...and there was a break in the rain

Yesterday it stopped raining for a little bit after dinner and the kids were dying to show us some of their new moves on their skateboards. You'll see they definately are "special"...my kids that is.

Redden's getting pretty darn good on his skateboard. Each day he pulls out a new "trick"

This video cracks me up. Austin is going to compete in the Louge in the 2022 Olympics. Practice makes perfect right?

Who knows...maybe they'll even pick up skydiving.

It started to rain and 4 minutes later, this is what it looked like outside. Hail, Hail, and more hail...Good ole' Portland.

Our Sunday Afternoon

Sunday afternoon Rich and I had promised the kids we'd ride over to the highschool and let the kids take their bikes and scooters and skateboards etc and play around for a while after church. Austin refused to take his bike because he "doesn't like it". We figured out why. His training wheels were a little high so he wobbled quite a bit back and forth. I also this week found out he wont jump on our friends trampoline because he says it's gonna tip over. It's on the slightest hill ever!! Rich fixed up his bike and off he went never looking back.

Listen closely...as he's passing and I tell him to wave...you can hear him say "I can't right now" in the mousiest voice he has.

The next video is pretty good actually. You get to see Redden attempt riding his bike with no hands for the first time and watch Austin struggling to take off his helmet because he refuses to un-snap it.

The last clip here is of my sexy husband off in the distance showing the kids how to skate down a steep hill. I'm pretty sure he started with hold on tight and close your eyes...he's such a natural.

The Haps!

Here are some random things that we've done over the last few weeks that I haven't gotten on here. Enjoy.

This is actually a video of the kids doing some "special" dance moves. It was after all their girl cousins had been here. Do you think they rubbed off on them???



The next clip is of my kids having a talent show with their friend Andie (who's actually more like a sibling but whatever). They came up with this all by themselves and I thought it was adorable. As you can see it looks as if Redden has watched 1 too many of my brothers epic pong shot videos. And I mean really...were did Austin pick up such a talent? Who knew he was capable of these things?

Road Name or Landmarks

Now that the anger is gone I figured I might be able to post about my Thursday from you know where.

Yesterday was take your kid to work day...and the kids were out of school for teacher prep. Rich and I decided it would be fun to take him lunch that day to a job that I've been wanting to see and so the kids can go to his work for a bit. Redden, Austin and myself pack up a really fun lunch. We all had smiley faces on and were ready to go at 11:15. I was told that the drive would take me approximately 45 minutes. As most of you know, I rid of my cell phone about 2 years ago to save money and to prove that you can live without one. So needless to say I began my cell-phoneless journey without a cell phone. I remembered Rich had said that his boss tried to call the day before but he didn't get the call because he gets terrible service in the mountains of the house where he is working. So...at 11:15 I called him and left a message that said "I am just leaving the house and it's 11:15, if I'm not there by 12:15 come looking for me. Bye". I'm sure alot of you can see where this is headed.

You see...the problem begins...I was told to turn left at the flashing light onto Currin. When I arrive at a flashing signal the road sign reads Wildcat Mtn Road not Currin . I take it thinking that maybe he just got the street name wrong. I follow that for approximately 15 miles and get really nervous with my surroundings...Can you say backwoods scary? I turned around and decided that perhaps there was another flashing signal down further with the street name Currin. I make it back to Eagle creek and continue on to the next intersection which I might add has NO flashing signal but the name of the street is Currin. So at this point... do I follow the landmark directions (flashing light) or the name of the street direction (Currin)? You choose it should be fun!! I decided to go down currin. After following Currin for what seemed an eternity, we'll just say I went farther than I had on the previous road. I came upon a "funny intersection" and took a left as instructed. I ran into another freeway?!!? I would have stopped to ask for directions but couldn't find anyone who looked safe enough to ask. I finally decide to turn around and begin the journey back perhaps looking for a different intersection I could've missed. I find a really old "safe" looking man getting his mail and stop to ask him if he knows where Currin and a firestation meet. He proceeds to tell me to go into Estacada 10 more miles further down Eagle Creek Rd. I go all the way back to the flashing light problem and follow the road into Estacada. I end up stopping at a coffee shop to ask where the firestation was. I was guided to the firestation and walked in and said I was lost and they laughed and said "well you're safe now, you're at the firestation."
For the last 1 1/2 hours my kids have decided that they don't want to see their dad for lunch, that they both need to pee, and crying because they're scared and don't want to get lost forever!!! Boy was that firestation refreshing. One man walked my kids through a tour of the station, put them in the fire trucks, gave them badge stickers and Estacada Tatoos. While that was going on, another gentleman has layed out the county maps and my husbands instructions on where he is. Hahaha aren't I pathetic. The gentleman was so sweet but could not figure out where I was supposed to be going. The man giving my kids a tour overheard the street name Pagh and firestation and said "Pagh...There's a Pagh road across the street from our Sandy station 25 miles from here!!!!! Can you believe that? How in the world did I end up in the depths of Oregon and have no clue? 2 1/2 hours later I arrived at Rich's job site to spend the next 30 minutes with him. How lovely was this day?! The ride home seemed to take us about 20 minutes. It flew by. Moral of this story: Even if I had a cell phone...he wouldn't have answered so when you're lost...you're lost.

