Welcome to my World

New New Blog

2009-02-17T16:04:00.001-10:00

Please check out my new new custom blog at www.alyssapix.com/blog

New Blog

2008-08-03T17:07:00.002-10:00

I may have bitten off more then I can chew but I have started a new blog. I still plan on using this blog for all my personal stuff but I have started a new photography blog to go along with my new website. This week I launch my new website for AlyssaPix.com. Now that almost all my kids are in school I am very excited to dedicate more time to my photography business and have lots of new plans for the upcoming year! If you have a few minutes please check it out and let me know what you think!

Spoiled little birthday girl

2008-07-19T07:33:00.003-10:00

I love birthdays! Well my birthday in paticular! I start letting people know that my birthday is coming up at least a month before the date arrives so that everyone has their calanders marked. I thought this year was going to be really disappointing since all my birthday money had already been alotted to my new Coach purse, but I must have forgot that I have the best husband ever! I went from disappointment to total estatic in 5.2 seconds.

About a week before my birthday Addison interviewed me on my favorite singer growing up, my favorite colors ect. I thought she was just playing one of her games but it turns out she took all this information and planned a special birthday surprise. I told her that I used to love Madonna and spent hours preforming "Material Girl" into a brush in my bedroom. Well Addison spent the week researching Madonna, downloading Material girl and Vogue, and learning all the words. She had Ben print out tickets in my two favorite colors and I gave me VIP seating to her concert. She picked out the prefect outfit and even rocked out the 80's hair it was the cutest thing ever!

It didn't end there though. Ben gave me a certificate that said be ready at 12 noon because a limo will be here to pick you up and take you to a 4 hour spa session. I think this is when the estatic came in. I have never had a full spa day in my life. I was jumping for joy....litterally. I got a 60 minute massage, a 60 minute facial, and a 90 minute pedicure and manicure. It also included a nice relaxing lunch. I think it reached up there with one of the best days of my life. It was so increadibly relaxing. I did have Ben cancel the limo though. Although something like that would be right up my alley it was a little overkill pulling up to the spa located next to Walmart in a limo. Ben got propts for the idea though.

But it didn't end there. Once I lazily drove home from the spa feeling as relaxed as one person could possibly feel Ben got a babysitter and made dinner reservations for just the two of us. Can this day get any better? So I got all decked out in a dress I have had for over a year but have never worn that just happened to match perfectly with my blue Coach purse and hit the town with my wonderful husband. I was one spoiled little princess and I was loving it!

But it did not end there. After a yummy dinner and a pit stop for a geleto, Ben thought for sure today would be the perfect recipie for some loving and was anxious to get home. It was the prefect recipie however all that pampering wears a girl out and I rolled over and slept like a baby. Sorry Ben maybe on your birthday!

In other news.... we are signing the lease on our new dream house today. I am so excited to move in. I went to the model home the other day to take some measurments and as I was standing in the house I could not believe that I was going to be living there in a few short weeks.

Something I am not excited about lately is my forever growing rear end. I have gained over 5 pounds since the kids have been out of school and all my pants that I finally fit into no longer look so cute with the zipper not able to do up and all. I used to run every day after I dropped the kids at school and I have not done one lick of excercise since school broke in June. So with the lack of excercise one would think that I would be very carefull about what I eat but one would be wrong about that as well. I have been eating every day like it is the last day I am ever going to have food. It is beyond rediculous but I am at the screw it phase right now. There is only two more weeks until school starts so do I start now and try to loose a few before summer ends so I do not have to wear a moomoo to the beach? Or do I live it up for the next two weeks and enjoy the rest of my summer as the fat girl who couldn't sing. I am torn, treadmil or pizza? Crunches or french fries? chocolate or cake? Do you see where i am going with this? I'll be at the coldstone creamery! Moomoo extra large please!

Last night I finally finished all my back load of editing! I have a two week break before my next wedding so I am excited to clean my very neglected house and spend some time enjoying the beach in my moomoo. Cheers to the rest of summer vacation! The kids start back to school on July 30th and I am counting down the days! Corben is very excited to start kindergarten this year and has been practicing his letters and wearing his spiderman backpack around the house. Little cutie!

Well. the house is not getting any cleaner as I sit here so I should go make myself useful. At least I did stick with my commitment to blog more this summer! Aloha!

Open butt insert horseshoe....

2008-07-09T07:26:00.002-10:00

Well I should have known that things were going to work out even better than I ever imagined. So glad this horse shoe thing is working for me. Yes you guessed it, we found a new place to live. However not just a house but a bigger better perfect house for the same price. If we were to purchase this house we would have to dish out $1 000 000. No you are not reading this wrong that is 6 zeros in a row! Our back yard over looks the 7th green of the Arnold Palmer golf course. It is 2800 square feet with hard wood floors through out, granite counter tops, stainless steel appliances, 5 lanias,(also known as a patios or balcony if you do not live in Hawaii), upgraded painting of the entire house, recess lighting, This house is amazing! We have a huge balcony off the master bedroom on the second floor also overlooking the golf course. The people who live there now have there treadmil out there and a TV mounted up in the corner and I am going to do the same thing. What a view to have as I sweat off the pounds! We will be moving in on September 1st. Pictures will be posted then on September 7th. As you can imagine the decorating ideas are swirling around my head and I cannot wait to get in there and start making it our own. All of it just seems way to good to be true, and to make it even more unbelievable the guy is willing to let us sign a three year lease at our set rental rate so we know we will live there long term (for us 3 years is very LONG term) and our rent will not go up as long as we live there. So in the ned we got an even bigger, even better house and lived in Hawaii rent free for two months, I'd say we made out like bandits on this whole forclosure deal! Not that I am one to celebrate over someone elses loss but woo hoo!!!!

If you go to www.gentryhawaii.com then click on new homes and then on Haleakea you can view the model home. We are the #4 floor plan.

We had a great 4th of July. We decided last minute to book a hotel in Waikiki and spend a few days being tourists. We had a BBQ with some good friends during the day and then headed to Waikiki in the evening. Met up with some other good friends down town, and headed to the fireworks on the beach. After that we went to one of the hotel pool side bars and had a few drinks while the kids cut a rug (or piece of pavement) on the dance floor. Spent the next day lounging by the pool which was located on the roof of the 10th floor and then made out way home the next evening. It was a great little escape with the family.

I am also very very excited to be typing this post on my new 24 inch IMac. With all the editting I have been doing lately we thought it would be nice to have a comfortable area to sit and work other then slouched on the couch with my laptop in my lap. Our home desktop was going on 6 years old and was about to peter out so we decided to go with a new apple since that is what the kids learn on in school. I had switched to Apple a couple years ago with my laptop and have never wanted to turn back to PC since. Even Ben who is a PC avocet is thinking about switching to apple for his laptop. We also plan to switch to the Iphone when our contract is up in November so the Turner's are going to be Mac'ed out!

I hesitate to write all the good things that happen to me because 1. I feel like it is to good to be true and one day I am going to pay big time for all my good fortune, (and by fortune I do not mean material things but my great husband, and beautiful healthy children, and waking up t the smell of sea salt, these are the things I am grateful for) 2. I feel like people might think I am being showy. So I just want to say that yes I may have been a bit spoiled in this life and sometimes I take all my blessings for granted, especially my husband, but I do truly appreciate everything and when I share all these things it is because I am so excited, and dumb founded, and I cannot believe that this is really my life.

Well get this....

2008-07-01T12:56:00.002-10:00

Well remember that horse shoe I had tightly wedged up my butt, well apparently it has wiggled itself free and fell out. Last night while enjoying a nice glass of red wine and watching quality TV (The Bachalorett) we got a knock at out door. Who in the world would be knocking on our door at 9:30 pm you ask? Well let me tell you. It was an officer who was delivering a rather important tidbit of information. It turns out that in 30 short days our house is going to be auctioned off to the highest bidder. It turns out the the owners of this house have been skipping out on their mortgage payments and the house is going to be foreclosed. The house that just six short months ago we moved into. The house that I spent hours painting and decorating. Did God not get the memo I sent that said I AM SICK AND TIRED OF MOVING AND PLAN TO KEEP THE SAME STREET ADDRESS FOR MORE THAN TWO YEARS FOR THE FIRST TIME IN MY MARRIED LIFE? Did I spell something wrong? Did I not put it in big enough letters? Did I not put enough smiley faces with my explanation points? I seriously cannot believe I will be packing my bags yet again.

What did we do next you ask? Well I poured another glass of wine of course. I mean the world just looks better through cabernet glasses does it not? After I downed that next glass well the whole thing just seemed kind of comical and we made homeless joke for the rest of the evening. We did get ahold of our property manager and she had no clue that any of this was going on. On the plus side until the house sells and the new owners take over which will probably take a couple months we do not have to pay any rent. So that will save us thousands of dollars. We also got on the internet and started looking up new houses. There are no houses that I love as much as this one but, but hopefully something will come up. In the mean time if anyone has any empty boxes they are not using send them my way.

Surprisingly I am taking this very well and am not living up to my title of drama queen. However when it comes time to hauling boxes I am sure i will take up my crown and let the drama comence! I will keep everyone posted.

Oh and on a side note to Kelly T this now makes two blogs and you must put me back on your blog roll. Not to mention that I am sure there are going to be some good blogs coming out of this situation.

Oh and on a totally different side note before we found out our house was being taken over, our house had already been taken over by another creature. Bugs! Little tiny crawling bugs! That was the disaster we were dealing with before this whole other disaster started. Let me back up a bit. Camryn has been waking up with bug bites. Little itchy bites would appear every day. A few days later it spread to the other kids and I was starting to get concerned so i did some research on the ol' internet and discovered the culperate that was attacking my family. Let me back up once more and tell you how there has been a bird nest hosting two baby birds in one of the tall pillars on our front porch. the kids have enjoyed watching these baby birds every day so we thought ah how cute and never thought any more of it. Well it turns out that along with baby birds come baby bird bugs. Apparently there is a little critter known as a bird mite and that is what has been crawling and feeding off my children. So white trash I know. So yesterday we got some great footage of Ben removing the birds nest and birds from our patio and we have drenched the whole place down in Raid. Fortunatly these little mites cannot live off of humans and in a few short weeks, 6 to be exact they will die off. I guess I just found a new way to entertain my kids over summer break. Give them each a pen and have them try to connect the bug bites and see who can make the best picture! That should keep them entertained for a couple hours. We could also play a game of who gets kicked out first, the bugs or the Turners. I swear this is never a dull moment around this place. Stay tuned for more on the days of our lives.

Has it really been 5 months???

2008-06-06T14:06:00.004-10:00

Wow time flies when you are a wife, and mother of four, and running your own business, and keeping up with all my shows, and trying to work out so that I don't look as old as I am, and running kids to all their events, and hosting dinner parties, and camping, and cleaning , and laundry, and and and. So before you all get on my case for not jotting down a few words lets remember that there is only so much one women can handle. Okay yes there has been a few moments where I probably could have sat down and shared my thoughts but sometimes I am just plain lazy. SO where do I start. I feel like I am always starting my blogs that way lately. How about this. How about I try to make it my summer goal to blog more. Maybe then Kelly will put me back on her blog roll since apparently she to has given up on me and kicked me off to make room for some more important people who actually blog....go figure.
So instead of going back 5 months and recapping I will just share the latest and greatest and go backwards until I run out of thoughts. So the newest and biggest and bestest thing happened yesterday. That was the day that my wonderful husband was convince, or more like put under my spell by the blinking of my blue eyes, and purse-waded that I don't just want but absolutely NEED this purse:

Take a moment to revel in all of it's gloriousness!!! I somehow convinced my husband that this was not just any purse, but an investment in my future. It just happens to be the same color as my photography business website and in creating an image for myself and my business I needed this to be my signature purse. Makes complete and total sense right? Okay so maybe that was not the reason my husband finally broke down. It was probably all the whining, and feet stomping, and telling him how this purse would make me even more fabulous then I already am, and if I am fabulous then everyone is happy. I also had to forgo any birthday money (for the next 10 years), and go several weeks without nagging.(that one might be hard to uphold) Luckily my husband suffers from long term memory loss and will never remember all these little deals I made. I practically signed over my left kidney but it was worth it.
Summer break officially start today so we should all stop for a moment of prayer. "Dear Lord Please turn my children into little angels for the next 6 weeks. Let there yes be yeses and there no's be non existent. Let mommy keep her sanity and not get any new grey hairs. Oh and Lord thank you for my new purse! Amen"Okay you might need to come back and pray that one every day, just to make sure....
Actually I am excited about summer break. I will be spending many many hours at the beach, and the water park, and look forward to late mornings, and hopefully laid back days.Goals for the summer.......1. book lots of weddings and photo shoots. 2. get Camryn to perfect riding a bike on two wheels so we can start riding bikes to school in the fall. Yes she is 7. We have failed her as parents. 3. get a great tan 4. lose 5 more pounds 5. get good at surfing. 6.keep my patients with my children and enjoy them! 7. stop making goals for summer, this is supposed to be vacation.
My little Corby will be starting kindergarten this year. Obviously he did not follow my strict rules of not being allowed to grow up. Kids....... they never listen these days. I am looking forward to being down to just one child home all day but I am going to miss my little cuddle bug. When the girls started Kindergarten it seemed like they should be but he just seems so little and and he should stay home a few more years.
Well after 4 years of living in Hawaii we finally broke down and bought a surf board. Now that we have gotten to the point where we can actually stand up and ride it I am bummed that we wasted four years of surf time. It is allot of fun and a great way to spend the day out in the water. In the last couple of weeks we have gotten the girls into it as well. They took lessons and picked it up much better and sooner then we did. They make it look so easy as they pop up and ride every wave. I to rode every wave to the shore, I just happened to ride in and under the wave upside down. I am starting to get half way decent at it and hope to perfect my skills over the summer. We got the girls the cutest little surf board ever, check it out:
Okay it is taking forever to load so you are just going to have to see it on my facebook.
I am getting really excited about my photography Business. We have revamped my website and am really hoping to take it to the next level. I have always treated my business as a hobby and now I want to make it a career. I am taking some photoshop classes and am constantly learning new tricks and techniques. I love what I do and I want to be the best I can be so I am going to dive into this head first and hope to become even more successful this year. I also have to give a shout out to The [b] school blog. Becker is a very successful photographer who has decided to pay it forward and is launching an online site for upcoming photographers to learn to grow their business and network with other photographers. It is really great and I am so excited about it. he has really been motivating me lately.

Addison turned 9 last week. Where does the time go? We had a really fun mommy daughter day filled with Starbucks, and shopping, and hair salons, and we had so much fun! She is sporting the cutest little haircut. We went to Borders and flipped through hair mags and decided on Katie Holmes bob with bangs. Too cute! With three siblings she does not get allot of one on one, and let me say she thrives on being center of attention(the apple does not fall far from the tree). It was a fabulous day.
Londyn continues to give me a run for my money. She to is sporting a new hairdo except her's was created by herself. yes Londyn has taken scissors to her hair, not once, not twice, but THREE times now. She has little hairs sticking out everywhere. I have to wear her hair up in pigtails and spray down all the little sprigs every day to try and mask the disaster that has become her hair. I will continue this until it grows out unless my prayers come true and the mullet makes a come back!
Londyn is also sporting some princess panties these days and for the first time in our married lives we are diaper free! You know what that means, all the money we are saving on diapers can be used to pay off bills. just kidding....more shopping!
Ben is loving his new job out of the military. He is three classes away from his MBA. We will be so excited when that is over and done with. He also has been keeping busy designing websites for a few different companies ( as well as mine), I don't know how he does all he does and still finds time to be the best husband and dad. Okay yes I am still working him for the new Coach purse, but he really is good to me.
Okay I am going to stop here before i write a whole novel. I promise not to go 5 more months without writing again. Happy summer vacation to you all!

New House Pictures are up on Facebook...go check them out!

2008-01-18T17:30:00.001-10:00

Moving Day

2008-01-09T09:57:00.001-10:00

Well moving day has finally arrived. I know I should have done a Christmas update but I have been all to consumed with moving and planning for the new house. So lets do a quick recap and get on with the important things in life....

Christmas was great. It was actually the best Christmas we have had in Hawaii. I think it is because I finally gave up the idea of being at home and participating in the big family gatherings and realized that because we live so far away and cannot afford to fly our whole family home every year it was time to start our own family traditions. I realized that instead of mourning the events I was missing back home I needed to be making memories for my children. So with a change in attitude we enjoyed a nice intimate Christmas with my family. I was going to put quite but then had to go back and erase it because it is never quite around here. We have always opened Christmas presents on Christmas eve after a home made spaghetti dinner. So we have continued the tradition with our family. We open everything but the big Santa gifts that come the next morning. Usually one big thing for each kid and then stockings. So as usual the kids were spoiled beyond belief. When did we go from getting a new tea set or coloring book to getting digital cameras, and hundreds of dollars in gaming systems and games? It is crazy! So the kids got the wii which have to say is money well spent. That little machine is going to bring hours of fun family time to our home. We have not played it too much yet because it is hard to play around all the boxes piled up in our living room. However I cannot wait to get settled in the new house and start having daily tennis matches. I love that it gets the kids off the couch and interacting...self included! The girls each got a digital camera (following in mommy's footsteps), Corben got a Nintendo DS, and Londyn got a sand and water play table, which she loves! I got a new Coach purse. My first Coach purse FINALLY! I was so excited. We made a very yummy Christmas dinner with ham, and all the trimmings.

For New Years we did more of the same. Ben had to work so the kids and I baked a lasagna. Ok we didn't really bake it we took it out of the box and put it in the oven, but to me that is some good home cooking. After dinner we went outside and shot off some fireworks that I had bought the kids. Nothing major but it was fun. We then came in and watched the Movie Meet the Robinson's. It was cute. Just when the movie Ben called and surprised us by saying he was done with work and on his way home! SO he mad It home by 11. So in Hawaii people go crazy and I mean completely nuts with fireworks. It is perfectly to fire them off right in your front yard so people spend hundreds of dollars and shoot them off all day and night. It started at about 4 in the afternoon and did not stop until 4 in the morning. It looked and sounded like a war zone in our neighborhood. I of course think it is ridiculous to waste all that money on fireworks when you could be spending it at the Gap so at midnight we just went out in our back yard and enjoyed a free 350' show of all our neighbors fireworks. I am telling you for 30 minutes straight in every single direction there were sparks flying. It was amazing. We bought the kids some fake champagne (sparkling grape juice) so we popped that open and the kids all had a champagne glass to drink as they watched the show. They were so cute!

Ok so now that we have all the holiday stuff out of the way lets move on to the here and now. I have spend the last week packing up all our household goods...AGAIN! In our 9 years of marriage Ben and I have moved 6 times. Now this would not be so bad if I was one of those people who just realised we were not going to be in this home forever so not to bother decorating the house and painting every room. But I am not one of those people. I am the person who paints every room the first week we are in the house. I make sure that their bedding is the exact same shade that is on the walls, and all the rooms coordinate, and that there is never an empty spot on the walls, ect, ect! Even when we lived in base housing I painted every room knowing that in two years I had to paint everything back before we moved out. I can't help it, I cannot stand white walls. I need my home to feel homey and I am not willing to sacrifice that just because we had to move around allot. So once again I have all my paint colors picked out and all the kids rooms are perfectly coordinated and I can't wait to get started. Addison is getting her own room and she is so excited. Londyn and Camryn will become room mates, and one benefit of Corben being the only boy, he to will have his own room. I will post pictures on facebook as soon as we get it all done. We get our keys tomorrow morning and let the fun begin. Ok maybe fun is not the perfect word, but I love to decorate a new place. I find it so rewarding to sit down and enjoy a room after you have worked so hard to make it perfect. So needless to say I am so excited!

I would love to stay and chat but I have much to much to do today! Once I get organised I will try and be a better blogger. Remember way back in the day when my blogs used to be funny. I would love to get back to that one day. For now I have decorating to do! ta ta!

Ok I get the hint....

2007-12-10T07:18:00.001-10:00

When people start calling you because you have not blogged in so long I guess it is time to blog. However I happen to like actually having a phone conversation once in awhile. We as usual have been extremely busy lately. With Christmas around the corner this is a busy time of year anyway. We had a great Thanksgiving this year! It was our first year to cook a whole big meal all by ourselves. I felt like such a grown up! Me and the kids all had matching aprons and we got down and dirty in the kitchen all day! Addison peeled all the apples for homemade apple pie, Ben was on turkey duty, and Camryn made the best sweet potatoes with no help at all. On top of that we made perogies from scratch which is an all day event in itself. We also had the sweet and sour meatballs, and the usual, green bean casserole, mash potatoes, gravy stuffing....Anyway everything came out delicious and on time and I was pretty proud of myself!

So for the first year ever I did not go black Friday shopping. I know take a few minutes to recessitate yourselves before going on. It just isn't worth it in Hawaii there is one store and millions of people and unless you literally camp out the night before you will not get anything on your list. So instead I did all my Christmas shopping in my under ware, online, on my big comfy couch! No line ups, no pushy people, no shopping bags to carry. It was bliss. I am almost done with my shopping just a few last minute things to get. I really should get on that though. That is one thing about living in Hawaii, you think you have so much time because it is so nice outside and it could not possibly be Christmas in a few days. next thing you know it is Christmas eve and you still have those last minute things that you thought you had a few more weeks to get.

On top of the Christmas rush we have our house on the market! So for a quick recap, Christmas rush, house on market, must stay clean ALL the time, still have 4 kids (5 if you include Ben), and a dog. So it saddens me to think that we are selling our first home. I like to be really dramatic and sentimental at times like this, and phrases like "...but honey we raised our kids in this house!" come out of my mouth. Ben being the logical (shall we say emotionally constipated) one says "our oldest is 8 and we have only lived here two years!" I continue to whine "yes but my walls match my dishes, which match my curtains, which match my eye shadow, and we just got our floors done, and, and...."
You see my peeps, our family with the rest of America has gotten caught up in the sub prime crisis. You know the one where mortgage rates have gone up and housing market values have gone down forcing many people to foreclose on their homes. You might recall a certain president addressing the nation on this issue last week. Something about putting a freeze on interest rates for people in this situation. However we missed the date by two months! Two freaking months!!! So our choices were sell the house or have you mortgage payment go up an additional $700, on top of the $3300 we are already paying! Luckily property values are still high enough in Hawaii that we did not have to foreclose but we are not going to make as much on the house as we thought we would when we bought it. We bought the house when prices were sky rocketing. The day we signed our paperwork our house value went up $60 000. Had we sold a year ago we would have made $130 minus realtor fees and closing costs. However the market has plummeted and now we are walking away with $20 000. Although making $20 000 on a house in 2 years is nothing to complain about it is still hard because we were here at the peak of the market when people were making between $100 000 and $200 000 profit on there homes when they sold. So now that you know the scoop I will continue on with my story. So we put the house on the market last week. Although it has been so great getting up every morning to a clean house it has been next to impossible to keep it that way. All day everyday I follow the kids around picking up one disaster after another. We had a showing the other day so I got all the kids ready and had them wait in the back yard while I took one quick whisk around the house to make sure it was perfect. Once i assured myself that there was not so much as a lone dust bunny under the couch I went out to load the kids up, and find Londyn soaking wet with a water hose in hand and a smile on her face. Are you kidding me! So that has been my life lately. On to the good news. Apparently it was all worth while because the very first person that came to see our house put in an offer and we are now in escrow! We will be closing on Jan 15th. So this has started a whole new disaster. Where are we going to live? I have been obsessively on the Internet searching for homes to rent. We decided to rent because can can get a much larger house for way less then we are paying in monthly mortgage. I did find a house that I love that was on the other side of the island, in a great school district. We went to look it at and it was as lovely in person however the bedrooms were smaller then I would like and it was a town home so there was not much in the way of a back yard. Also it was at the very max of our budget so if we moved there it would not allow us to get ahead. So everyday I have been searching and viewing houses and it has been one disappointment after another. It just baffles me the way some people take care of (or shall I say do not take care of) their homes. dirty carpets and smudged up walls, and I know I have high standards but really people. So my stomach has been in knots worrying about finding a decent place all weekend. I have every house on Craigslist memorized. Every time I finally came across one that might work they did not allow pets, or it was not available at the right time, and I just wanted to throw in the towel. However yesterday the clouds parted and the sun came shining through and I found our dream home! It is gorgeous and HUGE! Almost double what we have now. I see the headlines now: : "Little Londyn comes out of the closet!" It is four bedroom with 2 living areas and a three car garage and vaulted ceilings and beautiful carpet and tile floors and tons of upgrades! I am so excited! Also it is all for $1000 less then we are paying now!!! Dreams really do come true! Just when I think things can't get any better the property manager say "did you notice the large flat screen TV they have mounted on the wall, well would you mind if that stayed in the house?" Are you kidding me?!!!! So needless to say I am extremely excited to move. Yes my dishes match my curtains and my bedroom walls match my eyes but vaulted ceilings and big screen.....hardly comparable! So once again things just have a way of working out for me. I am not trying to brag but it is true. These kind of things just happen to me. I am sure one day this horseshoe will fall out of my ass but let me tell you I plan to hold it in there nice and tight as long as I can!

So with that word picture in your head lets move on. My niece is coming on Thursday and staying with us for a month. She is 16, and an absolute sweetheart. She has been out to Hawaii a few times already and we are excited to have her here again. Not only is she fun to hang out with, but she is also a photographer, and she has taught me everything I know on photoshop. Oh and did I mention she babysits??? In fact Ben's mom got us a two night stay at a beautiful bed and breakfast on the island for Christmas so we will be enjoying 3 relaxing days all by ourselves! Life is good!

Londyn turned 2 since I last blogged. She turned two with a vengeance....terrible twos! She is a little monster. Luckily she is the cutest darn little monster who really knows how to work the system. She is the closest thing I have to a strong willed child. She can give me a run for my money some days. Addison is growing up way to fast and at the age of 8 can hold up an adult conversation with ease. Some of the things that come out of that girls mouth a shear genius! Camryn got student of the quarter this semester and I have a bumper sticker on my car to prove it! She loves school and every year she bats her little blue eyes and makes her teacher fall in love with her. Corben continues to be my little buddy. He is such a mommy's boy and I love it!

Well I think that is all I am going to give you for now. If you want any more info you are just going to have to pick up that little gadget they call the telephone and call me!

