Irene

The night Eva was born there was a rare tornado in Clemson. Saturday was Eva's third birthday and we were hit by a hurricane. What is it with this girl and natural disasters? All in all it was a pretty exciting day. It poured all day and the wind was wild. It was crazy to watch the trees bending back and forth. Eva's room sounded like a haunted house b/c she has a tree outside her window that just howled in the wind. Sometime during the evening our bushes got knocked over. You see the damage below and a photo taken Friday at the bottom to see the difference. Somehow we kept our power through the entire thing. 80 percent of Richmond lost power. Three days later many are still without. So we feel pretty lucky.

Virginia Beach and Clifton

Last week Devin's sister Whitney came to visit. I'm totally going through Whitney withdrawals. She is so fun to be around, my girls love to play with her, she does all my work for me... We're all missing Auntie Whitney. When she was leaving Eva said, "Whitney, are you over?" We are all sad Whitney is "over". While she was here we did some fun stuff. We went to Virginia Beach which was lucky b/c I'm not sure what is left of it after Hurricane Irene. Eva loved jumping in the waves and Sophie just wanted to crawl around all over the place and into the waves, full speed, without interruption.






I drove Whitney up to Northern Virginia to meet up with friends and we stopped at this darling little town called Clifton on the way. There was this cute little restaurant made out of a Texaco Station. We got out of there a few minutes before the earthquake hit and were on the road so we didn't feel anything.





I already told this story but I got stuck in DC traffic on the way home b/c everyone was evacuating and generally freaking out. I only had chocolate within reach to use for entertainment all that time. Here's a pic of Sophie when I got home. She'd covered herself with chocolate and kicked it all over the back seat. She was one happy baby!

Earthquake!!!

5.9 a half hour from Richmond. Crazy stuff! I've been getting texts, calls, emails and Facebook messages all afternoon. My cell has been down and even Facebook is jammed up. Hopefully blogger will work. Just wanted to get the word out that we're ok. Thanks for all your concern! Devin felt it pretty good. I was actually on the road up in Northern Virginia about 20 min West of DC dropping off my sister in law so we didn't feel a thing. All we noticed was that our phones went down. We got word that there had been an earthquake and lots of places in DC were evacuating. So I hightailed it out of there but the danged GPS sent me straight into the DC belt-way. So I had to fight traffic all afternoon with nothing but chocolate to keep my baby from screaming for three hours. You should have seen her when we got home! haha. Anyway, thanks for all the love! Now it's time to get ready for Hurricane Irene this Sunday!

America Jr.

I love this place. I just couldn't stay away this year. It kills me to miss a summer in Waterton. One year my cousin and I put flyers on Canadian cars in the BYU parking lot looking for a ride... that's how desperate we were. But that's another story for another time.

1. Prairie and Old Chief Mountain at dawn. 2. Boat ride and the Prince of Wales Hotel on the hill.

3. Eva's time on the thunder mug. 4. Eva in matching p.j.'s with cousins Justin and Gracie.

5. Driving the boat with grandpa. 6. Gracie with Sophie in front of the cabin.


7. Bear at the border. Side note: I realized I can run again. It just took getting chased by a bear to figure that out. I was golfing with my niece and my dad and sister started yelling at us to come over towards them. I looked behind me and there was a bear running straight towards us! We ran over to my dad's golf cart as the bear veered away from us. An employee was chasing it through the golf course with a cart. I just wish he hadn't chased him towards us!

Time Flies...

I had an amazing trip this year. I'm still a little bit sad it's over. You know that feeling. When you miss everyone you just left and keep reliving all the nights of endless laughter and "visiting". I love living in the East but it is so good to go home every so often. Anyway, my picture-taking was a bit spotty this time around so this isn't a complete sampling but here are a few photos. First of all, I would like to congratulate myself and my family for finally getting a family picture and thank Laura for her talented face swapping. 25 min of snapping still couldn't produce a pic with everyone looking at the same time. But here it is, my family pic for the next year or two.

Now some pics of Eva, Lucy, Zacky and Sophie... These four had a heyday in Boise as you can tell. They ran circles around us all week. We had fun swimming in the pool, going shopping and out to eat, going on bike rides, playing soccer, cooking yummy food for all the PARTIES! We said good-bye to Uncle Taylor who left on his mission that week to the Dominican Republic. His farewell was awesome. He's going to be a fantastic missionary.









Eva's first haircut with cousin Laura...