Who got rid of slavery anyway??

Okay so maybe that wasn't the nicest title for my post, but I do have to say that I'm lovin life right now. I love when my kids get into the groove of having chores. Redden said to me tonight...why don't you just sit down and take a break while we do the dishes. I'm pretty sure that kids don't says that, or EVER say that, but he's my little angel. My kids have been doing these chores for a while, but for some reason tonight was amazing. Perhaps it was because they just did it without complaining...I'm not sure. I must say that I have underestimated the ability of my children. Never in a million years would I have thought that my 4 year old was capable of rinsing the dinner dishes without making a huge mess in my kitchen (which I don't have the patience for) but wow they surprise me everyday with things that they are interested in doing. The only thing I learned tonight...is that Austin is not allowed to use the spray wand...although he thought it was very funny when water sprayed the chicken (my little rooster next to my sink) I also can't stand when things get put away in the wrong spots. I've always assumed that if my children do it, that having things in the wrong place would be the price I would have to pay (I'll admit it hasn't been worth it to me.) I have since learned that if you teach them that everything has a spot and be willing to work through it with them a few times that they'll usually do it fabulously. So to sum up my evening, while I took a break the following things were magically done in the Turner household: Garbage cans and recycling bins brought into the garage, recycling taken out, dishwasher unloaded, dinner dishes rinsed and loaded into the dishwasher, waterbottles filled and put in the garage fridge and homework read to me after my break. What wonderful children I have...Thank heavens!!! Any way...here are some pictures and video clips of my little slaves at work.

Lincoln City Beach

I had the chance to go to Lincoln city this last weekend with the women from my LDS church Group. We all get to carpool to the beach, stay in a beautiful beach home, have dinner, eat snacks, go shopping, play games, and stay up way too late laughing very hard. I'm not sure how I'm making it through this week (because I haven't gotten a nap) but I went to bed friday night at 5:30 am Saturday morning. Crazy I know...I still feel young...does that count? We went shopping Friday night and Saturday and I actually found a bunch of new clothes to prep me for my girls weekend in June!! Here are some pictures from the weekend. I'm not in any, but these are all the people that made it such an enjoyable time. Thank you to my dear husband who let me escape for the weekend. I love you!

My friends Debbie & Cami My other "Lovely" friend Megan...Her hair got worse by the hour!

We call them...the vintage sister! They are so fun.
My friend J'Dean

To those of you who are not current bloggers

To those of you whom are not current bloggers (especially the award winning mother who let her son swallow a paper clip) and choose to leave a comment on a post...and there are alot of you! Please sign your name at the end of your comment so Rich, I and the kids can see who's visiting our site, otherwise it shows anonymous and we get to play the guessing game. Thank you! Management

So this is why kids aren't supposed to use treadmills!

Okay, I hope that for those of you who know me well, would know that I'm not usually a slacker parent, one who doesn't care or pay attention to what my kids are doing, and for sure know that I don't beat my children. Mary, I know you'll read this and get chills up your spine because I've too have seen some of those legal attorney pictures myself (she worked for a fitness place as a legal assistant to the attorney and saw many, many photos of some nasty injuries while exercising) and know that I should not ever let my child use a treadmill - but....but... I got the "park avenue eyes" (Mom that's for you).

