HOT HOT HOT - June

Ty - Tian & Trace scheming
Please can we stay outside and play!!!!!

Ty - or shall we say Arnold

Miss stylish!

Trace racing around the globe

Tian - fashionable in her pink goggles

Runnin' around the sprinkler globe!

Tian & Trace

Ty swingin' from the rope swing!

Trev & his helpers assembling my Father's Day gift!

Tian happy on the surface!

Tian - not so happy!

Tian - knows whats coming!

Trace - intent on driving that sub!

Trev contemplating the next dive! ( Really waiting for me to catch him )

Tian going in for a splash landing!

Tian & Grampy

Big bad Ty!

Tian swimming while Trace attacks with a radio controlled sub!

Ty at the kids table ( Ty, Trace, Tian, Caden, Gavin, Caleb )

Ty in the outfield......

Ty and Tian going to get concession food!

"Put me in coach, i'm ready to play today - Centerfield"

Trace playing a pick-up game of wiffleball at the ballpark between games!

Tian with wild blackberries

Trace picking berries - probably eatting them!

Weather has been extremely hot, humid and wet. Evening storms, humid hot days. Baseball is over, one would think our lives would slow down. It doesn't! We are STILL awaiting our travel approval information from China so we can go get our little boy. Keep your fingers crossed - the notice could come at any moment. We are all anxiously awaiting that information! We spent Father's Day in Omaha with my father. The weather was overcast and rainy most of the day. Before we left for home the sun broke out for an hour - so the kids swam in the pool.

This past week just seemed to melt by. It was tough to accomplish much due to the rain & heat. Tara had the cub scouts over to cook, canoe, fish and play games. All survived and seemed to have fun. It is wild black berry season - so we have been picking them like mad. Tara made an awesome pie - we all devoured it...

Grampy and Tessa gave the kids an inflatable globe sprinkler toy. We included several pictures from picking wild black berries, Ty's AllStar game, Father's Day pic's, and of the kids playing around getting wet.

Tom 6/27/10

But wait there's more.... Tom and the sand...

Picture doesn't do it justice, but it is the summer of black eyes. I would like to take credit, but Trev really ran into a trailer Saturday night playing tag. He has had a rough week - first the pull up bar fell while he was using it, then he was using an exercise band and it slipped and came back and slapped him in the face, then he fell out of the treehouse...I am thinking we should lock him in his room:o)

Meet Diablo II - Diablo I was quite tasty :o) Daisey visited the chicken coop and guess what happens when a chicken meets a Blue Heeler? Yup, it became a one legged chicken. I want a medal for de-feathering, dressing and frying it up :o) Move over Laura Ingalls Wilder! Did I mention Ty was so pleased to use his new BB gun to finish the poor thing off after his date with Daisey?

Hmmm, Tom is really against the picture thing....Sorry for the deluge of pictures, but I have to get caught up. Chickens, black eyes, what else did he forget, oh yeah - ballerina boy, sand box fun....



The past month has been wild, but fun. Lots of baseball, lots of rain, lots of vacuuming up sand from the sandbox. Who's idea was that anyway? What was I thinking?!?! Oh, just so it is chronicled for all time, I have to mention Tom's foray into being proactive. The sandbox sand is nearly all in the vaccum and our septic tank, so he took it upon himself to buy a few bags of play sand. I didn't even nag! First, I must mention Tom is a certified construction professional and has worked for a concrete contractor allbeit 20 years ago, but he does have experience! Needless to say, his bags of "Play Sand" were.... sanded concrete! Picture Trace's morning routine: a little breakfast, a little watching Mom exercise, Big wheel around the deck, some sand time, returns for second breakfast.... So he begins what he deems a perfectly wonderful day. One breakfast down, another coming and time for a little sand action.... Poor Trace with his little shovel hammering away at his "hard sand." I just ignored his complaints (I know poor little baby with the neglectful mom who says," I am sure it's fine. You just need to hit it with your shovel. IT's only wet. Go ride your bike and then your pancakes will be ready.") Then, Tom's face went white as he rushed passed me onto the deck....I think we won't make that mistake again. Anyway, I am looking at the fact that now there is even less sand able to make it into the house, but sad Tom's proactive moment was so short lived - at least it was entertaining!

