Our Trip to Colorado

Lindsay and Macy

Macy and Uncle Mejo

Macy on her special day.

Braxton, Lindsay, and Darian
Denver, CO LDS Temple

Braxton, Grayson, Darian, & Macy

"I said Look.  At.  Me."

Lindsay and John

Macy & Lindsay

Alowizzle showing off her
hoop skills at the ward BBQ

Our BFF Alyssa and Heath adopted a beautiful baby girl, Macy, back in January.  The adoption was finalized in July which meant they could proceed in 'sealing' Macy to her new parents for time and all eternity.  In our faith, being 'sealed', if not already born into the covenant, allows us to be with our spouses and families not just for time, but for all eternity.  (See www.mormon.org.)  Being able to share this experience was absolutely A-M-A-ZING and we are so grateful to have been able to be there for it.  We really enjoyed ourselves spending time with the Morbys, their gaggle of munchkins, Qdoba and Hobby Lobby.  We were able to do a session in the temple which was neat.  We also got to see Braxton play in her first volleyball game of the season which was exciting!  Loved it all!  Love them!  

We'd also like to thank Southwest for providing us a direct flight to and from Denver.  Much appreciated!  :-)

We also had the opportunity to meet up with Aunt Mary and Uncle Rich, had a great night of dinner, games and catching up.  Thanks you two for the fun times!

A Politically Correct Garden

For those of you who have been following garden tales since June, I've got another update for you!  We present you with the yield of our garden!  Granted, in the end it was mostly tomatoes but I'm very okay with that.  I thought it a big deal we were actually able to grow the tomatoes completely organically and not have a single worm or bug beating us to our delicious fruit!  This is a huge accomplishment! 

In Topsy Turvy #2 we had lemon cucumbers and strawberries.

The strawberries were worthless but I think that's due to the plant variety purchased.

"Take two aspirin, a fish head, and some crushed eggshells...

...call me in 60-90 days!"

No discrimination was involved when it came to our tomatoes!  We had them in all shapes and sizes and we had LOTS!  

From top left:  Pineapple, Big Beef, Green Grape and Cherry

From Top left:  Black Russian Heirloom, Pineapple,

Green Grape, Cherry and Big Beef

It has all been delicious.  I'm anxious to plant a variety of other items.  

Hey, we're farmers now!

These below are cherry tomatoes grown in Topsy Turvy #1.  They did pretty well in that contraption.

Things We Did In July...

In addition to celebrating Lindsay's 23rd birthday with the fam, we did some other fun stuff as well.  

We went to a Sacramento Capital's tennis match.  For those of you who have never been to one of these matches, a stadium is built in the Galleria mall parking lot...I know, right?  Don't worry, it's legit!  

From tennis balls to a ball-bustin' rodeo!  I had heard about the Folsom Rodeo for years but never quite had an interest until I heard that the fireworks were supposed to be spectacular this year, which they were, and Lindsay came home from work one day asking about the rodeo.  My faves were the chuck wagon races where the rear wheels detached from one of the wagons (COOL!) and the kids bucking the sheep...TOO FUN!  

Them cowboys sure are patriotic.  They had one of them Army fellers fall from the sky with the American flag!

Quite an interesting selection of attendees at this here rodeo (pronounced ro-DAY-oh, btw)...but it was something fun and different we got to experience.  Thank you Keely!

"We're having fun here!" - State Fair (1945)

Our state fair (is a great state fair) came HECKA early this year.  That was very odd but whatever.  It brought us cheaper food items - most of the food was 25% less than last year!  Let's face it, we go to the state fair because of the food!  Not to worry, we managed to each have our super-sized corn dog (not nearly as good as Corn Dog Castle this year), fried zucchini (YUM!), cinnamon roll, and deep fried Oreos.  Lindsay enjoyed her Oreos.  I thought they were nast.  Perhaps the deep fried cheesecake would've been a tastier option for me.  

It's rare that the state fair has anything worth seeing.  However, this year the Walt Disney Family Museum brought some pretty rad items to share.  Original genuine old Disney stuff!  I can only imagine what the actual museum in SF is like!  That place will probably take me a few hours to get through.  As we were strolling through the exhibit, we came across another new Disney toy.  On sale at a store near you!

Have any of you been to a local county fair?  If so, where?  We'd like to visit some.  

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....

+

=

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!