Bargain Buys

Brad and I have been in need of chairs for our kitchen table. Luckily enough, I found a table and chairs listed on Craigslist being sold right down the street from where we live. Since we don't have a truck this was a plus because we literally carried the table home. Even though we already had a table, for four chairs and a table $100 wasn't a bad price at all. And now, I use the new table as a desk in our office.


I got so excited about having chairs that I decided we should get two more chairs, so we have enough seating for when people come over. We found two more chairs (this time on KSL). However, these chairs had to be assembled. We should have known. We already had a build-it-yourself bookcase that has to be in the corner, against 2 walls so it doesn't fall over. The chairs look great, but we'll just warn you now, don't lean back in them.


I found this last bargain since Alissa posted that the DownEast Tent Sale was going on. I found this cool hanging frame for $5. I got it home to find that it didn't come with the hardware to hang it up. So, I found some small curtain rod brackets. Perfect.

Happy Father's Day!

Happy Father's Day everyone! We especially wanted to wish our dads a Happy Father's day. They are great dads, even if they are big teases. So, for Father's Day we decided we'd let them see what their grandson could look like. Hopefully they'll look better than this ugly baby.

Little Arnie

I think these websites are designed to make the kids look bad. Hope this gave you as good a laugh as it gave us.

Disclaimer: This is in no way an announcement.

You Wish You Had My Job

My paid internship finally started. What a week it has been. For those of you who don't know I'm working with a with special needs for the summer. We're in a group with other special needs kids and their mentors. We go do fun things together like:

Monday:

If you liked the first one then you'll like the second.

Tuesday:

BYU's Dinosaur Museum and swimming at the Orem Fitness Center.

Wednesday:

Bowling at Fat Cats and swimming again, but this time at the Scera pool.

Thursday:

It's a good thing our group was mostly boys. And. . .

It was much better than Tuesday's dinosaur museum.

Friday:

They let us make our own pizzas and then they gave us a tour of the restaurant.

Basically, I'm getting paid to go have fun with someone. It's great. The kids are all really sweet and we've had some really funny moments. I can't wait for next week.

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?