Our Trip to Idaho

So like any dedicated homeschooling family, as soon as the end of August approached and kids across the nation were going back to school, we hit the open road! 

Watch out Idaho... The TURNER's are on the move!

After driving ALL night, we (yes, I slept while my husband kept his eyes peeled with Pepsi and McDonald's Coffee) woke-up in Provo, Utah for breakfast.  

We played in the park for a bit to air out our britches, for we still had a long way to go!!

The view from the rear view mirror.  We were gettin' a little "punchie" by now.  Oh! and by the way... Maggie still refuses to go potty on the side of the road!  Oh the joys of looking for rest stops in the middle of nowhere!

At last!  We made it!!  Boise, Idaho!  This was the absolute, hands down, no brainer, sure as I am sitting here, COOLEST parks we have EVER seen!!  HUGE grassy fields, climbing wall, intricate play structure and the water works play area seen here...

...and here!  Uncle Jeff and Lucy.  Why is she naked you ask?  the short answer is, "She is a Turner!"  The longer and more honest answer is, her diaper got loaded down and then started to leak.  "It is wet all over that place, how did you know it was leaking?"   Well, you know that game that parents like to play "Poop or Chocolate?"  Yeah... I had already eaten all the chocolate....

But never fear!! Aunt Heidi was there to save the day and warm us up!  She is awesome!

Adam using the pulley to hoist Will to the rafters!

Uncle Jeff and Bailey doing the hoisting and Maggie being hoisted!

Bailey can do it herself!!!

The guys (Ryan, will and Uncle Jeff) doing guy stuff I am sure.

Bailey and Adam

Will and Maggie playing with the sheet of bubbles!

Blowing bubbles with daddy.

Daddy, Maggie and Ryan

The gang!

Lucy. Asleep.

Maggie will be an engineer when she grows up!  I am sure of it, she LOVES to build with blocks!  Uncle Jeff loves to play with blocks too!

Whooooo's that?!

So after a few AWESOME days with my two cousins (Ryan and Adam), my two fantastic uncles (Justin and Jeff) and my lovely Aunt Heidi, we said goodbye to Boise and began our trek north to Bonner's Ferry.

Our goal for this trip was to meander and enjoy our time as a family.  We stopped whenever we felt like it and put our tootsies in as many rivers, creeks and streams as we could find!  Took awhile to get to our destination, we found a bunch!

Will and Dad.

They did it!

Huckleberry Pickin' hands!!!

Gorilla's in the Mist... Oh wait!  It's Maggie!

I was hard to build up any good amount of the tiny little berries, with tiny little Turner's munching on them faster than we could pick them!!

Mags.

Chopping wood!  A time honored tradition!  

I could only watch through the camera lens.  I was a bit freaked out!!  I think we escaped with only a minor wound, from missing the wood and hitting a shinbone.

Yes.  This really freaked me out.  one major mistake and I don't get grandkids from this guy!

After about a week in Bonner's we drove south again to Boise and stayed a couple more days!

BACKGROUND INFO:  When I (Molly) was in 5th grade I had to do a report on an endangered specie.  I chose the Peregrine Falcon.  Back the my Uncle Jeff was in Ft. Collins, Colo, but as a National Park Ranger, he was always my go to guy for projects such as these!  Trying to make this long story short...   He called The Peregrine Fund, located in Boise, Idaho,  to have all sorts of information mailed to me!!  I think I got an A+, by the way!  Anyways, fast forward many years... Jeff  now lives in Boise, the Peregrines have been successfully REMOVED from the endangered specie list (much, I am sure, because of my 5th grade report!), and we got to visit the sanctuary, now called The World Center for Birds of Prey!!

On the day we visited, it happened to be Turkey Vulture Day!!  The kids got to help paint a portrait of a Turkey Vulture, that will be hung in the museum!

This is Lucy, the resident Turkey Vulture!

Almost home, but we need food!!  McD's it is!

Last leg.... we can do it!