My little blue box

2007-11-02T20:13:00.000-10:00

I got my first little blue box! It was the sweetest little blue box, all tied up in a perfect little white bow. All cute and ready for me to open. My first little blue box! My heart skipped a beat as I held it in my hand in disbelief. Here in my hand was the most beautiful Tiffany blue box! Who would get me such a box you ask. Well only my best friend would of course. Unfortunatly it comes with a price though. My little blue box comes at a price because it was a moving away gift. I love my little blue box but I would give it back in a heartbeat if it would mean she could stay. I know she has to go and it is the right thing to do and she needs to be with family while her husband is deployed for 15 months, but she is my best friend, and she is leaving, and all I have left is my first little blue box. I almost did not want to open it, because once I open up that box it was official. It was officially my go away gift, which ment that she was going away. My best friend of the last four years is moving. The girl I laughed with, cried with, spent hours on the phone with, consumed many bottles of wine with, shopped online for the perfect boobs with, and shared my secrets with. She gets me, understands me, accepts me for who I am (tiera and all). Hawaii will not be the same without her, and neither will I. She is my BFF-best fabulous friend! There is not one good thing about having to say goodbye to your best fabulous friend. Well maybe one little thing............The only good thing about having a best fabulous friend who is moving away is that she gives fabulous gifts that come in a little blue box. So as all the great memories of the last 4 years came rushing though my head I pulled the little white ribbon on my little blue box. I lifted the lid off my little blue box. I looked inside my little blue box, and inside was a gorgous silver necklace and oval pendant with the letters Tiffany's engraved on the back. I have a great best friend and I have a great little blue box.

Sorry I fell off the face of ther earth....

2007-10-18T08:04:00.000-10:00

Well practically, I was in Canada for a month. I am sure people have given up even checking this blog anymore because it has been so long since I have blogged. However for those few loyal readers out there I guess it is about time for an update. Hmm where do I even start??

We have had a busy summer full of compnay. Literally all summer we have one set of compnay fly out and another fly in the next day. I am not complaining because we love company and entertaining. But it does take a tole on my schedual, my pocket book, and my waistline. Some highlights of the summer was having our great friends from England come stay with us. They used to live here on the island and they were our closest couple friends. The kind of friends where our house was there house and vise versa. They have one adorable little girl who is the same age as my oldest. It was so great to see them play togeather again. While they were here we spent hours at the beach, went swimming with douplins, and had one girls night that will go down in the history books forever. It was great to see them again!

The day after they left my cousin flew in and once again we played tourist for a couple weeks. Ben took him out a few nights and even though his girlfriend was not able to make it I think he had a good time in Hawaii.

After he left we had 1 week to pack up and organise for a month long trip to Canada. My youngest brother was getting married and if we were going to fly the whole family all the way to Canada then we were going to take full advantage and stay as long as we could. Even though we were there for that long it seemed like 1 week. We were so busy the whole time just flew by. My brother's wedding was gorgous and we danced.....oh did we dance! It was so fun to have my whole family all togather again! My kids got to be reaquainted with all there cousins (and ther is Allot of them). They all had so much fun togeather and it was so nice to see. Melanie (my brother's new wife) is a welcome addition to our family and I am so excited that they are here on their honeymoon so I can get to know her better. There were many other highlights form Canada and I will try to name a few. One neet thing was that my little city kids got to get down and dirty on the farm. They loved it! They got to ride their own horse, go on a hay ride, drive a tractor, drive ATv's see a cow close up, roast weiners on an open fire....followed by marshmellows of course.....and so on and so on. They were worn out by the end of each night. Oh wait no they weren't, that was me! We got to spend lots of time with my best friend Lisa and her husband and gorgous new baby. It was so fun hanging out with her almost daily and catching up. One thing that I love about our relationship is we can go months without seeing or talking to each other and then pick up right where we left off. Friends like that do not come around that often. I got to go to Grand Forks, with said best friend and go to a little piece of Heaven on earth....AKA...Target! I lost count of the shopping bags that came out of that store, but lets just say we are still trying to play catch up from our trip and Ben's is working endless hours to be able to afford me. Oh stop feeling sorry for him, I am worth it! Insert fabulous!

We took the kids to the Children's Museum, and they had a blast. It was a little sad for me because on this trip Londyn became more of a kid then a baby. She had always seemed like a baby to me because she is the youngest of all mine and my friends kids, but in Canada we were around allot younger babies and it made my little Londyn look so grown up. Make me sad. Almost sad enough to have another one, but not really.

We also had allot of fun staying with my cousin Tannis. We got my grandma, several aunts, more cousins, some other friends and all our girls and went out to the tea room for a tea party. It was a little stressful with all those girls running around but at the same time so fun to see them all togeather. Followed by a great night of conversationa and a movie all curled up on Tannis's couch!

Thanks to facebook we got to have a girls night of dinner and drinks with friends that I have not seen since middle school. It was so great to see them and catch up. Talk about funny slumber party stories from back in the day! The people sitting around us probably thought we were crazy because we were laughing so hard!

Addison got to go golfing with her grandparents. Had to see if those golf lessons paid off. Accordiing to Addison she beat my dad but I think she was alloud to cheat a little.

It was also fun to be able to wear warm clothes. Corben had never even had a pair of closed toe shoes or socks on in his life so it was neet to get all bundled up. Not so neat that I would want to do it for a whole winter, but neet for a few days. The kids got to go to the hockey rink with their cousins and walk on ice. WOW! May seem like nothing to you, but it was amazing to them.

Ben flew home a week before we did to go back to work and i stayed in Canada for another week. we ended our trip with a couple more nights in Grand Forks. We stayed at a new hotel with a huge indoor water park. My parents and of coarse my best friend Lisa came allong and we had a blast spenind hours on end at the waterslides, and don't be surprised by this but when we were not sliding we were shopping!

So how many of you have put two and two togeather and realised that poor little old me was stuck flying home with 4 count them four spoiled rotten (from their time with grandoparent) little children!! Actually I can't complain to much. Other then one 30 minute all out temper tantrum from Londyn at the very beggining of our flight the rest of the trip was pleasantly uneventful.

Since we have been home I have been busy trying to work off these holiday calories. Let's just say the pants are a little tighter now that I am home. Ok so there not a little tighter they are allot tighter, and well that pizza I had for dinner and will probably have for breakfast this morning is not helping. However seeing pictures of myself in a bathing suit on a surfboard is. I can not even tell you how fast I deleted that picture and banished it from my memory. What I should be doing is blowing it up and pasting it on my fridge.

A week after we got home my brother and his new gorgous wife are here on their honeymoon. Did I mention she is 5'10 and 125 pounds??? Just who I want to be sitting next to at the beach. Ok so I am a little bit jealous, and can't wait until she gets pregnant so I won't look so old and fat next to her. Jk I love you Mel! Seriously though it has been fun having them around! I am sure they love celebrating their honeymoon with my four children! If their parents were expecting grand children this was probably a bad idea. Four kids crawling all over you is all the birth control they need! We are trying to stay out of their way and sending them off on their own every day to go experience the island. This weekend they are travelling to one of the neighboring islands for a few days. They will be here for 3 weeks, which is great because it gives them plenty of time to experience everything without having to rush.

I got to do another epidose of Lost last week. It was great because my best friend in Hawaii got to do it with me. We have both done it a couple times but have never shot at the same time. We have always wanted to do a scene togeather, and since she is abandoning me in a few short weeks I am so glad we finally got to do that. I will talk more about my abandonment issues but that is a whole other post and I am still in denial that my best friend is moving back home to Georgia.

Well I think that is a pretty good recap for now. Plus It is hard to concentrate while Londyn is crying at my feet. I tried shewing her away but it is not working anymore. I guess I am going to have o break down and feed her. Hello can't she see that I am busy here! What does she think I am, a parent or something?

Oh one more thing. I have a bunch of pictures from the trip but hate loading them on blogger, so if you want to see them you have to go to facebook. If you are not on facebook, then hey what the heck get with the program!

Boob-a-lishous

2007-07-28T11:36:00.000-10:00

So It has now been 12 days with the new boobs and things are coming along great! It all happened so fast that it still has not fully hit me that I actually did it! The morning of surgery I went in at 8am and got checked in. I got into my gown and they started the IV which I am normally very very afraid of but they numbed it with lidocane first and I did not even feel it go in. Then they gave me this amazing blanket which had a vacume type attachment which actually had a constant flow of warm air blowing in. I need to get myself own of those for home, it was so cozy! I did not actually go into surgery until 9:50 am. They wheeled me into the surgical room and I was surprisingly calm. This was my first time under generl anesthetic and it was a pretty surreal experience. I was out in about ten seconds and remember coming awake as they were wrapping me all up in an ace bandage. It took me a few minutes to remember where I was and what was going on but I eventually peiced everything back togeather. I kept trying to fall back asleep but they kept waking me up. They wheeled me back into the recovery room and I was back in the reality world at that time. I have seen the procedure done on TV a few times and remember people waking up and crying in pain and what not, so either those people are real wimps or I have a high pain tolerance. When the nurse cme in I asked "is this it?" Is this as bad as the pain gets or am I still numb from the anesthetics. She told me no this was it and I was happy to hear it because it was totally tolerable. It actually feels exactly like it does when yo are breast feeding and the baby goes too long between feedings and your milk comes down and you are FULL and hard and need to feed. Like that except instead of feeding a baby you get to pop a couple roxicet and take a nap. So when I got home I went straight up to bed and that is where I stayed for the next week. Ben had taken the week off to be with the kids so I milked it for all it was worth. I had my lptop and my music and my book, and my magazines, and my drugs and I was a happy little camper. I highly recomend this to everyone because it certainly has its perks! Punn intended! Also because I spent most of the week sleeping and not eating I lost 7 pounds! So on to the boobs. I chose saline implants and went under the muscle. When they remove the bandages I was a little freaked out because they looked really high, which they warned me about ahead of time. I guess when you go under the muscle the muscles get confused by the forein objects now in your body and they basically tense up pulling the implants high up in your chest. Apparently it can take 3 weeks to 3 months to settle down into place. Um hello did they not know I am the most impatient person on earth?? Every morning a wake up and expect them to be dropped down and beautiful. They are looking better every day and they look very very natural b/c I went small( 350 cc). I really don't think they look fake at all other then they are a little fuller. I definitly do not have that big mellon look. They do say they will look a little bigger when they drop and are not hiding behind the muscle so much. When all is said and done I will probably be a small and perky C! It has only been 12 days and already feel totally back to normal other then not being able to lift anything to heavy. I have to wear a sports bra for 6 weeks and then I plan on going new bra shoping! Well that about sums up my whole experience.

The kids start school Monday and I can't wait! I am not looking forward to the early mornings but I am excited to have the house be a little quiter during the day! Once the kids are back in school I will blog more but for now I am going to go enjoy my Saturday!

OK I am going to blog already

2007-06-21T07:48:00.000-10:00

Geeesh where does the time go? Didn't I just post a blog yesturday? SO much is going on, I am having trouble fitting my 42 hour day into 24 hours.
We are counting down the days to be out and free from the Air Force. September 1st is the official date. Ben has already started training at his new job and really enjoys it so that it great! We had the house on the market but the market is S_L_O_W right now so we took it off the market and decided to stay put for awhile. In the mean time we have been doing some upgrades to our present house. We had already put hard wood floors in the bottom leverl and next week we have a guy coming to do the stairs and upstairs landing. We have changed out the lighting and hardwood in the bathrooms, and hallway, and will eventually start on the kitchen, but probably not until next year.
The kids are out of school and have taken up a new past time of driving me CRAZY! The house is never clean anymore and that in of itself can make me go madd! Today we are going to try and ignore the mess (AGAIN) and go to the pool! Denial is bliss!
We are in the process of booking our tickets to Canada in September. My youngest brother is getting married and my kids are in the wedding party. It has been 4 years since the whole family has been home so I am getting real excited! My dad was so awesom and offered to buy all of our tickets. Thank goodness! I cannot wait to see everyone.
My new addiction, other then shopping and jewlery has been been facebook. It is like myspace, only more of my friends from Canada are on it and it has been so fun! I have cought up with all these people I used to go to middle school with and havn't seen in 15+ years! That has probably donated to my lack of blogging lately!
OK I have to HAVE TO stop shopping. This happens to me every summer. You see because in Hawaii we have summer year round, however all the stores still carry the regular winter line that everyone else gets. Well we have no use for it and literally can't shop until spring when the new summer stuff starts coming out. So when summer hits I have to go crazy and stock up for the whole next year in three months. It seems excessive but if you divide it by all the months in the year it would look better. Not that I don't find something to shop for during the winter....I usually buy stuff for the house and jewlery, a girl can never have enough. Anyway I know it is out of control, but I keep telling myself that I only have a limited time left to even be able to buy summer clothes so I should get while the getting is good.
Speaking of shopping my birthday is coming up July 14th and you will all be getting an email and a detailed list of what I want and where I have registered for it. Feel free to get more then one thing on the list! Ok I am kidding but really you can buy me stuff if you want to!
Londyn is getting so big and it is making me sad. I knlow I don't want to have another baby because well my house is crazy enough as it is, but I can't imagine not having a little one around the house. Although I must say it will be nice when we are out of that stage and everything is just a little more easy. Her new thing is to take her diaper off ALL THE TIME! Everytime I go to get her up from her nap she is naked and usually sitting in the middle of a puddle of pee. I know gross, at least you just have to read about it and not clean it up several times a day. This girl is like hudinini(sp) I have put onsies, and pants and diaper covers and she gets everything off. I have done everything short of wrap her in duck tape, which I actually had to resort to with Camryn. I hope she grows out of this phase soon b/c I am getting really tired of washing her sheets twice a day.
Winston is still a welcome part of our family. Can you bleive it? I don't think a dog has ever been wanted for this long! We have a winner folks! Although we do need to get him fixed in July because he has taken a liking to poor Londyn if you know what I mean! Poor girl can't get around the house without the dog trying to attach himself to her. It is a total trip to watch, but Londyn does not need to loose her virginity to our dog. Gross did I really just put that down in black and white? Lets whipe that image from our heads and not go there. Sorry i just woke up!
So lets move onto a differnet subject...BOOBS.......or lack there of. I Alyssa Turner who is deathly afraid of needles, knives, and anything else that is not suposed to prod or puncture my body is going for a consultation on Tuesday to get new boobies. After 4 kids they are just not all they can be and well I am vain and that is not ok with me. I don't want big double D tits so I can make money dancing on a pole, I just want them to stand up again. They are not bad yet but they will only get worse and I plan to get while the getting is good. I think of it more as reconstructive surgery the plastic surgery........ right?!
So I hope to get them done in July. I am kind of freaking out about it but hopefully the dr can ease all my worries at the consultaion. The good thing is I get to lay in bed for a week staright and sleep and be welled drugged. For a mother of four that is like a dream vacation!
Addison has started golf lessons and it is so cute! She may really suck at putting but she is the best dressed little golfer out there. She even has the cutest little pink clubs! She is really enjoying it which will make grandpa very happy.
Addison just turned 8 and we had an American Girl slumber party! With 8 little girls sleeping over it actualy went allot smoother then I thought it would. There was very little annoying girl drama, and everyone had fun. I won't be having another sleep over party any time soon, but this one was ok. I was just informed by Allison that they are building an American Girl restraunt and store in Dallas so I am so excited and we will defintly be heading there the next time we are in Texas visiting! I am a little scared though. I will go crazy and buy every little cute doll accessory they have. I have thrown down some cash at build-a-bear a time or two! I must have been standing in the wrong lineup when God was handing out self control!
Also Addison was in the talent show at the end of the school year. She did her monalgoue from acting class, and she stole the show! It was awesom! I was a proud parent! I could never get on stage in front of a bunch of people. especially by myself. I was once asked to read a poem for remembrance day and I broke out in hives and then a sweat, and then my voice cracked and I was choking down tears...rediculous! I am a drama queen but not on stage!
I am jumping all over the place in this blog but here is a funny storey. So addisona and Camryn have a TV in their room, and in the evenings they will usually watch TV before they go to bed. They would always watch Disney Channel, and then recently became obcessed with animal planet. That is cool with me because they were learning allot about animals and dreaming of becoming a vet yada yada. So the other day Addison overheard me talking on the phone about my new boobs, that girl hears everything, and she says "are yo having plastic surgery? I saw that one TV" and goes on to explain the entire procedure to me. I asked her what she was watching and she says "oh discovery health is my new favorite channel." Discovery health? "Oh yeah I learn allot of stuff for example I think I can get this scar on my forehead removed with lazer surgery" So I sit the girls down and tell them I do not want them watching this channel anymore. (I can't even watch this stuff on TV without crawling out of my skin) So Addison says "why because you do not want us to see people dying and stuff?" I say "YES!" when Camryn pipes up and say "Well what about Dr G they are already dead, they are just trying to figure out how they died, that one is my favorite" Choke, Cough, choke, blink eyes in disbeleif, my 6 year old daughter's favorite show is watching optopsies? So the channel blocker is going to come in handy at my house!
Well I must go get ready for my day at the pool! At least if I get skin cancer my girls will probably know how to remove it!

Londyn Lillianna Turner

2007-05-15T12:25:00.000-10:00

I had a photo shoot at my house today, so Ihought I would take a few shots of Londyn while I had all my stuff out. Here are a few of my fav!

I've come out of hiding to blog

2007-05-10T06:30:00.000-10:00

Why do I wait so long in between blogs. yes I have four kids and I go days without even having time to sit down because we are so busy but everyone else seems to do that, and work, and blog, and well all you people amaze me because well you have it togeather. Anyway where do I start?
A couple weeks ago we went to a Jack Johnson with a few of my favorite couples on the island. We had so much fun! We ended up getting tickets at the last minute that morning and got 8th row from the stage! It was great! I will post pics soon, but I am sill waiting to download my friend pics.
Only a few more weeks of school and I cannot wait for it to be over! I hate morning and I so look forward to sleeping in and long days at the beach.
Apparently my bad shopping habits have been in full force lately. I have gone out of control and just canot stop! Like really I cannot stop. I walk into the store with the little voice in the back of my head nagging me to be good, but then the little diva that sits on my other shoulder (who is always dressed fabulous) tells me that I need these things. All of them! You know how divas are. There is no rasoning with them. She defeats me every time. If i do not stop Londyn is going to get kicked out of my closet so I have more room for clothes.
speaking of clothes. Lets take a moment to celebrate what Ben got me for mother's day! He got me my first pair of designer jeans! They are so Fab, and actually make my butt look lifted. I have to say there is no going back from here. I now can only wear designer jeans. I was going to get a pair of Sevens but apparently those are not the best fit for a mother of 4, so I ended up with a pair of Joe's! They are the best wash and the best fit and I LOVE THEM. In fact I love them so much that I will probably be wearing them every day and people will be begging me to wear something else. Thatnks Ben for my new great, fabulous, awsome, perfect, designer jeans!!!!!
So last night I had a Silpada jewelry party. I though it was going to rock because I had 18 confirmed guests coming and I was having dreams of all the free jewelry I was going to get. However only 16 showed up and only 5 ordered something. WTF??? Who does that? Like seriously, come eat all my food, drink all my wine and mojitos, bring your kids and have my husband watch them as they trash my house and then don't order a damm thing!!!! the nerve! So I am a little bitter today. I went from dreams of free jewelry to maybe earning enough for one necklace. Ok so I am a spoiled selfesh little brat, but I want to be a spoiled selfesh little brat with fab jewelry that I earned for free. I spent more money hosting the party then I earned in free jewelry. Insert wine and feets stompping here!
Well Londyn was upp all night last night and I am exauhsted so I am going to try and get a nap, and I am grumpy and nothing good is going to be said in this blog so I am going to stop while I am ahead. TGIF!

Practically famous

2007-04-21T07:48:00.000-10:00

I have spent the last two days on two different sets taping Lost and a movie called Forgetting Sarah Marshal, and I have got to say I could get very used to this lfe. I have never made such easy money. Of course I can't act to save my life but this extra stuff is a peice of cake. Basically you do allot of sitting around waiting for them to set stuff up, do 10 minutes of shooting and then sit around some more. Oh and the food! A buffet table of every snack you can imagine. Of course I have absolutly no shame and stuff my purse full of everything I can before I go home. Just so you know I have a BIG purse! My kids will have great lunches this week.

Lost was a pool scene set in the 80's in England. I was thinking "get paid to lay by the pool all day and work on my tan." Not so!
Apparently the director had an "in" with "The Big Guy" because it was a cold and rainy day and it felt way more like England then Hawaii. Also after cleaning up my childrens throw up for two days the inevitable happened and fever started setting in half way through the day making it feel even wetter and colder outside. Luckily becuase there wer kids in the scene it was not a really long day, and I was able to come home and crawl into bed. That is where I stayed for the rest of the day and night.

I woke up the next morning feeling great and had a call time of 1pm. This scene was an upscale wedding in Hawaii. I of course had to go shopping for a new dress, because I just did not have anything suitable in my whole closet. I headed staright for , you guessed it, Banana and got the cutest little dress ever. I mean so cute that I was afraid I looked too cute and would outdo the bride cute. And when i say little dress I mean little as in size 4. insert cloud 9! Size 4! Can you even believe it?? i am still pinching myself. So I got to the set filled out all the paperwork, went through wardrobe hair and makeup and met a whole bunch of fun girls. The shotting only took three hours and we got paid for 8. I think I got a really good shot because I was standing right behind the lead actor (jason Segel from how I met your mother) in the reception line. So this is my claim to fame. My two second in the spot light. Once we wrapped I stuffed my purse full of more goodies and went to the pool bar with a few of the extras. The Mai ties were tasting pretty good! Unfortunatly there was not a limo ride home in my contract so I could only have a couple. Then we all went out for diner on the North Shore, an had my favorite spinach quesaldias. Fun day!

Well the kids are all jumping on my bed begging to go to Hawaiian waters. So I guess we are off to the waterslides today! Have a great weekend!

Sickville

2007-04-18T10:39:00.000-10:00

You want to stay far far away from my house this week. I am up to my elbows in vomit. Yes it has been quite the week so far. Two of my kids are battling for the toilet today in all their sad pathetic cuteness. Every time Corben throws up he says "mommy don't ever do this to me again!" "I didn't do it" I say, and he says "yes you did you put my plate by Camryn's plate" Yesturday was of course the day that Ben had an emergency at work and did not get home until one in the morning. Addison had girl scouts which I could not skip because I had to fill out her permission slip for her camping trip TODAY. So I get all the kids loaded run back in the house to grab something and Camryn vomits all over my new van. Now being the high maintinence little princess that I am you must know that me and vomit just do not mix well. Thank goodness for leather interior is all I can say! Of course all this happens right when I am supposed to work on Lost tomorrow and that movie on Friday. I had babysitting all arranged for both days, but of course now I cannot drop off my sick kids. I am hoping Ben will be able to take off. One thing about having four kids is that when one gets sick you can count on spending the next week or two couped up in the house by the time it runs through all of them. Sometimes more then once. So I have been taking airborn and praying to God that I do not get sick. The only plus would be it may be good for a few pounds. Sick that I actually think this way but what ever works.

Other than that things have been same'ol same'ol around here. I am up to 7 pounds lost so far, and I think this time it will stay off since I lost it properly, and not by one of my crazy fad diets. Well I have sick kids moaning my name so more later!

Updates

2007-04-14T07:23:00.000-10:00

Good Saturday morning blog world! Why am I so cheery at 7:24am? Probably because my house is so clean. Boy do I love a clean house! We have it on the market, and today we have our first viewing. We stayed up until midnight last night making it perfect. I mean perfect! Scrubbed baseboards, touched up paint on the walls, shampooed the carpets, rehung stuff on the walls that needed a more secure hook, toilets tubs, reorganised the garage. This place is spic and span and I feel great! So here is to a good showing and a buyer coming along soon so we can move on to bigger and better things. Not that I don't LOVE my house, but it is just a little bit too small for out large family.

Since we are staying in Hawaii I have decided to embrace it like I did when we first moved here. Our first year here we went to the beach every chance we could. We acted like tourists on the weekends and w went exploring. It was great. But then real life caught up with tus and there would be times we would go months without seeing a beach. Well This week I have been meeting friends at my favorite beach to go jogging on their walk paths and then taking a refreshing swim in the ocean with the kids (but only two because the girls are in school) and then coming home to start my day. I feels so great, and I don't know why I have not made this a ritual earlier. I also bought a bike with a baby carrier so we can go on family bike rides. I just want to get out and do stuff more, so that is my goal!

Weight watchers is going great! I have lost 5 pounds so far and am loving it. I did totally mess up last night though. I ate great all day and had 11 points left for dinner. Which is allot. Well we decided to have steak for dinner so I ate it without checking out my points first thinking how much could steak possibly be. No sides just 8oz steak. Um that would be a whopping 23 points!!!! 23 is my points for the whole day! So I guess I will not be eating allot of steak. I could eat a Big Mac for less points. Holy Cow! NO pun intended. Luckily you get 35 points additional per week to play with. I am trying not to use them at all but obviously I botched that plan over dinner last night. Oh well start from scratch today.

Londyn is getting better and faster with her walking. This is so sad to admit but I have not even videotaped her yet. Can you tell she is my forth child? How sad is it. I am going to do it today! I almost did it the other day but my battery was dead. It is a good thing all my kids look alike, because I can just show her the video of Corben and tell her it was her when she grows up! She'll never know!

Oh and guess what! next Friday I get to spend the day taping for a movie they are shooting in Hawaii. I am going to be an extra and will be a brides made in a wedding scene. The movie is called Forgetting Sarah Marshal, and it is from the producer of the 40 year old virgin. It is being filmed at one of my favorite hotels on the island so it should be supper fun!

Well today is another jammed packed day. We have kite day with the kids at church, then go directly to a birthday party at the pool, and women's bible study at my house today. SO I better get trucking. Did I really just say that? Trucking??

Easter

2007-04-10T21:11:00.000-10:00

As promised Easter picturs are in. The first is a group shot of the kiddoes, and yes that is as close as I got to getting them all to look at the camera at the same time.

So finally Easter pictures are up! better late then never right?

On other news I feel like I am always copying Kelly but I have now joined weight watchers. I feel like such an old lady. I always remember my mother and her friends doing weight watchers. Oh well I guess I kind of am. But hopefully soon I will be a skinny old bag! I am really loving it actually. I am going on day three and I think it is so fun adding up all my meals to see how many points I have used up. I joined the online program so I do not have to go to meeting or weigh ins or anything I just punch in what I eat every day and it calcultes all th points for me and charts everything from my meals to progress, to physical activity. Makes me feel so organised having it all written down for me, even though I havent done a thing. So I think this is one fad diet that I can actually keep as a life style then just something to do for a week. I swear I have lost the same 10 pounds 6 times since Londyn was born, and it is time to say bye bye for good. I am really motivated now finally. I am even heading back to the gym tomorrow for the first time in 5 months. How sad is that. I am sure you are all sick of hearing about my diets and promises to loose weight but hey this is my blog and I can cry if I want to.

Today I went to the pool whith the kids (2 of them) while the girls were at school. Well apparently I forgot to put sunscreen on my chest because I look like an albino tourist who just spent 8 hours on the equator. So I am going out on a limb and saying red is the new black.

So is anyone out there watching the batchalor. he is from Hawaii and my friends husband and him work togeather. Apparently he is back at work now but we haven't been able to get any inside scoop. However I have a master plan to meet him and the new misses when the show is over. I will feel like they are my best friends already since I have been watching their every move for months. They will probably want me to be the God mother to their first child. I can see it in the papers already!

