John's birthday party- Henry.

On Saturday morning, mama told me we were going to a birthday party for our friend John.

And it was at the fire station! How cool is that? We got to explore the truck. (All of the seats have tiger paws embroidered on them, in case you were wondering.) I chose not to climb inside.

And then we all got to take turns on the fire hose.

Of course, I didn't want a turn on the hose either. But awesome James is always eager to volunteer for anything.

Miss Kerri said it's a good thing the drought is over, because they wouldn't have let us spray this much water last year.

Miss Juliet had tons of great activities planned. We blew bubbles.

And everyone got a turn on John's bubble gun.

Mama wouldn't let me spray any bubbles in her mouth.

Next, we decorated treat bags. James is dressed as the Green Power Ranger.

Andy tried his luck with the bubbles. I wonder if they tasted good.

Everyone put a lot of effort into their bags.

The fire engine balloon was a surprise hit.

We acted out the day of a fireman. I actually participated in this one.

But the big fun came when the pinata came out! Everyone got to pull a string to try and open it.

Mister Tony rigged it so his string released the loot. I've got to say, it was the best behaved bunch of kids I've ever seen. Everybody took one of each prize and no one left the pile crying.

The best prize was this truck whistle that is incredibly loud and piercing. June and i both love blowing it as loud as we can. Thanks a lot, John.

Don't forget the cake!

And the ice cream.

After the snacks, we got to take a tour of the inside of the firehouse. Mama stayed outside to eat her ice cream while we toured the building. I was disappointed that there weren't any fire poles to slide down, but they did have beds with wheels on them in the ambulances.

Thanks for inviting us to your party, John! I've already requested that my next birthday party be at the fire house too!

Two more reasons we love SC- June.

We came up with two more reasons we like South Carolina. And believe it or not, both of them are bug related.

1. The ticks down here don't carry Lyme Disease. If there are even any ticks down here. We haven't see any yet. It's so nice not to have to check hair, armpits, and groins every time we go outside.
2. No mosquitoes! Okay, there are a few and most of them are enormous, but they're nothing compared to the mosquito breeding ground that was the East side of Madison, Wisconsin. Our neighborhood wanted to be green, so there was no spraying and we also had rain gardens everywhere to prevent runoff.
That generally meant that summer was three months of constant attacks. Mama swears that she once saw a swarm of mosquitoes align in a hand with a finger pointing straight towards Bubba.

These pictures are two good examples. The one of me is after papa opened the car door to take Henry inside. The door was open for maybe 15 seconds and when he came back out to get me, there were 6 mosquitoes on my face. The picture of Henry was the day before a doctor's appointment when mama counted 31 bites on his body.

But don't worry, South Carolina. You've got the rest of the country beat on every other bug. Last week a cockroach the size of her palm flew into mama's hair, papa ran over a yellow jacket's nest (and got stung 21 times), and Henry met the wrong end of a bee. The good news is that we seem to have packaged enough of our food in tupperware that the sugar ants haven't been back to our kitchen (knock on wood). That, or maybe our new dark countertops hide them effectively so that no one knows they are there.

Summer Days-mama.

We have a joke in the Turner house. We say that for once we just want to live somewhere that doesn't have record-breaking weather. We broke the Wisconsin snow record by about 20 inches in the winter of 2008 when we received 105 inches of snow before it was all said and done. North Carolina had a very wet spring last year. And now, South Carolina is setting heat records for June. Even the natives think it is way too hot. Hopefully this means August will be very mild (ha ha).

But there are three things we are thankful in South Carolina. First, my pregnancy induced eczema doesn't stand a chance down here in the humidity, so that has cleared up nicely.

Second, we finally live somewhere with good soil for blueberries! (I haven't been able to pick fresh blueberries since I lived with the monks that summer in southern Indiana.) We visited the local blueberry farm and picked 5 pounds. I think the next time we go, they're going to weigh June before and after because not a single blueberry made it in her bowl. It was a great time until Henry got his first bee sting of the season and screamed so loud and so long we probably scared away the rest of the customers for the day.

Finally, South Carolina has an abundance of blue hydrangeas like I've never seen before. We were lucky enough to meet a neighbor that lives behind us and she gave us a huge amount of flowers that didn't even make a dent in her bush.

