Here is part II for those who got through part I and were willing to see more.  This part has to do with the Fryar family summer.  Here we go........

                                        McKay broke her arm at the very first of the summer swinging on our clothesline. She was a trooper and didn't let it ruin her summer break. She went swimming several times by putting a plastic bread sack over her cast and keeping her arm above her head the whole time!

this is the girl party apparently, when we went down to Abbie's wedding. Umm, mom, where did you go? did we say "no mom's allowed?"

                                             trips to bear lake and Jenny's lake.

                                                        Jess boy's 10th birthday!

                                                     Grandma, Karen, and the Dalling crew came
                                                to celebrate with us.

   

Nora turns 2! our good friends from st. George were

visiting with us that week also.

                                     Here is where things got a bit crazy. Our good neighbors left for two weeks right in the middle of a healthy garden harvest and left us to care for the garden! We had beans, cucumbers, and raspberries coming out our ears! Maddie and Jess were also taking care of their animals and flowers, and another neighbors animals. Each day we were also going to our neighbors pasture to work with M and J's lambs because the fair was coming up, and Maddie's lamb refused to move a muscle! We worked, and worked and worked! Nora's picture sums up how we were all feeling.

                                 A man came and sheared the lambs for us -- i thought it was kind of fun to see.

                        a week or two before everything went crazy we decided to remodel our bathroom. Then we got so busy we couldn't get back to the remodel! It looked like this for some time.

                          Poor Kris brought Kenna to BYUI to go to EFY. Little did she know what
                             she was getting herself into.  She and Mandy helped me make bread and butter pickles with that ear load of cucumbers!

           Then the fair began!  We weighed the lambs, made posters, washed the lambs, mucked out stalls, showed the lambs, showed the lambs, sold the lambs, etc!!

                                  Maddie, Cache (our neighbor), and Jess in action!

                                        Jesse's lamb got 1st place in quality for it's weight division.

                                       Maddie's got second in quality.

                                                everyone wanted to be in their cowgirl attire.

                                                   Nora was lucky to be "attired" at all. She literally rolled in
                                            the poop infested dirt floor for about an hour. she had a great time. :)

                                        We got done with the fair and decided to go to the apple orchard to pick apples with the kids. there wasn't a lot to choose from, and the kids picked up all kinds of gems, but over all I would say.......no, I wouldn't.......that trip was kind of a flop.:)

                              But wow!  What a great summer!

                                     Let the school year begin!

                                           It is hard to say good bye to their best play mates.
Now, I know I will get some saucy comments on the amount of pictures I just posted, but I was just thinking how much I wanted to "see" all my family and know what was going on with everyone, so I just let you know pretty much everything that was going on with us! Sorry in advance. That's a little too much of the Fryar's, I know. :)  love you all!  Katie Jo

Well, I have access to Ben's laptop, which is what I have needed in order to post some pictures! So, let me post pics, and then it will remind me of what I want to write about! Caution: this may be a long-y. :)  actually, I may do this in two parts. Part I: Lagoon.

   We didn't take nearly enough pictures! Where is the rest of the trip you ask? Don't ask. I must have fallen asleep on the job. Darn me.

Dear Family and Friends,

I am taking a chance again.  I was excited last week to hear from several of you, but decided I would post on the blog again and hope that you will do the same.

This past week, I have learned more about the people in our zone.  We have several Sr. sisters, and each morning, I choose one to sit by at our devotional, and try to learn a little about them.

Sister Nave comes about 5:30 every morning and works with the light of the computer until they turn the lights on about 6:00.  She is quite hunched over, uses a walker, has served 6 missions and was a single Mom and supported her family by being a bush pilot in Alaska!

Elder Broadbent is one of our young Elders.  Remember that our young Elders all have a disability of some kind, whether it is ADD or Autism or whatever.  He gave the spiritual thought one morning and told about how the wards continued to grow over in Evanston, Wyoming.  He was nervous, as a deacon, to pass the Sacrament, because they had kind of a difficult way of doing that.  He went outside and prayed and asked the Lord for help, and said he keeps doing that here on this mission.  He is so humble and sweet and loves to lead the singing and do whatever he is asked to do.

Sister Ruston, from Texas, is a convert to the church.  She lived with her husband who she met in Norway.  He never joined the church and it became a wedge between them, until they finally divorced after 35 years.  She is so grateful to have raised her 4 children in the church.  Three of them are raising their families in the gospel and one is here in Salt Lake, living with a girl.  They are so happy to have her here.  She signed up for two years and doesn't quite know where she'll be after her mission.  Minnesota is where she raised her family, and that is too cold for her and southern Texas is too hot.  She is so grateful to be here; she never thought she would have the money to come.  It took her three years to get here.  She is working on the "Norway Project" with Sister Oeneson.