While on our trip we went in something like, 5 different rivers, including the Boise River, which runs through the middle of Boise.  We actually rafted down it!!  So fun!  The best was when I took the life vest off of Lucy for a bit while we stopped for lunch (I know silly!), then tried to put it back on with her writhing and screaming!  Uncle Jeff concluded that he would rather pay the "No Life Vest" fine than the "Disturbing the Peace" fine!  We all concurred and she rode the rest of the way sans vest, but very happy!

We did soooo much stuff!  Hiked a bit of the Oregon Trail (just behind Jeff's house), celebrated my Uncle Justin's 40th birthday, swam in the YMCA's indoor pool with a HUGE slide, went to a Nature Preserve, ate lots of yummy food, saw tons of deer, swam in Deep Creek and more!  We had so much fun!

Constantly Playing Catch-up

Our trip to Arrowhead.  We had a blast just being silly Turners!!  While our computer was down, Mommy Brain set in and I can't remember a ton from that trip....  We rowed a boat on a lake, ate yummy pizza, watched the sunset and can really understand the lyrics, "Purple mountain majesty!"

Tried making glow in the dark bubbles... didn't work so great.

Will and Lu.  They have such a great bond already!

 The week we got home from Arrowhead, Elena, our cousin had her first dance recital!  She did so great!!  Notice Maggie's butterfly stitches???  Yup!  Souvenir from Arrowhead.  She cracked her skull on the coffee table while Nate was packing the car for us to go home.  Rad.  Just Rad.  And isn't my sister-in-law beautiful?  Love her so very much!

 Thanks to Uncle Jeff, we have a membership to the San Diego Children's Discovery Museum!

 Dino-Man!

 Will to the rescue!  

Not sure at all who the little boy is behind him, holding his arms... Random and bit bit scary!

 Happy Lucy at the Museum!

 Our tomato garden this summer at Oma's.  We harvested enough tomatoes to make homemade tomato jelly!  Play your cards right and we will make some for Christmas!

The "Sweet 100's"  were Will's favorite.   

Girlies!

Louie!

Getting our ribs on at Phil's BBQ.  We had a rib-a-licious time!

This is how we play in the rain!  Swimmie-suits, followed by striping to nudie pudies on the patio, all topped by a warm bath!

 Speaking of nudie pudies....  This is probably a good place to END for the night!  Haha!

Love you all!  Glad to be back writing and sharing!  Smile today!  We live in a great nation and have so much to be thankful for!

2012 Dance Recital

***Started back in July!***

"Behind every dancer is an EXHAUSTED parent." -Unknown

Another recital is in the books....

4 dances,

3 pairs of dancing shoes,

2 tutus,

1 beautiful, long, glorious day!

But I must start at the beginning!  Friday was dress rehearsal AND beach day.  Recipe for disaster... almost.  Sand in tights and tutus... some.  Late checking in at rehearsal... A bit.   Stressed out mom, for virtually no reason... YES!  Calm, happy, tiny dancers... ALWAYS!

Then came Saturday morning!  Poor Maggie... two curling iron burns (self inflicted) and a smashed hand in the car door. ALL BEFORE WE EVEN GOT TO THE RECITAL VENUE!  To make matters worse, she kept saying, "I no go on stage anymore.  I just go to class!"  Oh yeah... and she fell asleep and had to be woken up once we parked!  Maggie was having a rough start to the day.  But as you can see from the photos below, she found her dancing groove!  And rose to the occasion! 

Bailey and Maggie, with Bailey's Beg Ballet Dance Class.  The girls held flowers like little flower girls and danced beautifully to Canon in D.  Bailey is in the front row, second from the left.

Gaggle of girls coloring.  Maggie is the all pink costume furthest left.  This picture makes my heart melt.  Little girls in all their finery, being little girls!  I just love it!

Little Dancing Clouds.  Maggie is the 2nd from the left.

Sharing snacks back stage! 

Not exactly sure what was more fun... dancing on stage or eating and sharing all the snacks the moms packed?!  After everyday dance they all ran to their bags to get more food!

