boooo-tastic!

so we went to the first of our Halloween shindigs last night! it was the hospital party! We all dressed up and i was incharge of the face painting booth and making the signs. i made this one and Jason and James made this one!it was a blast! here are a few pics...Colbs in all his mummy makeup with *Buddy* the Elf {aka Jason} Jonah as George Monkey, that lasted all of 10 minutes and James with the *nerd herd* all ghoulish skeletons then me as the wood sprite!

you all know i take a million pics...and i had to take pics of my makeup! i did gold shimmer all over my face and a rust eye. with fancy feather lashes!!! love it! then i made my head piece! it came out cool.

hope you all have a bootastic halloween!

i wanna see pics!!!

loves

We have been busy here at the Palmer household! sorry. i am a terrrible bolgger....On Friday it was the Navy's 234th birthday and we celebrated by going to the Navy Ball!!!! {our first} :) I orderd an amazing 1930's vintage champaigne gown from a website called uniquevintage.com......let me tell you, it was a DISASTER!!!! I orderd the dress a month ago...i got one email from the woman that it was mailed out. 2 days before ball, the woman emails me to tell me the dress is NO LONGER AVAILABLE!!! after she said she mailed the dress!!!! can you believe it??? 2 days before the ball....ugh. i was pissed! TO SAY THE LEAST! but i made do with dress that i already had...here is the result.....i still went with the 1930's theme...i did my hair by doing pin curls all over and then added feather clips...I did a brown/gold smokey eye for makeup with a pale lip. then for extra spice, i put on some awesome falsies!!! oh i love makeup!

we started decorating for halloween! ooohhhh i love halloween!!!
our halloween black kitty! and the grim reaper!!! this thig is awesome!
here are our costumes, as of late....they may change ......the mummyanikin skywalkergeorge monkey....and the piece de resistance....ELF!!!!
yes, Jason agreed to be ELF, from the movie ELF!!! i love it! i am going to be a faery. surprise, surprise.

more soon.

loves

memories....like coners of my mind....

ahhhh, Malaga. We are here for the long weekend, reliving our time here 7 years ago. It's as beautiful as it was then. We got a 3 bedroom condo with a jucuzzi on the roof!!!! how amazing is that! The boys have been loving it!!! Today we went to the wild animal park in Estepona then took the boys to Mc Donalds {as a treat}then went to the Nerja caves, the older boys loved it, Jonah on the other hand was tired and was ready to go home. But not before i had James snap this pic of us. Jason and i have the exact same pic of us in the same spot 7 years ago!!! minus the kiddos, but they wanted to be in the pic!aslo, this little boyhas reached another milestone. Our little man, the hope of hopes has lost his first tooth. It really made our hearts flutter. Here's our little guy, entering the big leagues. Things like this make you stop and think. He's snaggle tooth, like lots of kids, but he's not baby any more. Tell me this doesn't make you think about time passing. I love the bubba, and We're all sad that he's aging so quick. Oh the bubba! it happened on the drive back home from the caves. He had been flicking it with his tounge all day! aawweee.

Here is another mural...in Colby's room. Lego Knights in battle! i love how his armor shines! just got to finish the rocker pirate dude!

more later, i have tooth faery duties.

loves

day to day....

Hola!

things have been going along here. Soccer starts this week and the boys are still loving Karate. We are anxiously awaiting Halloween! (it's my fave)... I'm not sure of our costumes yet, but i'm sure they will be cool!

I painted a new mural in James' room....i know it was supposed to be the Simpsons, but we decided that lego star wars was cooler!

here are a few pics of us at the park and in the backyard for some trampoline shennanighans!!!

loves

fall is here, hear the yell. Back to school, ring the bell....

school is going great and we are taking a break from traveling until November so we can get into a good routine. The boys started karate!!!! its adorable! here is the story about this pic. The Sensai had them on thier knees, eyes closed, for meditation and he was telling them to visualize an ice cream cone in thier hand. Colby immedietly smiles. Then he says to them, "visualize it begining to melt"...Colby frowns. all the while his eyes are closed. Then he says to them now visualize yourself eating the ice cream before it melts all over your hands and Colby starts licking the air!!! it was so hilarious! i wish i would of been filming at that moment. it was priceless and so precious.
here's Jo, watching his *brodders* with his best buddie, George.

here is a video

its 2 days a week and they are liking it so far.

I've been creating again....i painted a *curious george* mural in Jonah's room nd made a *Colby lego guy* in Colby's room. I am working on a *simpsons* mural for James.

I have also been scrapping . here is a card for our dear friends who are expecting!!!and i made some fun *halloween* cuties for our home!!! they are made from Sculpy clay! i *love* how they they came out! boooo*licious!

loves

the face of a kindergartener...

and 4th grader!