Now that my apology to Mary is taken care of, we'll begin. Beavercreek Elementary is doing a program called Shape Up Oregon. The kids can cross off one segment of their trip across Oregon by exercising 30 minutes. You can cross off up to 3 segments a day. Those of you who know Redden know he's an over acheiver and would settle for nothing less than 3 segements a day. Anyway, the weather here has been absolutely horrible as far as rain and hail is concerned. He's been having a hard time getting outside to be able to cross of that last segment of the day. The day before yesterday it was raining so he couldn't play basketball, ride bikes or run around the yard playing soccer, so he asked if he could run circles in the loop of the house, so I let him :( Bad idea! Talk about kaos at dinner time. Yesterday he ran into the same problem and asked if he could get on the treadmill. In the past the treadmill has been absolutely 100% off limits to my children. Where things have been bad outside and because Redden had given me "puppy dog eyes"and promised to be careful, I decided to go ahead and lay out some rules of the treadmill. We wear socks and shoes, you are not allowed to go over 2 mph and no horsing around. He agreed. I watched for a few minutes and it looked as if everything was going good. 28 minutes into the 30 minute journey I hear a sad screaming/cry. I go into the bedroom to find that Austin said he had "saved" Redden who was pinned to the wall behind the treadmill. Come to find out Redden has taken off his shirt because he was hot. Either his legs turned into jello or he tripped. The belt pushed him to the back against the wall and trapped his legs and the treadmill continued to spin because I hadn't fastened the safety strap to him. So, it was spinning and burning his back as he was trying to move a million different ways to try to stand up but couldn't. Poor kid, refused to take a shower this morning, refused to put on a shirt, refused to put on a backpack, to ride the bus, or to play outside at recess. Needless to say I took him to school to discuss this and a few other items with his teacher and ended up volunteering the morning there.

Today we saw a break in the rain. Haleluja!!

The Aftermath...The picture does no justice.

It's really all rocket science!!

I've had a few of you ask how blogs are done or wonder how I have the time to spend my days doing this. No one would ever believe how easy it is until they try it. I put trying this off for months as my siblings whom I rarely see begged me to start one so they could see my kids grow up. My sister walked me through setting it up in about 20 minutes. After that it was simple. Everything is predone for you...you just pick the background that you like and hit save, at which point you type in any information you want it to say. It lays it all out for you. For those of you who visited my website for the first time yesterday it was probably very overwhelming as there was approximately 1 month of information to read. If you narrow it down you'll see that I usually add some new information a few times a week. Each time I sit down it takes me about 10-15 minutes to type up my new post depending on how lengthy or interesting my topic for the day is. Just like checking my email except most of my communication is done over my blog now so I rarely do that. I love that my kids Grandparents outside the country for 2 years can watch videos of my children and see what they get for their birthdays. I love that my brother on a mission in Australia can get on the computer and see my kids and that I can see videos and pictures of him on his mission that I otherwise wouldn't ever get to see, I love that friends I haven't seen in 10 years have blogs and we can see each others families and how their doing. I don't keep a journal (I know I really should) so this is in an effort to preserve a personal family record. Something that people dont know about blogging is that there are tons of companies on the internet that will print out your blog in a hard bound book. That is my intention with creating this blog is to in some way shape or form preserve some family history. At the end of the year, I will print up a hard bound book of our families eventful moments - replacing my long lost love for scrapbooking. My motto this year is SIMPLIFY. Take out the things in your life that don't make you happy and spend your time with the people you love and those that build you up and make you happy...and forget about the rest. This blog in so many ways has helped me feel like I'm doing something that I've felt guilty about not doing for years...journaling, scrapbooking, organizing my photos, keeping in touch touch with friends and family and writing down and taking pictures of some of the most precious moments from my childrens lives. This has simplified my life so much. In an effort to simplify, my husband and I have built a garden to be self sufficient, I've have learned from others the benefit of preserving food (canning) which I have picked up on and do faithfullly every summer, I've learned to delegate in my 2 callings in the church that require so much of my time, I have dedicated my time to playing with the kids and teaching them some of lives most valuable lessons. I hope as I continue to keep up this blog that you'll enjoy watching our family grow.

