mom) has lots of enegry to play and Enzo loves her. We're sad they're moving in the fall. We need to make new best friends/neighbors. Living on campus is good because the disability van picks me up and drops me off when ever I need it, which is everyday.

We are on the last stretch of the quarter. I'm way busier this quarter than last but luckily it's the other way around for Chris. His core class is with a professor who loves to talk about back in the days when he tutored Anthropology to Prince Charles. My core professor is a Marxist. I have learned everything possible about longshoreman and am now convinced that it's the bestest job in the whole world. At least that's what I have to pretend when I'm in class. Chris and I are both doing an independent/dependent study with an Anthropologist who specializes in Brazil. It's been fascinating and It's the first time I've ever had a a crush on a classmate (chris and I are the only ones taking the class, if that wasn't clear). I like having a class with Christian he's not as competitive as I was imagining, maybe because he also has to deal with me at home. In all seriousness it's a great class (excessive reading at times) and we speak Portuguese which is also a plus. However, my favorite class this quarter is a workshop that I am taking with Nikki Silva my favorite radio producer, if you've seen my blog she's one of the Kitchen Sisters. I have only recently been more myslef in class and not totally nervous that this lady that I admire so much is my teacher. It helps that she's very down to earth. I am producing a short piece about the frustrations of putting kids to sleep. I was inspired by Mariko's post 1,2,3 Abracadabra Baby Sleeps. I had a really fun and funny interview with Kaity and Danny and also one with Gio. When I finish I'll upload it so you can all hear and enjoy a bit of the DeMartini's voices.

Life of course if busy and even though we make it seem like it's all fun we also have our frustrating moments my broken foot being the main cause of much frustration at this point in time.

Chris spend a lot of time this week looking and planning the Yosemite reunion. We are very excited to see everyone and hopefully we can make it work so that most of you can come. We're too late for reservations but there are a bunch of first come first serve spots. We are planning for the week of June 16th. Can you make it?

The other news is that I applied for citizenship. It cost us $700, ouch! A birthday presents of sorts.

Here's a picture of Enzo so you can see what we mean when we say he's pure joy and also a little on the heavy side.

Mimi's Day Without Reading

Yesterday Mimi had cataract surgery on her other eye. Everything went perfectly. Only down side was a whole day of NO reading. (post surgery instructions.) We had to check in at 6am for 7:30 surgery. At 10pm she said, "I'm going to bed early to get the day over with." She was happy to get back to the paper, crossword puzzle etc. today. Also lunch with Tricia after a checkup with the surgeon. We love to read and see your exciting lives. Miss you all.

Froggie

Thought you might get a kick out of Zeke is Truman's frog suit.

help with Enzo

This week I start solo life again with Enzo when Chris is in class. I've gotten lots of offers for help. I'm not one to easily accept help but I consider it a bad characteristic and will work on not only accepting help but enjoying it. I forget how often people like watching kids especially if they don't have any of their own. Last week (before the foot thing) I took Enzo to make some photo copies with me. He often comes to run errands with me, especially for my TA class. The administrative assitante love him and always give him something to play with. Last week he got this.


I loved it way more than he did. He pretty much just wanted to eat the ball. I'm glad to have nice people around.

Sophomore Formal

Last night was Sophomore Formal. It was held at a "club" in Palo Alto called Illusions. I don't know why I put club in quotation marks. Anyway, it was actually quite fun. I am glad that I've broken out of my shell and actually dance now. I used to be terrified of it. I'm still not any good, but I've stopped caring about how dumb I look, and just go for it. There was a little stage at the front, and I even went up and danced on the stage. Yeah. Intense. Here are some pictures of my draw group/ family before we went out for the night. I thought Hoku's hair looked really pretty, so I included a picture of it. :)

I am a [not] a runner - part 2

Just came back from another couple hours at the health center. The doctor yesterday was concerned because my ankle is super swollen and the radiologist at the ER had not done ankle x-rays just foot x-rays. So I had to go back and tack x-rays of my ankle. Good news, not broken! Bad news, it's a beautiful day outside and I REALLY want to out an play. ARGHHHH!!!! I am still in a lot of pain. My foot is very swollen and I need to get it to a decent size so that they can put a cast on me. Yesterday I baked sugar cookies for my students, tried to make a somewhat fancy dinner for Valentine's day, taught my class, and then went to a party at night. Once again my decision making skills are bad and at the end of the day my foot was more swollen then it had been when I first broke it and I was in excruciating pain. The cookies were a bust. Almost all of my students are Latino/as 14 to be exact (only 3 Caucasian students). Apparently ALL (not an understatement I promise) of the Latino/a students have also decided to give up treats for lent!!! Mariko you should come hang out here. Most of the girls gave up all forms of treats. the boys (3) gave up chocolate but they ate the cookie. The whole purpose was for them to decorate their own sugar heart shaped cookie. The Caucasian students were stoked and binged. The party was fun in that the food was good and we made pirate flags. Apparently Valentine had performed marriages even though it was against the law, therefore showing his resistance to authority. My friends thrive on this concept and so decided to throw a pirate Valentine's day party. However, Chris and I really celebrate V-day today because it's the day we met. We call it the "Last Chance Day" in honor of the title of the valentine's dance where we hit it off . That was 5 years ago today. Boy am I glad that I didn't miss my last chance to find Chris. He's been super nice putting up with my grumpiness and resistance for medication. I surrendered to vicodin and our relationship is back on track. Enzo is also totally mad. he doesn't understand that I can't pick him up among so many other things he expects me to do for him. For our special day I got flowers, a new light for the living room. We actually found it in the Swap shop at Kaity's but Chris got the power cords and the actual light bulb. I also got calcium pills and....a pedicure done by Chris with Enzo's assistance. Victoria my lovely friend/babysitter made a heart with rose peddles in our back porch with the number 5 to represent the years we've known each other. She's creative like that. She's also babysitting so that we can go out tonight.