WOW. the first week of school just finished up and we all survived! Colby and James both like thier teachers and they are adjusting to the new class rules.

hope you all have a great first day!

loves

Adventures through Central and Eastern Europe

So we had the extreme pleasure of having the Grumps in house these past three weeks and Cyd and I (yes it's Jason posting), decided to take advantage of the free babysitting by going on a road trip. We flew into Frankfurt Hahn airport via Ryan air (it really is the Greyhound of the European skies), rented a car and headed east.

Our first stop was Rothenburg Ob Der Tauber (I'm sure I spelled that wrong, but hey they should speak english right!?) It's a great little mideaval (how do you spell that?) town that's been pretty much intact since the 30 years war in the 1600's. Our Gasthaus was in a beautiful little square, you can see some of the pictures.



Here's Cyd having a "sparkling beer", German beer with Sprite. I mean really, what's the point. I guess if it's the only way i can make her drink beer, so be it. The next shot is of the main fountain in the square. Apparently this was the only source of water for the folks in the town. I hope that's not the case now because there were a lot of pigeons. The next shot is of me at the town wall. I think at this point we were so tired from the first day's trip that we just walked around and tried to soak in what we could. There was a wine festival going on that night, and there were a lot of drunken Germans floating around. Drunk Germans, really gave us the "Real Experience" of Germany.

I would have to say that Rothenburg was probably one of the top five highlights of the trip. If we do get back to Germany it would be nice to go there again.

This is the square, immediately to the left was our guest house. It's like Disneyland isn't it? I kept expecting Snow White and Goofy to pop out of the alleys and start singing "It's a Small World".

Time for an espresso in the European style. They also had something called "snowballs" (of course it was in German). They were like fried doughnuts in a ball. The Germans really know how to fry things.

Here's big lova at the fountain. She wanted me to delete this, but hey, I write the blog this time I get to pick what photos are on.

Here's some picture of a "Christmas town". Cyd and I split up and while I was learning about the long and illustrious history of Rothenburg, Cyd was getting her "shop" on by going in some of the crafty stores. Christmas stuff is a big sell there in Germany, Cyd made quite a few purchases. I didn't get a picture, but my big find was the oldest kitchen in Germany that was in a nearby Abbey; I don't know, which is best, crafty stuff or history?

Here's a view down the road to our guest house, we were really lucky with the weather the whole trip. It got a little cold at the end, but the first few days were amazing.

Now onward, to the Czech Republic! Somehow it would sound so much more romantic to say that we headed into Czechoslovakia, but alas, those days are over. It's amazing that just a few years ago it wouldn't even have been possible. Besides the transition from uptight Germany to the more g0-go captialism of the Czech Republic, it's not really that big of a deal to cross the border. We weren't even stopped. We had to get some Czech Crown money vs. the Euro and the language was indecipherable, but otherwise smooth sailing!

Ah Prague. What a beautiful city, and in it's day a political powerhouse. Communism really dimmed it's lights, but for us tourists, really kept it as a snapshot of time. Lots of gothic architecture and buidings stuck in time from the 1700's. Some fun communist block buildings too just to mix it up. I was surprised at the amount of art nouveau buidlings. I guess nothing was torn down from the 50's until the Velvet revolution in the 90's. Good for them. I'm standing in the middle of Vene lausch square in Prague. It felt like a real city with real bums and pollution. So much for clean Europe right?

Part of Prague Castle. Seat of power for the Czech royalty for over 800 years, for what it's worth.

Astronomical clock in the main square. When it chimes, a little skeleton rings a bell and characters from the 1500's (the first animitronics, screw Disney) come out and do a jig. Tourists love it (and so did I of course).

Charles bridge. Layed down in the 1500's. Great statues. Beautiful and romantic at night.

Here's a beautiful art nouveah town hall in Prague. It's really something with the stained glass and great turn of the century decor. They still put on Mozart and Dvorak operas there. It's a wonderful piece out of time

Finally, a shot at a true Czech wonder of cuisine. The roasted pig leg (or knuckle as Cyd likes to call it). It's all the rage in traditional Czech pub cuisine. They give you a whole pig leg on a spike for around 10 bucks. It's actually really good, but suspiciously, the next day i had a really bad case of the Czech revenge (ala Montezumas revenge, I'll let you figure it out).

O.K., that's enough for now. I'll give you more Czech tomorrow, finish up our trip with a tour of Pilzen, Munich, Heidelberg, and our hillarious passport adventures next time along with a great post of Colby and James first days at school, a must see. Stay tuned!!!!