Well those pictures took 4-eva to download and I even skipped the last three. I have not figured out how to shrink pictures on my mac so it takes forever to download. Now I am just frustrated and tired and going to bed! Peace out!

I see more palm trees in my future

2007-04-03T19:10:00.000-10:00

Once again never a dull moment in Turnerville. A week ago I was spending hours online looking up houses in Texas and this week we have made an official decision to stay in paradise for 5 more years. Ben was offered a really great job here and between the pay, and the amazing schedule it is just too good to pass up. They are going to keep the position pen until he gets out in September, and he will work 8 10 hour days in a row from 6am to 4pm, and then he gets 6 days off in a row. Yes 6 days! That was not a typo. I know you are used to typos on my blog but this folks is real. I cannot wait! IT will be awesome! We can go to the gym together, and go to the beach together, and he will be able to go on the kids field trips, and well that is just an awesome schedule. Also we are going to sell our house and buy a bigger one in the same development. We really need a four bedroom, so Londyn does not have to live in our bedroom forever, plus we will gain another 400 sq feet. This will feel like 1000 to us after moving from our small house. I hope everything happens as planned and all the timing works out with the sale of the house and the purchase of another. So it looks like I will not be turning in my flip flops for some new boots any time soon. I was getting excited about a new adventure for our family but I am perfectly happy sticking around here for a few more years. Another point that is making this all easier to take in is that they have announced that they are building a Target 10 minutes from my house. TARGET! YIPPIE! That was the only thing this island was missing. Now we will have one and I will be there all the time. In fact you might want to send my mail there because I will spend more time there then at home I am sure. Ben is so excited (insert sarcasm) They are also building a new huge mall, and a campus on this side. They say it will be the "new" downtown making the location of our house the new "IT" place to be. So by the time we leave here the housing market will be peeking again and we will gain some serious equity on the house.

So on other news spring break sucked and went not at all how I had planned. I pictured myself on the beach everyday, getting a great tan, maybe loose a few pounds doing a new fad diet, turning me n to Claudia Shiffer's look alike clone, and getting in quality time with my girlfriends. Well instead week one I got my period, which keeps me well away from even so much of a thought to getting into a bathing suit. I finally get rid of that when up sprouts the biggest, most hugest, most gigantic zit on my cheek. Like the kind I had to hold an ice pack to because my whole cheek was swollen. Like the kind where you lock yourself away on a room as to not scare people. Like the kind where you pick at it every day all day long until you form a giant scab over half your face. So for 5 more days I stayed inside and out of sight . My friends all thought I fell off the face of the earth and my kids were going stir crazy in the house. It finally cleared up on the last 2 days of spring break and I felt like a prisoner with a lifetime sentence who just got proven Innocent and released from jail. I spent all day every day at the beach until the kids had to go back to school. Hopefully next years spring break will be better. I will say that it has been a joy having the kids back in school this week. It is so peaceful here during the day and I can actually get some house cleaning done. Well until they get out of school and destroy it again.

Londyn is finally walking pretty regularly. She had a couple near death situations over spring break, but no thanks at all to my poor mothering skills she has survived. The one day we actually made it to the pool in between period and sprouting of zit, she fell into the pool and no one saw her. I had just put her down and urned around to hang my cover up on the back of my chair and Addison screams "Londyn is in the pool" I turn around and Londyn is floating 4 feet out from the side of the pool and about 1 foot under water. I am telling you her life literally flashed before my eyes. I can't get the image out of my head. It took me 2 seconds flat to jump in the water and pull her out, but in those 2 seconds I bet 20 different thoughts went through my head. One of them was trying to recall how to do CPR on a baby. Apparently she was a fish in a past life (not that I believe in that) but when I pulled her out she did not cry, she did not choke, in fact her reaction was about the same as I get when I wash the shampoo out of her hair. She acted as if it was no big deal and was heading right back to the water all day. I am glad she is not scared of the water but boy did she freak me out. She of course could do no wrong for the next few days and I was happy to clean up the 500 q-tips she dumped, and the dog food she poured in the water bowl, and the toilet paper she unravelled, and the water she poured all over the floor from our water dispenser, and the markers she colored the wall with. I did it happily just knowing she might not have been so fortunate that day at the pool. All the what if's have been streaming through my head ever since. It is a good thing God is watching out for her during those moments when i am not. I have to say that in a way I am glad it happened because I can be a little to relaxed with the kids and it was a good wake up call to remind me just how quick they can be. Anyway just when we were getting over that ordeal we went to the pool again and she fell and banged her mouth on my pool chair sending her top tooth through her bottom lip. After many tears and much blood later she survived with two huge swollen lips. This girl is going to start having a complex about the pool. What a little trooper though!

Winston is still a welcome little ball of fur in our home. That is truly amazing since most dogs have one paw out the door by the this time. We finally got that perfect dog for us and I am so thankful for that. The rent-a-dog days are over for the Turner's!

Well I think that is it for now. Can't think of anything else really exciting going on. That is probably a good thing because we could stand to be not exciting for awhile. I would welcome not exciting right now. Hope everyone is enjoying their week and has a great Easter weekend! Pictures of my adorable kids, in their adorable Easter outfits to come soon!

Prayer request

2007-04-03T09:16:00.000-10:00

We all know the power of prayer, and my cousin could use some powerful prayers right now. Her husband has suffered from diabetes most of his life, and one of the side effects to this disease is blindness. He has had successful surgery on his right eye and they have just operated on the left and were not as successful. He still cannot see out of it and he has to keep his head in the down position 24 hours a day for at least the next week. They have three young children and they are all scared for their daddy. This is an amazing family who have been through allot together and their faith through it all is a true inspiration to me. They are so full of love that it pours out on everyone around them and it makes me so sad that they have to go through this. So I am asking everyone out there in blogville to take a couple minutes out of your day today to Pray for my cousin Tannis and her husband Mike and the children. That he heels quickly, that the surgery will be successful, that the success in his right eye will stick, and that Mike will go on to see many more hokey games and dance performances in the future. For Tannis to keep her sanity in tact while trying to take on all the responsibilities in taking care of her family. Thank you for taking time out of your day to pray for this amazing family. I will keep you posted on the great things God does for them!

Girl time!

2007-03-28T20:32:00.000-10:00

Today was a good day. Ben was off, so we got to sleep in, have naps, and then Addison and I went out for some shopping and pedicures. she got a hot pink with flowers and I got chocolate brown!

Then we came home and did facials.

Gotta love girl time! Tomorrow we are heading to the pool to work on our tans. Boy life is rough. I will try and update tomorrow!

What's for supper

2007-03-21T08:45:00.001-10:00

Oh yeah that's right more cabbage soup. Thought I would give you a little update on the diet. (Are you happy Jeff?) So I am on day 5. DAY 5! pretty good! I made it here with no troubles, and no cheats! NONE! I have not even licked the peanutbutter off my kids spoon while making sandwiches. Will power is not a problem for me while on a diet. The problem however is that I am on day 5 and have only lost three pounds:( Day 1 lost 2 pounds (yeah me) day 2 gained three, what the H E double hockey sticks is going on here? Day 2 afternoon got an unwanted un-invited vister who comes and sets up camp about once a month and stays for a week! That would explain the weight gain and bloating, and the zit starting to sprout on my chin. I think I am even more bloated then usual because of the large intake of cabbage. day 3 lost 3 pounds, still higher then I started on day 1. Day 4 lost 1 pound for a total of three pounds lost. (confused yet) So I have decided to do the diet for two xtra days to make up for my rude interuption and when I kick the univited visiter out the door and yell to her (n ow stay out this time!) I had better drop several pounds all at once. I mean it is one thing to eat cabbage soup every day and lose weight, but to eat this every day day inand day out and not be loosing then that is just crap. Speaking of crap let me tell you....no just kidding I won't. I will spare you the details on that one. Lets just say that Londyn's doo doo is more solid then mine. So here starts day five, at least I never have to wonder what's for supper.

Oh yeah my husband is doing this diet to and had lost 6 pounds as of day 4. Yeah whatever!

What's for supper

2007-03-21T08:45:00.000-10:00

I love cabbage soup!

2007-03-17T13:50:00.000-10:00

So I am jumping on the band wagon with bloggers Kelly and Jeff and doing the cabbage soup diet! I also talked Ben and my mother into doing it as well. You are said to lose 10-17 pounds in a week. Then I am going to have to go back to Banana (read below) for smaller sizes! So I will keep you posted on the loss and how by day 7 cabbage soup will make me want to vomit! If you go to Kelly's page on my blog roll you can gt a copy of the diet. So join the cabbage soup challange to a new skinnier you!

Banana-rama-fo-fama

2007-03-17T08:28:00.000-10:00

Banana Republic is having the BEST sale. I have revisited it twice it three days already! I got 2 skirts, two pairs of bermuda shorts, two pairs of capris, 2 pairs of kakhis, 1 dress, and 16 tops! you can just imagine the shopping high I was on after that trip! Oh and I got a polo for Ben. gotta throw him a little something. Well actually I scored some pretty big points for buying him a kegerator for his birthday. Am I a great wife or what? Now I am a great wife who dresses way fab in her new Banana wardrobe! I also went through my closet and gave my friend a garbage bag full of hand me downs. Not that I can even call them that, half of them still had price tags on them. Off to go organise my closet.

Updates
Londyn is STILL not walking and I STILL love my dog!

last post continued...

2007-03-10T19:56:00.000-10:00

So where was I? Oh yes the Big Island. We had a time share here so we decided to use it up and spend 6 nights on the Big Island. It really surprises me to say this but I thnk this was my favorite Island so far. It was sooooo huge and had so many different kinds of terrain. One minute you are driving through fields of black lava rock, then you are on cliffs next to the crystal clear ocean, then you make a bend and are driving amoungs rolling green hills that look more like Europe then Hawaii, there are white sand beaches, and black sand beaches, and even green sand beaches. There is just no end to the things to see and do there. I will try and upload some of my favorite pictures but it is going to be hard to limit them to just a few. The first day there we basicall just drove around 3/4 of the island, stopping at all the scenic outloooks, a hike to a wterfall, and black sand beach along the way. This took well over 8hours. Amazing because on our island nothing is more then 30 minutes away. Here is some of what we saw!

The next day we spent the day at a great beach. It was a little more crowded then we are used to but the water was amzing!

next day we attempted the night hike to the lava at the volcanoes, but it ended up being a 5 mile hike in the dark over lava fields, in the dark, and with 4 kids it just wasn't happening. So we hiked about a mile, decided it was more than we could handle and settle for an all you can eat prime rib and crab leg buffet in ilo. However by the time we got there we had 1 hour before it shut down. So it was quite the site In one hour I shoved down 6 pounds of crab legs, 4 ribs, potatoes, salad, and then went for dessert and ice cream. Oh and did I mention this came with bottomless beer! So once they kicked us out I went to the car undid my pants, and fell asleep while Ben dorve the 2 hou ride home.

the highlight of my trip was a zodiac/snorkle tour. It was a four hour trip on an inflatable boat with two stops for the most amazing snorkling I have ever done. The water was amazing. We were in 30-80 feet of water and you could spot an pebble on the sea floor. We saw millions of fish, and swam with about 6 sea turtle that I could reach out and touch. We didn't even get out the bay and saw 50 doulphins, and spotted about 15 whales. The whole trip was awsome. I wanted to do it again the next day!

Here are some more pics from our trip!

This is a picture from the coffee plantaion we toured. this is how the coffee beans grow. they are called cherries, and a re a little sweet with a bean in the middle.

Londyn's first pigtails!

Londyn update: Still NOT walking! Has taken a couple steps here and there, but nothing to write home about. Maybe one day she will decide to take off. She is talking allot! every day she does something new! I think she gets even cuter every day to. I guess she ages like her mother. Ok that has to be it for now. I am tired of blogging! More to come soon!

Hapennings in Turnerville!

2007-03-10T15:07:00.000-10:00

So much going on in Turnerville right now that I do not know where to start. I guess I will start with the biggest most important stuff. I did not want to say anything until it was 100% official. As of Septenber 29th, 2007 we will be done with the militery once and for all. Let me back up a little and give you all the details. We were getting near the end of our time in Hawaii and milling over our next move.Where we could get stationed next, and how to avoid deployments at all cost. We came acoss a special duty assignment in Germany. It was a teaching job that ws non-deployable for 4 years. I was just startiing to wrap my head around the idea and starting to get excited about living abroad for a few years when Ben calls me and puts a whole new spin on our lives. I was backing in the hawiian sun by the pool when he called and told me the news. Apparently his career feild and many others are over-manned and they need 3000 people to volunteer to resign from the Air Force NO STRINGS ATTACHED. We have been looking for ways to get out of the AF ever since we got in but when it actually fell in my lap this wave of fear came over me. I know I complain about militery life all the time, but really I have to admit they have been very good to us and w would not be where we are today if we did not have it. We are just coming up on our ten year mark. However with another deployment looming over us in September I remembered the bottom line most important thing and that is having our family togeather. It kills me to think of all the kids that go without their mommy and daddy's for months sometimes years at a time, and when it comes right down to it, it just isn't worth it! So after nuch, praying, and talking, and all the what if's we decided that militery life is just not for us and we applied to ge out. Well last week we found out we have been aproved and our date of seperation is Sept 29th. Now come even more big decisions. We go back and forth all the time trying decide what we want to do next and where we want to go from here. Part of me wants to stay here, because I love Hawaii and the weather could not be more perfect. I have beachs when ever I want and am surrounded in beauty every day. Ben has been offered two jobs here, so Hawaii would be a real possiblilty. However the down sides are, the school systems are TERRIBLE! The kids would have to be homeschool, or sent to private school, and at 10 000 a year per kid for 4 kids that is not really an option. Also I love our house here but a family of 6 living in 1200 feet is starting to get a little cramped, and poor Londyn can't sleep inour closet forever. However the option of upgrading to a bigger house is not really an option either because well I do not have a 3/4 mill sitting in my back pocket. So we started looking at different states on the mainland. There are some great states out there but we keep coming back to Texas. It ertainly isn't my favorite state but ther are a few reasons we love it. For one you can get your best bang for your buck in Texas. For what we payed for our 12oosqft in Hawaii we could own a mansion in Texas. No kidding, like a mansion. Also since Ben's parents live near by (but not too near by) we will have family available to help us out. The kids will get to actually know their family and we will be able to go to Canada more often (at least once a year) so we will spend more time with them as well. If we went to any other state we would have to divide ourselves between our two families on holidays, and have no holiday time left for our own family vacations. So this way we will see ben's parents on a pretty regular basis but will be able to spend holidays with mine. The weather is wwhat I am looking forward to the least but I have found an amazing development that I have fallen in love with. I think the kids will love and and our family will have a blast here. www.savannahdfw.com
I never really wanted to live in Dallas because it is sooo big, and Austin has always been our first choice, but the housing is quite a bity cheaper in Dallas, and like I said I have fallen in love with this develpoment and cannot imagine living anywhere else. I wish it were in Austin though. So I guess we have 6 months to figure things out and make a final decision. Ben plans to get out and his time in the Af gives him a Master Electrition level on the outside. He wants to learn the ins and outs for a few years then get his contracting licence and either start his own compan or buy into an existing one. I know he will be successfull at what ever he does because he is intellegent, dependable, has a strong work ethic, and drive. So if anyone has any comments or advice then keep it to yourslef! Just kidding I would love to hear what people have to say.

Next subject, and this is a touchy one for some. So remember that cute little puppy we posted a few months back? Our new dg Saddie? The one that was going to grow old with us and yadda yadda. Well Saddie and the Turner's have parted ways. Before you guys get in an uproar about how I go through dogs let me explain. You see when I bought Saddi (for $500) I was told he was a Pomeranian/Palpion mix. Both of those are small, long haired cute dogs. Well like I said Saddie ended up being a little larger then I wanted with short short hair (whcih I hate) and very hyper. So if I was going to grow old with a dog (and I am) then I at least wanted it to be the dog I really wanted to grow old with. I mean really this is not my fault. You don't just marry the first guy that comes along sight unseen, before you even get to know their personallity right? So I consider it like dating the dogs or more like rent-a-dog. I aid $500 for Saddie and had her for 5 months so I rented her for $100 a month. So anyway one day my friend comes over and falls in love with Saddie. I mean if that dog could get someone to love her then who was I to stand in her way. She begged me to take th dog home, and after twisting my arm for hours I finaly gave in. I told the kids we would get a new dog once we got moved and settle somewhere. Well little Addison was online for hours a day looking for dogs and researching. It was not long before I was joining her and skimming the paper every day. Which brought us to our newest member! Everybody meet Winston Turner!

W got her from a breeder and he comes from a long line of show dogs. He meets all the right measruements and requirments for showing however in a show he wags his tail when spoken to instead of keeping it completely still and up on his back. SO he was unable to show and the lady could not use him. We just wanted a pet and wagging his tail was not a bad thing for us, so we snatched him up right away. He is so completely cute! He is 6 months, 4 pounds 1 oz, and is paper trained already, which as you know is great for me! She is very mild mannered for a polmeranian. just follows you around, does not bark, does not jump up, pr bite, or chew thigns. I love this dog. For real. No I am serious this time. I payed big money for this little ball of fur and he is going to stick with us till the end. I promise I will never put up a free to good home sign with his pictur on it in the grocery store!

I have only a couple minutes before I have to leave for a photoshoot so I am going to end here but will finish up tonight with some pictures from out trip to the Big Island! We went for a week!

So much to Blog so little time

2007-02-22T07:28:00.000-10:00

I don't know what it is these days but I cannot for the life of me find time to blog. I ave been horrible. When I do finally get a few minutes I have technical difficulties and give up. So much going on! I guess I should start with the most recent. Yesturday Ben and I returned from a 4 day trip to Nappa Valley! My parents are visiting so they watched the kids while we had a wondeful get away! It was the best! The first day we flew into San Fransisco and spent the evening wondering around Fisherman's Warf. We ate dinner at The Crab House on Pier 39. It was delicious but after eating $50 worth of crab I was still hungry. This worked out ok because about an hour later we past by an In and Out Burger, which we have heard so much about. We were excited to try our first one, enter dinner number two. I thought it was good but I now know why they call it an In and Out burger. It went in one end, and not 30 minutes later came out the other! I was frantically running around with pinched butt cheeks looking for the nearest restroom. I pitty the person waiting in line behind me. Ok on to better things. At 10 we drove out to Nappa and checked into our hotal. AMAZING! We had a spa tub in our room, and a seperate tavertine shower with5 heads coming out of the wall. A fire place in the living room, and a bed made for the princess that I am! A complimentry bottle of wine waiting for us to drink. We started a fire had a great bubble bath, put on our matching his and her robes and drank wine by the fire. Romance was in the air.

The next day we woke up and got ready to hit the wineries. We mapped out the ones we wanted to visit and hit our first one at 10am, right when they open. The girl at our first winery was very helpful and she circled all the ones we should hit and gave us a great one to tour that was one of the oldest in Napa Valley and had lots of history. So we left the first winery with a map and a buzz, because we had not eaten anything yet. We decided food was a must if we were going to make our heads stop spinning so we headed out to a winery that she recomended that also served lunch. We got some wonderful sandwiches and corrt cake and had a picnic uout on the grounds of the winery. BEAUTIFUL! We ate until our heart and stomaches were content and then headed in for some more wine tasting. We picked up a bottle from every winery we tasted at. We worked out way back down the road to the Rubacan winery where we had a tour schedualled for 2:30pm. We were a little early so we did yet another tasting while we waited. The tour was amazing! It was so neat to hear all the history behind this 200 year old building. It is now owned by Francis Ford Copila. I know you will appreciate this Jeff, being a huge Godfather fan. He actually resides in the manson behind the winery to this day. I would have to say this was our favorite winery to visit and you can tell because we purchased not 1 but 3 bottle of wine here, one of them being a $70 bottle, which is more then I have ever spent on wine. Here are some pictures of out day.

From here went on to pour couples spas treatments. We scedualled a 1/2 hour mud bath, with a 1/2 hour mineral bath, and then a 1 hour choclate massage. It was a little slice of Heaven hear on earth. We were so relaxed afterwards. It was the prefect way to spend a day.

We then went out for a nice dinner, and topped off the most wonderful day with a trip to Target. I litterally closed the place down. No really they actually shut the lights off in the change rooms and I was the last person to leave the store. I won't tell you the amount of damage I did in that place but I am sure you cann easily imagine. I mean this is me we are talking about.

The next day we got up early and drove out to Lake Tahoe for some skiing. We decided to ski Sierra and it was great. The runs were not that challanging which was a little slow for me but perfect for Ben. It was so neet to see snow again, however the cold I could do without. I have to admit it was the warmest place I have ever skied (growing up in Canada) but coming from Hawaii it was way to cold. We skied until the runs shut down then headed back to NAppa with a stop for dinner and another stop at Target. At home we enjoyed some more wine by the fire accompanied by some cheese and crakers, and french bread with olive oil dip we had purchased at the winery. We watched a movie and I fell asleep on the couch.

Our Ride....

The next day we spent a little more time in San Fran, and then headed home. We were so excited to see the kids! Well I have sooooo much more to blog about but have to go for now. I have one day to unpack and repack because we are all going to go to The Big Island for a week and we leave tomorrow. Gosh all this vacationing is hard work. Will catch everyone up soon. Major things happening on the military/career front, need to post pics of Camryn's 6th birthday. Oh my gosh she is 6!!! Londyn is almost going to walk! She is standing on her own. much much more. Will be back soon I hope!

Poor Ben

2007-01-25T16:28:00.000-10:00

Poor Ben just can not, does not, do it for me. I mean I can't say he dosen't try, he tries real hard, he tries his best but he just can't pull it off, if ya know what I mean. It is not that he has no practice because I have given him plenty of oppertunity. He just seems to give up too easily. No matter what angle he tries he just can't get it down. He has the right strokes, tries to take it slow at first and the quicken the pace. I think he might just need to work on his technique a little. I must also put out there that size is not a problem. It is big, I would even venture to say on the huge side. Let me tell you ladies it is one piece of work. He has tried with the lights on and off, and even using a flashlight, but that did not do the trick. He tried extra lubricant, but that just left stains. I don't know what I am going to do with him. Does anyone have any suggestions? He tries hard, he practices, he's got the strokes down, it's not the "machine", lights on or off, dry or extra lube the poor guy just can't vacuum!

New Years and stuff!

2007-01-04T08:30:00.000-10:00

Who does a girl have to sleep with to get two minutes to herself to post??? So we had a good and noisy New Years. Ben of course had to work because everyone at the resturaunt has to work on New Years, so my friend and her daughter just came over to hang out. Her husband works at the same place so it works out good. We went to Outback Steakhouse for dinner with one other couple and soon became the birth control table with our 5 kids. They were reasonablly good but we were just so out numbered! After I shoved in enough food for one whole football team we went to my house, put a movie in for the kids up stairs and watched Love Actually (one of my favs) while drinking martinies (she had chocolate I had pommogrant). Sounds like a nice quite evening but little did you know it was a war zone outside. Apparently firecrackers are very big and legal in Hawaii. So I kid you not for 6 hours straight the house was shaking and booming. If you looked outside there was a layer of smoke so thick you could not see the street lights. At midnight we decided to go in the back yard and enjoy the free show. As far as you could see in every direction fire works were going off. I can't believe people waiste money like that. I mean why pay to have fireworks when you can watch all your neighbors for free! So anyway we stayed outside and had a couple glasses of champain with our neighbors and got to bed somewhere around 4am (that was dumb!)
The next day Ben cooked us a big breakfast that we ate outside accompanied with mimosas (yumm) We took the kids to a matine and then to one of our favorite resturants (Bucca de Beppo) It was a great family hang out day!
So after 8 years of marriage my husband still does not get it. Is he that dumb or does he just play dumb? You see my husband comes home for lunch the other day and says "hey I found a good deal on a motor cycle" I say "No way no how!" just like I have been saying for 8 years! So he calls me from work later that day and says "I have a meeting with the motor cycle guy!" I laugh in his face! No I be the sweet curtious wife and say that he buys it I will withhold sex for three months! He says I wouldn't, I say try me! anyway he goes on to tell me how much money this would save us in gas and parking and working it for every angle possible. I finally give him a "do what ever you want" Then we got disconnected and none of my phones were charged or working. So this was basically the last thing I said. So ladies, no never mine not even hey ladies, hey men too. what does a girl mean when she says do what ever you want???? She means I will let you make the decision but you better make the decision that I want you to make! So apparently my husband just does not get it b/c we have a motor cycle in our drive way! So looks like I will be going straight to bed every night with no hassel, not needing to think up excuses in my head why I have a headache tonight! I hope Ben's new ride is worth it....insert evil laugh!!!!
Speaking of evil, our dog has a few paws out the door if he does ot get potty trained soon! First of all let me just say that I bought a pomeranian palpion mix which it definatly could not be b/c those are both long haired dogs and my dog has SHORT HAIR! I am so mad! She is still cute but I always wanted a cute little fluffy prissy dog, and I have Saddie the short haired tom boy! So yesturday we ordered some dog training videos that swear to have my dog potty trained in 6 days! We will see if they work but they sound pretty good in theory. They call it clicker training. I won't go into details but I will keep you posted on the results!
Poor baby Londyn has had a chest cold for three weeks now. I took her back to the dr yesturday because when she breaths her chest sounds like a bear in hibernation. The dr said she sounded allot better, we could stop the breathing treatments and just gave her a decongestent to dry up all the flem. I gave her a haircut last night b/c she was growing a rat tail in the back. I looks much better. I think she may have gotten even cuter which I did not think was possible! She of course is still not walking. We are nearing 14 months now. She will climb up and down the stairs in .5 seconds, and loves to teater back and forth on the back of the couch, totally freaking me out!
The kids are going stir crazy on their way too long Christmas break. We still another 2 weeks to go. I am pretty sure I might be grey by the end of the week. At the end of the day I am so tired of talking and my head is pounding. Could be b/c all day I have to say everything 5 times, each time getting a little bit loauder, to get anyone to listen to me. I feel a calgone moment comming on.
So of course with New years my diet has started AGAIN! I said screw all that healthy eating and excercise crap and decided to go starvation route. Lost 5 pounds so far! Yeah me! Yes yes Oh I know stop the press, not healthy blah blah blah! Let see how good I'll look in my old size 6 wardrobe! Just 15 pounds more to go! I think I will have better chances of getting my dog potty trained but hey you never know.
Work has been busy lately and I am thinking of expanding and hiring another photographer. We still have to figure out legistics but a friend and I are are thinking about going togeather and advertising more and doing this photography stuff full time. Start hitting wedding expos and what not. We will see where it all leads but right now I am too busy for one person and she really wants to quite her job and be at home with her daughter more.
Well kids are starting to wander out of their rooms and saying mama! Lord give me patients today!

rain on my parade

2006-12-29T10:40:00.000-10:00

We had a whole beach day planned for today. Ben had the day off, the kids were sporting their new bathing suits they got from Santa, and we were getting ready to go. Then Ben got called into work. WAHHHH! Why does this always happen. So I thought I would make the best of it and take all the kids to the pool. I jump in the shower to shave my legs, get my bathing suit on, go down stairs to make breakfast and see that it is pouring down rain. Why me? I hate shaving my legs for nothing what a waste. So now I am just depressed and I am going SHOPPING! With four kids....why does that not sound as fun as I want it to be? I am sure it will just be even more depressing as my big butt (growing by the day) will not fit in any of the sizes I want it to anymore. I think I will just buy and not try on. Then I can just pretend I have cute new clothes, and I will HAVE to get skinny in order to wear them. Deranged you may think, but what ever works.

