The Turner Family

Kay, do you recognize the shirt? Unfortunately, I don't have a picture of Jason wearing it but I'm told that this was Jason's favorite shirt when he was Garrett's age. Looks great!

Before After After - 2

Does anyone have some photos of the canoe weekend that you could share?

We went camping in West Virginia shortly before taking off for Michigan. We went with our neighbors, the Morans and the Butters, and stayed at beautiful Holly River State Park. Holly River is the second largest park in West Virginia with over 8,000 acres. Even though we hiked for two days we didn't come close to seeing the entire park. One of the highlights of the trip was the card game, Speed. Here is the championship match between Jason and Annie Butters, they were moving so fast the picture came out blurry. Jason won. We each took turns cooking dinner. Jason and I stuck to our camp favorite, hot dogs and brats. On our way home we visited Audra State Park which has this cool river running through it, the riverbed was solid rock.

As you can see, we need a little practice using Blogger, but suffer with us on this first attempt. We had large gathering at Phil and Lynne's house on July 4, 2007. We celebrated the 4th of course - but also Meg's 12th birthday (which is on the 4th), Chris, Laura and Ahni will all become 40 within a few months of the 4th, and Phil and Lynne's 5oth anniversary in August. Needless to say, there were lots of cakes and lots of smiles. The first pic is Sophia and Seamus on the water slide. Tal was correct in his estimate that these slides have a half life of 30 minutes. Lots of kids got wet. Below is Meg with an ice cream cake. The cake in front of Bruce (Laura's brother) is a second ice cream cake for all the 40 year olds. Look at the kids clustered around and focused on the cakes. Here's the anniversary couple - just waiting for the shutters to stop clicking so they can cut their chocolate cake from MacKenzies. Below is the "Oh Crap, I'm 40" gang....

Tiff and I went to see Bob Mould play on Thursday, July 12 @ the Henry Ford Museum . Mom and dad had been watching our kids all week so that I could attend Waverly's wrestling camp while Tiffani was in class, and we felt like we overburdened them a bit, but they were game and we dropped off the little'uns @ their house and departed. (thanks again, dad and mom). But, foreshadowing issues later, mom asked if we trusted the car to get to Detroit. In what turned out to be a frantic drive to Dearborn , as there was emergency and scheduled road closures, we were forced to really detour south and then back north, to finally negotiate ten miles of surface roads through Wayne and Inkster and Dearborn to get to the Henry Ford, at what we thought were the narrowest of time margins. I suppose I let my Mould mania control my consciousness and common sense, even though we raced to arrive at the scheduled starting time, because thankfully Bob was on rock-n-roll time, and the show starte...

After a long weekend camping up north with the Turners and Novaks, and the annual canoe trip, Sophia was anxious to work on her bicycling skills again. She had been assisted by parents guiding hands in her armpits before, but on Sunday she took off on her own.

Last Sunday, we took a walk from the west 50s down the west side to our new apartment with two friends. There is a bike path and green space all the way down the side of the island, with little parks and piers that stick out into the river. Some of these have umbrellas, some have lawns, some have artificial lawns, some have little shower stands, tables, etc. You get a very nice view. Anyway, this picture was taken by one of our friends with his cell phone. He sent it to me, and I am posting it here. Sort of squinty but not too bad: this is what we currently look like!

Well, that's it for now. I don't post often so I don't have the hang of it. You should start at the bottom and work your way up! Hope you are all having a great summer. I will send out an email with our full change of address and contact info so you all have it. Please tell us if you come to New York! Sarah was just here for a few days and we did a lot of shopping and walking and various projects around the apartment. Lots of love to everyone, Harry and Rebecca

This is a view out of the other side of the apartment, from the second bedroom (unfortunately I don't have any pictures of the main bedroom). This is a good sized bedroom, with nice closets, and also two doors. Rebecca is currently using it as a study, but it will become a child's room eventually. So the apartment is a rectangle, with roof space on both sides. This (east) side is much larger and is accessed by a glass door in our master bedroom. One of the large windows has been replaced with the door; you climb some wooden stairs up to the sill level and then step out and down onto our "patio"! It also has two large skylights in the middle, again for another apt. below, and then a decent amount of space around that we can plant, sit, etc. It is large enough for two patio tables, some patio chairs, lots of planters. There's an old cast iron fire escape stair that comes down from the roof but stops at our level, so it isn't used any more. Again, we are...

