The Palmer Tale

Birthday Time

Shawn and I were both born September 1986. The difference is I am two weeks older then Shawn :) I remind him often. Even though my birthday was a very busy day for the both of us, Shawn made me an awesome cake and we had some friends over. He even made me some earrings out of sea shells he collected from our California trip. How did I get so lucky?

For Shawn's birthday I dragged him to Utah to my mission reunion. :) We did get to go to a general conference session which was awesome. I love hearing from the prophet and apostles. I am always reminded of things I can work on. While we were in Utah, we stayed with our good friends Justin and Heather.

The BIG 2011 Summer Vacation

I have always dreamed of going on a cruise someday. All you can eat, fine dining, swimming, ocean, adventures, fun folded wash clothes, all you can eat ice cream, shows. For the amount you pay, it definitely seems worth it. Our plan was to go on a cruise this summer, then I got pregnant and nausea became a daily thing. I was worried that being on a ship would not help in that aspect and many of the fun adventures we wanted to do, are not recommended for pregnant women. We decided to postpone the cruise idea and do something else. We decided we would road trip it up to California! Even though I wasn't feeling the best, it was a very memorable trip. :)

First Stop Las Vegas!!! To tell you the truth, Vegas wasn't our favorite place, but we still had fun.

We stayed at the Circus Circus which had a fun amusement park. Shawn had to ride the crazy roller coaster by himself since I am prego. It was fun for me to watch.

We got to see my good friend Anica. She lives right on the beach!

Newport Beach

We stayed with the Williams Family for a few days in Newport Beach. It was so good to see them. I do feel bad because I ended up in their bathroom a lot. Of course we still had fun.

Hannah's first time being buried

Sea World!! I didn't know whales and dolphins could put on such a show. Shawn thought it would be fun to sit in the front row for one of the dolphin shows. I learned that "wet zone" really means wet zone.

San Diego!! We couldn't pass up this opportunity

Fish n chips on the water

It wouldn't be a vacation if we didn't go to gift shops :)

Shawn's mission president and his wife (the Johnson's) let us stay with them for a few days. Amazing couple here! I hope we can be like them when we grow up.

My Uncle Randell and his wife Nicki own the Painted Pony Restaurant in Saint George, UT. It was good to see them and their boys.

Zion National PArk!! Such an amazing place! This was the last picture we got of our trip because Shawn decided to try and catch a fish with his bare hands while the camera was in his pocket. oops...it would have made it worth it if he caught the fish.

Photography Blog

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

Baby on the way :)

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.