Happy Blog Anniversary

One year ago today, we posted our 1st blog entry (appropriately Why blog?). Shortly after that first blog, we announced the name of our baby and documented his birth. We have enjoyed keeping you updated on the Turners and we hope to continue doing so in the coming years. More than anything, it helps us record the history of our family (we really need to print out all of the blogs and put them in a notebook). This next year, we hope to blog about Alex walking and Briana's many activities (including her 1st team sport - soccer). We have tried to update the blog as much as we could, but sometimes we fell behind; we will try to write more this upcoming year.

Our blog by the numbers:
81 - total number of postings to date (including this one)
18 - number of posts last September; the busiest blogging month (we had to keep everyone up to date on Alex)
2 - number of posts last December and February and March of this year; the slowest months of blogging (winter was not a good time to blog I guess)
4 - % of space we have used out of our allotted 1024 MB for pictures

A Day at Ohio Stadium

Briana is a member of the Buckeye Kids Club and yesterday the club held a special kick-off event at Ohio Stadium. There were several activities for Briana, but the best thing was just being able to go out on the field. We took some great pictures (over 90) and video that you will definitely see at the end of the year on the annual DVD.

Our family in the north end zone

The cheerleaders adored our handsome young man (and his big sister)

I really like this picture of Alex in his Woody Hayes hat behind a football helmet

Gretchen took this picture of the stained glass "O" in the north rotunda on our way out of the stadium; I think I am going to get it blown up and framed

This was a great family day and the Turners are ready for the start of the football season this week!

1st Day of 1st Grade

Briana started 1st grade on Tuesday. Here she is getting ready to leave:

In front of her classroom:
With her teacher, Mrs. Klochak:

She really enjoyed her 1st week of school. Several of her kindergarten classmates are in her class and she has made some new friends. We are so proud of her.

My thoughts on the Olympics

Being a sport management professor, I have a strong interest in the Olympic Games. I'm also a huge fan of some of the sports. Here are some of my thoughts after the 1st week:

• I'm really not liking the time difference. Prime-time events in Beijing are early morning here. Luckily, I am home with the kids and get to watch basketball every morning. However, to see some of the swimming and gymnastics (and softball), I have to stay up late (1 or 2 a.m.). Twenty years ago, the games were in the same time zone (Seoul), but there was no internet and events could be shown on a tape-delayed basis. I'm actually going to be in Seoul in 4 weeks so I will experience that time zone first hand.
• There is no way possible that all of the Chinese girl's gymnastics team is over 16. It's not even close with a couple of those girls.
• It was great to see Americans go 1-2 in the all-around gymnastics competition. I was particularly impressed with Nastia Liukin. Shawn Johnson received all of the attention heading into the games, but Nastia handled the pressure and won the gold. It seems like she has a great relationship with her dad (who is also her coach). Gretchen noticed how much taller she looked than the other gymnasts so she asked me to look up her height. She is all of 5'3".
• Michael Phelps might have put up a performance that we will never see again. NBC's ratings have been phenomenal, largely in part to Phelps. Seeing the race where he won by .01 seconds was amazing.
• Speaking of NBC, they are broadcasting more hours of coverage than all prior summer Olympics combined! They are broadcasting 3600 hours (2200 online and 1400 on TV). Our cable provider (AT&T) is a big Olympic sponsor so we have many channels showing the Games, including a channel with video on demand. We even have a channel broadcast in Korean and one in Chinese.
• I'm going to miss having softball in the 2012 Games. Watching last night, Team USA scored 9 runs in the 1st inning. I enjoy watching softball and hopefully it will be reinstated for 2016.
• Hopefully, the 2016 Games will be awarded to Chicago. Being in sport management, I think it's probably a long shot, but I'd love to have it here. Plus, it's only about 6 hours from Columbus and I think I could finagle a volunteer opportunity and get to work the Games.
• We got to witness the world's fastest man - EVER. Usain Bolt set the world record in the 100 meters even though he coasted the last 10 meters or so.
  
• The USA Women's basketball team has dominated the competition in pool play. Their closest game has been 36 points! Hopefully, they can win 3 more games and bring home the gold. I have a Katie Smith autographed Olympic basketball shoe (she is a former Buckeye).
• Finally, for my favorite sport - men's basketball. I will not miss a Team USA game. I really like the make-up of this team. My favorite player, Dwyane Wade, is showing everybody that he just might be the best player in the world. There are 2 Texans on the team (Deron Williams and Chris Bosh) and 2 Ohioans (Lebron James and Michael Redd). I still think Kobe is shooting the ball too much, but overall the team has played better than expected against a couple of strong teams. After today's game with Germany (UPDATE: US beat Germany by 49), the medal round will start. I am still concerned because one loss and you're out of the tournament. However, if the team plays like it has the first 4 games, they will win the gold medal.

