Final Days Haze....

I spent the month of June in sort of a drunken stupor. My stinky little June cocktail included my best friend moving away, Sam having to jet off to CA to find us a place to live, preparing for our own gargantuan move across the country, and the sudden need for an emergency tooth extraction.

I know. I'm gross. But the fact that my teeth are falling out of my head is not my fault. Bad enamel mixed with a crap previous dentist gets your new dentist to say fun things like, "Your hygiene is great, your enamel is terrible and you should sue your old dentist. That'll be 10 grand. Thanks." It was a real hoot!

The silver lining of it all is that when we played "two truths and a lie" at the Palmer family reunion and one of my truths was, "I just lost a tooth," nobody believed it. And I got to stand up in front of 30 people and open wide to a collective, "Ewwww!" It was very invigorating.

 That being said, that was the most I will ever write about dental work on this blog ever again. Pinky swear.

We did sort of try to check a few things off our NYC bucket list during our last few weeks, so that was good. But mostly my eyes were just halfway crossed from exhaustion and nitrous oxide the whole time. 

What exactly am I trying to say, you ask? Well, I'll tell you... June sucked.

I think.

I don't really remember.

Anyway, here are a couple of pictures of the moments in June that didn't suck:

Magnolia Bakery. Holy smokes. Their banana pudding is pure heaven... here's a picture of Sam enjoying it.

Know what else is pure heaven? This guy. And we ran in to him at a little playground in the West Village:

Don't pretend you don't know who he is. Ok, I'll tell you-it's Nigel Barker from America's Next Top Model!   Notice Sam's bulging bicep in the photo---I was pretending to take pictures of Sam while zooming in on Nigel like any weirdy would. And, no surprises here, he asked me if I would be on the next season of ANTM on the spot.

After I broke the news to Nigel that modeling is not in my future (and that I'm happily married and wouldn't be meeting him for dinner that night) we headed off to Highline Park.... or "The Highline," as people who are "in the know" call it. It's a park/walkway built atop an old railroad track. And it'll blow your mind. Here's a picture we took that doesn't show the whole railroad track concept at all but does show all of our family love and togetherness...

It was a most splendid day in NYC that ended with an impromptu dash into an international barbecue festival at Madison Square Park. Look at 'im, with his wee little mitt full o' ribs, happy as a clam.

Sam lives for barbecue. It's what all his dreams are made of. Which is why I dab a little bbq sauce behind each of my ears every night before bed.

In other news, The Turkey Sub started preschool on Wednesday. She was so excited and I was a little worried because, well, frankly, I don't think any establishment will ever hold a candle to that delectable little Mustard Seed School in Hoboken, but this new school in comin' up for a close second. ... And she's a tasty dish, indeed:

 And the little morsel in pink was wandering around the house the whole time she was gone yelling, "Weee-yah! Where ahhhh yoooou??" And then bursting into tears. Here she is this morning once we got home from dropping Leah off and she realized she didn't make it home with us...

Heartbreaking. Good thing she's so freaking cute.

Best sissies...

Alright, I can't figure out the formatting for the rest of these pictures so you get a little of this weird side-writing to wrap this up. I'm almost caught up, friends! Don't you worry! Only 17 posts left! Just kidding. Kind of. Stay tuned. Muah!!

Holy Moly...

Lemme paint a little picture for you all---A certain 21 month old is sitting at the dining room table, dipping a paintbrush into her half eaten yogurt and picasso-ing all over the table top. Every now and then she delicately maneuvers the brush up to her eyelids, applying her "makeup" with precision. And her darling 4 year old sister is slowly but surely lugging all of the bedding (foam mattresses and all) from upstairs and making a "nest" in the middle of the living room floor. But you know what these two little dears AREN'T doing? They aren't pretending their sweet mother is a bucking bronco, or pulling her hair, or screaming her name. Which is why she is sitting down to blog for the first time in 3 months. And ya know what else? I'm talking about ME. Bet you didn't see that one coming...