Look he's famous....NOt sure if you can make it out, but the back of Ty's baseball teams shirts say" Turner Building and Consulting"


Ty warming up...



We never said she was a light weight

At first it was fun...( see above)

I have a feeling it will never be this clean again :o)

Don't know if Tom wrote baout our stupidity...we are raising 19 chickens...

Cute little chicken in the coop

Do you think it would be wrong to keep her in here? :o)

The treehouse finally begins..... so far only Trev has fallen out. For the record, I am NOT happy about how high it is. Tom assured me, " Kids have been building tree houses forever and very few of them die..." I appreciated that!

Isn't he precious?

Look what Tom bought for himelf for Father's day and his birthdy and Christmas and....

After much shame of having friend over for a warm - b-q ( the old grill only slightly warmed the food after an hour) Tom decided to go wild! I should have know it was bad when he walked in to the house and said,"Don't be mad, but..."

If your parents won't get you a sister ....well you have to work with what you've got :o)

Ty found a great big sphinx moth and now we know hwy she couldn't fly....lots of eggs and Ty returned them to a safe spot by the pond

almost stitches....Tian and Ty were play boxing and then it wasn't so pretend. Ty dodge the shot, but not the chair :o) Tian has proudly told everyone that she gave Ty a black eye though :o)

why go to a baseball game if you don't get to go to the conscession stand? That's Tian and Trace's motto :o)

City Museum

Sorry TJ. It is true; we went without you. Rest assured Tian on the way to the hotel that night sighed her big girlie, satisfied sigh and said in a dreamy voice," It is sad that TJ and Jinming are missing so much fun. When they get home, we will have to bring them to all the fun places we have been." It is nice to see that sweet , thoughtful side...

I still think this is the best museum ever and wish I had more pics to share, but we only brought in the camera after the....incident. This is City Museum in St Louis and we discovered it by accident, but it is incredible. It is an old shoe factory converted to interactive sculpture park/ art menagerie/musem/ aqautic center etc. We didn't even see all of it after 2 visits, but it is unbelieveable. Our favorite part is the caves...the location of the incident. THe entire section is dark and filled with concrete sculpted to look and feel like a real cave, with mystery tunnels, slides etc and water. Did I mention hidden tunnels and water? Well, Trace is with me and I encourage him to climb through into this smallish tunnel...little did I know at the end of it was a drop of with about 6 inches of water. He went in head first and every bit of him was wet. Luckily our clothes were still in the car as our hotel was about 2 hours south, but we had only brought one pair of shoes...He was a trooper and wore wet sneakers for the last hour rather than leave.

The main staircase and the colrs on the left are the bars to a 3 story slide . Yes we went multiple times. It was quite a work out
A view of the outside courtyard and the roof....we have never been on the roof, but are told it sports the overhanging bus, a ferris wheel and a water park...

Tian climbing into the caves The Swiss Family Robinson area - this is where we started and Tian and Trace stared at me with their little mouths hanging open that I would dare climb on the trees. It was awesome. It took about 3 minutes before they believed it was for real - a touch and climb on everything kind of place! The only rule is you must wear shoes :o)

This is right after Tian's sandal slipped through the bars and splashed into the pond below ( yes, there were fish in it too) In this area we are about 15 ft up in the air with only bars to climb on. We had to climb up to get to a metal tube and climb out a tree. This is where Tian lost it and I am sure when people heard my "pep talk" they were ready to help the poor helpless little Chinese girl with the drill sargent mom :o) Hey, she did lookup, squared her shoulders and made it the rest of the way :o)
the floors made we want to redo my bathroom.... and the kitchen and...

millions of shells

Tom escaping the whale

Ty's is in a tunnel that runs the length of the room

Trace in the tunnel

PArt of the sealife section - yup you can climb on everything

interactive sculptures?!?

Tian and Trace refused to climb up this - Tian told me she thought I wouldn't fit! I guess I need to exercise more...

a roller slide - it was a lot of fun until the lip at the bottom...

The outside section. My heart couldn't take going out with Tian and Trace, so Tom headed out with Ty and Trev. Trev even got Tom into the cockpit. It is a pretty scary climb

more outside