Maggie only danced at the noon show, but since Bailey is in a big girl class she also danced at the 6pm show.  I volunteered backstage for the first performance, but we had to just check Bailey in and wait outside during the second show.  My mom heart broke.  Then it sank... Before we even got out of the parking lot the fire alarm sounded and my phone started ringing... it was the other mom helping backstage... an evacuation of the entire theater was commencing.  And I wasn't there...

But no worries.  Apparently Bailey is stronger and braver than I give her credit!  She (and the rest of the dancers) handled it like a star and the show went on!  By the way... it was just a false alarm.

Next RECITAL you ask?!  December 15th, 2021.  A Christmas Show.  Look for more info soon!

The Turner Summer To-Do List

So far we have compiled a list of 28 things we really want to do this summer.  Some things will come easy to us, others will be a challenge and then there are the items that will stretch our comfort a bunch.  This is an ever expanding list and we welcome your input and suggestions!!  Let us know if you want to join in any of our adventures!  The more the merrier!

1. Walk to the pool. Easy peasy pumpkin cheesy!  Done that already a bunch!
2. Go to a park. Open to interpretation!  Local or National park...!
3. Walk to 7-11. Don't forget the slurpees!!
4. Kinap Elena and Alex!  Don't worry!  It's not a felony when they are related to you!
5. Go to the BEACH... NOT ON A FRIDAY!!
6. Make ice cream and maybe homemade waffle cones!
7. Morning Swim Lessons.  The deal is, Nate will take the non-swimmers to the pool in the morning for some 1 on 1 instruction!
8. Dawn Patrol!!
9. All Day Craft Day!
10. Drive to Mt. Soledad
11. Rainbow Food Week
12. Visit March Air Force Base
13. GO Fishing
14. Go to a baseball game.
15. Host a lemonade stand for our neighbors!  Might include homemade treats for the doggies!
16. Play board games all day!
17. Get Jamba Juice
18. Watch a sunset, location to be discussed!
19. Go camping!
20. Go to Idaho and pick huckleberries
21. Swim in a lake
22. Horseback riding
23. Stargazing (perhaps in August when the meteor shower arrives?)
24. Visit an old folks home.  And no!  Oma's doesn't count!
25. Pick strawberries
26. Build a cardboard fort
27. Go on a moonlit hike!  Going July 3rd to Mt. Woodson to hike by the full moon light!
28. Go Bowling

So what are you doing this summer?!

Love you!

The Wrap Up.....

Overwhelm has now officially set in!  You see, I thought being wide awake at 3:47 AM due to our roaming sleeper, whom shall remain nameless, (starts Mmmm and ends with aggie...) wetting, not her bed, but MY bed, this morning was a good thing.  I sat down to the computer and thought to myself, "Self, how about posting on the family blog?  Lots has gone on and it should be easy to bang one, maybe even two posts out!"  Well then this Self, started to happily and excitedly (as only a peed on mother of 4 could do at 3:54 AM could be!) go through pictures that have been taken since the last post... well heck!  My last *REAL* post was back in February.... DO YOU KNOW HOW MUCH WE HAVE DONE SINCE THEN?????????????????????????  Entire people have been added to our family! Vacations have been had, adventures started and ended, TEETH have surfaced (and bitten!) and solid food has been raspberried, birthdays have been celebrated!  I am overwhelmed just thinking about trying to relay all this to you!  So I will start from my beginning... my first, and only Sweet Pea.  My Bailey.