A few pics from Christmas

2006-12-27T07:33:00.000-10:00

On Christmas eve eve we took the kids to the waterslide park. Addison is now tall enough to ride all the ride, and she has no fear!

Christmas Eve we went to the service at our new church. It went real well and we had a good turn out. Then we came home had dinner and opened present!

Good luck getting us all look and smile at the same time!

I want to open presents too!

The girls with their American Girl dolls!

This was by far Corben's favorite gift!!!

Camryn informed us she wants to be a fashion designer. Here she is with her new sewing machine. She is actually quite good and has made 4 purses, a blanket, and a book mark!

This is our new patio table that I am completely in love with!

More pics to come soon!

Merry Christmas....Time for an update!

2006-12-22T07:59:00.000-10:00

I have to start off by saying Merry Christmas and happy Birthday Jesus!! Things have not slowed down one bit in the Turner household. I finally finished up my Christmas shopping! I really did not enjoy Christmas shopping this year. Oh why you ask? Well why don't you sit back, grab a cup of Joe, and I will tell you all about it. First of all my kids are SPOILED rotten. Not just a capital S but all the letters! The reason I could not find anything to buy is because they have EVERYTHING already. Seriously there was not one thing out there that I could think of that we don't already own in some way shape or form. They all have a Nintendo DS, they have a digital camera, they have bikes, and scooters, and roller blades, and build a bears, and cabbage patch kids, and American girl dolls, and game cube, the big kitchen, the train table,the basketball net, the puppy, and I could go on and on. How did my kids get so rotten?? Well I know I have to take some blame, obviously we have not been teaching a lesson in going without. The thing is every Christmas a birthday we have all this money coming in from all the grandparents and stuff. Because we live so far away they usually send us money to buy stuff for them. So my parents are divorced and they each send $100, then Ben's parents send another $100, then we throw in $100, and then the great grand parents send $25 so each kid has over $400 to spend two times a year, so that is $800 per kid per year. Times that by four for 4 kids and you have $3200. So every year we get $3200 dollars to spend on junk for the kids, not to mention all the stuff they get from friends at their birthday parties and what not. CRAZY! Yes we have accounts open for all them and we put some of that into there to save. Regardless it all comes down to way too much stuff for 4 kids under the age of 8. We seriously have to purge the playroom just to make room for more. Don't even get me started on the playroom, and how it is always a mess even though I have it all organized in bins, and drawers, and how my kids never take are of there stuff, and and and! So there you have it.....Why Christmas shopping sucked this year. I will post pics of the opening of present extravaganza!
Well I have to admit my kids are not the only spoiled ones around here. I have made a haul this year! First of all I got my new camera, (a few months back, which does not really count b/c it is for my business. Then last week I got a new 17" mac book pro!!!! Again it is for the business, but I probably did not have to buy the best computer on the market for it (spoiled part), then for Christmas I got an IHome for my Ipod. Awesome! Then Ben and I pooled our Christmas money and got this amazing outdoor patio set. I have been searching online and cannot find a picture so I will have to take one and post it later. Anyway it is amazing with 4 cushiony chairs, and a slate tile top with a gas fire pit right in the middle. We sat out by the fire last night and it was heavenly! I still have one present under the tree that I have not figured out yet. You see I am terrible at waiting to give or receive presents. The kids and I have been bugging Ben every day to open them. He is a stickler for the rules and is making us wait....Well sort of. The other day Camryn woke up before Ben and I told her if she told me what my Christmas present was I would tell her what hers were. Enter IHom for my Ipod. I didn't think she would really tell me. Well I guess I sort of did, I mean she is 5. I know I know! I am terrible. I don't think Ben has ever had a surprise on Christmas because I keep giving him hints. So here is the recap....Christmas is great! We are all excited! We are all very spoiled! We love Jesus!

Another milestone that was reached this past week is our 8th wedding anniversary. We made it past that 7 year itch which I must admit was not very itchy. I nearly forgot about it all together and was working on my computer when I felt someone behind me. I turn around and Ben was standing there with 18 yellow roses and a box! He told me I had 2 hours to get ready (does he know me or what) and that I had to wear this, extending box! I grab box rip box open and find gorgeous Italian white gold necklace and pendant. What is the difference between white gold and Italian white gold? It is from Italy I guess! So I put on my new gorgeous necklace spent the full two hours getting ready while jamming to my Ipod on my Ihome, and we went to dinner at our favorite restaurant, and saw the movie The Holiday! It was great!

Hmm what else, so much going on. The kids are officially on Christmas break and I could not be more happy. We are all excited to be able to sleep in every day! Although apparently my internal alarm clock did not get the message because it keeps going off at 6am. Bing I'm awake!

yesterday since it was the first day of their vacation we took them on the Atlantis Submarine. I thought it was way kind of boring and way over priced, luckily we got extremely discounted tickets, and even then I say it was not worth it. I will say for kids that are not old enough to snorkel ( like Corben) it was real neat. Anyway it was a fun day, we spent the rest of the afternoon at the pool of a hotel in Waikiki pretending to be tourists.

I went to get my hair done a few weeks ago and I told her to go crazy. I ended up being 5 inches shorter and a red head! Yikes! shev even had to color my eye brows because they are so blonde. I am still trying to decide if I like it or not. I think I like the color but not the cut. I should have done one or the other but not both. However it is less then two weeks later and I already have roots. Except this time they are actually lighter then my hair color which is even more annoying.

note new necklace Italian white gold necklace in picture!

The girls were in the Christmas parade this year for cheerleading. They had to march and cheer 3 miles! They did great and boy were they cute!

Here is Londyn, and her friend Hayden watching the parade!

The casting director of Lost called me again and I got to do another episode. It ended up that I had to go at 5am and be a nurse but they never did get to our scene so I never even got on screen. Gosh darnet! Next time I guess. I did get to meet the girl who plays Claire, and the guy who plays Jack's dad. I also got to read the script and find some more clues to the show!

Well a have a busy day of editing pictures and purging the kids toys ahead so I better get going. Have a Merry Christmas and I will see you all back in the New Year! Mele Kaleke Maka!

Busy weekend!

2006-11-27T10:24:00.000-10:00

Wow what a jam packed weekend we had. We started off with thanksgiving. I knew I should not have blogged about the Turkey Trott because as it turned out both me and my friend who I was running with came down with severe colds and were not able to run. Well I suppose I could have run anyway but I would have totally wore myself out and I had allot going on and no time to be any more sick then I already was. So we went to our friends house for a large gathering with so much great food. Our contribution was a deep fried turkey, home made apple pie (times 3) chocolate chip cookie bars, and sweet and sour meat balls. It was so good. Right after dinner we all whipped open the black Friday ads and started mapping out our route. We came down with a master plan and by then it was already 3:3pm. I had a photoshoot scheduled for 5pm, so I had to go home and get my stuff ready. I was shooting a family reunion and it was the only day the whole family would be on the island together. It went surprisingly well. There were 15 people and 7 of them were young children. I was really dreading it but I actually got some great shots. So I tried to get to bed early Thursday night but of course I could not fall asleep. Before you knew it my alarm was waking me up at 4AM! I jumped out of bed, threw my hair in a ponytail and drove to pick up the rest of the girls. Our first stop was Circuit City. We arrived to a line over a mile long, so we decided to divide and conquer. I dropped two girls off at CC and I went on to Toys r'us. Luckily there I ran into my next door neighbor and was able to cut in line. However when we got closer to the door I decided I should follow someone out to their car so I could grab there cart. Well by the time I got back my friends were already inside and the security guard would not let me through. I was so mad and frustrated. I fought with the lady for 30 minutes and finally she gave up and let me go threw. I am sure she just wanted to shut me up, but hey what ever it takes. So when I got into the craziness, everything I wanted was already sold out. So I just said forget it and left. My friends had the same sort of bad luck at Circuit City. The thing that sucks about black Friday in Hawaii is that for the most part there is only one of every store so everyone is at the same place. Not only do you have the people that live here, but the people who are vacationing here, plus all the surrounding islands come to our island to shop. So can you say too much competition. Anyway from there we went to Best buy, where I got some games for the kids, and a few movies. After that we headed to Lowes and I got a ceiling fan and some cute little storage bins. I got new runners for me and Ben at sports Authority, some toys at Kmart, and then headed to Costco where I picked up 5 2GB compact flash cards for my camera and more toys, and all the food for Londyn's B-day party! From Costco I went home unloaded everything and was at Ashley Furniture by noon. They have recently shut down here and were opening the doors at noon for and everything must go liquidation sale. My friend got a new leather couch and love seat and I got a tall bar table with two more bar stools which match the 4 that I already have. I got an awesome vase to go on that table with some flowers, a picture frame and a large plate stand all for $200. We were there for like 5 hours and we kept dealing with this one guy. He took a few hundred dollars off my friends couch set and threw in the two $125 bar stools for free. He so wanted us! jk! So this brings us to 8pm Friday night. Remember we started at 4am. That is one full day of shopping. I was exaughsted by the time I got home and was sound asleep by 9:30pm. At 4:30 am pop went my eyes and I was up for the day. I could not for the life of me fall back asleep so I got up, read some blogs, cleaned my house, got everything ready for Londyn's party had a shower and once everyone else trickled out of there rooms we got ready and left by 9am for Londyn's beach birthday party.
It was the perfect day at the beach. W e could not have asked for better weather. All our friends were able to make it and we had a great day! Here are some pics!

We got home about 6pm, unpacked ALL her new toys and cleaned out the play room so we could make some more room for them. I was in bed early again after a fun filled day. Sunday morning I had an all day Photoshop workshop and the University of Hawaii. It was from 9-4 and it was a great class. I learned so much new stuff, and really got a better understanding of photoshop. From there I had to drive directly to church for our very first launch service. It went great and I was amazed at how many people were there when I pulled into the parking lot. It was such a blessing to see all of our hard work and planning and God's will pay off. After the service we went out to eat at Chili's came home got the kids to bed and crashed ourselves. What a weekend. I don't think I sat down once. Now it is Monday the kids are back in school, aside from Addison who is at home with a fever. Oh did I mention that through all of this all of our kids have run a three day fever. Luckily there are no other symptoms, and all of our friends have already had it so we did not have to worry about spreading germs.

I have two more photo shoots booked for this week, and last night I got a call from a couple wanting to fly me to the Big Island to take their wedding pictures next Wednesday. How exciting! Ben says I am so international now! Well happy Monday! Oh by the way I am sure you have all heard but they are calling today Cyber Monday and if you go to cybermonday.com all the online stores a re running there own sort of black friday special and are having free shipping as well. Go check it out if you still have Christmas shopping to do!

Call me crazy!

2006-11-22T12:54:00.000-10:00

Tomorrow I am going to be doing something I never imagined I would do. I Alyssa Turner am going to run the Turkey trot at 6am. It is just under a half marathon...10 miles. The only reason I am doing it is because I figured it out and I would burn enough calories during that day to each pretty much what ever I want!!! Seconds on pie? Oh sure why not. That is if I even make it to Thanksgiving dinner. I will probably collapse half way through and someone will have to come resuscitate me. Hopefully someone hot! JK Ben! So anyway I will let you know how that goes and if I am still alive to tell about it tomorrow

This week at the gym I did a salsa aerobics class. It was super fun but boy do I suck. I dance like a white girl with two left feet. I stood next to the one and only guy who just happened to be a little overweight just to make me look better. It worked somewhat but I still looked pretty pathetic. After that I did a dancer workout class. Mostly pleas and a bunch of butt pain. I hate it and love it so much! Today I met with my trainer and she worked me hard on abs legs and arms. Geesh think you could miss a spot there? I have not stepped on the scale yet because when I do I want to see serious results, but I do feel allot tighter and not so flabby.

Not much else new around here. Camryn has been sick all week with 103 fever. I pray she gets better and no one else gets it because we have Thanksgiving, Black Friday, Londyn's Birthday Party , and our church launch service this weekend. Busy much!

Happy Thanksgiving to all of you bloggers!

I don't want to grow up:(

2006-11-18T07:31:00.000-10:00

One week from today my little baby is going to be one!

This is so incredibly sad to me. She can not be 1 year already. I just gave birth yesterday, or at least it feels like yesterday. On the other hand I love love love this age! She is the cutest thing ever and her smile is so contagious. She still is not walking but does cruise around the furniture. She repeats words that you say like Saturday, except more like sa-da-da! She has taken up a new love for talking on the phone. She waves bye, and blows kisses, and claps her hands at almost everything she does. She is so cute I almost can't stand it. Most other people agree because no one can ever walk by without commenting on her beautiful blue eyes and toe head blonde hair. The other day we were eating at a restaurant in Waikiki and several groups of Japanese tourists came by and they literally stopped in their tracks screaming. I thought Michael Jackson was in our midst or something but they were getting giddy over Londyn. They all had to touch her and take pictures with her. It was so funny. Can't say I blame them though this girl screams cuteness, but why do they have to grow up so fast? Why can't we enjoy all these stages just a little bit longer? Why do my kids age but I do not? Ha just thought I would throw that one in there. While we are on the topics if anyone has any ideas for a 1 year old b-day present let me know. I know we have been here three times before but that is just it, we have everything already. So any new neat ideas would be greatly appreciated.

Well I have to give a shout out to my new best friend, the Swiffer sweep and vac! This thing is a must have for hard wood floors! I love it. You know when you sweep up dust bunnies and they just fly away and relocate...well not anymore. This thing has a little vacuum on front to suck up all the dirt and dust and then follows with a little cloth to catch any leftovers. I am telling you it is amazing. Best $28 dollars I ever spent. Oh yeah and you do not even need to buy batteries because it has a wall charger! Put it on your Christmas list, or better yet just go out and buy it!!!

So the gym is going well. I have gone 4 days in a row this week and I am sore in places I did not even know could be sore. At least it feels like it is working when you feel like this. Today I am going to give my weary muscles a break and just do water aerobics. Any time you can work out and not sweat is good! I am proud of myself for sticking to it, I do still need to work on the eating part. I do real great until I am with my husband and we go out to eat or he whips me up a caramel apple martini. How do I pass that up?? So far I am gaining weight but that is good because that means I am gaining muscle and muscle helps burn fat faster. Unfortunately I have Thanks Giving coming up so that is not going to help. But working out 2 hours a day 4 times a week has got to be better then what I was doing before which was nothing!

Well I am off to the gym hope you all have a great weekend!

Count down to the new me!

2006-11-09T23:18:00.000-10:00

I feel like an idiot for not thinking of this sooner, but it just hit me yesterday that I am down to one kid not in school and I can join a gym! You see in Texas I belonged to a gym and I loved it. I would meet my friends there every day and the best part was they had free child care included in my membership. So when I cam to Hawaii I looked into joining a gym but at the time I was homeschooling and the child care was extra on top of membership. For 4 kids it worked out to $12 a workout to go to the gym. On top of my membership that became pretty pricey! So I cut my loses and purchased a treadmill to collect dust in my garage. It is the perfect place to hang my laundry! Well yesterday it dawned on my that now I would only have to pay child care for one. I could join the gym right next to Corben's preschool, and go there every day right after I dropped him off, work out for a couple hours and then hang out for a bit before it was time to pick him up. Conveniently there is a Ross next door to the gym so I always have a place to brows (and buy) while waiting to pick Corben up. Funny how things just work out! So today was my first meeting with my personal trainer. We mostly talked and went over meal plans and measurements and what not. I almost fell off my chair when she told me my body fat was at 30%. Can we say GROSS! I need to loose about 12 pounds to get it down to 25% which would be a good percentage for me. So its on! I am waging a war against my fat and I plan to win! After my meeting with the trainer I did 5 minutes on the stairs, 30 on the elliptical, and 15 on the treadmill. I would have done more but it was time to pick up Londyn. They have a two hour max on the child care. I cannot wait to get a few months down the road and start seeing some great results. Oh and get this my trainer said I actually need to be eating more! Yeah! I ma usually so busy running around all day that I often skip meals and then make some bad choices when grabbing snacks. I try not to eat anything past 7pm and then I usually skip breakfast b/c of lack of time. So from 7pm to noon the next day my body gets no food and goes into starvation mode. So I have to try and train myself to eat small portions every few hours. Not going to be easy but if I can make it a priority maybe I can break some of my bad eating habits. I also need to start drinking more water, I just never think of it. SO I am going to have to strap a water bottle to me and remind myself to drink. Anyway I am excited to start living healthy again. I am even more excited to get into ALL my clothes. I will have a whole new wardrobe and not have to spend a dime. Won't that make my husband happy. Well of course once I reach my goal I am going to have to buy some celebration outfits. Hey I deserve it! So I am setting my goal at 15 pounds and I will let you know when I reach it. Maybe I'll even get myself a pair of those skinny jeans! NOT!!!!!!!!!

5 seconds of fame!

2006-11-05T09:08:00.000-10:00

Are you sitting down for this one, because this news is big! In fact it is so big that most of you already know because I had to call everyone in person! Last Thursday my husband and I got to be extras on the show LOST! As I am sure you know it is all filmed on the island. My husband and I are always keeping our eye out to run into one of the cast members when ever we are out and about. I guess we did one better and got ourselves on the show. One of the mom's at my girls school had her baby play baby Aaron in a couple of the episodes. Well the casting director called her and told her they needed white people to play a flashback scene to England. So she gave me the casting directors number and I of course called right away. She said she was looking for adults so I told her myself and my husband would be interested. So she had me email a picture to her and she called me the next morning and asked if we could work on Thursday! Heck ya we can! SO we arranged child care for everyone and got on the set at 8:30 Thursday morning. We had to meet at this parking lot downtown that was full of trailers and what not. Not exactly ritzy or anything. We got signed in and then sat in the breakfast tent waiting to find out what to do next. Over an hour later they called us back to wardrobe and got us all in to character. From there we went to hair and makeup, and then we sat in the breakfast tent for another hour. It was pouring down rain outside so apparently that was slowing down production a little, however it worked well because it always rains in England. Soon after that they loaded us up in vans and brought us over to the set they would be shooting at. It was a little English pub down town. We were basically going to be the people in the background at the bar while they were shooting the scene. The flashback scene was for Ian. You may know him as Desmond on the show but after rubbing noses with him all day we are on a first name basis. Just kidding. Yes we did get to hang with him for most of the day, and he ate lunch with the rest of us and what not, but he is very quite and to himself and I had to pretend to not act star struck the whole time, so I just sort of ignored him in order to not make a fool out of myself. Now lets just say if the scene would have been with Mathew Fox they would have had to keep yelling cut as I was dry humping his leg every time he walked by. So the cool thing is once you have been an extra they will keep calling you back for more episode. Some of the people there had been on up to 6 times. However since finding out about being an extra we have been paying more attention to the extras while watching Lost and have noticed that they usually blur out the background. You can tell there are people there but you cannot tell who they are. But gosh darn it when you see that blur that blur will be me! It was cool just being there and getting to see how everything worked behind the scenes. For example we ended up shooting until 1:30am and in the end there is probably about 5-10 minutes of actual footage that will be in the episode. It is crazy all the attention to detail, and everything they do. I was bummed out that we were not aloud to bring cameras. So this is my 5 seconds of fame, and hopefully I will be able to do it again in the future. I will let you know when it is about to air but this week is the season finally, and they are taking a few months off before they air the second half of season three so it will not be until January or so. Email me your address if you want me to send you an autographed picture! JK!

Halloween Fun

2006-11-01T09:20:00.000-10:00

As you can see the kids made out well!

Ooops I did it again.......

2006-10-23T08:47:00.000-10:00

I was not even going to blog about this because I don't even want to here it but she is just too cute not to show off. First let me start off by saying yes we are bad pet owners. Our kids have trouble keeping all our pets names straight because we get a pet, it's cute, it gets on our nerves and we find it a new home. We suck at training, and just have plain bad luck with pets. We get the most stupid animals around and they start destroying stuff, like my $2000 couch. SO I am raising my right hand and saying this is the dog that we are going to commit to. This dog will be part of our family. This dog WILL be trained properly. This will be the dog we grow old with. Well the kids will, I will still grow young! (yeah right!) Anyway totally out of the blue this Friday we were driving home from school with the whole family and I told the kids that daddy said they could have a dog. Which he totally didn't! So they start getting excited and Ben could just not let them down so he agreed to it. So we get home look up some ads on the computer and boom, just posted, just for us, for half the price they usually run for, a cute little Pomeranian 8 week female puppy, just for us. We called the girl met with her that night and voila we got ourselves (ANOTHER) dog! This is no just any dog though. This is the kind of dog I have always wanted. My little mother hen Addison has not put her down since we got her. So far she has been doing great. She, her name is Saddie by the way, has been using the potty outside and not on my carpets, and sleeps in her crate at night. She is very mild manners and loves to cuddle. Folks I think we got ourselves a keeper. The other reason I thought we needed a dog is because I cannot for the life of me shake this baby fever. I want another baby so bad. I keep begging Londyn to be just a little bit bad so it will make me not want to have another but she just smiles and is a cute as usual and she makes me want to make more and more just like her. Why do they just have to be so darn cute? So for now I will try a dog and hopefully that will decrease my longing for another baby.

New subject. We had our first preview service for the church last night. Satan was working full force to do what he could to stop it. We rent an area in a school for our services. That is what most churches do in Hawaii because of limited space. So we were supposed to get in at 3 and that was going to be majorly pushing it to get done by 4. Well we got to the school at 3 and the gate to get in was locked. We did not get ahold of the guy until 3:45 and had 15 minutes to set up before people started coming. SO in the end it all worked out and as people came they just help us set up and we had a wonderful service. After we went out to dinner with some of the new families and got to know them better. I am so excited to see what God has in store for the new church.

Let me just announce right here that it is Monday and I am officially starting my diet today. Not like last Monday and the Monday before where I say the same thing and then last until about noon before I sink my teeth into a nice juicy Big Mac and half a dozen chocolate chip cookies. I am serious this time. No really, stop laughing, this is no joke. I am tired of people playing count her fat rolls when I walk by them. My butt is taking on a life of it's own and may soon be declared it's own country. This is no joke my friends. It is time to take action before it is to late! I am not stopping until I get back into a comfortable size 6. I mean comfortable, not lie on a bed with a fork in my zipper and cut off circulation to the rest of my body parts all day. This is war! Wish me luck!!!

Time to Blog

2006-10-19T09:13:00.000-10:00

Ok we are back from our trip and it is time to blog. We had a great time, but it is nice to be home again as well. We left here at 6pm for our wonderful 9 hour plane ride. The trip went pretty well because the kids slept most of the time, and they gave us the bulkhead so we had extra leg room. In fact at one point we made Corben a bed on the floor and slept quite comfortably. Poor Londyn however was suffering from an ear infection and had trouble getting comfortable. I mean in her defense it is hard to get comfortable when you are sticking your finger half way down your ear to stop the pain. Poor thing! Anyway we finally arrived at 8am the next morning in Texas. We went home had a big breakfast followed by a big nap! My first full day back in Texas I hit my favorite place. Canton First Monday! It is a huge flea market! I mean huge! It would take a whole week of 10 hour shopping days to cover the whole thing. It has furniture and houseware, and pets, and jewelry and purses and everything else you can possibly imagine you will find at Canton! I hit the jackpot. I always hit the jackpot at Canton. I think it would be impossible not to. I got some tin ceiling tiles, wooden dough bowls, two large rod iron wall hangings, a crystal bracelet for Londyn, a make up case, a serving tray, replaced the fiestawar cup I broke, can a new cart to drag all my stuff around in. What fun!
The next day we got up early and drove to Wichita Falls TX which is where we were stationed before we moved here. We got to see all our old friends and it was so great! We stayed my friend L's house and it was so great to get all our kids together again. We stayed up every night till the wee hours talking about anything and everything just like in the old days! We also had a girls night at On The Border that night which was so much fun. The watermelon margarita was also a real treat. The next day we went to church at out old church and the lunch at Ben's old favorite The Olive Garden. Following that I dragged him over to my other friends house where all the women from my old play group got together with all our kids and had a play date. Ben was the only guy there and got to listen to all us hens gab all day! I am sure he loved it. Here are some pics from our time in WF.

After our time in WF we went on to Dallas where we had plans to meet fellow blogger Allison at our kids favorite restaurant. This was our first time to meet each other outside of cyber space! I of course had to try on 5 different outfits, all of which accentuated all my fat rolls. I finally decided on one that made me look a little less fat and headed out. Allison of course is as beautiful and as sweet as she is on her blog. I felt like I had know her forever since I am always keeping up with her life online. In person we found out we had even more in common then we though. She is the me I would be if I did not have kids. We met at the magic Time machine which is a fun restaurant where all the wait staff dresses and acts in character. We had Willy Wonka and he did his part to a tea! The kids loved it! We also had magicians and balloon makers come to our table and put on a show for us.....For a price of course. After the Magic Time machine, Ben took the kids home and Allison and I went to a local bar/restaurant for a couple of martinis. We spent hours talking and telling stories. It was so fun to meet her, and I hope we can do it again one day. Jeff you are probably having an anxiety attack right now just reading this but it went fine and she was not a crazy serial killer or anything. Get a paper bag and take a few breaths!!!

The next day we had a quick pit stop at Sam Moon for some new jewelry and then headed back to Ben's parents house. Another highlight of our trip was meeting Wendy, my new sister-in-law to be, and let me just say I approve!!! We went shopping together and picked out all the same shirts so this girl has style and good taste, what's not to love. No really she is a really sweet girl and I am excited for her to join our family. My very talented 15 year old niece is a photographer and we spent a day taking pictures in her studio. When I say a day I mean a day, like the whole day! We took over a thousand pictures!! Here are a few of my favorites!

Like I said just a few of my favorites!! Ha ha! These are all pre-edited but I just could not wait to get them up. We then headed from there to the pumpkin patch where we took a few more pics. This was the first time to try out my new camera. Oh by the way I got a new camera! More on that later!

Also check out this link to see some amazing things my niece did with Camryn and photoshop!

www.bbmediapro.com/camryn

Amazing!