My Hubby's 35th Birthday

I think all in all he had a great birthday. This year he was very undecided on what he wanted. This is a very strange thing for him to say. I must tell you that since I have known this handsome man...he has always had "a list". I would hear something like this..."If I could get new golf clubs I really wouldn't want anything else." He would get new golf clubs and I would hear things that he still wanted. We have crossed things off and for some reason it never fails that there is some mentally acruing list. It's always been amazing to me and I've wondered if something was wrong with me as I feel like I don't want alot very often. It was so weird to have to come up with a generic way to give him cash. The kids and I rolled up a bunch of money and things we love about him and stuffed them into 35 balloons and labeled them 1-35. He had to find 1 then 2.... you get the idea. It was fun to watch. The best part was this..."We need 14, okay pop it..."We love you because you take care of us" cool...k now ballon 15, oohh money...16." I do have to give him a little credit we were in a hurry to catch the movie, but I do think he was more excited to get his cash than he was to read about why we love him (which is actually good on my part in my opinion...it means I've done my job of letting him know how much we love and appreciate him). I didn't mind...that made my job very easy, it was just a very different experience for me. Rich came home from work and ran on the treadmill, had a requested dinner of steak, rosemary & Olive Oil crispy potato chunks and vegetables (those weren't requested but I have to fulfill my motherly duties of providing fruits and vegetables...after all I did make a vow to his mother 10 years ago). We ate dinner, opened presents and enjoyed a delicious piece of the famous red velvet birthday cake that my husband couldn't bear the thought of living without on his birthday. It must go on record that I made the frosting and the cake from scratch this year. The last few I've been getting off easy with buying the box of red velvet cake but it just doesn't taste the same as the scratch version. We later enjoyed a movie night together while we got a very patient babysitter to watch our kids. Kenny is a wonderful kid that my kids love to have over. He did put in a hard nights work of answering the phone. We're sorry we weren't home to take the calls but appreciate everyone who made an effort in calling to wish him a happy birthday. The movie you're about to see...I believe proves his age. Happy Birthday RICH

Children and their common sense?

Okay so, I know this video is sideways but it was too good not to blog about. I'm still getting used to my new camera and it obviously does not turn portrait for videos so...you get it like this. Austin was having a real hard time tonight getting ready for bed. As you can remember being a 4 1/2 year old comes with the burden of making a lot of life changing decisions. Please enjoy Austin in successfully making it through one of lives toughest choices...

Which underwear do I wear tonight?

About us

How did you meet your spouse? We liked each others roommates
Where did you go on your first date? We didn't really have a first a date. Our first night together was watching movies with a bunch of his roomies Christmas night.
How long have you been together? 1o years...and no I can't believe it.
Who eats more? Probably me unfortunately, but I do have to mention that my husband eats like a bird.
Who said I love you first? Me
Who is taller? Rich, but not by much
Who sings better? Me
Who is smarter? Rich
Who does the laundry? Me
Who does the dishes? Me again.
Who sleeps on the right side of the bed? Rich sleeps to my left
Who pays the bills? Me and Bill Pay
Who mows the lawn? Rich, unless he wont or doesn't feel like it, then I do.
Who cooks dinner? Who else? I'm not sure Rich would know where to find a pan.
Who drives when you are together? Rich
Who is more stubborn? Rich
Who is the first to admit when they’re wrong? Me
Whose parents do you see the most? Um...Probably both of our mothers.
Who kissed who first? Rich kissed me.
Who proposed? Rich, but techincally me
Who has more friends? Me
Who has more siblings? We both have 6
Who wears the pants in the family? This is the most beautiful thing in our marriage, we each have a leg. Neither of us really make all the shots on our own. We very much work together.

WACKADOO ZOO

Austin happy to be at the program


Me at the Music Program

The beginning of the program and a fairly alert Redden

Tonight was the BeaverCreek Elementary School Spring Music Program called Wackadoo Zoo. Involving the 1st and 2nd graders. I'm not sure why they did this as I think it's totally crazy, but they had his hour long program begin at his bedtime. I have both my kids in bed by 7:30. Half the time they were supposed to be singing...Redden was standing up there yawning. Redden is hilarious and I think totally suffers from his Dad's side of the family social anxiety problems. At dinner he started to cry and said that his stomach hurt and he's now forgotten his memorized part and that he's sure he shouldn't attend tonights performance. We were just getting ready to pray for dinner, so I made sure to pray for him to remember his part and to have fun and feel comforted. I think that made all the difference in the world. Even just to hear the words spoken because he cheered right up. Out of all the 1st and 2nd graders Redden was 1 of 15 kids chosen to memorize and perform a part. It was very cute and he did a really good job as you'll be able to hear. When we were finished he said "can we go get ice cream because I did such a great job?" He did do an excellent job and we love him and are proud of him. Enjoy.