So much wildlife in Santa Cruz

As you can see the Little Prince costume never happened. Finding this on Freecycle was a lot easier. Enzo was a lion last year too. He's really good at it!

Halloween 1958

Fifty years ago today I wore my orange clown costume for the kindergarten Halloween parade. It was actually a pumpkin costume. My mom suggested that we stuff it with newspaper and that I could be a cute pumpkin. No way was I going as a chubby pumpkin. So mom made the 3 black buttons and a hat and voila I was a clown. Over the years, I always thought it was cool when we watched family slides and this picture came up. Dad was the principal and was prepared with his camera that day. (That may be our gray and white Buick in the background on the left.)

secret santa

This weekend I am drawing names for secret santa
right now we have

• me
• christian
• sienna
• kaity
• karen
• noelle
• yesenia

You can so be a part of the cool crowd. Let me know if you are in.

Been working on my blogs

The business blog is adamapalmer.blogspot.com(for now). The fun blog is www.waimearock.com. I should post fairly frequently.

Thank You Blog

I really never never know what I want for my birthday. And I'm so lucky to have friends that know for me. That's real, people. I always think I don't want anything, and then I get exactly what I've always needed (Buttons! I NEED buttons! And chocolate. Lots of chocolate. And more cookbooks. All the cookbooks in the world, muah ha ha).

I'm not good with thank you cards. I despise writing them. They remind me of my mother's insistence on thank yous, even if I didn't mean it, or even if she had already taken the item back.

I do, however, enjoy giving public attention to those I love. So is it in poor taste to write a blog? Thank you for the awesome awesome gifts. I couldn't find pictures of everything (well, truthfully, I just got tired of looking)-- money, avo slicer, kitchen timer, a delish within the diet dinner with vegan cookies for dessert, a shirt and chocolates, a humongo and scary clown pez dispenser, oreo cookies, and something else I am forgetting, but I will instead offend this person by not remembering exactly what it was at this specific moment in time and thank him/her for it anyway. And now that I'm listing everything I'm starting to feel like I'm bragging, and everyone's like, "Hey, why should she get all that stuff? She didn't even write a wish list!!" I think it's something about 28 being the magic number, or something like that.

Is it so obvious that I love food?

I have to give a special shout out to Robyn who, with some other people going in on it, but I never was clear who, so I suspect it was Scott M she was referring to-- She got me a pressure cooker. She even did her research and got the opinion of Cook's Illustrated. And she remembered that I said I wanted one from who knows when. That's amazing.

PLUS, she got me the 105 quart size (kidding, but it was the big big big one) so I could cook fabulous food for my fabulous friends. AND, did I mention she wrote me the sweetest, sweetest (one superlative is not enough here, people) note after my terrible, horrible, no good very bad day?

So tell me, are you now feeling less than worthy? You should. Everyone acknoweldge Robyn for being awesometastic. Seriously.

Anyway, I am so excited about my presents. I am trying to think of how I can combine them all for one meal. A Morrocan one. With chocolate pot de creme in the pressure cooker. Wearing the shirt and buttons on top of that (did you notice that there are SUSHI on these buttons??? SUSHI!!). It will be hard, but I'm up for a challenge.

I love you guys. I'd like to thank all of my friends (not just the gift giving ones, in case you think I'm trying to guilt trip you, because I'm not) for being clearly better than all of the other people in the world.

When Less is More

Another jewel of an e-mail I received from another student... and the title was "Missin Section"

I'm writing this because I missed section this morning, even though I know it was one of the most important ones. I stayed up really late last night studying and because I have a habit of eating while I'm studying, I ended up over eating and ended up really sick this morning. I would have gone to class but I was scared that I would end up making a mess. Sorry, and thank you for your time.

the most amazing room you've ever been in

Barcelona! Such a fun city. The ride there was not so fun. We decided to be cheap and take night buses for the 8 hour trip from Madrid. Not a good idea. Cold, uncomfortable, back and neck pain that I'm still recovering from. Also, I unfortunately have a bad habit of putting my feet in awkward positions when I sit down, so when we got to Barcelona I realized that my feet had been in this twisted sidewards position for 8 hours and had swollen significantly, to the point where I looked like I had really bad cankles (and it still hasn't gone down...is that weird?) On the bus ride back the same thing happened even though I made a valiant attempt to keep them straight forward.

Anyway, we got to see amazing Gaudí casas and the Park Güell, the Mediterranean Sea, the bocería market (with the best 1 Euro fruit juices ever), a flea market where they sell birds and chickens (?), a cathedral with a christmas tree on top. In one of the Gaudí casas, Casa Batlló, there was a free audio guide that came with the 13 Euro entrance fee (eek!). The audio guide was way way over the top. The whole time it was a British man and woman talking and they kept saying things like "if you thought the last view was spectacular, wait until you see what's next" and "Gaudí was the most amazing genius ever to walk the earth" and "this tile mural represents every single shade of blue that the human eye has ever seen" and "you are now standing in the most amazing room you've ever been in"...I was like, huh? How do you know where I've been? It wasn't even the coolest room in the house and I had been in all the rooms in the house...so, hmm. I also found out that "laie" means something in Catalán...although still not sure what.

Halloween Preview

We had a surprise visit tonight from a
skeleton pirate and a squishy teddy bear.