Oh, little blog! How I've missed you! I know what yer thinking---yer thinkin' I'm a lyin' cheatin' yellow bellied lilly livered no good sonoffabeach. And I don't blame you. Cause I have been cheatin'. Cheatin' with a little thing called LIFE. And I ain't sorry! But you knew I'd come back. I always come back. I can't promise I'll stay. I can't promise to love you, and only you, for the rest of my life. But I'm here now, ain't I? So stop yer belly-achin'!

Forgive me. That was Ol' Bayou Nessa. She makes an appearance whenever I get really upset. Or play poker. And you should see when Sam and I fight. Bone chilling.

Anyway, I have about a billion things to talk to you about. Currently my list of things to document goes as follows:

My birthday
Parents visit to NYC
Final days in the big apple
Sam's new job
Our cross-country move
Palmer Family reunion in NC
Trip to Utah
Collard family reunion in UT
Trip to Idaho
Muir Woods
Getting settled in California (knows how ta party)

I'm getting the shakes just thinking about it all. And I'm certain I'm forgetting several life-altering events, because our life has been altered in pretty much every way possible. Including Sam's gender.

Just kidding. But one thing that HAS changed is that I was only 26 when I wrote my last blog post. And now I'm 27. I'm no spring chicken. Momentous, I know. But my birthday festivities were, indeed, momentous. To kick things off we met some of our very favorites (the Bischoffs) up in Connecticut for a little o' this:

Have you ever tried to draw a heart with the "paint" application? Holy crap. That's definitely not something I could have done when I was only 26.

 Forrest Gump wave.

Eve and Skylee have a special relationship. It consists of Skylee enthusiastically trying to engage Eve in everything wondrous about the world. And Eve trying to use telekinesis to bind and gag her in her stroller.

Notice the sequence of events:

We deduced it's most likely caused by a severe case of "little curl syndrome." 

Oh, Eve! You curls won't be nappy and piffy forever! 

We ended the evening with cheesecake and swimming at our hotel. 

Literally one of my very favorite days in all my 27 years. 

When we got home, Sam surprised me with tickets to see "Phantom of the Opera" on broadway. IN THE 10th ROW! And I was ugly-face crying nearly the whole time. Cause I'm super stable and not dramatic at all. Sam was especially grateful that he was able to listen to my attempts to hit the notes at the end of "Angel of Music" for the duration of the ride home. It was really the least I could do.

The weekend after my birthday my parents came to visit. 

We went to see the beloved Hoboken waterfront:

And, of course, blew their minds with a little trip into the Big City.

My mom was most excited to see one of the Trump Towers. It even made her lurch her arm around in this strange sort of spastic flapping captured here.

And then we found out it wasn't even a Trump Tower. And she was ashamed.

Columbus Circle, by Central Park.

Two of my very favorite ladies.

"Hiking" in Central Park:

 The Turkey Sub was TRILLED to have grammy and poppa at school the morning she was "honored." Her teachers presented her with a medal and read a little speech they prepared about her, choosing one word to best describe her. It was, "expressive." No surprises there. But it was the cutest, most tender little presentation I've ever witnessed. More on that later. 

We wrapped up the visit with a little jaunt to see Lady Liberty in all her glory. And I may or may not have claimed, matter of factly, that the actual statue was only 40 feet tall, much to the shock of my parents. And then I backed it up with all sorts of made of facts that I thought I had read somewhere or seen somewhere in a documentary. And then when my dad finally fact checked me and revealed the statue to be 300 feet tall, and not 40, I was discredited and shamed in front of my whole family and everyone on the pier, and all of the sudden everything I'd told my parents up to that point was brought into question.  

But I don't regret it. And I'd do it again. Because when you're hosting, you've gotta look like you know a little something about something...  

Look at these cute people! And the statue behind them! Which is not nearly as big as you'd think it is... it's only 40 feet tall... 

Just looking at these pictures is giving me a great, big (apple) sized lump in my throat. See what I did there? With the Big and the Apple? Big Apple?

Sorry. 

It was a most excellent trip. 

Moving on! 

Just kidding. Now I will make an end to my writings because I've only knocked off 2 of my list of a gajillion things to tell you about and it's getting too bleep long. But it's good to be back. Real good. Luff you.