Sister Onenson (?) is from Norway.  After her husband died, she served a mission in England and worked in the Temple and prayed to know where to go and what to do.  The spirit told her to go to the computer.  She really knew nothing about the computer, but went and looked up this mission, told the Temple Pres. and her stake pres. she was coming to Temple Square to serve a mission.  She served for 5 years, and now comes as a volunteer to head up the "Norway Project."  She has to fly back to Norway every three months to keep her Visa, which is anywhere from a 17- 20 hour flight, and she is 79 years old!  She says she is staying until the project is done, which will take several years.  She lives with her daughter in Draper.

It is a privilege to serve with such wonderful, dedicated people.  After I hear those stories, I am humbled, and I try harder not to murmer.

We went to the Tabernacle Choir Rehearsal Thurs. night and got to see Uncle Var's Catherine and visit with her a little.  She loves the choir and her husband is in his 2nd year of Med  school at the Univ. of Utah.

I got to talk to Mandy and Jen this past week.  I had some nice, newsy e-mails from Lindsay and Jill.  I love learning about what's going on with your families, and maybe will share those next week.

We love you all, pray for you and today we fast for you as well.  Have a great week.  We look forward to hearing from you.  That's what keeps me going!

Mom/Grandma/Carolyn

Welcome, welcome Sabbath Morning, now we rest from every care!  (Well, at least until tomorrow.)

The past week has been better, although I think my trainer (who is so good, by the way) is amazed at my stupidity!  No, really she has been very patient with me and has "dumbed" things down where I can almost understand what I'm supposed to be doing.  I do have a better vision of how to use Family Search/Family Tree, and the church really is trying to make it user-friendly.  I even printed out a couple of sheets for ordinance work for a couple of  "lost" relatives, and had the cards printed at the Salt Lake Temple on Friday, where we went as a group of missionaries.  Clair and I were privileged to be the Witness Couple.

Yesterday, we met Amy and Michael and their friends at the Bountiful Temple.  We had another card printed for Whitney to use when their ward comes to do Baptisms for the dead this Tues.  This lady is a granddaughter of one of my great grandma's.  She was "illigitimate" and was raised by her Grandma and her step Grandpa, so that's who we're sealing her too!  I've decided those relatives of mine from England were not very moral!

Ben and Kennedy stopped to see us last Sunday evening on their way back from St. George, helping Ben's Mom move.  Thanks Fryars and Pedersens; it helps so much to see family, so everyone - COME!

Tomorrow we start more training in the HRDA Zone.  Our zone leader says that we are basically "glorified indexers."  From the general public who do the initial indexing to the arbitrators, who check the general public's work and make corrections if necessary, to us, who have the final say.  Clair forgot to mention that he (he says "we") are being called as Assistant Zone Leaders, and that when the Zone leaders go home in October, "We" will be the new Zone leaders.  They need a computer-engineer/smart person to help them figure things out.  That's Elder Davis, and I am along for the ride!

Shawn finished his classroom work this past week (hope it went well Shawny boy - we were praying for you!)  Have a good rest this week before you start rotations the week after.

I understand that the Dallings, Fryars and Klinglers up in Rexburg have all been one big sick happy family this past week!  So sorry - hope you are all doing better.

Congratulations on doing so well with your lambs at the fair Fryars!

Happy Birthday this month to Whitney, Lincoln, Troy and Eliza.  I know some of you have anniversaries, but I can't keep up with them, so Happy Anniversary to all of you!

Keep praying for us; we do for you.

Love to all - Mom/Grandma/Carolyn

Larson Boys

Dallin and Daniel's Mission President had the Elders film their meeting at the airport. Dallin had no idea...click on this youtube link.

One more in Philly!

We were excited to hear Daniel would be in the Philadelphia mission, but even more excited when the elders from our ward told us that he is in a another ward in our stake! Stake conference is next week so we are hopeful :) Maybe he'll go on splits with our elders since they are zone leaders and we will just feed our elders on that day. I am excited to hear about the brother reunion especially since Dallin didn't know he was coming. What a same world. Hopefully he gets to go to Brazil soon though, so he can practice Portuguese and be where he is called. Of course we are so excited for Clair and Carolyn. I hope things get easier. I know they will. It just takes time. Thanks for being such great examples to all of us.

