Shakin in our boots

After all the years of earthquake training in the Utah school system, years of practicing jumping under our desks and standing in door frames in preparation for the big one that's bound to hit someday, I had never experienced a real earthquake. Until today. Brian hadn't either. We'd both felt little tremblings and rumblings, but today we experienced a bonefide certifide quake. A 5.8 to be exact, with an epicenter a couple of hours south of us, and tremblings felt clear through New England. I must say, I'd be perfectly fine if we never "experienced" one again.

I was home on my computer, and my first thought: "WHAT is my upstairs neighbor doing?" But when the shaking got worse, and before long the whole apartment was shaking and shifting, my second thought: "Earthquake, or is DC getting bombed and I'm feeling it?" Either way, I was terrified. When things started falling off the walls and the shaking continued, my thoughts slowed down, and I had to work to not panic. That's when I guess the years of training kicked in. I headed for the pantry door frame, then quickly realized that getting squished by all of our canned corn and beans in the worse case scenario probably wasn't ideal, so I stumbled over the shifting floor to the bathroom door frame. Little did I know, an hour and a half north, Brian was huddled under his desk at work (image = priceless). The shaking felt like it lasted forever (I later heard a report saying up to two minutes). When it ended, I pow-wowed with our neighbors (I did manage to shakily throw on some clothes first, unlike one of my neighbors who was in her cute boy short undies and a t-shirt...I'm telling you...that's how scary the shaking was), stayed a bit at one of their apartments (she was babysitting 5 kids, and was a bit shaken up), and tried to call Brian and family. At first I thought I couldn't get my phone to work because my hands were shaking so bad...then I realized the lines were jammed. 4 hours later, they still are.

Quite the crazy and scary experience. I'd venture to say that between this, and the bear circling our tent last year, I've had my two most frightening experiences ever while living in good ole Virginia! But hey... I guess we've picked up a few more memories and stories to tell, eh? :)

All safe and sound here... and praying for no aftershocks. :) Oh...and Brian got off early, and I've finally stopped shaking so I suppose all is well! :)

I feel snazzy

I was so excited to see THIS yesterday, that I had to share! After a couple of years of designing wedding albums, and running a website, and renewing business licenses, for some reason this made it feel official. I'm a small business owner! (Who works at home in her pajamas, but never you mind that :)).

Woo woo for being featured on thebrideandgroom.com!

Mood Boosters

Well, there's good news and there's bad news. The good news is that I'm no longer ticked and that fall is right around the corner! The bad news is that I know fall is on its way because Tink has some new acorn dings. Yep. Acorns. In early August. Ha. At this point, you just have to laugh. I've found a good shop, and Bri assures me we'll have a garage soon. When that day comes, Tink will be going in for a full-blown pampering session and her bum injuries and accessorizing acorn dings will all be good as new. So on that note...

Back to the good news. The good mood magically appeared shortly after my last post. Or maybe it wasn't magic at all. Could've had something to do with this:






But if the stylin', GQ-esque toddler fashion wasn't what did it, I guess it could've been snuggling with a cutie-batootie boy:



Or maybe watching the two most adorable kids ever loving the gifts from Auntie Am and Uncle Bri Bri?





Or maybe I just get a kick out of seeing my 2 favorite little maniacs get that mischievous look in their eyes...




If it wasn't the monkeys, though, I guess it could've been the view from my bed at Bear Lake:



Yep, my summer trip to Utah was much needed and much, much, much enjoyed! Only thing that could've made it better: Brian being there. I think I maybe, kinda, sorta, might have found time to miss him a bit amidst all the camping, and playing and family fun. Maybe. Possibly. Ok...my dixie camping cup would probably say I definitely did:



I hated to have him absent on yet another Utah trip, but at least he had a good excuse. A long weekend out to South Carolina to visit his family and see our cute niece Sienna's baptism! He enjoyed himself immensely, and was thoroughly entertained by the three little Palmer Princesses... even though I don't have all his pictures to prove it.

(Hmmm... Alisha, Brian's sister in the back, isn't technically the third "little Palmer Princess" I was talking about... but since I'm working with the photos I have, we'll go with it. Ok Princess Alisha? :))

Morale of the story: I think we might be closely related to some of the cutest kids EVER. While this is slightly disturbing (I mean really...do you think it's fair that the bar is set that high? :) We are bound to disappoint someday...), it's mostly just loads and loads of mood boosting fun.

I usually don't blog ticked...

in fact, I honestly usually don't get ticked. Not really my thing. But today is SUCH an exception. Brian came in from work to tell me that my car has been hit AGAIN. And AGAIN no note. Apparently, that's the norm here. Hit someone's car, and hey...that's a-ok. Sometimes I have a problem with humans.

That means that in the 3 years we've been here, we've had 7 different incidents where we've had to have my car repaired...and guess how many were our fault. None. Zip. Zero. Zilch. That's 4 people hitting my backside. 2 freak episodes with acorns. And one nasty run in with vandalism.

Morale of the story: Don't move here. And if you do, bring a clunker.

Whew. Sorry. I suppose everyone needs to vent once in awhile. And I'm going to try to not even feel bad about it. We'll leave that to the people that hit my car. Ooops...wait. Nope. They don't either. :)

Every Weekend Should Be A Loooong Weekend.

Seriously. It would make for a much happier Amber and Bri Bri. :)

Brian was off Friday and Monday for the 4th, and I must admit that we partied. Flat out, no holding back, spoiled rotten PARTIED.

It started Friday with a trip to King's Dominion. Absolute BLAST, although, I will say that an amusement park at 29 is...exhausting. Not quite what I remember from my teenage days. Yes, by the end of the day we were motion sick, headachy, leg achy, hungry and trying to keep our eyes open... but it was so worth it. I think the best part of the experience was breaking out of our shells and riding some pretty intense coasters--those of you who know me well, know that I don't normally do coasters... let alone scary coasters. I just never have. So imagine my sense of triumph when I lived through The Volcano. Seriously...check out the link. So what if mid-ride I was yelling at Brian, "I swear, if this ride doesn't kill you, I'm going to!!!" We survived, and I'm happy to report no bodily harm has come to him. In fact, I think he got thanked for taking me out of my comfort zone. Brian has a video on his phone...I'll have to try to load it later.

We also rode the Anaconda (where we almost had our necks ripped right off), Flight of Fear (where I got so motion sick that for an hour after I paused at every trash can, but luckily never used one), and many others. Our streak on the coasters ended in the evening with a big wood coaster called Grizzly. We thought it would be mellow compared to what we'd done, but instead we got our brains scrambled. Poor Bri was messed up to the point of being done. :) ANYway...between the coasters and the killer water park (seriously...the Tornado...so fun)... what a great day.

Monday, we started the day at the pool. Had a little BBQ, and then headed to join hundreds of thousands on the National Mall for a Capitol Fourth.

We were on the west lawn of the Capitol Building, and the concert, featuring Josh Groban, Little Richard, Steve Martin and others was a ton of fun. The fireworks were pretty (although partially blocked by a big smoke cloud because of all the humidity), and I found myself telling Brian, "Ya know...one day in the not-so-distant future and we'll be watching this on TV saying, 'Can you believe we used to live THERE and go to THAT?'" Fun fun fun.

Now Brian is back to work, I'm back to designing books... and life is still good. Just not AS good. :)

Hope you all had a very Happy Fourth of July! Go America!!!