The Turner Family

Ghana reaches the 2nd World Cup round, and their support crew back home is looting the coffers.

Spring softball season has finished for Devyn's freshman women's team. I really liked her photo from this year, so thought I'd pass it along. The team's record was pretty good, something like 19-6, sometimes against JV teams from smaller schools. Devyn did quite well, you could see improvement throughout the season. Her very best play was the game-winning out in the last game of the season. Playing center field, she ran in, made a diving effort for a fly ball, caught it, fell down, rolled over and came up smiling, the ball held high in the glove. It looked like something you would see in the highlight reels on Baseball Tonight .

Thought I'd bring you all up to date on the activities of the "famous" Amazon bowling team. Here we are in May, getting ready to compete in a Big Brothers Big Sisters fund raiser "battle of the sexes". In a related story, Kim: the girl in pink, next to me challenged a local radio personality in the "Sexist Olympics" "Mr. Windy" the radio guy said on the air that no woman could beat him at any sport. Of course, local women lined up to take him on. He should have been called "Mr. Wimpy" because he lost 4 out of 5 events (the only one he won was arm wrestling). Kim challenged him to a game of bowling and she stomped him 182-139.

I wanted an image honoring fallen veterans that I could put on the homepage of our website. I kind of liked what I put together and thought I'd share.

Hello Everyone, I thought it would be nice to post some pictures from the visit to Sarah's house last weekend - see below. It was great to see you all. And by popular request I'll be posting some recent pictures of Lucy, too, in a separate post. This was a very nice occasion!

Our last afternoon and evening in Germany was spent in Friesen , a medium sized town north of Munich and near the Munich airport. We had a fine time strolling the cobblestoned alleys that led from one street to the next. The highlight of the day (at least for me) was the evening meal at the beirstube of the Weihenstephan Brewery. A monastery was established in Friesen about the year 1000 AD. The monks started brewing beer about 1040, giving the brewery a creditable claim to being the oldest continuing brewery in the world. I've had the beer b efore , purchased in Lansing, but now I have a clear picture of where it starts its journey. Some time ago an agricultural and technical college started around the monastery . All of these: monastery , brewery and college are stretched along the top of a long narrow hill. The buildings gardens and walls are all arranged handsomely . The photos are: the vaulted cellar room where we ate, Meg in a small formal garden, and the restau...

The backdrop for this photo is the Grote Kerk , or Great Church, in Haarlem. Our hotel was across the street from this nice old church. We walked over the tombs of the hundreds of people who were buried in the floors as we toured the building. This one-hour boat cruise through the canals in Haarlem was a great way to see the city. We had time to have a beer and some apple tart just prior in an old weighing station that still had three heavy balances that were used to weigh goods as they were taken out of the cargo boats in the canal. As you can tell it was a rainy day as exited the cafe for the boat ride. The draw bridge in the background was bridge number five. It was tended by a woman who had been doing the job for years. She cruised around on her moto to the four or five bridges she was responsible for as the larger boats made their way up and down the canals. A better view of the Grote Kerk, but with a crazy teenager in the foreground.

Here's a few photos from Amsterdam. Meg is standing in front of one of Sarah's favorite lunch places. It was great - and we arrived just before the crowd. They make both sweet and savory pancakes - very thin. I had a huge thin pancake with onions and tomatoes. Wonderful place, Sarah ! This is a typical medium sized canal scene. The boats are mostly old canal cargo boats converted into living quarters - and they are everywhere along the medium sized canals. Most of the larger boats looked like they never moved, folks just lived in them. A few of the smaller ones appeared as if they could move under their own power. There are shops on the ground floor of many of the buildings, with apartments above. This is the Anne Franke house - just a couple blocks from Pancake place. The line to go in was more than a block long and it was raining, so we chose not to wait. The entrance to the tour was a few doors to the right. Everyone is pointing at the sign because I hadn't unde...

A really amazing retelling of Second World War history, Quentin Tarantino 's Inglourious Basterds turned out to be a long yet tight, riveting, and, of course, Oscar-nominated and -winning movie. Tarantino's combined filmmaking strengths, which are many, come primarily, in my opinion, from his writing and character development. I'm pretty convinced that Brad Pitt rather enjoys the roles he's offered and chooses, from Snatch to the Ocean's franchise to Basterds , Pitt often plays well the more colorful, and slightly offbeat characters, and his Aldo Raine is as quirky and fun as either  Mickey or Rusty . Christoph Waltz's character, Colonel Landa , moves so fluidly linguistically and terroristically, to make his portrayal chilling. Watching Waltz win the Oscar  on television a few weeks back, with the short Basterds excerpts, didn't really provide any insight into how analytical and ruthless Landa was, which only served to make the twisted ending, how...

The Turner/Crocker clan trooped off to the Breslin Center on a recent Friday for the Caravan Circus 's visit to the mid-Michigan area, and it was as much of a treat to the adults as it was the kids. See how excited they are? I don't really see the point of clowns, but the kids seem to enjoy them. Even the famous Flying Wallendas were part of the attraction. The 7th inning stretch.

After seeing all of these lovely family posts, I thought I ought to add one. Plus, I had a snow day from work yesterday, so I had free time to organize some recent photos. On Saturday, I did one of my favorite things : field trip to Detroit. I wish I got to downtown and exploring more. We started at Eastern Market for some antique-ing, which set the theme for the day. We then went to an Architectural Salvage place which is fascinating - all the abandoned buildings and demolition in Detroit make this business a natural and smart part of the process. (we saw an entire dismantled 'cabin', which had already been purchased). Mostly, I took pictures of streets and buildings, they are eerie and beautiful. Here they are : Eastern Market Eastern Market Park Street GM Center Brush Street

Smoked a pork loin on Sunday that was amazing. Used a dry rub and a very spicy sauce. And tender, WOW! So good, I make this one (both pictures) for dinner on Monday with a sweet BBQ sauce.

It's a story three years in the making, but on Saturday February 13th, the dream team of Amazon bowlers finally came through on the last day and won the Traverse City Women's Championship Tournament. Prior to this year, we just couldn't all get anything going at the same time. You may remember 2009, when we all sprayed our hair pink because we were bowling on Valentine's Day. This year, we decided the theme would be red hair. It seems the more goofy we look, the better we perform. (Aunt Cyn on the left, looking like Dave Thomas's daughter "Wendy") Membership on the team requires a minimum height of 5'8" and minimum weight of 150 lbs. It also just happens that we're all pretty good bowlers too. Even if you don't know much about bowling, you might appreciate the scores we rolled in our final game of the three game set: 234, 234, 246, 198, 218. (I had one of the 234 games). Our other games weren't that good, but added all togethe...

Ahni, take note: Beginning in May , hikers seeking to conquer Yosemite 's Half Dome will be required to fill out a backcountry permit and pay $1.50 for the privilege. We're going to have to plan ahead.

Texas Kites

Hello All, We have attached some pictures of and from our South Padre Island place. Two photos from the balcony, looking south then north. It was sort of hazy. Some days the visibility is great. There are often fishermen in the surf every hundred yards or so. Not too many swimmers yet. The apartment reminds me of something those "wild and crazy guys" from SNL might have wanted. The entertainment center seems to be from the 70s – in fact the whole place does. It's virtually all red, white and black. There were "decorator items" on every flat surface in the place. We concentrated many of them on or near the entertainment center, to get them out of our way. The two bedrooms are shown. The black and white squares on one wall are actually blocks of styrofoam glued on to the wall. Lots of mirrors in both bedrooms. We're told by others in the building that the place was redecorated a couple of years ago, and that it was even more weird before.     ...