Mimi's house

It might have something (or everything) to do with the fact that as a child we moved around so much, but the only place I remember really feeling at home was my grandmother's house. I could be myself at my grandmother's house more than any other place I knew of. I have a very similar feeling when I'm at Mimi's house. When we were driving down to Sacramento on Wednesday Christian and I talked about how much we appreciated Mimi and Karen. We would arrive late and there would be no expectations for us to do or be anything. Karen wouldn't judge us for having the dirtiest car on the planet or the dirtiest kids for that matter.

When we arrived Karen greeted us outside. The kids were cranky and she just hugged them. Mimi was sitting on her chair reading a book and with her gentle kindness welcomed us in. When I'm at Mimi's I don't feel like anyone is judging me, certainly not Karen or Mimi. Even Maria can scream as loud as she wants and Mimi never complains, though she did let us know that she can hear her screaming and that Maria is loud. Being here is a treat, I feel like I can recharge my batteries and start thinking about our next long stretch of traveling. I hope that one day my home will be as heavenly as 4433 North Park Drive.

Dear Amy

happy birthday

i love you

and yours.

thanks for being such a great sister-in-law

With Pammy!

early morning layover for Demartinis heading home

Grandma Mimi & Pammy Mimi after church

tight squeeze

"It's always fun when Pammy comes." We are never ready to let her go.

pics

I'm not sure when I'll get to go through all my pictures of the trip, and I hardly took any. Yikes. I want to post pictures of Ada's baptism. Until then here are some from my ipod.

Ez jumping

Gio Jumps!

Jumpers

On the way to the pool, Enzo says he wants to tell us a story. "When I was very, very small my dad was taking me to jump off a gigantic rock (Waimea). My mom said, 'NO!! He is too small to jump off a very high rock!' I really wanted to jump, so my mom said, 'Go ahead and let him do it JUST ONCE. He will NEVER want to do it again!' My mom was wrong about that because I wanted to jump again and again and again!!" When we got to the pool (a super generous, fun family lets us swim whenever we want), they had their scissor lift parked at the edge of the pool. Their boys were waiting for the Dad to come home and take them up to jump. It extends to 25 feet. Well, a few of our company took the plunge, including Toa, Gabriel, Kaity & Gio, Christian and of course Enzo. Enjoy.

Summer Days 2011

Harvesting S & S's Plums

Sampling Same Plums

Close Look at Far Side

Cousin Mamas

Surprise Visit

some pics

 

driving to Utah from Sacramento

4th of July BBQ in Sienna's backyard

Cutie Bo in his stylish home

flying to DC

spending time with Ali and Chloe

Miriam is a fish

Children on the swings

Made it

Yay [!] for uneventful travels. I made it no problem to Salt Lake airport and then no problem from Washington Dulles airport to the house where we're shooting thanks to J and B's GPS. My rental car is fly, thanks to Enoch's free upgrade. I made it just in time except that the blogger before me hadn't even started. I'll probably start shooting in a couple hours which is fine by me. There are 4 bloggers and 20+ production people and enough food to feed at least 50 which means that you all could be here with me. I'm just sad I'm missing all the fun in Utah.

My voice is much better not 100% but at least sound is coming out. I didn't bring my camera or my ipod  touch so the pics are from the camera in my macbook (crappy, oh well).

See you all tomorrow

hot air balloons

we don't wake up at 6am everyday, but today was a special occasion. i couldn't tell if they were celebrating austin's birthday or the impending onset of palmer cousin camp, utah edition, but either way it was an awesome sight.

dart vader balloon was cool, but bo loved the piggy the best

it was a beautiful morning

sun in my eyes

but the best part of the morning was meeting up with courtney, mikey, minami, and courtney's sister lauren and her family. we love having family in utah!

the party hasn't even started yet and bo is already learning that cousins are the best!