We have enjoyed school.  She won the Spelling Bee for our Homeschool support group and got the opportunity to move onto the County Bee.  For over a month she practiced (even Will got in on the act.  He can spell W-I-L-L easily and sometimes B-I-L-L, as in Grandpa Bill, but I have to spot him the B!)... then the big day came!  June 7th!  And she was sick in bed (Oma's bed to be exact) with a 102+ degree temp, sore throat and headache.  Oh well!  At least WE know she is a great speller! Maybe next year.... We read Pollyanna out loud during the afternoons and have started playing "The Glad Game"!  Bailey got a Wal-Mart gift card for her birthday (From Great-Grandma T) and decided to buy the Disney version of the movie with it.  It has now become a family favorite!  Did you realize that thing is OVER 2 hours long?!!!  Now my mom is reading "Black Beauty" to her.  Next I think we will try "Heidi"!  I think my grandma even has her very old, loving worn copy that we can borrow... What a literature legacy!  Next fall we will begin American History, so the "Laura Ingalls Wilder" books are on our must read list too!  Speaking of the fall... William will be in Kindergarten next year.  We had toyed with the idea of not starting him this year, but he really wants his school picture taken!  So totally!  It makes total sense to start school JUST to get your picture taken, right?!  So as any good mom would do, I volunteered to be the "Picture Day Coordinator", thus ensuring we would be available that day!  Bailey is still dancing.  She is currently in Ballet, LOVES her teacher and is amazing.  Please just give me a couple of moments of some proud mommy time... Indulge me!  Her work ethic and determination astound me.  She has such an earnest heart.  Her attention to detail is like her father's!  One more class to go, before the big recital, and she is constantly rehearsing the little things!  They are dancing to Canon in D... she is breathtaking.  I will post pictures!  Next on her horizon is soccer.  Nate promised to coach if she would just try it!  I think they are leaning towards "The Flutterbys" for a name and Bailey is really hoping to be purple!  Nate is stoked (insert sheepish grin here!). 

The Boy... wow. He is all boy.  I even think he may be enough boy to qualify for TWO boys!  He told Bailey's BFF, Kimmy Iverson, (she is actually 21 and a Senior at The Master's College, but yes, she is Bailey's Best Friend) that his "heart is a workshop, He (God) is working ALL THE TIME!"  I love it.  Such truth.  But that is just a taste of the profound, yet often silly things that he says without even batting one of his SUPER long eyelashes!.  He is a crack-up!  Ask my mom and Oma for some of their favorite "Will-isms".  He is growing SO FAST!!!!  He is now in a booster seat for the car and the panties underwear he just got a month ago are hurting him.  He IS built like daddy!  Love it!  In the last month we have really tried to talk to him about helping daddy take care of "their girls".  He has really started embracing this concept!  And thank goodness, because Maggie was starting to win their brawls!  That could have been bad!  He even holds the door open for us and says, "You girls go first!  I am holding the door for you, just like they did back in the "olden" days!"  Here's to bringing back the "olden days" one little boy at a time!!  He has discovered "Star Wars".  It is still just a blip on the radar, but I expect that blip to continue to grow!  He wants a "Light SaVer" shaped birthday cake.  I told him I could do that!  But now the hard part is trying to make that shape cake, and not have it look... well... obscene!  I have until August to figure that out!  And speaking of his birthday, he thinks five is the perfect age to start Karate.  This could either be a VERY BAD idea or the best idea ever.  Stay tuned....

Maggie is... Maggie.  She has her own idea about how the world should be and NO ONE (I am afraid not even God Himself) can change her mind.  There are days (probably not today, since I have been up since 3:47 am due to her... well, you remember) that I just love that about her.  We can feel fairly certain she will not get lead astray.  Our job is to mold her beliefs for good.  Teach her to use her willfulness and ironclad convictions to do good in this world.  And to a 3 year old that looks like... saying YES! to the toilet, and if that is all she said yes to today, I would be a happy mom!  Mags is also dancing and will perform in the annual recital.  Her final rehearsal is today before going on stage for the first time next weekend!  Talk about cute!!!  Her strong willed tendencies have been a small stumbling block for... the teacher.  But Miss Andrea learned early on, that the pink hula hoop caused problems, aka, Maggie beat out a girl twice her size for it, so it hasn't been brought out again.  Much to our surprise, Maggie actually listens to her instructor and is very teachable!  She practices "pwee-ays" all the time!  She is loving dance and even has been known to follow along with Bailey's class on Wednesdays.  So cute.  She is fearfully and wonderfully made.  She is the biggest cuddle-bug we have more nights than not can be found in our bed cuddling with daddy!  Last night however she was cuddling with me!  Hence, being awake right now....  She has started negotiating things!  If we say "No" to her, she has started coming up with alternative solutions and at the end of her dissertation she cocks her head to one side, holds her arms out to her side, with her palms up and says, "How 'bout dat? Dat a good idea?!"  How can one resist dat?!