These pictures are looking out of the large windows in the kitchen. One of them was taken before we bought it, with the other owners table, etc. We'll put a table there where we can sit and eat breakfast and look out at the roof area. This roof belongs to the building, but since you can only get out there from our windows, we can do whatever we want with it. The previous owner had a garden there and left all the plants and planters you see here. The skylight in the middle provides light to the apartment below us -- it is their ONLY window!!! Only in NY!

This picture was taken before we closed, during a walk-thru. Rebecca's mom is turning toward the camera, and our realtor is turning away from it. This looks back from the study area toward the living room and the kitchen, which is in the far corner.

This is a nice pier along one wall, a nice detail.

This is the dining room and a corner where I will have my study. We will build in bookshelves along the wall, in a kind of L or a U, with a built-in desk. Our bedroom is behind the dining room wall, through the door. There is also a second entry (without a door) immediately to the left of the desk -- right next to the main door! It's like a stage set. I spent an hour walking through the place with the former owner after we closed, and he gave me some history; apparently the apt. originally had no doors at all, so he added the door that you see here and left the original opening. A funny detail. Behind the desk is the wall to the master bath, which is a cube attached to a buidling wetwall and which inside the bedroom.

This is a view of the living room, with our furniture in it. It gives you a pretty good sense of what the apartment looks like.

This is a view of the entry, from inside the apartment. You enter the apartment to your left, beyond the ladder (the door isn't visible). Across from you is a large closet for coats. The second bedroom is behind the wall with the glass at the top, directly in front of the camera.

And now for some photos! This is a view of the building hallway, looking back from our door. This is about 1/4 of the total length -- it's very long. Moving in was tricky.

Hello Everyone, Rebecca and I have finally unpacked and installed ourselves in New York. We thought you might like to hear a little detail and see some pictures. It's been a huge chore to move but we are glad to be here. On June 11 we packed up our plants and our cats into a U-Haul, closed out our Madison home, and drove to New York. We stayed at Rebecca's parents' apartment for about two weeks (they were away on vacation) while we closed in NY and moved in. Our new apartment is a loft space in an old industrial building, c. 1909. The building is on Broadway right across from City Hall Park, which is a gorgeous old park, with a beautiful fountain, the Old City Hall (where the Mayor has his office) and the Education Building (also a historic building) right in the park. Just East across the park is the Brooklyn Bridge. For all you Monopoly fans, the closet subway stop is "Park Place," which is two blocks south of us. We are about 4 blocks from Ground Zero,...

Sunday afternoon I decided to start pulling some of the siding down. I started from as high up as I could reach and then got the extension ladder out. This worked fine until I was stung twice by something I couldn't see, once in on the arm and once on the head. Progress as of Thursday night after work. Pulled some of the old fake brick off under a window to see how bad it was going to be to take down. I'm sure that it was good looking stuff when it was new, but it looks pretty ugly to me. Chris looked at the old cedar siding underneath and asked the same question that I have had for a long time: When was the last time this house actually had paint on it. No evidence of a color what so ever.

Sophia's classmate, Savannah, had a birthday party with a princess theme. Cake, ice cream, candy, screaming pals, toys, gifts: what more could a gal want?

Cori also recently had her first ballgame, and she's enjoyed a lot of family support at the games (thanks Grandmas and Grandpas and Uncle Jason and Uncle Jeff). Cori is #7 @ bat... ...and also later catching. The kids change positions every inning, so everyone has a chance to experience every position, including pitching.

In the process of cleaning out the garages , we happened across an old hammock, so Tiffani hung it in a Locust tree in the sideyard. Not much else to report, except a Spiderman sighting. Getting on a hammock is a negotiation. Spiderman has a cookie... ...and cookie remnants on his face.