So...just like some of you other Palmers, when Shawn is super sleepy, he can be so funny! The other night we were saying our prayers and here is a quote from his prayer..."Please bless President Monson, (short pause) Charles and the twelve apostles. Not sure who Charles is, but holy moly I couldn't stop laughing. He was hoping that I didn't hear it. I am sure glad I did. We need to write a book called the "sleepy Palmer classic quotes."  :)

This is Shawn's last week of his first week of PA school!!! Yah!!!! Well as long as he passes his tests this week, :) which he will because he is super smart and is going to make an excellent PA. He gets two weeks off and then starts his rotations the first week of September. He is really nervous but I am sure is going to learn a lot.

Kanyin and I are still doing our thing here at home. She is such a character. I love being her mom. Even though there are hard times, it is such a blessing I get to be home with her. She is starting to talk which is so fun, and the tantrums have come at full force. Poor girl fell in the bath tub and chipped a good chunk of her front tooth off. It look so bad. I feel soooo bad. Our apartment contract says we can't have anything in the bottom of the tub, well heck to that I am getting something this week cause it is so slippery.

We miss everyone so much. Remember we do have a nice comfy air mattress if you ever have a desire to visit the east coast. :)
Torrey

Fourth of July at Independence Hall.  

This is a very regular face around here

It's a 10 minute walk to Shawn's school. Kanyin LOVES going to his school for a visit.

On Chick-fa-la day you get free meals if you dress up like a cow

Shawn brought me to a Taylor Swift concert. It was pretty crazy but so fun. 

Kanyin really wanted to join the study group

Shawn's school

I have a lot of pics on our family blog.
thepalmerpair.blogspot.com

Hello from Salt Lake!

We are getting settled in!  Our apartment is really quite nice.  It is right next to the Kimball Apartments and is an older apartment building, which the church leases for it's missionaries.  We have a floor full of young Temple Square Sister missionaries right below us.  Our apartment is on the top (3rd floor) and is at the back of the building.  It is the biggest one on this floor and overlooks a park, which is actually a cemetery where Heber C. Kimball and some of his wives and family and Newel K. Whitney and some of his family are buried.  There is a beautiful, perfect tree right out our east living room window with a large monument honoring those who are buried there.  I want to learn more about Heber C. Kimball and suggest you do the same so that when you come to visit us, you will know all about him.  The flowers in that cemetery, as well as all around Temple Square, the Conference Center and the Plaza are gorgeous.  This really must be what Heaven is like - landscaping-wise.

On Friday, we had a luncheon in the Joseph Smith Memorial Building for all the new missionaries.  There were about 30 of us.  This mission has around 1100 missionaries, most of which are church service missionaries.  There are about 350 full time.  I ate all my food at that luncheon like my Dad taught me, and I was miserable the rest of the day.  We met all the trainers and did a little one on one computer work with them.  We each have our own trainer and will start training tomorrow.

Last night we went to a concert in the Assembly Hall.  Sister Linda Margetts (tabernacle choir organist) and her husband and children and grandchildren (who played violins, cellos and the bass fiddle) presented the program.  They were amazing.  Those kids were so good.  Livvy and Maddie, I thought of you and wished you could have been here to see and hear them.  It would have inspired you to keep on practicing and performing!

This morning, we walked across the street to the Conference Center for Music and the Spoken Word.  It was just beautiful.  They introduced the family organization of Joseph and Lucy Mack Smith, who must be here for a reunion.  Some are members of the church; many are not.  They also introduced the family of Dr. Nathan Smith (no relation to Joseph), who performed the surgery on Joseph's leg when he was 7 years old.  That surgery was 100 years ahead of it's time, and if not for that inspired Dr., none of us would be here to enjoy Temple Square and all that transpires here.  I think I might have seen Uncle Var's granddaughter, Catherine, who sings in the choir, but I'm not sure.

We had our meetings in the J.S Building at 1:00 p.m.  They were nice, but I sure miss the different ages.  I miss the wiggly kids and the babies crying, and the young deacons and priests to administer the Sacrament.  I keep looking at all these old people and wonder how I got here?

For those of you who don't know, Daniel just opened his call to the states while waiting for his Visa to Brazil.  Guess where?  PHILADELPHIA!  That's right - Dallin's mission!  I can't wait to here how that all goes!

I also got a call from Shawn and Torrey (who also may get to see Daniel).  They are coming for Christmas, and have a rotation in St. George for the month of January!  So it's party time for us all!

Well, I've rambled on long enough.  Josie and Jeff, I loved your blog entries and pictures and recommend them to all of you.  I even left a comment. (And people think I don't know how to use a computer - hah!)
I'll let you all know how it goes as I start my new adventure tomorrow.

I'd sure like to hear what's going on in your lives.

Love you - Mom/Grandma/Carolyn