This isn't a very good shot, but it does show the enormous bouquet we made. When we lived in Wisconsin, I used to think about how little blue occurs in nature. Looks like we just lived in the wrong part of the country.

It's been so stinking hot that we haven't ventured outside too much for fear of melting instantly into a puddle. The kids have been coping as much as they can, though they are already getting stir crazy. When he is stuck in the house with his sweaty mom, he's been busy putting together a lot of puzzles. He's got this construction puzzle memorized and can put all 100 pieces together in about 5 minutes. He earned the Spiderman puzzle by dusting all the blinds in the house. Right now, he's working on a 300 piece puzzle. He's about 80% done and insists on doing the whole thing himself. In fact, I put one piece in while he was asleep. When he came down in the morning, he immediately noticed what I'd done and pulled the whole section apart because puzzle building is his job. Over one piece!

Luckily for Henry, the first Vacation Bible School of the season started this week, so he has 5 days of Galactic Bible missions to look forward to.

Mama's handiwork- June.

We returned to Marion for one night to pick up Grams Cracker, as she agreed to come back to South Carolina with us for a few days. (Papa was holding her car for ransom, so she didn't have much choice.)

The Columbus Turners came up for a cookout and we had a fun time running around the yard.

Mama spent the majority of her camera time trying to get a picture of my new dress. When she was at the thrift store with Grandma, she came across this fabric for only 40 cents! Grandma said it was way too obnoxious, so mama decided to make me a dress from it, because she figures she only has a little while left before I refuse to wear awful clothes. It turned out awfully cute, if she must say so herself. She also made Henry a pair of construction boxer shorts that are equally loud.

Watch out, here comes the Tickle Monster!

Oh no, the Tickle Monster's only weakness is Uncle Adam!

Aunt Girl tried to teach me how to do a cartwheel. I had my own interpretation.

Grandma Seibert introduced Henry to the concept of "underdogs." He was eager to try it out on me.



Sadie and Henro both wanted to push me. It seems to me like I got the best deal of anyone.

My "precious"- Junie.

Miss Elizabeth traveled to India for three weeks this spring. Lucky for us, she was thinking of me when she did some shopping, as she sent me this very pretty dress.

I was skeptical the first time mama put it on, but now every time I see it, I insist that I wear it.

I was so cute, Grams insisted on taking me to Sears to get my picture taken.

For the first time ever, a Turner kid cooperated for professional pictures!

The entire process was actually enjoyable.

This one showcases my round teeth.

Somewhere along the line, someone must have said that I was precious in my dress, because I now refer to it as "My Precious." (One dress to rule them all.)

Mama made a deal with Henry that he could earn a dollar if he was good during the pictures. He gladly accepted her proposition, especially if it meant that he didn't have to have any pictures taken. He sat quietly, then held me hand and walked me around the store looking for shirts with animals on them.

He was so good, mama gave him a dollar and Grams gave him another dollar. He picked out a car and a set of Car movie swim goggles. I got a dollar and got a new horse.

Mama also got a bunch of new puzzle for Henry to earn. He's so excited to get them, he begged mama to let him vacuum up acorn caps in the yard. She agreed, but told him that he was only allowed to do chores if he took a nap. He asked "Do I have to eat a good supper too?" Of course, mama said. Apparently, we only let the most well-behaved kids perform manual labor in this house.

What a pretty little girl. Mama says that she hopes this new baby is a boy. She says I'm too cute for everyone's good and the last thing we need is another cute, charming girl. It certainly worked out well for me when I was awake at 10pm tonight and papa let me come downstairs to watch tv with him.

Speaking of the new baby, mama had her 32 week appointment this week. She's measuring 30 centimeters (you're supposed to measure 1 centimeter for every week). So that proves she's carrying low. The doctor said everything looks good, but wondered why mama looked so pale after being gone on vacation for three weeks. Mama told him that she's actually tanner than she's ever been in her life, and really, shouldn't he want her to stay pale?

Kids' Fest- Juner.

On our last day at Grandma and Grandpa's house, we decided to head over to Napoleon for a big festival sponsered by the Hospital and Campbell Soup.

When we got there, I spied pony rides! Since it looked like the whole shindig was going to get pretty crowded, we decided to get some free snow cones and wait in line before the lines got too long.