Anyway those are the highlights from our trip. The day after I got back I shot my very first wedding. (hence the new camera) If I was going to do a wedding I needed to buy a more professional camera. I got the Canon Mark II and let me just say it is amazing! And for the $5000 sticker price it better be! I am planning on taking my photo business to the next level with some advertising and a few more courses!

Since we have been back we have been busy with photo shoots, school, cheerleading, girl scouts, church and the list goes on and on. Oh and how can we forget the lovely earthquake that rattled our bed early last Sunday! Ben was just excited to have our bed rattle again. (He will take what he can get these days!) There was no damage for us other then the 13 hours with no power. I don't know what we ever did before TV and internet. Ben of course got called into work so it was me and 4 very rambunctious monkeys, trying to get through the day. At 7pm we all loaded into our van and watched a movie while sitting in the driveway! Thankfully the lights came on just in time for desperate housewives!

Well I am getting tired of blogging now. Hope this will hold you over for awhile!

Who knew?

2006-09-15T15:33:00.000-10:00

Apparently time flies when you aren't blogging. It has been brought to my attention by more then one person that it has been over a month since my last blog. I wish I could say that my life has just been so full of parties and red carpet affairs that I have had no time to blog but the truth is we have all been sick, and when I or one of my kids have not been sick I have been just down right LAZY! Napping seems to be my new past time of choice. Sometimes I napped twice a day. Once after I drop Corben off at school I lay down during Londyn's morning nap, and then once all the kids are home from school I use the excuse that Corben needs me to lay down with him in order to fall asleep. However I usually fall asleep before he does. I don't know why I have been so tired lately. I would swear I was pregnant but I have already tested negative for that and I am also on th pill so that just seems highly unlikely. So I guess I am just lazy plain and simple. So now that I have went through my list of excuses I will go on with my monthly, or sometimes more then monthly blog.

So as I have said we have all been sick lately. In fact since I got home from Canada in July someone in our house has been sick for 2 months strait. Running a fever just seems normal at this point. I had a severe head cold, and the worst sinus headache I have ever experienced. I took Londyn to the DR yesterday because she had some guck coming out her eyes. Well turns out she has pink eye in both eyes, a double ear infection, and a head cold. Poor thing looks like she has been through the ringer. However you would never know it because she still just smiles, laughs and acts as content as usual. She cracks me up. She will wake up in the morning with her eyes crusted shut and a big smile on her face! I really wish she would have a bad spell so I would stop thinking about having baby number five. She is just so darn cute she makes me want to procreate!!

I through an awesome pampered chef party on Monday. I had great sales and ended up with a ton of new stuff and allot of it was free!!! Mind you I still spent close to $200. Funny how those kinds of things just happen to me??? Anyway I turned it into a kind of wine and apps party and made a bunch of extra goodies. We had vegetable pinwheels, asparagus wrapped in phylo dough with a red pepper dipping sauce that was to dye for, hot artichoke sip with sourdough bread, all kinds of fresh fruit with a chocolate fruit dip, German chocolate cake, a pecan chocolate lattice pie, cheese and cracker, and of course red and white wine. It was a fun night, and was good to get some girl time in.

Only a couple more weeks until we go to Texas. I have been saving up for my Target, and Canton flea market shopping spree!! I am salivating just thinking about it. It will also be great seeing everyone again. Ben's brother has gotten engaged and I get to meet his fiance for the first time. From what I have heard and seen of her I think we are going to get along great! I am also looking forward to meeting up with fellow blogger Allison, because I know that is a good time waiting to happen. We are also going to swing out to Wichita Falls, where we lived before moving to Hawaii and get to visit all our friends there. Not to mention it is going to be awesome actually getting to spend time with my husband every day! Throw in some grandparents to provide free babysitting and let the date nights commence!!

Ben and I have started a new thing this week, kind of by accident but when ever we talk to each other it is sweetie, and smoopy woopy, and have just been genuinely excited to hear and see each other. At first we were just pretending and being silly but now we actually like it and it has started a new little fire in our relationship. We will probably make everyone around us want to vomit but I have to say we have not had any silly fights or anything all week. It is hard to get mad at someone when they are calling you love bug and baby. I don't know what I just did to the computer but it is now writing funny. Maybe it is all that love in the air.

my next subject is about menstration so all you guys might want to skip to the next paragraph, or at least pretend you are not dying to read about it and keep on keeping on. So anyway I started taking the pill for the first time since we have een married. Well I started this kind because you only get your period every 3 months. Basically you never take the sugar pills until you get to your 3rd month. Well it has been great not having a monthly unwanted visitor. However I got to the end of the third month and stopped taking the pills for a week, fully expecting the flood gates to open and have three month worth of menstruation come pouring through. However the total opposite happened and I had one light day of bleeding and then stopped. Hmm dose not seem like this can be healthy but I could get used to this. I used to have 7 days strait of non stop flooding so this is like a dream to me. Healthy or not I am game!

On to bigger and better things I have to give a shout out for Gains joyful Expressions laundry detergent in apple mango. It has got to be the best smelling stuff ever. In fact I love folding laundry just so I can smell it. The "joy" it has brought me I just cannot "express" in words!

I have a hair appointment Thursday and cannot wait to get my three inches of roots attended to. I think I am going to get darker brown and red lowlights this time. A good look for fall. Speaking of fashion I am absolutely disgusted with it right now. I refuse, absolutely refuse to go back to the 80's. My ass will not go into a pair of leggings with long sweater again so long as I am alive, and if you think I will stick even one toe in those skinny jeans you have another thing coming. I mean seriously, the 80's were not a pretty sight the first time around what is making people think it will be at all cute now. NOT GONNA DO IT! I can not see this phase lasting long and I cannot wait to move on to bigger and better pants!

Corben has started preschool last week. I cannot believe I only have one baby home with me during the day now. How can they be growing up so fast when I have not aged a bit? His teachers are awesome, and he is in a class of all boys with one girl. Although I feel sorry for the only girl and the teacher I am so happy for Corben. Growing up in a house with three sisters he really needed some boy interaction. He needs to learn that pink nail polish really isn't his color, and that Cinderella dresses are not cool. I mean it is not Corben's fault that his sisters use him as their little doll. Anyway now that he is hanging out with all these boys he is turning into one. He has been more rambunctious then usual and getting into allot more stuff. I guess that is better then playing barbies though right. No he really does like trucks and all those boy thing to, he just has allot of female influence around here, poor thing. Anyway It has been great having everyone in school and getting some one on on floor time with Londyn. This is one of my favorite stages. She is crawling and starting to pull herself up on things. She waves bye bye, and is always giggling. She eats what we eat now which is so much easier and she has been eyeing up the stairs so I am sure that is coming next.

Well the phone is ringing off the hook, and my friend is about to show up so I should be off. TGIF is all I have to say. I don't think I could stand one more morning waking up to that alarm clock. Before I even go to bed at night I dread that horrid sound in the morning. It physically hurts me to wake up so early. Sleeping in tomorrow!!!

The W,W,W,W,&W Part 2

2006-08-10T15:34:00.000-10:00

Ok I am going to attempt this again, but I really do not want to because I am still REALLY mad about loosing my post.

So where did I leave off? Oh yes I am standing at the airport with 9 pieces of luggage and the world's cutest baby with 0 minutes to make it to my plane. Londyn gave her one of her big eyed cheesy smiles, and we were in. The melted the heart of the lady at the ticket counter, and she told me she could rush me through. Even better yet I was way over on my allowable luggage and should have had to pay $40 a suit case that I was over but she did not have time to do all that so she just counted it as baby supplies and I did not have to pay for any of it. Note to self, arrive late at airport with world's cutest baby more often. So she gets all our luggage ticketed and asks one of the employee's to take me through the fast lane of the security check point we run to the plane and make it just as they were beginning to board. Now lets recap a minute here. I have spent the last 3 hours running. I have run through the big mall, run through Ikea in record speed, and now ran through the airport to catch my plane. It is 11pm at night and I am Wiped with a capital W. So I get on the plane bring out my IPod and try and relax for my two hour flight. I love when I get on the plane with a baby and everyone rolls their eyes and prays I am not sitting by them, and then Londyn is the perfect little angle she always is and makes everyone eat their words. Unneeded segway there but it just makes my day. So as the plane is nearing our destination I try and pack all my stuff in my carry on bag with one world's cutest baby on my lap. Since I was not in first class, this was a mission in itself. So as I was packing I hear something hit the floor, but tell my self I will wait until we deboard to check what it is. So now it is some time after 1am and we finally get to Winnipeg. I waited until everyone got off the plane before I got my stuff together so I would not hold everyone up but in all the hustle and bustle I forgot to check what hit the floor. So anyway my dad and his wife are there to pick me up and by the time we make it back to their house it is close to 2am. We were planning on waking up early the next morning to go shopping in Grand Forks, ND. So we chatted for a bit and I headed to bed for some much needed beauty sleep. I got a wonderful 5 hours in when I woke to the hustle and bustle of people getting ready upstairs. I contimplate rolling over and going back to sleep but then I remembered our day of shopping that was ahead and I leaped out of bed. I pulled the price tag off my new Baby Gap diaper bag and began packing some things for the day. I then hopped in the shower and got ready to go. Once we were about to step out the door I decided I should go grab my IPod for the 2 hour drive. I went into my carry on bag to get it and it was MISSING!!!! Oh CRAP! So I call the airline to see if I had left it o the plane and someone turned it in. They had not found anything but they said to call back in a few days b/c everything needs to be put into the system and they may not have gotten to it yet. So there was still a little bit of hope that I would find it. Like I said I was the last one off the plane so the only people that could have found it would have been staff. So I begin making excuses in my head how I am going to break it to Ben that I lost the $400 IPod that he bought me specifically for this trip, that I really did not even need, and that I have only owned for two weeks. Nothing was sounding good so I tried to stop thinking about it and focus on better things. Like shopping. Nothing like some good shopping to take your mind off things. So we get to Grad Forks and our first stop is my long lost love....Target. It has been 3 years since we have last layed eyes on each other, and don't think I have not been dreaming about it every night. I have one word to sum this up SHOE SALE! OK that's two but who's counting. In fact lets say it again. SHOE SALE! Ahh music to my ears! So I hit the mother load and bought 13 pairs of shoes. 5 for myself and the rest for the kids. An hour later my parents wanted to break for lunch so we went to a near by restaurant. They were discussing where else they wanted to stop and I said "well first we have to go back to Target." My dad say "back to Target we already did that" I say "Hello I only did the shoe section. There are many more things I need to see and do there yet!" So like the spoiled princess I am we went back to Target and I got jewelry, a bunch of back to school clothes for the kids, the cutest little dresses for Londyn, some new cloth napkins to match my kitchen, another suitcase to fill up with more shopping, and a few other things that I cannot even remember anymore. We hit a few more stores and added a few more bags of purchases, ended the day with a trip to Cold Stone creamery and headed back to Canada. On the two hour ride back I started to think about my lost IPod again. Oh great hear comes the guilt. Now I have to tell Ben I lost the $400 IPod. I spent another $400 shopping today, and the $350 I spent already. Guilt is creeping in. Got to escape it....Look at new shoes! Look at new shoes! Oh phew much better guilt gone. Or at least covered up for now. So we get home and I was cleaning out the diaper bag when there in the bottom of the bag was my sweet shiny new IPod!! What the????? I must have packed it when I got up from my 5 hours of sleep and did not even realize it or remember. Thank God! Kiss the IPod kiss the IPod. Now that I don't have to tell Ben I lost it I may have some room for some more shopping!

The next day we had a family gathering at my favorite cousin's house. For any other cousins that are reading this you are all a close second. I love you, kiss kiss! So anyway my fav cousin introduced me to a new but not so new drink. The Long Island Icetea. I have had them before but do not really like them however hers was awesome, and I could not get enough of this ice cool drink on that hot summer day. I was so great to see all my family again. It was also very heart breaking though. Growing up those family gatherings were my fondest memories. Playing with all my cousins was always such a blast. We now have all grown up and had kids and now all our kids are playing together at the family gatherings. Well everyone except my kids that live 3000 miles away. In HAWAII Ha ha suckers! Just kidding. In all seriousness I really do wish we could be closer to family and I hate that my kids are missing out on that.
The rest of the trip I spent visiting as much people as possible. I spent several days with my best friend. They were the ones that came to visit last October and smashed our van and broke our son. Love ya guys! Anyway they have been married for a year now and are pregnant with their first baby. Congratulations! I also got to see their house for the first time. They had done some awesome renovations and it looks amazing. Also our other friend who is a teacher in Hong Kong was out visiting at the same time so I got to see her and her husband and little girl. She is also expecting and they are just a few weeks apart. So I finally get done having babies and now they are starting. I was always the one pregnant or breastfeeding, and now it was there turn. At least this time I did not have to be the DD.
I also had lunch with a fellow blogger from WWJblog. I had never actually met anyone that I knew from online so that was fun, and we had some great conversation. I also got together with an old roommate that I had not seen in 5 years and we had dinner and a hot tub and caught up on old times.
My other best friend who lives in North Dakota drove up to see me and we left our kids with our parents and had an awesome girls night, full of food, dessert, giggles, and a movie. Not just a movie, but one of the funniest movies I have seen in a long time. Me You And Depree. Hysterical!
The last night I went out with my dad and his wife to one of my favorite restaurants and had a great meal and a great time visiting. It was a very fun but very busy trip and I was getting anxious to get home. This was the longest I have ever been away from the kids and I could not wait to get back and see them.
It was so great to see them there waiting for me with a lei when I got off the plane. With dad in charge none of them looked like they had seen a brush in a few days and no ones outfit matched, but I claimed them with open arms anyway. I have to admit Ben did a pretty good job. Not Alyssa good but all the kids were still alive and the house was still standing and moderately clean. I noticed Addison scratching her head allot on the way home. I asked her about it and she said it has been itching for awhile. I told her she probably had a rash from not washing the sand out good enough and I would wash it with some head and shoulders when I got home. So we did that and then all the kids gathered around my suitcase to receive all there gifts from Canada. Then after a long long day we all hit the hay. The next day Ben had to go back to work so it was just me and the kids. However the car died on the way to work and he ended up being 3 hours late. He called and told me the car would run as long as he did not have to drive in traffic. Oh well thats good news. So after work we met up and decided that instead of investing money in another unreliable used car we should just go ahead and buy a new mini van. The mini van we are driving now we had had for 5 years and the air conditioning was going on it. It would cost us $2000 to fix it, and we do not want to put that much money into a van that we do not plan on taking with us when we leave here. So we went to the Honda dealership to check out the new vans. 2 hours later we were filling out paperwork for our brand new 2006 Honda Odyssey! We knew that was the van we wanted and have been researching it online. We were not planning on buying it for another year but under the circumstances decided to go ahead. It is silver with grey leather interior, seat warmers (not needed in Hawaii but cool anyway), automatic doors, a moon roof, flip down tv and dvd player, and all the other bells and wistles. It is like a space ship on wheels. Check it out at www.honda.com It is the Honda Odysee XL. I waited in the old van with the kids while Ben filled out all the papers. While we were sitting there I noticed Addison was still scratching her head. I had her come over for a closer look, and there under the light of the car interior I discovered the root of her problem. She had company. Unwanted, uninvited company, with creepy crawly legs that layed eggs in her hair. You guessed it, welcome home we got lice! I have no idea where it came from but I have never been more grossed out. My head is itching just thinking about it. So we finally left the dealership at 10pm in my new van. Addison and her new residents were not aloud to ride in the new van, so they rode home in the old one and I dropped by the drug store to get some treatment for our new guests. I bought the shampoo, and the spray and any and every other known lice product that will assist me in getting rid of these little pests. I then spent the next 5 hours going through the girls hair. It turned out Addison decided to share her new friends with her sister. Everyone else in the house was safe, but I still made Ben check my hair every five minutes because every time I thought of it my head would feel like it was crawling. So by the time I treated there hair, picked through every last strand on both their heads, put their bedding in the hot wash, sprayed and vacuumed their mattresses, loaded all their dolls, and stuffed animals into a large garbage bag and put them to bed it was 3:30 am. Keeping in mind I was still in the Canadian time zone and it was actually 8:30am. I fell into bed and had a welcomed 7 hours of sleep. I continued to go through the hair strand by strand for the next 3 days. I think I can tell you the number of hairs on their head.
The next day we had to move on to bigger and better things. School supply shopping. I loaded up the kids to Walmart with all of their lists. We got most everything we needed and of course when we were checking out Camryn had to pipe up and say "Hi my names Camryn we have bugs in our hair" "Shut Up" I spit under my breath, saying a quick prayer that the clerk missed that one. We got outside and I gave them the lecture that the bugs were gone and we did not need to talk about them any more. I got home and continued to fumigate the house. I boiled anything they ever touched and vacuumed and shampooed all the rugs. I was going to conquer these suckers if it was the last thing I did. I am happy to announce they never made a come back and the good side won!

So no sooner did we get over the whole lice thing when Corben woke up with a fever of 101'F followed by a sore throat, a few days later it moved onto Londyn, and then on Addison's 2nd day of school she got sent home with a fever as well. I kept her home the next day and took her to the Dr. They swabbed her for strep and went ahead and treated her anyway so she could go back to school. They told me if it was positive they would bring the whole family in and give them a shot of penicillin. The next day I called and they told me it was negative but that it could lay dormate for a few days. Sure enough the next day it came back positive and we all went in for shots. The Dr asked if any of us were allergic to anything and I said no except I think I was allergic to needles, and opted for the oral meds. Corben was the ginny pig and went first. The Dr decided to put on a smaller needle so it would go in easier. However penicillin is one of the thickest medications and the fluid was too thick to go through the small needle. So you would think he would take the needle out and get a new one, but no he decides he is going to force it through. Veins were popping out of the dr's head he was pushing so hard. Pieces of the plastic syringe were literally breaking off, all the while this needle is in Corben's leg. So he was not able to walk on it for 4 days. Great just what I need another body to Carry everywhere. I had Corben on one hip and Londyn on the other. Hopefully this constitutes as my work out because I have not stepped on my treadmill in 3 months and don't see us meeting any time in the near future. NO TIME! I do however have time to shove chocolate bars and chips down my throat but that is a whole other blog.

So Camryn had her first day of kindergarten. I cannot believe she is so big already, and I am so old. She loves her teacher, and is very excited to go every day. They have even been doing good at the whole 6:30am wake up thing. Here is a pic of the two girls right before school!

For me however school is already leaving a bad taste in my mouth. I know it has only been a week but I am this close to pulling Addison out and home schooling again. The first day we went in to meet the teacher and drop off our supplies Addison had noticed some posters up on the wall of the cursive writing alphabet chart. So she tells the teacher that she already knows how to write in cursive. (the A Beka curriculum we used last year introduces cursive writing in Kindergarten so she has been writing fluently for over a year) So the teacher says "oh really we usually don't even introduce it until third grade but I might do a little bit in second." So how boring is that going to be for her to write her ABC's out in cursive writing over and over again. I also know that she is at least a 4th grade reading level, and is going to be way bored in school. I still told myself that this will work out and we will just do some extra work at home. HOWEVER she has come home on 3 seperste occasions telling me that she was told by her teacher to let her neighbor copy her work sheet when they did not know how to do it. I could not believe this could be true and finally confronted her teacher on it. I took a round about approach and said that it was not a big deal but Addison is a stickler for the rules and we have always told her it is not ok to copy so I was just wondering what circumstances you let the children copy so I can tell her that it is ok in certain situations. The teacher acted shocked and said she has never told them to copy. She said she sometimes lets them work together on something and maybe the kids at her table thought that meant copy. So I went out and told Addison that the teacher did not say they could copy but that they could work together so maybe she thought that meant copy. Addison says "no she said we could copy but maybe she meant we could work together" If anyone of you know Addison you know that she is a good communicator. I mean she can replay my phone conversations vebatem (which is usually not a good thing) So I have to believe her when she says this is true. This means that the teacher flat out lied, which of course she would never admit to. So I don't know what to do. Addison loves the social aspects of school, but also wants to learn as much as she did last year. This is her teachers first year to have her own class, and just student taught last year. She just does not seem to love her job. So the good news is they have hired a 5th 2nd grade teacher because the class numbers were getting too high. So I think I am going to call the principal and volunteer Addison to be switched to the new teacher. I have also picked up some third grade curriculum and have been supplementing extra pages for homework. Also I talked to the school about there gifted and talented program and they should be testing in the next couple of weeks. So we will see if all this will make some improvements. I am just going to have to keep praying about it until I find the right answer for our family.

Speaking of prayer I have some major news on the God front. Several months ago I met a girl at out pool. We got to talking about church on the island and how Ben and I have been searching for a couples bible study. Well it turns out they had just recently moved back to the island from California with another couple and both of their husbands are pastors. They are here to start a new church and they had a Wednesday night group that was in our neighborhood and we could bring our kids. All four of them. That is a major thing in of itself. So we have been attending Wednesday nights for several weeks and last Sunday was their kickoff church BBQ. They were going to invite people to the beach, tell them about the church, have a mini sermon, and some fellowship. Well before the BBQ they invited us over to their house for lunch and to show us a presentation they had put together about their core beliefs, missions statements, where they see the church in the next year ext. So we heard the presentation and were totally on board with everything they went over. After the presentation they asked us what we thought and asked us to be on their church planting team! WOW! This is so huge for me. I have always been one to say oh that is great for a scholar or a pastor, or even someone who grew up in the church, but God could never use me to get something done. So I am so excited to see how God CAN use me and grow me. I can see His hand in this so clearly. Everything has just come together so perfectly that it is impossible to deny this is a God thing. We have been to many churches on the island who have said "10 years ago this church started with 5 people in so and so's living room." So it is so neat for us to be a part of this from the ground up. What a testimony it will be to look back ten years from now and see what God has done. To be apart of this is amazing for me and I am excited to see what lies ahead. It is like Ben and I have spent the last 2 years spiritually starving on purpose and now we can jump in with both feet and be fed to overflowing. The church is called Living Waters and you can check out the website at www.LivingWatersHi.com . This week they have found a possible meeting place for Sunday services so you can all be praying for the perfect spot to open up.

Also since I have gotten home I have gotten my self a job. Not really a job job but two days a week I am babysitting for a friend of mine. She is was in bad situation with her former babysitter and my heart went out to her so I offered to help her out after going back and forth a few times in my mind. I just got rid of two of mine and now I am taking on another. But in the end I was helping out a friend and it would be nice to have a little spending money. Maybe my poor husband could stop working so hard. I am happy to report it is going even better then I thought it would and has been the best thing for everyone. Her and Corben had not always gotten along because they are just too close in age but they have been the best of buddies lately and it is so exciting to watch them play togeather now. Since it is only two days a week it still gives me plenty of time to get other things done, and I am just happy that she has somewhere to go where she feels good about. That makes such a difference when you are looking for someone to watch your children. No one is ever good enough really. Actually since she knows all the near death situations my kids have been in I am surprised anyone trusts me with their kids.

Thursday was the day from HE double hockey sticks. That was the day I wrote this blog the first time and after two hours of typing it disappeared. Then I picked up the girls from school and Addison lost her new sweat shirt and lunch box all in one day. Then I went to make a cake for bible studay and my beaters broke. Then I was talking to my mother inlaw on the phone and my cell phone dropped in the toilet while I was reaching for a tissue. Then after my mother in law called me back on the home phone Addison was playing with Londyn in her room and says mommy come quick I think Londyn is sick or something. I run over there and she is gagging and all of a sudden she projectile vomits and out come a smiley face eraser that she has swallowed. Then we went to bible study and Ben had parked our new van in a tight spot next to a pole. Well when Ben opened the aoutmatic doors it scrapped against the pole and took off all the paint. Luckily it buffed out but still it was the perfect end to my perfectly horrible day.

This Friday I went real surfing for the first time. Followed closely by my first surfing injury. It was the weirdest thing. The first time I tried (emphasis on the word TRIED) to get up I twisted my ankle a bit. I shook it off and continued to try and surf for awhile longer. It eventually stopped bothering me and I even caught an awesome wave! Now I know why surfers are in such good shape. That is a work out and a half. I am still trying to decide if the time you spending standing on a wave is worth all the paddling you do. Maybe it is once you get good at it, but for now it is like skiing except you have to walk back up the hill yourself. I was so worn out when we headed back to shore, but was so excited I finally got to try it. When I went home I had a quick 20 minute cat nap before heading to the shower. On my way up the stairs I noticed that my heal kinda hurt. So I looked and there was a bunch of dry blood. I looked a little closer and noticed I had cut myself on some of the coral. Nothing major but now that I noticed it was there I started to favor it and put my weight on my other leg. Well that was the leg I had twisted earlier and I guess the extra weight on that leg made it worse and it started to swell. By the end of the night it had almost doubled in size and I could barely walk on it. I took a T3 and went to bed. It was much better the next day but every muscle in my body was sore and suffering. I guess I am just too old to try new things. I think I will give it another go some day but for now I need to heal my weary bones.

Well I think that is all the drama in the Turner household for now. I will leave you with some cute pics!

The Who What When Where and Why

2006-08-01T13:11:00.000-10:00

Ok just so everyone will stop bugging me I am going to update my blog. But don't say you didn't ask for it when you have to read the world's longest blog entry. I guess I will start form the beginning.
I left for Canada the evening of July 4th. I ended up having to miss the fire works in order to get to the airport on time which was the whole reason I made my flight leave the night of the fourth in the first place. Of course like any good diva I way over packed, however like any good diva would not, I had no one to carry everything but myself. So picture this..... Here I am with 1 baby, 1 stroller, 1diaper bag, 1 purse, 1 carry on box of fresh Hawaiian pineapple, 1 small suit case,1 back pack camera bag, and 1 car seat, and this was just the stuff I was bringing on the plane with me. Then I had 4 suit cases that were as big as regulation aloud, and as heavy as regulation aloud.(50 lbs each) that I had checked. So on my flight there I had to switch planes FOUR times! SO that means every time I got off the plane I had to carry 1 baby, 1 stroller, 1diaper bag, 1 purse, 1 carry on box of fresh Hawaiian pineapple, 1 small suit case,1 back pack camera bag, and 1 car seat. So I managed a little system, but even at best I was always 2 feet wider then the little 12 inch isle through the plane. SO I tried to push my way through each seat, trying to straddle the car seat with 17 pound baby inside with one arm. Every time I popped through a seat the car seat banged against my leg. By the time I got to Calgary I had huge bruises running all the way up my thigh. Can you believe this whole time not one person offered to help me??? Not even the airline stewardess....Is that not their job?? Anyway I finally made it after 22 hours of straight travel. My brother picked me up from the airport and the very first thing I did was bought a good ole super sized Canadian mixture Slurpee! Ahhh! 40 oz of sweet sugary goodness in a cup! For all you American readers, yes we have Slurpees in the USA (usually at 7-eleven) But they are not the ones they have in Canada. Same cup, same store, way different slurpee. Trust me I know I once drove to every gas station in North Dakota looking for my beloved slurpee, but could never find one. The next purchase was my old time favorite Ketchup chips. I put ketchup one EVERYTHING, so can you imagine my excitement when I could eat it on a chip???!!! Once I got all my cravings out of the way we drove to his house and I got to meet precious little Abby for the first time. Patty ended up having a c-section because little Abby was not so little. At 9 lbs 4 oz she got herself stuck in the birth canal. She was cuter then I could have imagined and it was so great fulfilling my dose of baby fever.

