I believe... do you?

I too, am grateful that God allows tragedies and trials to occur in our lives... not because they are easy or because they are desired, but because they help us LOVE.



"Understanding grief and pain- that Christ suffered what we suffer- is one of the great privileges of mortality... it allows us to become more like HIM."

Let's try and forgive and LOVE more- that's Lindsay's deep thought of the day...

I'm good at math....

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Happy 4th of July Birthday Lindsay!

As you may know, Lindsay's birthday falls on July 4th.  Celebration, we had!  I asked her what she wanted for dinner and she suggested two of her favorite things from the kitchen of John: Seasoned potatoes and baked cauliflower (stay tuned for future posts regarding these delicious food items!).  Since we've been BBQing a lot, I thought we'd continue and do Grandma's marinated chicken.  YUM!  We had Mom and Dad Turner over, along with Tammy and my grandparents.

Since Lindsay works with cakes about four days a week, I thought she'd like to have something else other than cake for her birthday.  I knew she loved the red velvet cheesecake they have at the Cheesecake Factory so I thought perhaps I'd make a cheesecake for her.  Don't worry, we still managed to make it over to the Factory to get her a piece of the red velvet!  Anywho, I did a search on one of my very favorite blogs, Project Domestication, and found one of the delicious recipes she had tried...and it was DELICIOUS, mmmkkaayy!!!  If you don't believe me, feel free to ask her!  


Everyone had a delightful time and we thank our guests for celebrating with Lindsay!
Later that evening we went over to Hagan Park where the annual Rancho Cordova 4th of July celebration was being held.  It's a big deal here in R.C.!  The fireworks were amazing and we were impressed.  


BTW - Congratulations to our little city of Rancho Cordova for winning the "highly coveted All America City Award...a distinction of a lifetime"!  Pretty cool, eh?!

GOD BLESS AMERICA!!!

June Fun!

Jenny and the kids were in town a few weeks ago.  It was fantastic to see she and the kids.

Aren't we special?!

Landon and Kevin get a little silly when they are together.  

We had Landon spend the night one evening.  What a hoot that was!  

We played Candy Land, watched Cars and Batman: The Movie (1966), and decorated cupcakes!

Fun with Post-Its and one of those flippy thingies.

Fun with cupcakes!  What a nut!

We met Jenny at Leatherby's for some whipped cream ice cream.

Our dear friend Jessica (J2 of Sushi Peeps) got herself hitched on June 18th.  We felt honored to have been able to share that special day with her and Sheldon.

Garden Update!

I went to check on my little tomato poopsies just now and found that one of our cherry tomatoes has finally turned from green to orange!  YEAAA!!!!

Check out the abundance of tomatoes on this vine!  There are so many tomatoes on these plants that the plants are being heavily weighed down by the fruit.  I had to prop the plants up with a stick going across the center of the fencing.  Hopefully that will keep the tomatoes up off the dirt to prevent any disease.  There's so much more too!!

Here are the lemon cucumbers, one about ready to eat!  YUM!  While the Topsy Turvy hasn't treated the strawberries very well, it's been good to the cukes!

Mad as a Hatter!

Samantha turned 16 in May.  

She had a jammin party in Wonderland!

Here are a few of the highlights.

Clean cup.  Move down!


Here's little Kebs bustin' a move at Club Roberts:

Disneyland or BUST!

While we knew Lindsay had some time off between jobs, we couldn't quite figure out where to spend it.  We had gone back and forth with the ideas of Disneyland, camping, cruise, etc.  The cruise lost because I don't believe in old ships.  So camping it was and then we decided at the last minute that we'd leave for Disneyland the day after we got home from Lindsay's play date with the raccoons.  Don't worry, we had our laptop at the campground and was able to book our Anaheim hotel using Priceline just 48 hours prior to arriving in LA.  Holiday Inn for $45!  HOLLA!  It was really nice!  My only issue was that it definitely was NOT walking distance from the park.  it was on the outskirts of the Disneyland Resort area.  However, it had a very nice pool, free parking, and did I mention it was only $45 a night?

