The Palmer Tale: 2011

Photography Blog

I finally updated my photography blog! Take a peek...
http://torreyphotography.blogspot.com/

We are expecting a little one on February 24th!!! We are very very excited. One more week I will be onto my second trimester and hopefully the nausea and all the other funness will be on it's way. We have got to hear the heartbeat and see the little baby. We both laughed when we got the ultra sound because we always joke how we both have big noses and our poor children will be blessed with a big nose. In the ultra sound, it's little arm made it look like it has a big nose. :) So far everything looks good and we are hoping it stays that way!

New Job

I just finished my student teaching in April. I taught first grade at Falls Valley Elementary in Idaho Falls. I had an awesome cooperating teacher who let me take over the class for the three months I was there. Those six and seven year olds would keep me laughing all day. At that age, it was difficult to keep 21 first graders attention. Especially when they all have loose teeth. When one person looses a tooth, they all start getting tissues and wiggling their teeth. I got better and learned new tricks as days went on. One day I was having students read to me at my desk while the rest of the class was working on a math paper. Most of them were finishing up their math papers when I noticed one of my trouble maker boys who was coloring and didn't have any of his math sheet done. I excused those reading back to their desks, and asked this little boy to come see me and bring his paper. I asked him if he had finished his math sheet yet, and he told me he did! I told him that I needed to see it and put out my hand. He started freaking out a little and told me I couldn't touch it. I told him that I needed to see it. He replied in a nervous voice, "I don't want your germs on it!!"I tried not laughing as best I could. We had a talk about lying and the dangers of it. It is scary how first graders are already learning to lie and come up with the excuses they do. Overall, I loved my experience. I just have one more class to take, and then I will graduate in July!!

NEW JOB as a Head Resident

Since we will not be in Rexburg for a very long time, I decided not to teach while I wait for Shawn to finish school. I got an awesome job as a head resident of one of the girls dorms on campus. Shawn and I now live in the dorms. I have daily office hours, plan activities, do clean checks etc. I am loving it so far. Our first activity was an easter egg hunt, which is the picture above. I am getting to know all the girls, and still have many names to memorize.

First Anniversary

Our Anniversary is now a day in history! Not only were we married on May 1st, but Osama Bin Laden was killed on May 1st. I still can't believe it has almost been 10 years since 9/11.

For our anniversary, we decided to go back to Logan, UT where we were married. We stayed in the Anniversary Inn which is a themed hotel. They were having a "end of tax season" deal. We got to stay in the African Safari room for half off! It was pretty sweet. We went back to the temple and went to dinner with some of Shawn's family at a Brazilian restaurant called Gaucho's Grill. They bring you fresh off the grill meat every minute. It was a fun experience.

Shawn really surprised me with a anniversary gift. We just moved into a new apartment and many of the kitchen cupboards are pretty high and I can't reach. Shawn decided to make me a stool! I was sooo happy. It was such an amazing gift. He worked really hard on it, and I just love it. I am excited to use it for many years ahead. He even burned a message on the bottom. Being married has been so awesome. I feel that we have really grown together. I thank Heavenly Father for letting our paths cross and letting us have this experience together.

My new stool!

Happy 1st Anniversary!

Easter

Easter is such a great holiday! I often find myself thinking more about all the suffering the Savior had to go through then the happiness of the resurrection. This year I really focused on the resurrection and I had such great feelings of gratitude for what the Savior has done for us. We are able to live happy lives because we know this isn't the end. We have Christ to thank for that. To thank him, we need to live the way he would want us to live. I have much to improve on, but I hope to continually be a better person. I found this awesome video on lds.org for Easter.
http://lds.org/pages/his-sacred-name-an-easter-declaration?lang=eng&query=easter+video

On my mission we had a photographer Mark Mabry displayed his "Reflections of Christ" photographs at the Temple Visitors Center. His goal was to depicted the life of the Savior through photography. Being a photographer, I fell in love with them right away. This one below is one of my favorites.