Londyn had lots of fun with her new baby cousin too, and she loved having someone smaller then her around.
We also got to spend a day in Banff, which was great because I have never been there before. I had been to the Colorado Rockies but never the Canadian ones. It was beautiful! My mother has this weird fear of heights and mountains, so we told her we were going somewhere completely different and then when she ended up in the mountains she had no choice but to enjoy the ride or take a very long walk home. In the end she was glad we kidnapped her because we had a great time, got some great pics, and saw some great sites. Here are a few pics from that day.

After 10 days in Alberta It was time for the next leg of my journey. I was flying out the night of the 14th, which also happened to be my birthday! It was the 10th anniversary of my 21st birthday. So Patty and I with two babies in tow headed to spend the day in Calgary before I flew out. Well we ment to spend the day but due to the fact that I am never on time for anything and she is still figuring out how things work with a new baby we finally made it to Calgary a few hours behind schedule. Our first stop was the big mall. We went for lunch at a great restaurant called Joey's Tomato. The food was great and the Martinis were even better. Yes it was only lunch time, and yes we had two infants with us, but it was my birthday. (insert whine)
So after a great lunch and a small buzz we went shopping. Well I should say I went shopping. Patty is not much of a shopper so she hung out and breast fed most of the time and I tried to run through as many stores as I could in one hour. I could have spent a week in that mall but I only had an hour so I covered what I could at marathon speed. The next stop before my departure was the one I had been waiting for....IKEA!!! By the time we made it there ( more breast feeding and dirty diapers ect) I only had again one hour before I had to leave for the airport. Are you hearing this. Large Ikea....One hour. You might think this would be an impossible feat, but when it comes to shopping nothing is impossible. I did it! I covered the whole store, with 15 minutes to spare. I got a new duvet cover for my bed, new curtains for my living room, pot scrubber, 2 alarm clocks for the girls, a french press coffee maker for Ben, a cutting board to match my kitchen, and even picked up stuff for a friend from a list she had given me. Am I good or what. Here is a pic of my new curtains that just totally completed my living room. F-A-B-U-L-U-S-S!!!!

So I get to the airport and I go to check in the women behind the desk tells me I am late. Late no way my plane leaves at 10:15. No mame it leaves at 9:50. I don't think you are going to make it. Well I have company coming for dinner in 10 minutes so that is it for now. Tune into tomorrow to find out more. Does Alyssa make her plane. Will she fit all her new purchases into her suit case. Will there be more shopping to come? Did her shirt match her shoes?

Off to Canada EH!

2006-07-04T14:51:00.000-10:00

Well tonight Londyn and I fly out to Canada so wish me luck. 20 hours of travel with an infant should be lots of fun! I will try and update while on my trip! Have a great 4th of July!

I'm going to be aunt!

2006-06-29T06:13:00.000-10:00

My brother just called me this morning at 4am Hawaii time and Patty's water just broke and they were on the way to the hospital to have their first baby. I already have my tickets booked to go out there but not for another 6 days. 6 WHOLE DAYS! The baby will practically be in college! I wanted to be in the room when she had the baby so bad, but being their first it was just to hard to judge if she was going to be early or late. So I booked it a little later wanting to make sure I did not miss her all together. So lets go and make this all about me and how I feel totally heart broken that I am missing everything. I am calling them every hour, or less, and they have officially labeled me the stalker! Right now she is at 6cm, and about to get her epidural, ahhh the epidural! So I will keep you posted from my computer 3500 miles away from all the action:(

Girls just want to have fun!

2006-06-27T13:03:00.000-10:00

Next week I am having to say goodbye to one of my really good friends on the island. They are moving to their next duty station. If I had a dollar for all the people who have come in and out of my life in the military I would be a rich women. I hate goodbyes so much, however goodbye parties are always fun. So we arrange a whole evening of fun with 9 girls from my old neighborhood and planned it all behind our friends back. I showed up on her door step at 4pm. She was just getting ready to paint her military housing walls back to white, but I shoved her a box from the Gap containing a new outfit I had bought her for the evening. Told her to get in the shower and we were leaving in an hour. We all gathered outside for a group shot before we left and then we blindfolded her and all squeezed into one van. Thank God for mini van moms! Our first stop was pedicures! Nothing like a little pampering to start off the evening. When we arrived in the parking lot we looked like a bunch of clowns that just kept coming and coming out of the van. Not to mention we were dragging around a girl in a blind fold. After all our toes looked cute as can be we went to one of my fave restaurants on the island, Brew Moon. We had appetizer of calamari, Kalua pork quesadias, and coconut crab dip with plantation banana chips. We had drinks of martinis mojitos, a margaritas to name a few and took turns sampling everyone's. Then we each ordered a full meal. I practically had to be rolled out of there I was so full. We all talked and giggled until 10:30, and like the old ladies that we are called it a night! It was a great time, I just wish we were celebrating under different circumstances!

Sweet satisfaction!

2006-06-21T04:33:00.000-10:00

Yesterday Ben had the afternoon off so we decided to go up to build-a-bear so the kids could build a bear for my brother's new baby and their new cousin. They love that place and had so much fun making the perfect little bunny. So afterwards we just happened to have to walk right past Gap on our way back to the car. Ben has been looking for the perfect baseball cap, so I, with ulterior motives suggested he look in Gap. So he says "ok why don't I just run in real quick" I quickly reply with, "Oh no, it's okay honey, I don't mind going in with you." He knowing me all too well says, "ok but we are only going in for a minute." "yes sweetie" bat my sweet little ole eye lashes. SO Ben takes his one minute not a second later to browse for a hat, and by the time he gets back to me I have snatched up an armful of clothes to go try on. The sign in the window saying BIG SALE was not a lie. Ben immediately goes into defense mode, followed closely by pout mode, and then stamp your feet and wine mode. I glare at him from the change room line up like a lioness protecting her cubs. He proceeds to send in all three kids to bang on my door, and once they had all accompanied me into the change room called my cell phone 3 times. I of course ignored it. Once I had gathered up my must have purchase I emerge from the change room to see Ben sitting there in a much better mood, accepting his defeat. He must of had a complete change of heart because he even asked if I wanted to shop a bit more. So over dinner I asked him why he had a change of heart at the Gap and he said that he realized what ever reaction he had I was going to do it anyway so he might as well stay in light spirits.
SO we get home and I put on my new DKNY lingerie that I have been saving for a special occasion and come around the corner to give Ben "the look" He being a guy instantly gets that shit eating grin on his face, and I tell him I will be waiting in the bedroom. So just as he is climbing in next to me I say "oh you can look, but only for one minute! "
Of course after some wining and pouting I gave in but this time I had the shit eating grin on my face knowing that he now understood "the need" Ah sweet satisfaction!

Yeah Me!

2006-06-19T14:07:00.000-10:00

My dear sweet husband got me the iPod video 60G for my birthday! I am so excited. I am actually not much of a music lover. I mean don't get me wrong I like music but I never know who sings what, and I never really think to listen to it unless I am in the car or something. So Ben was a little reluctant to get it for me thinking I would not use it much. He was probably a little right and I just wanted one because they are cool and it would be neat to say I have one. However now that I have played around with it I think I will use it even more then I thought. I spent the day loading all my pictures on it. I am a) excited about the fact that I figured out how to do it all by myself, and b) excited to actually be able to carry around all my pictures. I am so bad about getting pictures printed out, and when ever people ask me to see pics in my wallet of my family I never have any. However now thanks to my handy dandy little iPod when people ask me to see my family I can whip out my 5000+ pics. I am sure everyone is going to be just thrilled! Ben has gotten my some video's and movies to watch but I am going to save them to watch on the plane when I go to Canada in a few weeks. It will definitely come in handy for working out, and I have the arm band so I can exercise with it. I set the clocks so I have the time zones of all my friends and family at the push of a button, and have synchronized all my contacts. I never knew being a techie could be this much fun!

Some words from Turnerville

2006-06-16T08:24:00.000-10:00

I don't know exactly what I do every day but I am always busy and the days seem to fly by faster then I can keep up with. Part of the reason our days fly by could be the fact that we all sleep in until 9-10am eat breaky at 10:30, eat lunch at 2, east dinner at 7 and then it is nearing bed time again. This was all good and fine when we were home schooling but in a few weeks the kids will be starting school and actually having to wake up before the sun rises. This is going to be pure torture for us all and I am NOT looking forward to being a morning person. Nor am I looking forward to fighting with my non morning person children to get out the door when their little eyes haven't even fully popped open yet. So my future is looking a little bleak right now with that looming over us. Speaking of looming, so is our future. We are going to go ahead and put in paper work for an early release however Ben has been talking around the shop and it sounds like it is quite unlikely that we will get approved for release. Like maybe a 15% chance. I am not a gambling women but I would say those are not good odds. Also if he puts in the paper work and we get denied his whole chain of command will know that he wants to get out and they get their little Air Force rah rah noses out of joint and could make life miserable for Ben for his remaining time. (3 years is what we have left in our contact) They will give him the worse positions and so on. So that might just be opening a can of worms we do not want to open. So we have 1.5 years left in Hawaii and then we will either try and extend here for another 1.5 years (which is also something that has to be approved) Or we could get sent to some base who knows where for the last year and a half. Keeping in mine that he will deploy every 16 months, and they are now moving the deployments up to 8 months instead of four. Makes me sick just thinking about it. So we are trying to figure out a way to avoid deployment at all cost. We know that we have to finish our time in Hawaii which is fine b/c since he just got back from a deployment he is safe for the next 16 months, and that is right around our scheduled time to leave. Now are you totally falling asleep yet? They do have some positions in the airforce that are non-deployable and it is very likely for Ben to get one and even have some say in where we will be but the crappy thing is they are three year tours and since we will only have 1.5 years in the AF after Hawaii we would have to extend in the Af for another 1.5 years. However at least we would never have to deploy again and that would be worth it. But we just want out soooo bad! Dang Air Force just let us GO!!!!
Enough about that it gets my blood pressure boiling to much.

yesterday we spent the day at the pool and that is where I plan to reside for the next week or so. My goal is to get the ultimate tan before I go visit all my white Canadian relatives! I am going to Canada on July 5th to see my little brother and his soon to be wife have their first baby. I am so excited and hope that I make it there before she has my precious little niece. I have a feeling she is going to go into labor before I get there but I have given her instructions to keep her legs crossed and not eat any spicy food. Yeah right. Just what every pregnant women wants to hear when they are peeing 10 times a night and can't see their feet anymore. Regardless I am so excited to hold a new born again. Also I am taking Londyn with me and it will be the first time allot of my Canadian relatives and my mother will be meeting her. So she will be meeting 2 grandchildren at the same time. We are going for 3 weeks and I cannot wait to see all my friends and family. I have not been home in three years.

I have been going strong on my weight loss regimend. I am running and lifting every day (even when I DO NOT WANT TO). I am eating very good. I can't remember the last time I sunk my teeth into a Big Mac! I lost4 pounds this week (FINIALLY) Although some days I can fluctuate 4 pounds in one day so who knows if it will stay that way. I do feel allot firmer but not smaller. My pants are not really feeling any different but I don't feel as flabby. Any tips on how to get the last of it off would be appreciated. I feel so close yet so far away!

Ok don't go calling CPS on me but I have lost my mother of the year nominee. In fact this is so bad I would vouch to say I have lost my mother of the year nominee for the next 5 years. Two days ago Addison and I were playing together on her American Girl Club website and Londyn was on her spot of the floor beside our desk smiling and talking away. However not five seconds later she had made it to the top of the stairs and then proceeded down them. I turn wondering what that thump thump thump noise was and there is my 6 month old rolling half way down the stairs. Then everything goes in slow motion, like those dreams when you want to run fast but you can't. Londyn is looking at me with wide eyes screaming "SAVE ME" and by the time I could reach her she was on the bottom step. That would be all 15 of them. The good news is my stairs and landing are carpeted, and that she was rolling length wise with the step and not head over heals. She only cried for about 30 seconds and did not have a scratch on her but I was shaking like a leaf for the next hour at least. After every kid we have Ben and I get more and more laid back. We boiled the babies pascifiers with our 1st and by the time we got to the forth we just blow it off and stick it back in their mouth. I think Addison rolled off the couch, Camryn rolled off our king size bed (twice in one evening), and now Londyn down the stairs. Ben says we have to stop having kids or our next one might be rolling off the roof. That is one good thing about having so many kids we have a few to spare! (JK obviously!)

Tuesday nights we have established "family night" and no one can make any plans but spending time together as a family. Sometimes we play games, sometimes we just talk, but the most important thing is that we are all together enjoying each others time. Well this week we went to cars and it was so so cute! Much better then I had anticipated. If you have not seen it yet it is a must see. Even Londyn sat and watched the whole thing in total amazement. Lightning Mcqeen came off his high hoarse just in time to do some amazing things, and Mayter was such a goof that you just had to love him.
The next night I had a girl night out with my friend. We went to one of our fav restaurants CPK (California Pizza Kitchen) I had a coupon for a free appetizer, so we had that and then split our favorite salad and pizza. We topped it up with a fav martini and ate until we could Hardly move. Joking about how we were going to have to undo our pants and let our bellies hang out when we got to the theater. We saw The Break Up. It was cute and frustrating at the same time. You just wanted them to get back together so bad but you will have to go see it for yourself. I will say this. You could always relate to the silly arguments they were having and laugh to yourself when you see how ridiculous you probably sounded once you see it up on the big screen.

I have once again grounded myself from shopping. Ben go ahead and skip to the next paragraph. I don't like to admit this stuff in front of him because he likes to use it against me later. He will say "even you admit that you shop to much" No I didn't I do not know what you are talking about? What do you want me to dress frumpy and be the weird wife with the cats on her sweatshirt. You know the one! Two cats sitting on the front and then low and behold you turn around and the backs of the cats are on the back. One of the things he said that he was first attracted to me was my fashion sense and desire to always look polished, but now that he is funding that little project is starting to have a change of opinion. In my defense Banana Republic was having an awesome sale. So awesome that I had to revisit it three times. I would go a fourth but I think I have already gotten one or maybe two of everything there. At a very good rate...Like I said.

Last night we dabbled around Idrink.com looking up martini recipes. We decided it would be funny to make our own martini menu for when we had people over and they could get what ever kind they want. So we are going to compile a list of the best martinis. Now of course in order to do this we are going to have to test them all. So I have sacrificed myself for the greater good of the martini. Yesterday we had the chocolate martini which I think we can enhance with one more ingredient, and the Caribbean martini which was very good. Must go to the liquor store for more ingredients.

We have started Alias season one. We are on episode 5. Episode 4 if you count the fact that I slept through most of 5 and have no idea what is going on. It is nice having a series to watch since it is summer time and none of my shows are on.

Addison finished her homeschooling DVD's this week. She will still do some book work over the summer but it was so nice to get the year completed. She is doing so well! Reading at a fourth grade level and a wizz in math. I still have to use my fingers and she wizzes out answers off the top of her head. Good thing I get the teacher book with all the answers! We had a big end of the year party for all the kids at our old neibourhood. We had pools and games and prizes and the kids all had a blast. I love that first day of summer vacation excitement!

Well I think I have hit most of the highlights from the past week and a bit. Maybe if I would blog more often they would not be so long.

Rub a dub dub four kids in the tub!

2006-06-15T20:01:00.000-10:00

Londyn has two teeth...and is growing way to fast:(

2006-06-11T16:32:00.000-10:00

Phat VS Fat

2006-06-07T11:58:00.000-10:00

My goal is to be Phat, but the only one I can seem to achieve is FAT and this one comes quite easy. So I have an extra ten pounds sticking around. Can I not be Phat with the fat? There was once a day, long ago, when it was considered sexy to have a little extra cushion for the pushion, but in today's society we are forced to be model thin. To toss our donuts and pick up that celery stick for breakfast, and then complain about how full we are after we finish. So I say we start a new trend where being fat is cool, and maybe even attractive. We may need a little help getting the word out so I thought we should start right in Hollywood. We will kidnap the little "trend setting" Paris Hilton and lock her in a tall tower full of Krispy Kreams and she
will have to eat her way out. Then we will put on her XL "fat is cool stay in school" t-shirt and send her back into the lime light. All the Hollywood elites will see her and realize that she looks much better when her bones are not jutting out of her body and they will toss those Starbucks fat free double lattes, pick up that in and out burger, slam it down, then lick the grease from the wrapper, and burp in great satisfaction. Soon we will get rid of all those size 2's that prance around on their frail little legs and replace them with good solid healthy 8-10's.

In all seriousness though, I am getting so frustrated. I think it would be easier to make my little Paris Hilton scheme work then it would to lose this last 10 pounds. My little fat cells are clinging to me like a toddler about to get shots at the DR's office. They are hanging on for dear life and refusing to budge. I don't know what else to do. I am eating very healthy, running 3-5 miles a day plus low weights, yet the scale will not move. Not one budge. Those same three numbers staring up at me every day. In fact I think now when I get on that scale I even hear a little snicker as those three numbers point and laugh. People say I look great for having 4 kids. "having 4 kids" being the key phrase in that sentence. I want to look great period. So come on folks get on board. Lets make fat beautiful again! Lets make Fat Phat!

Howdy Y'all

2006-05-31T21:45:00.000-10:00

If the hint in my title did not give it away we just booked tickets to visit in Texas for 2 weeks!!! We will be there from Sept 27 to October 11th! I cannot wait to see everyone! Also we will be jetting up to Austin to do a little house hunting! I can't wait to meet pink and have her tell us all the Austin hot spots! Kelly we hope to head up to WF for a quick visit as well! And Allison do not think I will leave with out a girls shopping trip! Woo Hoo!!!

Cute recent pics!

2006-05-31T21:33:00.000-10:00

Oprah's famous lemon drop martini.....boy are they good!

Happy Birthday Addison!

2006-05-31T21:26:00.000-10:00

Addison turned 7 today and for her birthday she went with her friends to get pedicures. They were so cute! Here are some pictures from her evening. She also got her new americain girl doll and accessaries!

Option number 3: if you have not read the previous post read it first!

2006-05-30T08:17:00.000-10:00

OK with a long weekend Ben and I had allot of time to sit and talk (AGAIN) about our future. If you were in our last small group in Wichita FAlls, you know how Ben and I love to sceam and manipulate situations for our future. So anyway we came up with a 3rd option and I have to say this is the first time we have felt a peace about the situation and are actually more excited then scared. So in option 3 we get out of the Air Force all togeather. Ben will have his MBA or be very near completeion. In the Air Force he is an electrition and has been doing that for ten years. It was never something he wanted to do forever but he does enjoy figuring stuff out and he is very good at it. Ben is always the guy people go to when they cannot figure something out. SO we would get out of the Airforce and it would put him at a Journeymans level in civillian life. After two years he could get his contracting license and start his own company or buy into one that is already started. By doing this he will be usuing his MBA but also have his ten years of experience to back it up. Now we can do this anywhere however I think we have chosen Austin Texas. It is a great city and I have always said if I ever lived in Texas again it would be Austin. It is close enough to family (4hours) yet far enough away that they cannot just show up on your door step. However the kids can go there for a week at a time on holidays or in the summer, (YEAH ME!) Also checking out the real estate it is amazing what kind of house you can get for your money in Austin or surrounding areas. For example for $220 000 you can get a 5000sqft house with 5 bedroom,a library, a game room, two living rooms, and 2 dining rooms! Not that we need a house quite that big but that is over $100 000 less then we payed here for 1200sqft. HOLY COW!!! So anyway We could definitly get our dream home in Austin. Ben would be doing something he enjoys and then using his MBA to take it even further, the kids would be close to family (but not too close), it is close to one of the biggest and my favorite outlet mall!!!!!, and the pros just keep coming! I really cannot think of any cons other then the fear of getting out of the Air Force just because this is what we have done our whole married lives. We have never enjoyed Air Force life however, and have always saidw we were just not militery people. SO it is an excited scared. So what do you think of option three?

The Fork In The Road....

2006-05-28T08:12:00.000-10:00

Well as we stand right now we have two paths ahead of us. Each path would be great the hard part is deciding which one to take. I mean the decision we make right now could totally alter the rest of our lives, the people we meet, and the people our kids eventually marry. I know that God has already worked everything out for His glory and what ever path we choose will be exactly His plan. Is it because He already has our future predestined, or does He just already know what choices we will make before we make them. Maybe I am just over thinking this. So I will lay out the two paths for you and then all of you can vote and I will take what ever path wins. OK maybe not but I definitely would love everyone's input.
Path one: We stay 2 more years in Hawaii, move to Europe for 3 years (travel and chance of a life time), however Ben will still deploy once every 2 years for 6 months. Then after Europe we would have 4 more years left in the Air Force and we would come back to the states for our last 4 years hopefully at a base in the city or at least near the city that we eventually want to retire. Not yet knowing what that city is. Ben would retire at the age of 39 with a full military pension, a masters degree, and be young enough still to start his new career, possibly teaching at a University, giving our children cheaper tuition at the University which could always come in handy with 4 kids. Then at retirement age he would have two pension and we would be pretty well off. Now out of that time from now until Ben retires from the military he will have spent at least 2 years maybe 3 away from the family on deployments. If you retire in the Air Force you have to spend at least 1 year without your family in Korea. This does not include the 6 months deployments he takes every 2 years. Some people can slip through the cracks and avoid this but there is no guarantee. Also Addison will graduate (crazy) the same year we retire and if we have moved around her whole life she will never have a home town, however she will have had a chance to see the world. Both pretty important. Also the kids would have free medical until they are 21 and Ben and I for life (again huge with 4 kids). So pluses are: traveling Europe, great schools in Europe, job security,retirement at 39, medical for life, possibly cheaper collage tuition. Negatives: deployments, always moving around, being so far away from family, especially now that my brothers are starting to get married and have kids

Path 2: We stay in Hawaii for 1.5-2 more years get out of the Air Force move to Tyler Texas where Ben will get a job working for his dad who owns an insurance and investment company. We would be taking a slight pay cut the first year but within 4 years will be making double what we make now. With the money we make off the equity of our house in Hawaii we could afford to buy our dream home in Texas. The kids would be near Ben's side of the family, plus it would be easier and cheaper for us to visit my family in Canada, so we would see them more as well. We would get to stay in one place and not have to pick up and move all the time (that could be good or bad). With family around I would be able to go back to work or school if I wanted. Not that I do really but who knows. Also we were thinking if we got out that he could join the guard and that way we do not lose our medical and retirement pay he just would not get it until he turns 60 instead of 39. We figured it out and the money in retirement he would lose from the age of 39 to 60 would be about $250 000 however since we would be making double on the outside what he makes in the Air Force that would make up for that money. He would owe the guard 9 years of one weekend a month 2 weeks a year. He could also get deployed if any major tradgesty happened ie 9-11. Pluses: dream house, our family will be together, not having to move, near family, no or less deployments. Minuses: we might get bored in one place, it's no Hawaii or Europe, too hot, it might be too close to family.

So there are the two paths in a nut shell. I would really appreciate as much input as possible. We have a year or so to make our final decision, and we will probably change our minds a hundred times by then. So all you readers who read and do not comment, this is the time to comment!!!!!! Thanks!

Family Pictures!

2006-05-23T21:56:00.000-10:00

OK I guess it is time to update!

2006-05-18T09:03:00.000-10:00

I know I know it is time to let everyone in on what we have been up to. Well for starters Ben made it home safe!!! He got home Last Wednesday. He was supposed to fly in at 10:30 at night but it ended up getting pushed back several times and finally ended up being 1:15am. So I told the kids that his plane broke down and he would not be back until the next afternoon. So I proceeded to put there sad little faces to bed, and once they were asleep my neighbor came over to watch them. That way when they woke up in the morning daddy would be here to surprise them. I did take Londyn with me since she had changed so much since Ben left. Well I really wish I would have taken the kids now because they had a huge production with a red carpet and band and the local news and everything. It was pretty amazing to watch them deboard the plane and come marching towards us down the red carpet. It seemed so surreal that he was actually finally home. Londyn took to him like he had always been here, which was amazing because she has been playing strange with people lately. She gave daddy one of her gorgeous big smiles and has had daddy wrapped around her finger ever since. When we got home Ben and we stayed up till 4am catching up "if ya know what I mean" hint hint.
The next morning Corben was the first to come in our room. He stopped in his tracks when he saw Ben and just stared at him for a good couple minutes. He did not move or blink. Then slowly he walked over to my side of the bed and whispers "daddy" They had a big tickle fest and they were best friends again. Then he went to wake the girl up. He tried Addison first but since she is as much of a morning person as I am she would not budge. He gave up on her and tried Camryn and she popped open her eyes and shouted "daddy!" Addison heard this and she had jumped out of bed and clung around his neck in about 2 seconds flat. It was so cute. After a long group hug we all jumped in our king size bed and visited with each other just like old times.
I love the newlywed high you get when they first get back. When you get butterflies in your stomach again when you kiss and remember why you married this person in the first place. However now that we have been back together for a week we are struggling to get back into a routine together. I had a routine that did not include him, and now that he is back we are finding out where everybody fits again. Everyone goes through it after a deployment and eventually you get back to your old routine and it all works out. We already got our big post deployment petty fight out of the way, and now that the lines of communication have been open we will be adjusted in no time.
Mother's day was great. It was the first time Ben got to go to the new church I found and love. He loved it as well and are so excited to have a church home together. After church we went and renewed our annual passes at Hawaiian Waters water slide park and spent the afternoon there. We had Chili's take out for dinner and were going to go eat it at the beach and watch the sunset but we had a slight detour to go help a friend in need. My friend's husband had to leave on a TDY on mothers day and when she tried to take herself out to dinner with her kids someone stole her wallet and all her ID. So we brought her dinner and ate with her instead. After that we came home and watched a movie and put an end to our perfect mothers day. Oh I also got my favorite new perfume Burburry London, and some new good sunglasses, which I have yet to pick out.
Oh I forgot to brag about how good my husband looks. While he was gone he worked out for 2-3 hours a day (mostly out of boredom) but let me tell you I have been having trouble keeping my hands off of him since he has been back. I like I like!!! He has always been slim but now he is toned and has these great pecks and rippled stomach. Now I really need to lose that last 10 pounds so I don't look like Ben's frumpy wife.
Ben is off for two weeks so we are catching up on yard work and going to the beach as much as possible. Corben turns 3 on Saturday and Addison turns 7 10 days later. Corben is doing chucky cheese and Addison is taking a friend to the spa for some girl fun and pedicures!
Well I think that is all that is new around here for now. I will try and update more often but cannot promise anything.