Off to "Disnleleland" we go! 

Here we are on Jumpin Jellyfish.  

It's like the Maliboomer but for sissies...and I'm a sissy when it comes to that stuff!

Mom Finch joined us for the day.  

It was really fun spending time with her.

Here we are on in a doom buggie...

...and the comedy tour known as the Jungle Cruith (wink)...

Watch out Mr. Toad, Lindsay's on a mission!

While Lindsay had had the opportunity to eat at the Blue Bayou in years gone by, I had not.  We made sure we had reservations this time.  Here is the inside of the Blue Bayou, home of the Monte Cristo sandwich, an interesting specimen.  

Our table overlooked the bayou filled with pirate ships full of noisy buccaneers...who happened to know the words to "Party in the USA"...AND down the shoot they go.

While over at California Adventure, I came across my very favorite toy ever, the new Lindsay doll from Toy Story 3.  She's super fun and it's the hottest thing out there!

Don't worry folks, she comes with Ken, I mean, John!  

Here we are on one of our Toy Story Mania excursions...

where Lindsay beat me every time!

If you've never seen the flag ceremony at Disneyland, it's pretty neat.

It was wonderful to meet up with other wildlife like Emmalee and her Jon for the evening at dinner in the Rainforest Cafe.  Let's do it again some time kids!

Olema Camping: Year One

While Lindsay had a small break between jobs back in May, we decided to go spend time in the "wilderness" over in Point Reyes, Olema Ranch Campground, where my family has been camping for bajillions of years.  It was really nice just to get away and spend a lot of time doing nothing.  

Costco had this SUPER cool camp stove...wait, did I say "stove?  I meant stove and OVEN!  Check this bad boy out - I was so stinkin' excited to try this thing out.  We'll consider it an addition to the food storage portion of the garage, you know, for when the world ends, which is why we needed to buy it. Right?  We made this really yummy and SUPER EASY chicken bake thingie from the back of the Stove Top box.  Here's the recipe.   If you ever get tired of wieners and beans while staying in the wilderness, then this is a great substitution...with this nifty camp stove, of course!  Our neighbors enjoyed it too, mkay!

Corn on the cob?  Fresh from the fire!

 

Here's my little wilderness goddess heating up her rib eye!

There's really a lot to do around Point Reyes.  Stinson Beach is a mere 20 minutes from the campground while Muir Woods is about 30 minutes.  SF is 45 minutes away.  Trails GALORE leading to the beach, mountains, etc, begin about 5 minutes away.  The little town of Point Reyes is super close and has cute little shops.  One thing that I hadn't done in probably 10 years was visit the Point Reyes lighthouse.  It's about a 45 minute drive on a windy little road out to the peninsula.  You drive through a few dairy farms where the cows roam on the street with you.  Here's one little friend that was holding up our drive...

Once you get to the lighthouse grounds, you walk about half a mile to get to the visitor's center...which is the beginning of a stairway consisting of 300 stairs!

We're blocking the stairs but you can see the lighthouse in the background.

Here is another view of the stairs from the bottom.  I remember climbing these things as kids and loving it, thinking that was the coolest thing ever!

Here's a closeup of the lighthouse and a peek at the inside.

We walked one of the trails beginning at the Bear Valley Visitor's Center which lead us to a cliff on the ocean.  Fantastic!  The trails were beautiful and green.  It was about a seven mile round trip walk/hike.  Here are some pictures of the journey, including one of a us in a tree poking our heads through a cute little heart shaped hole.

Aunt Tammy joined us for a few days.  She and I got in a game of Phase 10 while Lindsay tested her mad fire building skills. I was VERY impressed! 

Overall, a very fun camping trip!  

Be sure to ask Lindsay about the raccoons...