You can imagine how pumped I was to ride a horsie. Thanks, Uncle Kevin, for riding with me since pregnant ladies were not allowed near horses that might kick.

Natalie, my fellow "horsey girl," rode too.

Oliver rode, too, but no one could convince Henry to get on a horse.

We met up with mama's high school friend, Miss Mindy, and her family. Ethan is a year older than Henry and they always have a good time together being rowdy. (But it should noted that all kids were on their best behavior at the festival.)

Hannah is a few months older than June. They also have a little guy named Carter, but mama wouldn't put him down long enough to take his picture.

We played at the playground for a long time, but then the older kids decided they wanted to wait in line for some of the awesome inflatables. I waited with them for this enormous tiger. I climbed up the thirty feet all by myself and slid down the slide. Most of it was covered, so mama couldn't get any pictures, but she was impressed because Henry wouldn't try anything like this until he was almost 4.

Natalie, Oliver (or "Oviler" as Henry still calls him), and Henry wanted to wait to run through the inflatable train maze. Look at how tough they look.

Find anything up there, Oviler?

Finally, Natalie gave a nice smile.

When they got close, they shed their shoes and hats and started to get excited for the train.

Closer to lunch, things really started to get crowded so we headed to another park to eat our lunches. We played for a little while, then hit the road to head back to Marion.

Spangler Candy Company- Henry.

Apparently, lot of famous things come from northwest Ohio. Ohio Art (makers of the Etch-a-Sketch) is based in Bryan, along with Spangler Candy Company, maker of the Dum Dum Sucker.

They offer tours of the facilities, so we bought our tickets, donned our hairnets, and got in line.

I didn't want to wear a hair net, but the promise of candy persuaded me. (That guy behind me was mama's elementary school principal. He was there with his grandkids, so mama made sure we were on our best behavior.)

The best part of the tour was that it was all on a trolley! For health reasons, we didn't get to see any of the candy getting made, but we did get to watch videos when the train wasn't moving. Mama remembers touring the factory as a kid and grabbing warm candy canes right off the line and making them into any shape you wanted.

Spanglers makes 10 million Dum Dum suckers and 500,000 Saf-T-Pops a day. They also are the only manufacturer of candy canes in the US (2.7 million a day!). Besides the classic red and white peppermint canes, they also make the Jolly Rancher, Jelly Belly, Shrek, and Cinabon candy canes you see at Christmas. One more cool fact for you: the candy canes are made in a big 125 pound batch. The stripes are hand applied to the big lump by the same guy who's been doing it for 35 years. Then it gets threaded through a machine that turns into 4,00 canes.

After the tour, Henry picked out suckers for us.

Mama reminisced about the old products that Spanglers used to make. She said she used to get these eggs because you could save them in the plastic "shell." She also spent a while looking longingly at the Astro Pop display.

After the tour, mama announced that she'd take us out to lunch at the McDonald's so we could play on the playland. She forgot that you needed socks, so she had to buy some from the counter. Too bad they only came in big kid sizes.

We played for a long time until June got tired and took up her spot on the steps.

Somebody get this baby home and in bed.

While June napped, mama introduced me to the last Spangler creation- the circus peanut.

It's a dense orange marshmallow shaped like a peanut with banana flavoring. Mama says the old tour used to go by a cascade of circus peanuts as they came off the line.

We ate a bunch, then made them into a jello salad. It was my job to count out 15 and cut them into quarters. I took it very seriously and was very proud that mama let me use a knife.

While I made jello, mama and Grandma made poppyseed rolls. They had leftover egg white, so next they made meringue cookies. I did not like the sound of the mixer going that fast.

But I did like showing off.

On our last night, we went to Sherwood to meet up with mama's friend, Miss Terika. And there's not much else to do in Sherwood besides get some ice cream at the Apache Dairy Bar and walk down to the train tracks. June really liked what we think was her first solo ice cream cone.

On the way home, mama was struck for a moment of how nice Northwest Ohio can be.

One thing is for certain, it looks very different from South Carolina. Mama spent some time telling us how you could see the blinking traffic lights at the corner of 249 and 127 as soon as you left Farmer, even though they were three miles away. And every road is square with the next one. If you miss your turn, just go another mile and turn there. No one can ever say that about South Carolina.