Palmer and Friends Secret Santa

I can't resist. Secret Santa is F.U.N and since Ephraim and Karen seemed to be into it and others seemed to be slightly into it than I'm organizing a Secret Santa. Anyone can participate. Just leave a comment on this post by the end of the week. I'll draw names and e-mail you so you will know who you have. We then ship our present sometime n December to our person/family. I propose that we either hand make something or that we give something $20 or less. Garage sale finds, swap meets, freecycle are my top choices.

Please join! If I pick your name I promise I will find something really amazing on freecycle for you that will change your life and you know you want a life changing Secret Santa present. You know you do!

and if you don't you could persuade me to pay your parking tickets.

this is what being popular looks like

a couple months ago I wrote a post about some of the Palmer and Hawaii blog facts. One of the facts was that Aaron Austin Lipman is popular and people send me e-mails asking about how to contact him. Today I received this

Michael has left a new comment on your post "Aaron Austin Lipman":

I was wondering what happened to Aaron. And this is the only google post that links to him.Hope all is well.Thanks for the quick hijack.
Michael

First of all don't feel bad than no one has ever send me an e-mail trying to get your information but if they do I will make a big fuss about how cool you are.

Second, if you do happen to have Aaron's e-mail address can you send it to me so that I can e-mail it to people?

Great Birthday

We rode the light rail (for the first time) to Crocker Art

Our summer pioneer trek...three days, 8000 elevation..22 miles with our little handcart and a rugged trail! it was indeed ZION!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Lexi's first quilt....notice the hawaiian print! Good job Lu Lu!

My birthday was great! Temple with Mimi, Nan and Dave. Thanks so much for all the posts and loving comments. I am blessed to have the family I do. I am also blessed to have the true gospel!

Thanks for the Birthday Well Wishes

because beads are always in

The Tricia Show! (Early years)

Cousins! (Dress-up with Andrew)

Same Cousins!

And another thing...

Tricia with Mimi, Grandma L, Uncle Byron, Ranier, Karen and Colleen 1968


"Cherish is the word that we use to describe you"

Sisters!


Tricia was my first "kid".

Oh, somebody has a birthday; our dear little Tricia here;
may Father in Heaven bless her through all the coming year!

Happy Birthday, Tricia!

Sunday Visit

The Cousins
Glamorous Dishwashers at Andy's Birthday Party (Before Fire)


10 things to love about Tricia:
She loves people (all kinds).
She is honest (true to herself).
She appreciates all gifts (small or great).
She is a survivor (her story could have come out differently).
She is happy (wants the same for others).
She is a great mom (4 very likable kids).
She married Dave (Superman).
She loves playing games (especially with Mimi).
She is NOT a perfectionist (ask her about the first quilt she made).
She is FUN to be with and FUNNY too (poster girl for don't worry--be happy)!

Happy Birthday, Bubs! I am thankful you were born 41 years ago today!

I'm Lorenzo Palmer and I approve this message

Enzo and Julia put their differences aside and decided to endorse Obama. They got new iron-ons to prove it.
Part of the Enzo and Julia endorsement team is to jump for Obama. If you were 2 I'm sure it would make perfect sense. They like going around screaming "Jump for Obama" I have to say that a lot of people walking by has stopped and admired the two. Maybe we should ship them to a swing state for the next two weeks to do the "jump for Obama" where it's really needed.

Fall

Living in the east coast was nice in that I was able to experience the amazing fall colors. I miss it. I have to say that being warm in October and still being able to go to the beach and do cook outs makes up for the lack of warm colors.

It seems like we go to birthday parties every weekend. I'm not complaining as long as the food is good. Here are some pictures from Sunday when we celebrated my friend Ana Paula's birthday.




I spend Saturday making chocolate leaves. I'll post a recipe on my blog sometime this week because they're so fun to make.


me, Ana Paula, Angela, Silvia. I've known Silvia since I was 12. She's fro my home ward in Brazil. It's nice having such a good friend near by. It's even better that she and her husband have no kids and always want to babysit Enzo.

I should put a picture of the 4 husbands. They are a shade lighter than us.

questions?

1- is the new sidebar with the snippets of blogs with photos annoying or helpful?
2- would you rather see the list of blogs in alphabetical order or by most recent post?

3- I've been talking to Pam about Christmas and presents. Should we draw names? Should we not worry about it? Should we give presents to those we spend Christmas with? Should we not do presents?

I was thinking that we could do a secret "Palmer and Friends" Santa. Which means that anyone Palmer or not can participate. Let me know if you think this is fun and I can make a list of people who want to participate and we can draw names.

PLEASE leave a comment even if you are fine or don't really care about either one of my questions. You can even leave a an "I don't care" comment. That way I'll have an idea of what people are thinking.
Thanks

prima fa slurp dopo fa croc

I don't know what that means. Anyone know? I just thought it sounded funny. We found it on a napkin dispenser in a pasterlería in Granada. So, I went to Granada in Andalucía this weekend with Liz Burroughs and a few other friends from the program. Liz is in Madrid studying with her law school, so we've been getting together and hanging out which has been really great for me because I need some friends who want to do more than just go to bars and discotecas. This definitely qualified.

p.s. pam did you get my email about your address? anyone know pammy's mailing address?