As for the foot...it's the third time I've fractured it in the same spot. I'm going to have a bone density screening sometime next week. The doc said that once I get a cast it should heal within 4-6 weeks. I'm going to aim for 4 so that I don't have to go to Brazil with it on. I'm convinced that my ankle is swollen because I had to walk back from the woods to my house with a broken foot when the injury first happened. It was night time no one was around and Chris didn't know where I had gone jogging, AND....there were a bunch of deers that started surrounding me. Kaity they were not the reason why I fell but they sure motivated me to get out of there ASAP. Jesse, I like your suggestion for swimming. I was swimming last quarter and really enjoying it. This quarter got cold and I chickened out and started working out in the gym. Noelle, I also work out in the cardio machines. In fact I love them because they are super fancy with all these cool buttons and I can listen to my podcasts. However, I was being teased because apparently running on the machines is not really considered running. Hence my injury is yet another example of why you shouldn't surrender to peer pressure. Now I'm going to focus on getting my feet to not be so swollen so that I can get a cast and heal. I'll think of exercise later especially since I am still in a lot of pain. Thanks everyone for the nice comments. I wish so very badly that you all lived closer so that Chris could get some help and someone could help Enzo and I get up and down our stairs.

P.S: I am also glad I didn't miss my chance to meet Chris 5 years ago because that would mean no Palmers and friends and I do love you all very much!


(I also thought it was an "S" inside the heart bust she corrected me and said it was the # 5. It made more sense)

Better Represent

Gwyn and Enzo, Zeke is calling you out.

I am a runner

Did you know that I am a hard core runner? Yeah, I've been running about twice a week lately and I even requested a jogging stroller for my birthday. You probably thought this would never happen since I used to not be able to run for more than 100 yards without totally collapsing to the floor and dying of fatigue. But I am so hard core that today I went jogging at at 6:00pm in the bike trails in the woods behind family student housing. Impressive huh?! No, not impressive. Who jogs when there is barely light outside in the woods? Jesse and Chris maybe but I am convinced that they are made up of different stuff than normal humans. I am 100% human with probably some calcium deficiency. I broke my foot!!! Of course I broke my foot I could barely see where I was stepping. I am soooooo mad at my self. I am also in a a lot of pain right now.

Oh and no I don't want a jogging stroller anymore. I'm back to my initial feeling about running. I hate it!

Chris and Da and Enzo came!!!

Chris and Da and Enzo came. It was so fun. On Friday night we went swap shopping. Then on Saturday we did the Santa Barbara Mission, and the boys went surfing. Then on Sunday we made the best dinner ever, Da's pork roast recipe. Yum! Gio and Enzo played really well together. Here is some photographic evidence that they came.

MADRID!

the update: I was accepted to Stanford's Overseas Study Program in MADRID!! I am so excited. And to make matters even better Hoku and my other two friends Roni and Jenna got into the Florence program, so we will all be in Europe at the same time and can meet up and travel together. As my mom can attest, I was feeling anxious about it because it is a new program, so it's really popular and competitive and all that. Anyway, I'm super stoked, and wanted to share the good news.

Yesenia and minami

Gaviota cont.

A little perspective on the size of the pool. :)

Family portrait by Lizzy

Spam Musubi picnic lunch

Gio and Doyle BFF

Gaviota Hot Springs

Last Saturday we went to Gaviota Hot Springs. It was really fun. Gio loved swimming. It was the perfect depth for him. He was jumping and going under the whole time. Doyle and Lizzy and Logan came with us. Zeke was lovin the water. He was just splashing and laughing the whole time. We decided to check it out because we had had a lot of rain. The top pool was really nice but the bottom one was pretty gross.

Pammy's bday

Writing on pammy's birthday inflatable

Happy Birthday Mommy!

Happy Birthday Mom. I love you so much. I read all the comments that everyone else wrote and I agree with all of them. Also, thanks for loving me and my boys. I think you're pretty. You make me so happy.