ONE MORE SLEEP!

2006-05-09T09:13:00.000-10:00

Yes just one more sleep until Ben gets home. (Big cheesy grin on my face) I can't believe how fast the time flew and that I am still in one piece. We did it! We survived another deployment. I have been nesting like crazy the last few days so the house should be spick and span by the time he gets home. Today I need to work out for like ten hours straight so I do not feel frumpy. Of course, never fail I, got my little unwanted monthly visiter. Last time Ben was deployed she made her grand entrance one hour before Ben's plane landed. ONE HOUR!! Are you kidding me? This time we got a few days warning so maybe she will gather up and get out before he gets home.
Other then that the kids are getting excited and will probably spend the day making hundreds of cards for him. They are planning a big party with cake and ice cream! Any excuse for cake and ice cream!
So remember the "pick up Ben at the airport outfit" I got? Well turns out his plane is coming in at night and my outfit is more of a day thing. Plus it is so hot, I do not want to waste it if I can only wear it for a few hours. So I think I have to firgure out a different outfit and save that one for mother's day. Prehaps a trench coat.....JK! I guess it is back to the mall for me!!
Well I have a whole day of homeschooling, toilet cleaning, and work outs to do. Also I hear my little cutie jibbering away in her crib. Have a great day!

Martha

2006-05-01T00:08:00.000-10:00

Tomorrow morning I need to get up bright and early (which is physically painful for me) and put my best Martha Stewart on. The girls from my old neighborhood have started a breakfast club and twice a week we meet for breakfast that we take turns hosting and get to talk adult instead of kid for a few hours. Well tomorrow is my turn so I got to spend my Sunday cleaning from top to bottom so that I can give the appearance that I have it all together. Because remember...Appearances are everything. No one has to know that my toilet needed cleaning, I spent most of the day yelling at my kids, and I have a zit on my chin because the toilet is clean now, I will drug my kids to silence, and well there is always makeup for my chin.
So I am going to impress everyone with my home made waffles, quiche (in two different flavors, also homemade), cinnamon buns (had to thank the dough boy for that one), and orange juice made from scratch (gotta put that $400 blender to good use). I will let you know tomorrow is it all goes off as well as it sounds. It will probably go something like, burnt quiche in two different flavors, waffles that stick to the waffle iron, and orange juice who's pulp sticks to your front teeth. Add four screaming children of my own and 4 other screaming children that belong to others running threw my once clean house and the good times just go on and on. It all sounds so good in theory. Anyway I am going to just put my best Martha Stewart smile on and grin and bear through the whole thing.(even when the kids are sliding down the stairs in card board boxes.) By the way I hate Martha Stewart!

Preschool

2006-04-26T11:51:00.000-10:00

Well I think I finally found the perfect preschool for Corben. I went and met with the director today and she was so sweet. They have a full class for the fall but apparently one of the families might be moving and that would give Corben a spot. I really hope it works out because he could really use some boy interaction. Also it would be great for him to have some friends his own age. It is also a Christian preschool so he would be having those values reiterated, which I think is wonderful. Also I spoke with the girl's principal to the school I am trying to get a geographical acception to and he said they could fit them in. After having a full house this year it will be so weird to have some one on one time with Londyn. I really think the kids are going to enjoy the interaction at school as well. Speaking of school I should get back to homeschooling. Just wanted to share some of my good news for the day!

Mission Impossible

2006-04-24T23:35:00.000-10:00

Tonight we had our last bible study meeting. We had finished the last three chapters of our book and were all meeting at Ruby Tuesday. I had the best of all worlds by having an appetizer (smothered french fries), and then splitting both a BBQ chicken Burger and an appetizer platter with Vanessa. There is nothing like satisfying all your cravings at once. So we all participated in the usual small talk and discussed what study we want to do next, and next thing you know it was down to the last three chatters at the table. Myself, Vanessa, and one other girl. We stayed for another hour the whole time they mostly talked about work because there husbands work together while I sat and analyzed her. I was sitting there wishing I could nominate her for what not to wear. She is one of those gorgeous women that just does not know what to do with it. She has a beautiful face but never wears makeup and dresses really plane. So I was doing her hair, clothes, and makeup in my mind as they chatted it up and just when my make over in my mind was about to be complete Vanessa pulls a yawn "sorry I have to break up the party but I am going to have to head home" since I was her ride I guess that means my night away from the kiddies was coming to an end as well. I was a little disappointed because I can usually count on Vanessa for a fun time, but I thought hey everyone has those nights when they are just too pooped to party and become the party pooper. so we gather all our stuff and head for the door. The rest of this blog is top secret so I am going to have to use code names. So agent A and agent V get into the car say goodbye to our bible study groupies and drive off. Just outside the parking lot Agent V suggests a secret mission back to the restaurant for a secret mission drink. So we got into our invisible suits and secret mission tiera's and sneak back into the bar after all said bible study goers were out of site. It was a dangerous mission, but someone had to do it. Take one for the team, I believe is the term. So we contemplated over the lemon drop or the cosmopolitan and since we were on a daring mission decided to go with the lemon drop. It was sour with a zing but we concurred it like heroes. Soon the waitress twisted our arms and caught us in her evil snare and the next thing you know we were washing it down with a cosmo. It took all of our strength to defend ourselves against her but we beamed each other with our telepathic tiera's and got out of there before any more harm was done. Mission accomplished. Normally I would think this was a dangerous mission to attempt after a bible study but the book we are reading is called "Bad Girls of The Bible" so I think of it more as on the job research!

Tag I am it!

2006-04-22T09:19:00.000-10:00

Five Movies You Can Watch Over and Over Again:
1. When Harry Met Sally
2. Love Actually
3. Finding Nemo
4. 50 First Dates
5. Bridget Jones Diary one or two

Five Embarrassing Songs You Know All the Words To:
1. …none… I never know the words I just pretend to

Five Memorable Halloween Costumes:

1. space girl ( I won first prize)
2. those stupid plastic costumes that would get cold and crack while trick or treating in the -20 cold Canadian weather.
3. Go Go Damcer
4. Camryn as a strawberry
5. Londyn's Poodle costume that I already bought for next year before she was even born.

Five Celebrities You Believe May Secretly be Aliens:

1. Tom Cruise
2. Katie Holmes if she is crazy enough to have his alien baby
3. Paris Hilton
4. Martha Stewart
5. Donald Trump

Five Occupations You Could Never Hold:
1. nurse
2. Mortician
3. Plumer
4. Army soldier
5. Garbage man

Five Books You’ve Recently Read Outside of School:
1. Bad Women of the bible
2. In Her Shoes
3. Dress Your Family In Corderoy and Denim
4. I Don't Know How She Does It
5. Shop Girl

Five Ways to Perfectly Spend an Afternoon:

1. At the beach
2. at the pool
3. At the mall
4. at the spa
5. on Vanessa's Patio

Not Your 5 Favorite Foods, But the 5 You’re Most Likely Eating:

1. vita mix smoothies
2. tortillia soup
3. steak
4. cereal
5. atkins milkahsakes
I would be better doing 5 things I wish I was eating!!!

Five Lines You Blatantly Stole From a Movie, TV, a Commercial, or Song:

I am so bad at that. I never remember those one liners. But I do remember hearing allot of funny ones at the time. Sienfeld was always good for a few.

Five People Who Must Immediately Respond:(Don’t worry “immediately” is relative)
1. Kelly
2. Colleen
3. Jeff
4. Jennifer
5. GFF

Only me......

2006-04-21T08:48:00.000-10:00

Only I, Alyssa Turner, can go into a store to buy shampoo, and come out with a $400 blender. How in the world does this stuff happen to me? They just had to be demonstrating the Vita-Mix right there at the front of the store. I can not watch a demo and not buy! I have the Kirby, we got the time share, we got that case of steak from the meat guy that swore it would be the best steak(it wasn't) So if you are selling something knock on my door because I will buy it! I practically had to buy it after all my kids kept eating sample after sample, so much so that I didn't even need to make dinner:0) So I immediately started making excuses in my head, and out load of why we need it and how I was going to sell it to my husband. It did have a 30 day return policy, and I was a good girl and kept it in the box until I talked to my husband about it. SO when I got home I emailed him and said something like: Ben I really need to talk to you. Call me ASAP. I love you so much it hurts, Alyssa. Not one minute later Ben calls me all worried that something happened. He asked what was wrong? I began by asking him ?What price can we put on our children's health?" "Our children's health, what's going on?" "Well more like their nutrition?" "I guess it is priceless" he says reluctantly. Oh well I am glad to hear that because I just spent $400 on a Vita-Mix. It was the demo! That thing is amazing! It can heat up soup in 4 minutes because of the fast friction of the blades spinning. It can make ice cream in 30 seconds. All the smoothies under the sun. In fact it is the smothhie maker that all thoses places use. You just throw in the entire fruit or vegetable, and don't even have to take out the seeds. It is amazing. He had actually seen the demo in a store before and wanted to buy it himself, but he has more self control then I do. So I reaffirmed all the good things about it, gave him a few more I love you smoopy woopy and tore open my new box! Well I have a smoothie calling my name! Blend ya later!

One of those days.....

2006-04-19T21:11:00.000-10:00

My kids tested every ounce of my patients today. Mom is a three letter word, however my kids have found a way to add about 15 o's to the middle and can sometimes draw it out to a full one minute wine. I had to bribe Addison to do school with her chocolate Easter bunny, Camryn spent 5 hours reviewing her letters and learned nothing, Corben followed me around all day, and I must have tripped over him 17 times. Londyn was good as usual, and she even surprised me by rolling over for the first time. I asked her how they all start off so sweet and then turn into these little monsters who wine and sass all day. I don't get it. They are so darn cute when they are sleeping. My biggest problem with the girls is that they do NOT take care of any of there belongings. I spent yet another hour today looking for the back to their remote which I just found two days prior from the last time they lost it. The leave there video games lying around and Corben grabs them and turns them to Chinese and well since I do not read Chinese have no idea how to turn them back. Yesterday he purchased another dog on Camryn's nintendog game, which is usually a planned even t that I save for "one of those days". When I thought I was at the end of my rope I decided to jump in the shower for a quick 5 minutes of peace. No sooner did I get my clothes off did Addison run in saying she took the keys to go get something from the van and Corben and the keys somehow got locked in. So I rushed out the door, pulling my pants up on the way down the stairs. Then proceeded to spend the next 15 minutes trying to coax a two year old to flip that little button on the door. He would not stop crying enough to listen to me and was getting more frustrated by the moment. Addison was no help as she is crying sorry mama in my ear the whole time. They are all in the bath now and let me tell you bed time could not come soon enough tonight.

Beach Baby

2006-04-18T23:08:00.000-10:00

I guess I should write something to...

2006-04-17T09:06:00.000-10:00

I posted some pictures of Easter but I suppose I should write a bit about our weekend as well. It was a fun weekend. On Saturday the kids had an Easter party at the pool. The home association put it on and it was pretty fun. They had an egg hunt and activities followed with a lunch. It was a great way to meet new neighbors to. Then Saturday night we had friends over to our house for an Easter egg decorating party. We ordered pizza, decorated eggs, made cookies and rice crispie treats, and then proceeded to eat them all. Sunday we did the Easter thing at home with the kids and then went to our new church (that we love!!!) I almost feel like I am going to a comedy club because our pastor is so funny. I am still laughing at parts of the sermon from Sunday. After church we went to my friend Vanessa and Kirks. Kirk attempted to fry a turkey for the first time, and he did an awesome job. Especially since we sent all the kids outside for him to watch at the same time while all the women chatted over a glass of wine. Somehow it ended up being Kirk and a bunch of women and children for Easter. Two of the husbands were deployed, and then one other one got sick, so that left Kirk with 4 wives and 8 children. I am sure he could of thought of better ways to spend his day, but he was a great sport. Like usual I wore out my welcome and after everyone left we stayed to watch Desperate Housewives and a new and potetial show called What About Brian. We all crashed hard and fast when we got home and today we are heading to the beach!!!(5 pounds fatter)

Easter

2006-04-17T08:40:00.000-10:00

I love ME day!

2006-04-14T20:25:00.000-10:00

What a wonderful and relaxing day I had. I spent three hours at the pool. I caught up on my bible study reading, but mostly dozed in and out of a nap. I have my sunkist glow back and it feels great. Then I went for my relaxing pedicure and some good girl talk with Vanessa. There is nothing better! We both picked the shade Bye Bye Tokeyo by OPI, and I also got a habisscus painted on my big toe! Then we hit one of our fav resturaunts for a cosmopolitan, which hit the spot. Now I am at home enoying a nice glass of wine and going to cuddle up with the kids and watch Dreamer. CYA!

Oh yeah here is a picture. This is really strange for me because I totally hate feet. But my feet are real cute so here you go.....

ME Day!

2006-04-14T07:26:00.000-10:00

Today I am putting my nanny to good use and taking a "me" day! I am going to start off with my morning run, which some days is like my morning torture, but it has to be done. Then I am going to shower and I plan to be pool side with some books and magazines by 10am. I am going to stay there until my tan has been refreshed, shower again, then go the day spa for my peppermint Pedicure. I will sharing this girl day with my good friend Vanessa and I can't wait for it to start!

While we are on my favorite subject....ME........I am so excited to announce that I am 5 pounds away from my skinny jeans! I have 4 weeks until Ben gets home and I have been dieting and exercising hard core. I have lost 11 pounds this week and 30 since I had the baby. 5 pounds and I will be in all my old size 6 clothes. I would still like to lose another 5 after that so my 6's will be a little loose on me. The last 10 is always the hardest, but I have 4 more weeks to get it done so I think it is very do-able. Ben has been working out 2 to 3 hours a day since he has been deployed so when he gets back hopefully we will be the new skinnier versions of ourseves!

My shopping habits have been obnoxious lately. I have grounded myself from any further entrance into the mall. Last week I needed an excuse to shop so I bought my "pick up Ben from the airport" outfit. Of course it came complete with new $40 wedges and a matching purse. The sad thing is it was not the first "pick up Ben from the airport outfit" I have bought. Hello everyone! My name is Alyssa Turner, and I am a shop-a-holic. I have been sober for 3 days.

Well I cannot stall anymore. I need to get my butt on that treadmill. This sounds like the most conceded post ever but hey what can I say, it's "ME" day!

Patio Is DONE!!!!!

2006-04-12T08:41:00.000-10:00

I am so excited to finally have my yard done. Now all I have to do is get the grass to regrow after being trampled, but that should not take long. Now I can;t wait until Ben gets home so we can sit out there and enjoy it togeather. (IN 4 MORE WEEKS!)

interesting little tid bit!

2006-04-04T09:39:00.000-10:00

On Wednesday of this week, at two minutes and three seconds after 1:00 in the morning, the time and date will be 01:02:03 04/05/06.That won't ever happen again.

Can she possibly get any cuter????

2006-04-03T21:30:00.000-10:00

Long and Boring

2006-04-02T17:35:00.000-10:00

Well since I haven't blogged for so long I though I should just do one long blog to catch everyone up on our last 3 months. First of all we are down to 6 more weeks until Ben comes home. I am so glad that there is a light at the end of the tunnel now. He is doing well and staying busy and we get to talk for 15 minutes per day and then usually email back and forth once a day or so. It always sucks because the 15 minutes seem more like two. Especially when you have to waste time talking about what bills came in, car troubles, where he put a certain piece of paper, and of course the kids chanting I want to talk to! I guess it is better then nothing and I should not complain. I can't tell you how much I miss the nights when we would get the kids in bed, light a fire outside, open a bottle (sometimes 2) of wine and just chat for hours.
Let see what else....Since Londyn was born (4 months ago) we have had a constant stream of company. First Ben's mom came for 10 days when Londyn was just a few days old. She was such a great help with the kids and it was a pleasure to have her around. She is one of those grandma's that just comes and puts all her time and attention into the kids. I think they played every card and bored game known to mankind, and then did it again. After that Ben left and 4 days later my brother Aaron (youngest brother 24) came for three weeks.

He had never been to Hawaii so we had a great time showing him all the sights. He also helped my tear out the grass seed that Ben planted before he left (which was not growing) and we planted plugs. Don't even ask! Plugs are totally weird and the most popular way to plant grass in Hawaii. You take a slab of grass and cut it into little squares and plant them about 6 inches apart. Then eventually in about 5 months the grass all grows into each other and you have a solid yard of grass. Like I said weird!

So After two days and several beers we got the lawn done and it is really starting to look great!
unfortunately all good times had to come to an end and it was time to take Aaron back to the airport. The kids really had a hard time saying goodbye to him and it hit them pretty hard. In fact to this day when Corben gets in trouble he says he wants Uncle Aaron. Too funny!

So I think I had 9 days by myself and then my best friend from Canada and her husband came to visit. They also had never been to Hawaii and we had a great time with them. Well all except the whole superbowl incident. I still miss her terribly! Nobody can make me laugh like she does.

Lisa and Dave had not even left yet when my dad and his wife came. It actually worked out great that they overlapped because then we had grandparents to baby sit while we got to go to a luau together. We had a great time and I am sure the Mai Tiys had nothing to do with it!
However after the luau I had to say goodbye to my best friend and they caught a plane back to the ice cold tundra we all call Canada.

This being my dad's second visit to see us we decided to visit one of the neighboring islands and spent 4 days in Kauai. The weather could have been a little better but no complaints. We had a cabin right on the water and it was beautiful. At night we went crabbing with the kids and they had a blast. Crabbing is when you take flashlights and a bucket and catch sandcrabs when they pop out of their holes. The kids love the thrill of the hunt, and watching them all scatter when we let them go at the end. Corben had so much fun he fell asleep on the walk back and my dad had to carry him all the way home. In Kauai they have what they call the "Grand Canyon" of Hawaii and that was quite the site, and quite the steep drive as well. I didn't know I was scared of heights until I found myself at the top of a mountain looking down.

While me dad was visiting he had also planned on building us a deck in our back yard. However since we live in a condo-like community we have to get everything approved by the design committee, and needless to say they did not do their end of the paperwork in time. After me complaining to the president of the company I finally got word about our application and we had to get some sort of permit from the State making sure we met hurricane regulations and blah blah blah! So that being said there was no way we could get all that done before my dad left. So we decided to forgo the deck and my dad gave us a very generous housewarming gift of cash to go towards having a patio built by contractors. More on that in the following paragraphs. So thank you dad and Donna for a great time while you were here and all the help that you gave me. It is great having family that you can count on.

So after their two week stay I had 4 more days to myself and then our live in nanny arrived. She was a friend of the family from Texas. She is a 20 year old nursing student, and she is going to be with us for 2 months. She has been great with the kids, and I have gotten some much needed breaks. However I feel a little guilty about our arrangement.

You may have heard about us on the news but it has rained here for 5 weeks striate. I am not talking about a daily sun shower. I am talking about dark clouds covering the entire island, pour down rain in heavy sheets, with house shaking thunder and lightning all day long and all night long. Apparently it has not rained like this since 1904 or something like that. It is absolutely bizzar and quite frankly is starting to be down right annoying. I drove into a parking lot at the airport the other day and the parking attendant said "welcome to Seattle, this is not paradise!"
The roads are being washed out, the beaches are contaminated because of sewer and still water canals over flowing, and there is no sight of change. Since the day Haley (the nanny) got her (one month ago) I have been saying surly this is going to stop soon. No really it never rains like this in Hawaii. She has stopped believing me and I have stopped saying it. It is like Noah's Ark hits Hawaii. Except it has been more then 40 days and 40 nights. So like I said, I feel like I have cheated the nanny. I said you give me some help with the kids and I will fly you out to Hawaii and give you beaches and sun. So far I have given her 4 kids, a house to wear she is trapped in from the rain, and the walls are growing closer in every day. I told her if she does not get at least one solid week of sunny weather that we will fly her out again next year so she can actually see the real Hawaii.

So with all the rain the kids and I have had some major cabin fever. I know you Canadians reading have trouble feeling sorry for me bound in with your 7 foot snow drifts, but come on this is Hawaii and we cannot even enjoy it. There is nothing to do it Hawaii on a rainy day but shop. So lets just say that Ben better be on his knees praying for this rain to stop or he is going to have to get a second or third job in Kuwait. The other day week 5 of rain, we were so bored we decided to go to a movie and the bowling. The bad news is that little excursion cost the little pocket book over one hundred dollars. Ridiculous! That is like 5 outfits from the GAP! The movie was good though. Eight below. It was a 2 hour movie so at least I sort of feel we got our money's worth. Although I could have bought the movie three times over for the same price.
So rain rain rain and more rain and that brings me to today.

Today was Camryn's end of season cheerleading party. It was supposed to be a pool party but you guessed it.....it was rained out. Instead they moved it inside and played musical chairs, and ate pizza. She got her little pink trophy, and was prouder then punch!

On another note I am so happy, no wait ecstatic to say that we FINALLY found a church that felt like home! It is only ten minutes away, and it met all my requirement. The Pastor is hilarious, the music is great, the kids love their Sunday school, and they have small groups that meet during the week. This has been our second week there and once again I am starting to look forward to Sundays! I can't even tell you how good it feels to be back in The Word on a weekly basis. My spiritual starvation drought is finally over, and like the rain over Hawaii the holy spirit is raining upon me once again.

Other random news:

Londyn got her ears pierced last week. She hardly even flinched and I think it was harder on me then it was one her. She looks so adorable. She also currently has her cute little toenails painted pink. On one of our numerous rain days the girls played beauty parlor!

I think Addison and Camryn are going to go back to public school next year. There is a military school near by the I did not know was an option when I decided to home school. I have loved homeschooling, but every day it becomes more and more of a fight to get Addison to pay attention. I feel like all instead of teach all I do all day long is negotiate with her. By the end of the day Addison and I are so sick of each other, and it has really put a strain on our relationship. She feels she is being punished by having to do homeschool while her younger siblings get to play. Also she is so incredibly social that even though she has extra curricular activities it does not seem to be enough. So I am in the process of getting her paperwork done for school next year.
Corben has made some major milestones lately! First of all he has finally given up his blanky. Thank goodness because with the numerous holes his blanky was about to give up on him!

Also another proud mommy moment, he is officially potty trained! He will be three in May so I figure that is pretty good for a boy. There was a few rough weeks, and quite a few pairs of soiled underwear, which I threw out, but I refused to give up asnd the glorifying day has come! Now I only have one more to go and we will be diaper free for good!

I have 15 more pounds to go before I am back into my old 4/6 clothes. I have 6 weeks to get hot before my husband gets home. Well maybe not hot but as close as a mother of four can get. I am just trying to accept the fact that I am just going to look good fully clothed, or naked from a distance in a really dark room. I am mourning the body of my youth but there is nothing I can do this side of the pearly gates to get that body back, so all I do is try my best, and stay in really dark rooms. So Monday is going to begin my hard core get my size 10 butt into my size 6 jeans in 6 weeks diet! Wish me luck on that one. I guess that means I have to eat as many last minute chocolate bards as I can tonight!

New favorite show......Sons and Daughters. If you have not seen this yet you are missing out. It is absolutely hysterical. It is from the makers of Saturday night live and the Office. It is partly scripted and is about this one disfunctional family that you find yourself relating to just a little too often! The pilot show was the best so far so if you could get ahold of that it is a great watch. Be prepared to laugh so hard your stomach will hurt!

New favorite drink....Mojitoes! I first tried these at my husbands restaurant right before he left. However at $7.50 a drink it is not a good fav drink to have. But since I have the in with the cute waiter I got their recipe and I can make my own. The good news is I can get the whole bottle for $12. The bad news is they go down way to good, and when you are not paying $7.50 a drink there is nothing holding you back. Well until you sit down and the room starts spinning. That is usually a good sign that another drink is not a good idea. That has only happened once but it has left a distinct imprint on my mind. Lets just say it may be awhile before I have another Mojito night.

Mojito

3-4 fresh leaves of mint
2 1/8 slices of a lime
1 tsp sugar or 1 tbsp simple syrup
1/2 cup ice
1 1/2 oz lemon rum
1/2 cup sprite
squeeze one lime wedge in glass, add mint leaves and grind together with the back of a spoon. Add rum, alternate ice and lime wedges to top of glass, top off with sprite!

Try it out! Caution....One may soon lead to five! You cannot taste the alcohol until it comes and kicks you in the butt!

Oh back to the patio situation. So basically you are suposed to submit a plan to the design comittee and then they have 45 days to review it and accept or deny your plans. Well it was 75 days and I still had heard nothing. So I started complaining (which I do quite well) and by the time I got written notice it had been 80 plus days. Well in that time we decided to scrap the deck and we were going to use the money from my dad to have a cement patio poured. So I had the guys come out and give me a quote. Since I already knew that a cement patio would get approved because everybody has them I was going to go ahead with the patio and put in my application later. Well while the cement guys were here he showed me some options in flagstone. Of course it was double the price but it is going to look awsome so we decided to go with it. So I drew up new plans to hand in and they told me it was going to take yet another month to get approved. Well if they would have done their job in the first place I would have got the first notice in 45 days and could have resubmitted and got approval by now. So like I said I was just going to go on with the project. So my contractors started to bring in loads of flagstone and cement mixers and were about to get started when I got a knock on my door. It was the site manager asking me what I was doing in my back yard with out a permit! Oh crap. So caught red handed I explained the situation. In our manual it says we have 3 months to get our yard totally landscaped, and I am trying to abide by these rules you set yet you are not letting me go forth. So I had to write aletter to the board which I also sent to the president of the company. Well apparently all my complaining worked because I finally got me approval and we are ready to continue. That is we are ready but still cannot do anything because IT WON"T STOP RAINING and my back yard is a mud bogg! So it has now been one month that the flagstone has been sitting in piled on my newly planted grass which is now dead from the weight and we cannot do a thing until the wetland we call paradise dries up! Note a little bit of bitterness here? I will post pics if and when we ever get it done!

Well I am trying to think if there is anything I have left out but nothing is coming to me at the moment. So there you have it....The last three months of my life in a nutshell. Told you it would be long and boring, but atleast I added pictures to keep you a little more interested. Blog ya later!