Shawn and I enjoyed our Easter together. The "Easter Bunny" hid jelly beans all over the house and I had to go around and find them all. The Easter bunny also got me a hanging plant called "Bridal Veil wondering Jew" it does well in the south with lots of humidity. We will see how well it does in Rexburg. It is already started to bud. I am very excited about it. Shawn has a few nieces that go to school here at BYU-Idaho. Shawn is the youngest of nine, so that is why that is possible. We had Jana and Abby, two of the nieces over for Easter dinner. We colored eggs afterwards and had so much fun! Shawn thought that if you sqeeze an egg as hard as you can, it won't break. I tried to tell him that you have to sqeeze it end for end. He didn't believe me at the time. He went ahead and sqeezed a RAW egg and sure enough...Torrey was right...therefore, the egg went all over the kitchen! We had a good laugh out of it. :)

The Easter bunny knows that chocolate is a love of mine :)

Jana and Abbey ready to eat!

This is before Shawn did his little "experiment" :)

New Years and Yellowstone!!

I know 2011 is already 1/3 the way over, but it's never to late to update right?? For New Years we celebrated with some friends from our ward. We hooked up a laptop to a projector, so we could watch the ball drop. After watching the ball drop, we realized we watched the "2010 ball drop!" It's all the same anyways...

Over Presidents Day weekend, we went to Yellowstone with Shawn's two best friends and their wives. We went ice skating, snow shoeing and ate a lot. It was a fun relaxing weekend. It was quite entertaining watching those three boys interact.

The Palmers

The Whitworths

TheWrights

Shawn with the buffalo

The three amigos! Ryan gets picked on as you can tell

This was just one nights worth of snow

Christmas 2010

After three years, our family was finally all together! I was reminded how blessed I am to have a wonderful family. We enjoyed our time together, full of fun, service, cooking, movies, skiing, tree cutting, gifts, chocolate, ringing the salvation army bell, singing at the nursing home, staying up late and sleeping in!

I thought about Christ pretty frequently and how when we have Christ in our lives, it brings so much joy and love. I love celebrating his birth and being reminded of his great life and how I need to be more like him. What a great mother Mary must have been to raise the son of God. I hope I can be better this year and continually feel closer to my Savior.
Merry Christmas!!

Our great talent of making Christmas wreaths

playing Christmas music in front of City Market


Not only do we make Christmas wreaths, Shawn and I rang the Salvation Army bell and played the slide whistles!

People would sing along as they were walking in the store.

Shawn made Meysa letters of her name out of wood to put in her room

Christmas Morning!!

Christmas morning at the Nursing Home. The lady in the front right, kept motioning for Shawn to come to her. When he would sit by her, she would pull his santa hat over his face and pinch his nose. When she would pinch his nose, he would honk and the ladies next to her just thought that was the funniest thing. It was fun going, but hard seeing so many people with disabilities and having no one with them for Christmas. It was just another day for them. Hopefully we made it a better Christmas for them.

playing at the nursing home

two wanna be mountain men :)

Shawn inherited my Great Grandpa Kas's cowboy hat for Christmas. My dad says he wears it just right.

Decorating for Christmas, turned into playing Santa and the reindeer :)

Showing off our talent :)

Meysa made us the cutest pillows

Meysa and I made Shawn a nativity set for Christmas

Cream and eggs on toast....yummy...what a good Christmas morning breakfast

The three chefs

Cross country skiing on the Grand Mesa. Rydge and Shawn being crazy..I was worried they were going to fall off the cliff

Throughout the Christmas break, Shawn and Rydge were having a battle of who is the "Alpha Male" of the family. Looks like Shawn gained a point here.

Shawn's family at Temple Square during Thanksgiving time

Rydge is Home!!!!

Rydge has been serving a mission in British Columbia for the past two years. He left while I was on my mission in Washington D.C. We hadn't seen each other for 3 years! Shawn and I went home in August to welcome him home. We decided to play a little trick on him and we stuffed my shirt with pillows to make me look pregnant. When he got off the plane and saw my belly, he was shocked! "Why didn't you tell me!!!" was his reply. We were all laughing pretty hard. When he was hugging others, I took the pillow out and when he saw me without the pillow, he was one confused missionary. He was heart broken that he wasn't going to be an uncle, but it serves him right for all the pranks he has played on me.

It was so fun being with the whole family again. Rydge has grown up so much. I know that he served the Lord well. His testimony is so strong and you can feel the love he has for those in British Columbia and for the Gospel. I am excited to see what his future holds.