Malinda's Graduation!

CONGRATULATIONS MALINDA! Tonight was Malinda's high school graduation. My little sister is growing up. I'm so proud of her. She has done so well academically, as well as excelling on the culinary team.

Malinda and Erica (a cousin). These two are off to Dixie College together in the fall.

The graduates and the Palmer Grandparents

Almost Everyone

It was fun to go celebrate with Malinda. It was a little weird too. I heard some of my old teachers and principal speak, sang the fight song (which I remembered once the music started), and watched as people danced, hopped, tripped, and skipped their way to get their diploma. But for the most part it was fun and I actually recognized a few of the other kids who were graduating. Congratulations Lone Peak Graduating Class of '09!

Memorial Day

Today has been a pretty chill day. We had Aaron over to play games. My family was also having a barbeque tonight so we all went up to Alpine to enjoy some good food. We also played a little frisbee while we were waiting for our food to cook. Brad's pretty good with a frisbee, but I need a little practice. There is a frisbee golf course by our place so we'll have to go some time so I can try to work on my aim.

Slate Canyon Hike

Brad and I had a great day yesterday! We decided we would break in Brad's birthday present (a.k.a. his new hydration pack) and go for a long hike up Slate Canyon. We had so much fun.



The trail follows the river up the canyon so we ended up crossing the river quite a few times.


One of the best things about this hike is all the waterfalls you get to see on the way.

Take a close look at this next picture. Brad was crossing a river and found this new friend waiting on the other side for him.

Hidden among the leaves and tree branches was a rattlesnake. It was only a few feet from him when he jumped across the river. Luckily Brad heard the snake's rattle above the roar of the river and came back across the river before any harm came to him.


This is the view looking out toward the valley right before we turned around and headed home. The whole trip took us four and a half hours! It was lots of fun, but next time I'll remember to put on some sunscreen on my arms. I put sunscreen on my face and neck. However, I thought I'd get a tan on my arms while we were out, but we were out just a little too long and now I'm suffering for it. I can't complain too much. I'm just glad Brad wasn't attacked by a rattlesnake.

Fitness Challenge '09

Are you ready?

Brad and I have decided that we need to get into shape. In order to help us do so we have designed our own fitness challenge for the summer. It rewards us with points for good things we do like going exercising, eating fruits/vegetables, and drinking plenty of water. It also punishes us for being lazy and eating sweets. Brad has been so organized with it and has programmed an Excel sheet to tally up our points. I have no talent with with Excel so I'm really amazed with what Brad has done with it.

Along with the benefits of a healthier lifestyle, we have incorporated prizes to keep us motivated. We each get individual prizes if we get a certain number of points, but we also have prizes for if we earn a certain number of points together. That way we both try to motivate each other to work hard.


So, this morning we went out for a hike. We live so close to Slate Canyon we can just walk out our door and be in the mountains in two minutes. Slate Canyon has so many trails that we are going to have to go on a lot of hikes to explore them all. Today we went up a few of them.

One of the most amazing things about Slate Canyon is the breathtaking views. You can see all of Utah Lake from many points on the trail.

We had lots of fun taking photos up the canyon. We're going to go out again on Saturday for a much longer hike to see what we can find.

So, are you ready?

Yee Haw!

Brad and I went out to my grandparents' ranch out in Park Valley, Utah to help with branding cattle. Where is Park Valley, Utah? In Brad's words, "It's the middle of no where in the northwest corner of Utah," which basically sums it up. We had a lot of fun though. We went for a walk the night we got there and saw two barn owls. As we were following them to get some better pictures we heard some coyotes howling pretty close to us. The moon also came up while we were out walking and it was red. It looked so cool.

Sisters

My grandpa

My twin cousins Shem and Rafe. Aren't they just adorable?

Some of the gang who helped with the branding

There were way too many pictures from this trip to put on here, so I made a slide show with the rest. This is probably pretty boring for anyone who is not part of the Palmer family, but you are free to watch if you really want to.

Happy Mother's Day!

Happy Mother's Day everyone! Brad and I have two very wonderful mothers in our lives and we are so grateful to have them. We have created some collages of our favorite pictures of our moms as tribute to them.



As a special tribute to Janet, Brad made a special collage for her titled, "Ode to the Crazy Family". Enjoy!