Letters for the Girls

Sophie,
You are a little beauty. I can't tell you how many people tell me so. Your little face and big brown-ish eyes light up the room. People can't help but smile when they meet you. You aren't shy and love to be held by new people. You'll study their face then reach out and touch it. You are very famous for you cute little bum bounce. You sit on your bum and bounce around the room. It's amazing how much air you get! Last week you found your sass. You decided that when you didn't want something you would just scream at the top of your lungs. You did it in church and Grandma Palmer looked at you and "shushed" you. You stared at her and said, "mmmmmm-MA!" Already talking back, you little stinker! You are becoming and expert crawler and quite the little monkey. I spend my days trying to keep you away from the stairs and the computer. At the cabin your entire day was dedicated to trying to escape out the front door. I don't know what your plan was after that. Luckily there were plenty of people that wanted to hold you and "borrow" you for a walk around town. You and your sister love each other so much. You love to play together and talk to one another. She's a little scared of you because you love to pull her hair. But you are the first person she looks for in the morning. You are a sweet, sweet baby and we love having you in our family!

Eva,
You are a darling little girl. Natalie says you can tell what kind of day Eva is having by how her hair looks. This is so true. Usually you scream bloody murder anytime I get near your hair but last week you let us put your hair up in little up-dos and you looked like a little princess. I had so many people tell me how cute you were. Your big blue eyes, chubby cheeks and button nose added to your vibrant personality make you irresistible to watch and play with. You are never shy around other children, no matter what age. You have a very wide range of emotions. You squeal and jump when you greet a loved one for the first time and bawl your eyes out when it's time to say good-bye. You laugh your head off when you find something funny and turn your face to the wind and roar like a lion when you are frustrated. You make my life so exciting. This vacation was particularly bad for potty training. You decided you were scared of the cabin toilet and wouldn't go near them. The morning we arrived, you refused to go potty. Then a couple hours later, seated square on grandpa's lap, you couldn't keep it in any longer. Then 2o minutes later you let Gracie have it. You didn't know that I had done the exact thing to my cousin Andrea when I was two. After trying everything, I found a 100-year-old thunder mug under a table. I pulled it out and you loved it. You felt so comfortable on that old little cup and all our potty problems were solved for the week. Now we are home and this morning you gave me a good laugh. You had an accident in nursery last time you were in Richmond. I was quizzing you on what you should do when you need to go potty in nursery. You said, "I go peepee on the carpet." Wrong answer. I was nervous during church but you made it out ok. We'll get it someday. In the meantime, you'll just keep me on my toes. One more story from the trip. Auntie Sara watched you walk into an empty kitchen. You spotted a brownie on the counter, said, "What the heck?" then picked it up and ate it. You are hilarious and I wish I could remember half the things you say every day. Your daddy and I are so lucky that you are our daughter and we love you so much!

Home Again

3 weeks and 4 days, over 2000 miles in the car, over 5000 miles in the air, 2 countries, 6 grandparents, 10 aunts, 6 uncles, 13 first cousins and a ton of second, third and fourth cousins... It was a jam-packed amazing trip to the West this year. We've been home for about 12 hours and I think it is going to take ma awhile to get caught up. I have two meetings and a lesson to teach this week, let alone the unpacking and time-zone-changing. It's going to take me a while to get my vacation blog up. (And I still don't know who won Bachelorette so don't tell me!) In leiu of vacay photos here's a few things to get you clicking.

My little sister Katie is in Belize this summer on a humanitarian trip. I bugged her enough so she put up a fun blog about it. So check it out if you want to catch up on Katie's life and leave her comments since the members of my family not very diligent commenters.

katiepalmerinbelize.blogspot.com

Next. Pinterest is my new obsession. I haven't have much time to devote to it yet but you have to check it out. It's a great place to get ideas and keep track of all the fun things you stumble across. Let me know if you need and invite or if you're on it and I'm not following you yet.

http://pinterest.com/sarahmomo/

And I have two new posts on How Does She. Here's a couple pics from yesterday's. Toasted Marshmallow Milkshakes. You have to try them.

How could I not take a picture of these classic two-year-old fingers? Chipped off hot pink nail polish, dirt under the finger nails, marshmallow stick between the fingers. Love. This. Girl.

And then here's the link from last month's. It's my mom's potato salad which is also really good and coincidentally the only potato salad I can stand.

And this one... You Richmond-ers will recognize a familiar face or two.
http://www.howdoesshe.com/blueberry-lemon-cupcakes

Hopefully I'll do a catch up blog about out blueberry picking day...

Ok, that's in for now. Gatta go scrape dinner out of my pantry.