Unfaithful

2006-03-21T12:27:00.000-10:00

OK, I feel so guilty I just have to blog this and get it off my chest. I have been cheating. I am in an unfaithful relationship......................................................................With my hair dresser. You see I have this awesome hair dresser, but because she is so awesome it is impossible to get an appointment with her without waiting for a month. Now if I were smart I would book my next appointment at my present appointment and everything would be fine. But noooo! I do not like to plan ahead. Instead I like to live in this little life where the world revolves around, you guessed it, me and when I decide I want my hair done I call my hairdresser and expect to be seen tomorrow, if not sooner. So what happens is I usually end up calling around to someone that can get me in that day, and come to the realization that there is a reason there books are wide open. So I here by solemnly swear that I will not cheat on my hair dresser again. I feel like I need to buy her flowers and apologize to her, begging to take me back. I am a cheating hair whore and it has got to stop, for the sake of my hair if nothing else. Yesterday I went to a day spa close to my house thinking they were sure to have some talented stylist. Well lets just say today I went back to that spa to get it redone. I loved the color of my two tones highlights, however the minute I walked out the salon it looked like I had three weeks of regrowth already. I mean what hair dresser does not know to go all the way to the root. This isn't rocket science. Especially when my chief initial complaint was how I hate that having blonde highlights requires so much upkeep. Also the highlights were very sporadic and it looks like he got drunk and decided I will stick one here, and here, and here.....
So today it looks better but not great and I can't wait to go back to my old faithful hairdresser who knows my hair better then I know myself. I swear I will cheat on my husband before I ever cheat on my hair dresser again. JUST KIDDING BEN! Well unless Ben Affleck knocks on my door wearing a pink thong and holding a Kelly Clarkson CD.

I will at least give you something adorable to look at when you come to my site every day

2006-02-28T04:37:00.000-10:00

There have not been enough minutes in a day to post lately, in fact it is now 4am and I just put Londyn down from a feeding and am about to head back to bed. So since time has been strained lately I thought I should at least give you something cute to look at rather then superbowl mayhem. So here are some pics of my sweeties....followed by yet another blonde moment.

Another Blonde Moment....

2006-02-28T04:26:00.000-10:00

I was at an eye Dr. Appointment last week, they morning after my girlfriend slumber party, which I will fill you in on in the future, but we stayed up chatting till three am. Needless to say my eyes were blood shot and I was exhausted. They were running behind so after many long blinks my eyes finally shut for good and I was dead asleep, mouth hanging open and all. About 1/4 way into a good dream I hear my name being called. I pop awake and begin gathering my things.....Got my wallet, got my cell phone, got my keys.....Wait a minute....I don't have my keys....My keys!!!Where are my keys???? I start to look for them all flustered and in that just woke up daze. The receptionist getting tired of waiting for me at the door comes out to see what is taking me so long. I tell her my dilemma and she helps me turn the waiting room upside down. I mean we were pulling cushions off the couch, on our hands and knees under the couch, looking through the magazine piles, about to interrogate the two year old a couple seats down when I have a moment of clarity followed by an "oh shoot!" "oh shoot!" The receptionist looks at me with an "oh what"............................................I vallet'd my car. Oops hehe!

Superbowl mayhem...

2006-02-09T10:31:00.000-10:00

Ok I will be the first to admit that I only watch superbowl for the commercials, good food and good friends. This year since my friends are visiting from Canada, I decided to invite some more friends and throw a little party of my own. My friend and her husband decided they would wake up early and go tour Pearl Harbor before the party started. So while they were gone I busied myself all morning straightening the house and making a bunch of finger food. Our original plan was to go to the pool for the day and TiVo the game to watch later. I was told however that would be unamericain and not even an option. So it was soon time for kick off and my guest had arrived but my Canadian company was still not back yet. I had spoke to them on the phone and they were on their way, and were just going to pick up a couple last minute things for me. WELL I had just gotten off the phone with Lisa when I got a local call from someone asking for my friends. Confused as to who would be calling them I told her they stepped out and would be back soon. "ell I just left them, I guess they have not told you yet but they rear ended me." Oh um that sucks, especially since they were driving my van. Lisa calls me back shortly after that and lets me know about the line ups at the grocery store, but still says nothing about the accident. She had no idea I knew so I had a little smirk on my face the whole time. So after the conversation I asked her if they were ok and that the girl they hit just called.........Followed by an "oh shit" on the other end, she told me what happened, and that they were going to wait until they got home to tell me. So they finally come home and her husband walked in feeling so bad and I reassured him that it was no big deal, and lets just forget about it and enjoy our superbowl party. So that is exactly what we did and opened beers all around. Soon after I had swallowed my first sip I here Corben crying out in pain. I look over and poor Dave (the guy who was driving my van) was lifting Corben up in the air by his hands and had apparently pulled something out of socket. After a call to the ER they told us he would have to coming to have it replaced. So before I could even enjoy a bite of lunch I was off to the ER. (for 4 hours) So I left the party, and Dave joined me. At this time he was feeling as small as an ant. In the course of a few hours he had got in an accident in my van, and broke my child. The poor guy felt so bad, that I felt more sorry for him then I did for Corben. After several x-rays and assessment from several different Dr's they sent Coben home with a follow up appointment in a couple days. It turned out that what ever it was it had corrected itself and he was using his arm again in a few days. By the time we got home the party was over and my guests had all gone home. Maybe we will try again next year. I am sure Dave will understand if he des not get an invitation.

In all seriousness, it has been great having my best friend and her husband visiting and we have had so much fun together. She is the type of friend that you could go 5 years without seeing and when you get back together it seems like just yesterday. The type of friend that you do not have to impress but just enjoy each others company flaws and all. The type of friend who you can fart in front of and just laugh about it. The only thing that I regret is that Ben is not here to have fun with us, so I am just going to have to make them come back again later.

Well I have a shower calling my name! Catch you on the flip side. Go Steelers! That is who won right?

What a blessing

2006-02-01T23:33:00.000-10:00

I am one of the lucky ones who's inlaws are a blessing rather then a....well you know what some inlaws can be. I have always looked up to Ben's mom since the first day I met her. There was just something about her that drew you in. She is so unconditionally loving and welcoming you can not help but love her. In fact most of Ben and his brother Daniel's friends and old girlfriends still come by to visit her on a regular basis because she is just a great person. It was through her that I first saw the heart of Christ. His light shawn threw her with a brightnes you could not deny. Believe me I tried my hardest to deny it but eventually He won me over and I gave my life over to Him. She once shared with me that she has been praying for Ben's wife since he was just a little boy and in essence has been praying for me all my life, which is such a comforting thought. To think a little girl from Canada would end up meeting the man of her dreams way down south in Texas, and in meeting him also met the Father of her dreams as well. Her Hevenly father that is. I thank Judy for introducing Him to me.
Since then my inlaws have been so great to us in so many ways. They have prayed for us when we needed guidance, they have provided for us when we needed help, and they have loved us always.
I feel like I owe them so much for all they have done for us. When we were trying to come up with the down payment on our house ($2000) with 7 days notice, they lent us the money no questions asked. Then when we went to pay them back they told us to keep it as a house warming gift. That is one huge house warming gift. In fact that is several house warming gifts. Yesturday they went over the top again and saved us $900 by booking the flight for our nanny (who Judy also found for us) to come out using their airmiles. That is going to be such a great help to us and I cannot thank them enough. All I know is I am glad I have the inside line with them because they will have one of those huge mansions in Heaven, probably a couple houses down from Mother Teressa. And even though thanks to Judy I will have made it up to Heaven I will probably be living in the little emerald shack on the wrong side of the golden tracks, but I can knock on her giant door any time a day and it will always be open to me any anyone else who wants to be blessed by knowing her.

Blog Snob!

2006-01-27T20:30:00.000-10:00

Ok I cannot put off blogging another day. I have people calling me to see if I am still alive. However maybe I should stick to the no blog thing b/c they also said that they actually had to call me to see what I have been up to.The reason I have not blogged is because my brother was visiting for two weeks and we were to busy working on our tan. We went to the beach almost every day, and if we were not at the beach we were at the pool with a nice cold beverage in hand. This was my brother's first time to Hawaii and it was nice to be a tour guide again. It was great having my little bro around again. He is 6 years younger then I am and I had not seen him in 2 years so we had allot of catching up to do. He is such a sweet guy who wears his heart on his sleeve. He left her almost certain that he does not want 4 kids. I told him you do not start with 4 and you can try one out and work your way up from there. Lets just say there was never a dull, or quite moment around here. I am also very proud to say that he quite smoking while he was here! At $10 a pack in Canada he will be able to afford to visit more often. I never smoked but I here it can be a hard habit to break so cuddoes to Aaron for sticking to his commitment.

Benjamin update. Ben is doing well in Kuwait and is staying really busy with work and his masters degree. Being busy is helping his days go by faster, so that is good. We have however decided that we are definitly getting out of the Air Force after this tour. We have three years left in Hawaii and then it is good bye Air Force. This is just not the life for us. We are way to family oriented to be separated over and over again. The Air Force has done well for us but we are ready to settle down in one place. So that being said in 3 years we will be moving back to Texas (Tyler) and finally settle down for good. Ben's dad will be ready to retire around that time and he will take over his dad's company selling life insurance. Ben will be done with his MBA by then and we can welcome back the civilian life style.

Addison however is not doing quite so well. Saying goodbye to my brother Aaron broke her and the fact that her daddy has been gone for almost a month now came and slapped her on the side of the face. She clung around my brother's neck and begged him not to leave. She was crying hysterically and we practically had to pull her off, my heart breaking the whole time. That night I put her to bed and moments later while getting ready for bed myself I heard her screaming for her daddy in her bed begging for him to just grab her hand. I ran to see her and she was literally reaching out for her dad. My poor girl is going to need therapy soon if she has to say goodbye one more time. She is my emotional one and I just feel so bad for her. Time is just not going by fast enough and in a few weeks my dad is coming and we will have yet another departure at the airport. Keep her in your prayers.

Londyn had her 2 month Dr appt today. I cannot believe she is two months already. She had to have shots. That is another thing I usually make daddy do. I hate needles and it nearly kills me to see them stuck into my children. I make Ben be the bad guy and hold them while they get stuckl and then I come to their rescue after it is all done. I love being the good guy! Today however I had to be both the bad and the good guy, and I can vouch that the good guy position is much better.

My best friend from Canada and her husband are coming next week and I can't wait to see them again. She was my roommate and partner in crime in collage and we have some great and not so great memories from that time. Lets just say an ex-lax diet was not such a good idea. Anyway we are going to have a blast while they are here, and I can't wait.

Well that is about all that is new around here. Hopefully I will not be such a blog snob any more, but in my defense I don't exactly have allot of spare time with my four rugrats, I mean angels hanging from my every limb most of the day, and night.

Bells ringing in my ears

2006-01-07T09:47:00.000-10:00

So it is 6am, and I am of course asleep, along with the rest of my house, when our alarm starts ringing. I have a key pad in my bedroom so I disarm the alarm, and wearily go downstairs to see why it went off. The sliding glass door in the kitchen was slightly open so I start looking around the house for any signs of anyone. I did not see anything and did recall, that I had not double checked that door before I went to bed and it could have been left slightly ajar from the kids earlier that day. So all of a sudden the alarm starts going off again. I run up stairs to check on the kids and when they were fine I called the alarm company to let them know what was going on and that it was probably a false alarm. Since it was going off even after it was disarmed made me think it was a glitch in the system. SO I am on the line with the tech guy and he is having me push all these buttons when the alarm starts ringing again. He does not recognize the sound of the alarm as being one of theirs so he askes, "Are you sure there are not any other alarms in the house that could be ringing?" Like an idiot I look up and it was the fire alarm, which had apparently run out of batteries. Oops, he he, flip my blond hair over my shoulder. In my defense though I was dead asleep, hear and alarm, and freaked out. So by then I had the tech on the phone, Corben coming out of his bedroom, the fire alarm ringing, and Londyn screaming bloody murder upstairs. Time to start a new day!

Better then I had expected.....

2006-01-06T19:09:00.000-10:00

Well we are coming to the end of day three without Ben. I have to say it is getting easier and truth be told I am so busy with the kids and school all day that it feels like I wake up and before I know it the sun is setting on another day. I guess that is one good thing about having 4 kids while Ben is deployed, I do not have TIME to think about missing him too much. I have gotten two emails from him so far and my heart skips a beat every time I hear the phone ring. Today however we were at the pool with a friend and my cell phone started ringing. I did not even hear it when she says "is that your phone?" I grab it as quick as I can and I bring it to my ear just in time to hear the click of the person hanging up. I say hello five times begging him to come back when the operator comes on and asked if I had just received a call from someone overseas. I say yes and he says "oh sorry well I guess you will have to wait for him to call back. " AGGGHHHHHH! The good news is he left a message and I did get to hear his voice at least. He said he would call me back tonight but I have not heard back from him yet and it has been 3 hours and 15 minutes!! So you know what I will be doing tonight. Sitting on my phone and willing it to ring. I feel like a thirteen year old school girl who just kissed a boy for the first time and waiting for him to call for a second date. I even have a zit to play the part!

Stay Puff marshmallow women.....

2006-01-05T12:12:00.000-10:00

That is who I look like today! My eyelids are so puffy from crying it looks like I got collagen injections from a bad plastic surgeon and he hit the wrong spot. In fact if I were on the show Nip/Tuck I would look like a Dr. Bobble customer for sure. Anyway for those of you that do not know, Ben left yesterday. His cab pulled up to the house right on schedule at 7:15am. We got up at 5:30 and watched the minutes click by faster then normal until the dreaded 7:15 where the honk of the cab horn could be heard. It still does not seem real and I keep looking at the door waiting for him to walk through and say JUST KIDDING! My heart is physically hurting ever since he walked out the door, and all I can do is pray that the time goes by fast. The kids are doing pretty well so far. Addison(6) cries every now and then and Corben (2) still insists that he will be coming home from work any minute, and gets mad if I try and tell him otherwise. Camryn(4) just seems a little more mellow then usual, and of course Londyn(2 months) is pretty clueless, or maybe not because she fussed all night last night. I just want to thank everyone for their prayers and support. No one has a magic wand that can bring my husband home, but it is nice to know that I am not alone. I was excited to get an email from him this morning. He was about to start the third leg of his journey and was in Guam on his way to Japan. From there he goes to Thailand, and then on to Kuwait. The last time he was deployed he was at a different base and we both had webcam and we could see and talk to each other every day. This time however he is not aloud to instant message and can only email once a day if he stands in line for a 20 minute time slot on the computer. There are usually a bunch of people trying to use the computer all the time and you have to wait a few hours just to get your turn. He is also aloud 2 15 minute phone calls a week, but by the time he talks to me and all the kids we each only get a couple minutes. I just feel so bless that I have family and friends coming to help me out for most of January and Febuary. Then for March and April by the grace of God a girl that is interested in a nanny position just feel into our lap. She is from Texas and used to babysit for my sister in-law. She is a 20 year old nurse who is going back to school for her RN and thought it would be fun to get away and spend a few months n Hawaii before starting back to school. So we are paying for her ticket here and she will live with us and have Ben's car to drive and in exchange she will be here to watch the kids if I need to go out or run errands. So that being said we are very excited to have all the help, and that to will make the time go by easier and faster. Once again thanks for all your prayers I need to hop in the shower while the baby is sleeping. If Ben were her he would use his dry humor to say don't hop in the shower you might fall and hurt yourself.

Good-bye 2005

2006-01-02T10:15:00.000-10:00

2005 was a great year for us! We live in Hawaii, we bought a house, we had a gorgeous baby girl, we had lots of visitors, and made some great friends. Unfortunately 2006 is starting out not so good. Ben is leaving in 2 days and it is really hitting me hard. I feel sick to my stomach and cannot even look at him without crying. I just pray that the next 5 months fly by and he returns home safe.
For New Years we went to a gathering at our old neighborhood. It was a good time and the kids had a blast running around with all their friends. We got to bed at about 2am and everyone slept until 10 the next morning, so that was great!
I have been keeping a secret for a few months now and I think it is there first time I have ever actually kept a secret that long. Keeping secrets is not my specialty but now I can finally let it out. My little brother is expecting his first baby and I am so excited. They told me when they first found out, but were not telling the rest of the family until they came home for Christmas. So I had to bite my tongue to not shout it from the roof tops. Since my brother is 5 years younger then me I always thought my kids would be grown up before he started having kids, but now Londyn and his baby will only be 8 months apart so that is so cool. Congratulations Bryce and Patty, I could not be more happy for you two.
I have so much to write about but so little time, not to mention having trouble concentrating with so much on my mind. So I will write again soon, but for now I want to eat up every minute I can with my fabulous hubby before he leaves. I will leave you with a picture of Londyn in her
New Years Outfit!

Lower level pics!

2005-12-26T18:01:00.000-10:00

Now that our couches are finally in and our lower level is free of the Christmas clutter I can post pics of the livingroom and kitchen!

A Festivous for the rest of us!

2005-12-26T17:47:00.000-10:00

Well this was our first Christmas with no extended family to celebrate with. It was hard to be away from all the fun family festivities we we managed to make our little family Christmas special anyway. I must admit it is very hard to get in the Christmas spirit in Hawaii. It is hard to see sand and envision snow. At least in Texas, although we never had a white Christmas, there was always a little nip in the air and you could at least throw on a sweater. This year we spent Christmas in our bathing suits. We opened presents and headed to the pool. We started Christmas a few days early since Ben is leaving soon we did not want that looming over us while we were trying to have fun. So Thursday we cooked our traditional spaghetti Christmas Eve dinner and after opened all our gifts. The kids had a blast and did not know what to play with first. In fact we had to stop unwrapping every once and a while so they could try out their latest toy. I think the girls favorite was their Karioke machine, and Corben was partial to his motorcycle, (and the girls lip gloss). He has a strong and sensitive side. Growing up with all these girls in the house who could expect any less.
Friday we spent the day at the pool, had a BBQ rib dinner then snuggled in with the kids and watched Polar Express, with some hot coco. The next morning we did Santa gifts and stockings. This year Addison started questioning if Santa was real so after watching Polar Express that night we left her a note from Santa and it included a bell from his slay that she could ring to see if she still believed. Of course we all heard the chimes and she was so excited to tell her friend that didn't believe because she now had proof that he was real. It was so sweet to see the excitement in her eyes! After presents we spent another afternoon at the pool, followed by a big ham dinner, and then an all out Mario Party 7 marithon! All and all I would rate this Christmas a success,and look forward to next year when we can deck the halls, and wish Jesus another Happy Birthday!

Anniversary

2005-12-21T08:52:00.000-10:00

Two nights ago my husband and I celebrated 7 years of marital bliss. Ok it has not been blissful the whole time but I have to say I am the luckiest women in the world to have a husband like him, and besides that no one would put up with me like he does. Not an easy job! So we were going to get a babysitter and go out but I didn't feel like going through all the hassle so I thought we would go get some take out, a blanket, and a bottle of wine and go eat out on the beach and watch the sunset (with the kids) So we loaded the car and drove to Chili's to pick up our dinner. Well by the time we got out with our take out the sun had already gone down and it was pitch black. I decided since I brought candles we could still eat at the beach and listen to the water hitting the shore. Well we got down to the beach and apparently it closes at sunset so we could not get in. Well! We decided to cut our loses and drove back home. We spread out our blanket on the living room floor, turned out the lights, lit our candles and there the 6 of us ate dinner. Not even into my second bite the phone rings. My 6 year old daughter says, " tell them to go away can't they see we are trying to have a romantic dinner here? " Too funny!

30 year old virgin.

2005-12-15T20:47:00.000-10:00

I hate to admit this but up until last night, I was a virgin. A Sephora virgin that is. Being a shopper it is almost embarrassing admitting there is a store I have not yet concurred. I had read about it in a few of Allison's blogs, and I was always intrigued but last night thanks to my good friend Vanessa my cherry was popped and oh what a climax! We started off slow taking in one isle at a time, trying to run my fingers over each item, but I soon got to excited and pre-ejaculated my credit card. Items were dropping into my basket faster then I could say CHARGE IT!!!! After getting a sample facial from the bare essentials, line the lady asked me if I would like her to write down the colors that were good for me for future reference. Write it down....heck no put it in my basket. I have lips that plump like Angelina Jolie, and am well on my way to a new shopping love affair. I can't wait until the next time I can sneak off with my new found lover. Now that my husband is leaving the country for a few months it will be easier then ever to get away and pleasure myself at the mall. Who ever said sex is better then shopping was so so wrong!
Oh and one more thing, I want to say a supper dupper thank you to Vanessa who is a strong believer that even though baby gifts are great mommy needs a little pampering too and she took me out for a pedicure. Thank you Vanessa for my hot toes!

Londyn says.....

2005-12-14T09:31:00.000-10:00

Thank you Trimbel family for my awsome blanket! It is the softest blanket I have ever felt in my whole 20 days of life! Hugs and kisses!

Precious Baby

2005-11-30T15:38:00.000-10:00

The moment you have all been waiting for...

2005-11-29T20:23:00.000-10:00

Ok I finally have a few moments to blog about my birth experience. Now boys it is the time to reach for that mouse and escape this page as fast as you can! However there is nothing better then a good birth storey and once you have one and you get around a bunch of there women who have one then dilating, epidurals, boobs, and poop seems to be all we can talk about. I guess it is almost like a war storey for you guys, it is a fight and conquer thing for us, and I have the scars to prove it! So it all started on turkey Day! My DR was on call and told me to pop in and we would see where I was sitting dilation wise, but would not induce unless I was at least a 4 and showing some consistent contractions. So I called that morning and they told me not to come yet because there were no rooms available and to call back after lunch. Sounds good to me! That means I could stuff myself on a delicious Thanksgiving feast first. That is exactly what I did. I ate 3 times as much as any man at the gathering and then went for dessert. Not once, not twice, but three times! I was so full I could hardly walk and between the turkey and the baby, something had to budge because I did not have room for both! I thought the baby would be cuter in the bassinet then regurgitated turkey so we headed to the hospital.
When we got there, the Dr checked me strait away and I was still sitting at a three. She was able to stretch me to a 4 (I will save you and not go into detail on how she did that). Then she told me that it should get things moving, and to go walk around the hospital for a couple hours and we would check again. So off we went to explore every floor of that huge hospital. I ran up and down stairs and was having contractions every 1-2 minutes. However, after an hour, the contractions totally stopped and I began to give up any hope of being admitted and having a baby. So after 2 hours and some really tired legs we headed back up to labor and delivery to see the dr. Once again, they hooked me up to the machine to monitor my contractions. I knew I needed to be showing constant contractions on the machine in order to be admitted, and I also knew that nipple stimulation caused contractions. So when no one was looking I started to feel myself up like a school boy in the back seat of a drive in movie, and sure enough the machine started peeking one after another. Ben stood on the lookout for anyone who might walk into my room and soon he gave me the signal to cut because the Dr was heading our way. She checked the monitor and then me and woo hoo I was at a 5. She asked me what I thought about having this baby tonight, and after a couple high fives we headed to the labor room! They gave my IV, which is the scariest part of labor to me. Then they gave me my epidural, which is the best part of labor for me. Soon after that, they broke my water and we were on the home stretch. Now I have always joked that since my last baby weighed nine pounds and I had an easy delivery that if I ever had a six-pound baby I could probably just fart it out. Well Londyn made me eat my words because she was my longest and hardest labor ever. It was 5 hours and my epidural only took on one side of my body. One leg was so numb I could not even wiggle my piggies and the other I could dance a jig on. The contractions were absolutely unbearable and after screaming, crying, and cursing Adam and Eve, I told Ben that I changed my mind and was not going to be able to do this. Unfortunately, it was too late to turn back and before I knew it, it was time to push. Three pushes later she popped into my world and I instantly forgot all the pain as I gazed at her gorgeous perfect little face. At 6 pounds 12 ounces, I could not get over how tiny she was. My smallest thus far had been 8lbs 11oz so this was such a treat for me. I did not tear or cut and did not need one single stitch, which makes for a much quicker recovery. (No Ben we still have to wait 6 weeks to have sex!) At least I will keep telling him that.
So we have been home for 4 days now and I never thought I could be this lucky 4 times but she is such a good baby, and last night she only woke up one time all night long. This makes me part of a very small club of well rested mother of a newborn who gets 9 hours of sleep a night! I do not know if Ben and I just have super DNA or what but all of our babies have been super easy, and super cute! We are so excited that she is finally here, and feel so blessed to have our complete family!

A few more pics!

2005-11-27T13:45:00.000-10:00

Here are a few more pictures. We got out of the hospital yesterday and are all doing well. Last night was a rough and sleepless night but hopefully we will get on some sort of schedule soon. I will write soon about the whole experience but for now here is a few more pictures!

Londyn Lillianna Turner

2005-11-25T05:33:00.000-10:00

This is Ben. Alyssa gave birth to my beautiful baby girl, Londyn Lillianna Turner, at 2:57 am HST. She weighs only 6 lbs 12 ozs. Londyn is 17.5 inches long. Both mommy & baby are in excellent health. More to come when Alyssa gets home from the hospital. Meanwhile...it is 5:45 am...I have not slept in 24 hours and Alyssa is making me go to three stores at 6am to do "Black Friday" Christmas shopping. I have a list! Wish me luck...I've got to get my game face on!

On a lighter note.....

2005-11-20T08:48:00.000-10:00

I went tot the DR's on Friday and I am still at a three and am thankfully past the scare zone for going into labor. So it just so happens that my Dr is on call for labor and delivery on Turkey Day and told me to come up there Thursday morning. If I can be dilate to at least a 4 by then she will go ahead and induce. If not then it will be the following Sat Dec 4th. So Londyn is coming soon! Now that Ben is leaving however I am going to push for this Thursday because the sooner she is bon the more time Ben will get with her before he leaves. Since that is only 4 days away I have allot of nesting to do so I better get started. If I do not post Thursday night you will know that I am at the hospital. My turkey has been basting for 9 months and is ready to come out of the oven, so I will be having a different twist on Thanks Giving this year, and will have even more to be thankful for.

Cry much?

2005-11-20T08:30:00.000-10:00

Well it has been a rough week at the Turner household. Ben got his orders to deploy and I cannot even say it or type it without bursting into tears. The thing is the orders came out Monday and he was not on them. Because he was having a baby they were trying to make it so he could stay home. However some guy who got orders got a DR's note saying he could not deploy because of medical reasons and now Ben has to go in his place. I was all prepared for him to go but when I got it in my head that he was staying home it made this news an even harder blow to take in. I am not the strong supportive military wife who stands behind her husband as he goes off to save the world. I am the weak spoiled little princess who wants her husband here to be a family. To see his newborn little girl grow up, and to do all the things that only daddies can do. I know I CAN do it and I will get through but gosh darn it I DON"T WANT TO!!!! I do not want to drop my husband off at the airport and listen to myself and the kids cry all the way home because we already miss him so much. I don't want to wake up in the morning and not smell his French toast cooking on French Toast Friday. I don't want to sit down to watch a movie with no one to snuggle with. I do not want to be left in charge of the bills. I don't want to plan Camryn's birthday by myself. I DON"T WANT TO!!!!!!!!!! So if any of you are sitting out there with nothing to do and want to plan a trip to Hawaii to keep me company I would love that. I know military wives do this all the time. Most for longer then I am going to have to but I think it is just plane WRONG. Especially when there are single guys who would volunteer to go in his place but they will not let them. So I am going to kick and scream and cry and pout all the way up to that trip to the airport on Jan 4th, and nobody is going to say or do anything that is going to make this ok.

Kids bathroom!

2005-11-17T20:05:00.000-10:00

Addison and Camryn's room

2005-11-17T15:43:00.000-10:00