Lucy.  She is doing everything a beautiful, sweet, curious, growing baby should do!  She has her two front, bottom teeth and is now eating solid (pureed foods).  So far she has had sweet potatoes, butternut squash, green peas, carrots and applesauce.  One of my greatest joys of each of my kid's babyhoods is making their food.  She gives hugs, loves to have her people about her and is pure joy.  I just wish I could rock her to sleep....

In the last few months we have camped in the desert with friends, gone to Lake Arrowhead as a family, celebrated Bailey's {{gulp}} 7th birthday, Maggie's 3rd, enjoyed a new nephew/cousin, and oh yeah, we have now been married 9 years and been dating for 16 years!  Time sure does fly when you are having fun!  Speaking of fun.... It's beginning to wake up!  I must. get. coffee.

Birthday dinner at Red Robin. 
Wearing her Sleeping Beauty dress and tiara from our trip to Disneyland!

Mommy/Son Date "Knight" at Chick-Fil-a!

Making Deviled Eggs for Easter.  Will says "Debiled Eggs"  Don't correct him!  I like it!

And 3 minutes before this picture he was telling me how tired he was NOT!!

We love our 'fires!!

5 months... however she is now 7 months.  Imagine those cheeks now!!

6 months.  She LOVES her tongue!!!!

I think the face was due to "Pre-Bee" jitters!

Her only competition... She won!

Love you all!  Have a great week!  I will try to post some more recent pictures in the near future.  Until then, we will be enjoying lots of Summer Shinanigans!!!

School UPDATE...

For those of you who follow our schooling adventures, here is a bit of catch-up on that front....

We began the 2011-12 school year using the Rod & Staff curriculum.  Bailey seemed to really like doing her math workbook during kindergarten, so I made the assumption that she likes workbooks.  That made sense to me since workbooks fit me personality!  I like to see my progress, check things off a list, I am not a big craft person, etc.  When the box came it was HUGE and filled to the brim with textbooks and workbooks.  Whoa!!  I was excited! 

Things started OK, then we took lots of time off in November, December and January.  It was hard to start back to the grind in February.  Things had been getting shaky in October, but I thought it was just me what with all the hormones and anxiety.  But love was NOT in the air in February... Bailey cried and was refusing to do schoolwork.  Something she once loved, she now loathed.  What was wrong!!  Turns out, black and white workbooks make life dull and boring.  Too much rigor doesn't leave time for crafts and coloring.   So we exercised our right to change in the middle!  We went back to a proven curriculum in our family... My Father's World!  We have since boxed up all the R&S textbooks and unused workbooks and sent them back to Rod & Staff headquarters.  Please understand that Rod & Staff is truly a great program!  I am in no way saying otherwise.  IT JUST DID NOT WORK FOR BAILEY.  That's it, pure and simple.  I actually think, as a child, I would have loved it!!!!

So now we are back to My Father's World (she used it for kindergarten and Will will start it this Fall!).  We are doing science experiments, crafts, coloring, reading and lots of hands-on learning!  Best part is, Maggie and William tag along!  They love the stories and crafts too!  No one has cried a single day, no one has yelled about doing schoolwork, the eagerness has returned!  Phew!!

Making a clay pot for the scroll she made the day before.  Will decided he needed a dinosaur and Maggie... she wanted panckaes!

Nate and I believe in these early years it is so important to cultivate a TRUE LOVE of learning that will last for their entire life.  Our school is NOT only about reading, writing and arithmetic.  Find what you love, and figure out how to do it forever, so that it is enjoyable.  Isn't that what every adult is looking for in their employment?!  Why not start cultivating that mentality now?  I could go on and on about our school philosophy, but I will spare you that... for now!  Maybe one of these days I will get around to post that!!

Hope you are having a great day!

Love you!

Smile at someone today,

you never know who needs a little pick me up!