The New Quests of The Turetzky Family

I have been quite the slacker in regards to this blog lately. I write blog posts in my head all week, but my pillow has been taking precedence over the keyboard in my evening "free time." I finished my Financial Management class on Feb 21st (just 3 days before the deadline!), then two days later we were off to California for 8 days. Darren's been working on an app that had its big reveal at the TED conference in Long Beach, so I couldn't pass up the opportunity to bring the whole family and go visit with my sisters. And little Walt had his first birthday while we were there! We celebrated with a trip to Disneyland. I got sick just before we left for Cali (the kids passed it on to me), and I was unfortunately sick the entire trip. It was basically a regular old cold, but the first couple days I could hardly talk and the whole week I had a difficult time sleeping. We got back to Texas and just in the last couple of days I've finally gotten over whatever cold and...

We had a lovely Valentines day and hope you did too :) Lila started the day with heart-shaped banana pancakes and preschool. She had fun at the V-day party at school (and I forgot to take any pics) and was thrilled to come home with a bag full of goodies. We made Valentines day desserts, played outside in the sunny 72 degree weather and had a delicious dinner. The menu was favorites of Darren's: chicken-fried steak and mashed potatoes, bacon/apple/arugula & spinach salad, steamed broccoli & carrots, followed by a decadent flour-less chocolate cake and chocolate dipped strawberries. I don't make dessert too often these days, so it was fun to have a reason to indulge today :) The last pic is of Walt begging to get in the bathroom. A few minutes after I took the pic, Lila let Walt in the bathroom and he quickly unrolled the entire roll of toilet paper. Mr. Michevious!

February 5, 2013 One month of this new year has already flown by. I spent most of that month contemplating this letter that I'm finally writing to all of you. The beginning of a new year is a time of self reflection for me, and this year has been no different in that regard. What has been different this year is the big change Darren and I are making in our lives. I want each of you to hear this from me, so please read on. First and foremost, I want you all to know how very much your love, friendship, and support have meant to me. Since moving to Texas life has been a new sort of challenging for my little family. The sort of challenging that makes you examine everything. We live hundreds of miles from any of our family, and the friendships that I’ve made through the Church have been my lifeline. The Church has been my culture, my community, my way of life, but that is all about to change... We haven't been to church in 3 weeks. We quit, cold turkey. Darren told me ...

We've been home from Utah for nearly a week now. Things aren't quite back to normal yet, but we're getting back into the swing of things...which means I should blog before one more day goes by! The night before we were to fly home, the airline called us to tell us out flight had been cancelled. We had booked our flight out of the Provo airport and we were really looking forward to the short ride to the airport, but it just didn't work out. We were able to get our flight switched to another airline out of SLC for the same day our original flight was scheduled. We had no choice but to fly through LAX, which was a little unfortunate, but not really a problem. The upside: our flight was switched to American so we had free checked bags (because of all the Australia miles), and the kids did great even though our travel time increased by several hours more than originally planned. I'm so thankful the kids are great travelers! I've been thankful for all the rain tha...

We're in Utah having happy holidays with Darren's family! I've dropped the ball on my weekly posts as the year has come to a close, but I've decided to try again this year. Grouchiness has ensued as I have neglected to count my blessings each day, so I plan on getting back on track for 2013. As I reflect on last year, it's evident to me that when I recognized my blessings they seemed to multiply. There's several other things I plan on working on in the new year, but I'll keep the other things to myself until I can attest that I've successfully made some improvements :) Here's some unedited photos from the past couple weeks. I was looking at thumbnails when I uploaded them, so forgive me if some are blurry. There's a four generation pic of Darren and his family from the weekend before Christmas when we were in Colorado. The painting is one that Darren's grandma painted years ago and we digitized while in CO. There's pics from our Christ...