I am looking forward to the last week of the Games. Obviously, basketball is at the top of my list, but I also look forward to track and field this week. It has been a great Olympics so far.

Gretchen made it

I blogged about Briana climbing the rock wall last week. We had to go buy soccer equipment for Briana (she starts on Friday) and of course Briana wanted to climb again. I found out the one she climbed last week was actually 47 feet! The one we went to this time was only 42 feet. Briana made it again (easily).

Gretchen followed her and made it this time!

No more training wheels!

Briana learned to ride her bike without training wheels this week (thanks to Uncle David for buying her bike for her 6th birthday). It took a few days of practice, but now she is pretty comfortable riding around our neighborhood. Thanks to TurnerCam (i.e., me riding beside her on my bike and videotaping her), here is some video of her riding:

My little girl is getting big.

5 years of Briana & the Ohio State Cheerleaders

As I mentioned in the previous post, we have been to OSU Day at the Zoo each summer for the past 5 years. So, I thought I would post pictures of Briana with the cheerleaders from each year.

2004

The 1st picture is still probably my favorite. I have a12" X 16" print hanging by my office at home.

2005

You can really tell how much she grew from age 2 to 3 in this picture

2006

This year we were only able to take a picture with 2 cheerleaders

2007

Another one of my favorites. We were able to get the whole group again, partly because the cheerleader in the back row on the far left of the picture is one of my graduate students (he is from Texas and got his undergraduate degree from Tarleton State)

2008

There weren't as many cheerleaders this year, but Briana did get to use her new outfit

OSU Day @ the Zoo 2008

We couldn't have asked for better weather at the annual OSU Day at the Zoo. This was our 5th year attending the event and by far the best weather we have ever had (high 70s - low 80s). We ended up staying over 4 hours. We started by going over to the area with the OSU displays. Briana played a couple of games (throwing footballs and softballs), got some autographs from the women's basketball team, and rode a few rides in the new amusement park area. We also met Brutus.

We had lunch, then rode the boat ride. Alex really enjoyed it.

We walked around for a little while then headed back to the amusement park area and rode a few more rides. Gretchen and Briana rode the log ride and got a little wet.

Alex and I watched and had a great time.

Guess who climbed a rock wall...

... and it wasn't one of the older Turners. We were out shopping and went in to Dick's Sporting Goods to look for a book for me and Gretchen (Briana is learning to ride on 2 wheels and we told her we would go riding with her once she learned). The store has a rock climbing wall and we went up to the 2nd level to get a better view of the people climbing. There was a young looking girl (we later found out she was 9) that made it to the top and Gretchen and I were impressed. This must have made Briana mad so she said she was a good climber and wanted to do it. Gretchen had always wanted to climb one so we went down and paid for 2 climbers. Before they climbed, the little girl's brother tried and stopped about a third of the way up (and started crying), so I was a little nervous for Briana. I shouldn't have been.

Mother & Daughter before the big climb

Briana took an early lead

Briana just after she reached the top

I was so proud of our little girl. The wall is probably around 30 feet and she made it easily (much faster than the older girl; Briana didn't really stop once). Gretchen didn't quite make it to the top (she made it about half way). In her defense, she was on a tougher course and plans on going on the easier one next time.

For her accomplishment, we bought her a shirt that said "I Rock".

Another day, another legend

In the last couple of months, I have met Cal Ripken, Jr., Coach Tressel, and the 1st round draft pick of the New York Jets, Vernon Gholston. So far Coach Tressel has definitely been the highlight, and unless Michael Jordan comes to town, will probably remain so for a long time. However, I did get to meet my favorite baseball player of all-time last night - Johnny Bench. I started playing and watching baseball in 1975 and the Cincinnati Reds immediately became my favorite team. They had a lot of stars on the team (Pete Rose, Joe Morgan, Tony Perez, Dave Concepcion, George Foster, and Ken Griffey, Sr.) and were exciting to watch. With all of those stars, I chose Bench as my favorite. I can still remember reading a couple of books about him in elementary school. It's hard to believe that was 33 years ago! It was great meeting my childhood idol.

The Last Lecture

As I've mentioned before, I read a lot. I mostly read books about sports, but every once and a while I will hear about a book that interests me. Since I really hate mowing our yard, I try to use this time to "read" book tapes that I normally wouldn't get to in the near future (because of an extreme backlog of books on my nightstand). For example, last summer I listened to Game of Shadows, the book about Barry Bonds and steroids.

I had recently been noticing a book consistently at the top of the New York Times weekly best seller list and had also read an article about it. The Last Lecture was written by Randy Pausch, a computer science professor at Carnegie Mellon University. Randy was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer a couple of years ago and was given 3 - 6 months to live. Carnegie Mellon had a "last lecture" series (the name was of the series was changed to "Journeys" just before Randy's lecture) for its professors and Randy gave one entitled "Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams". It was about lessons he had learned throughout life. The lecture became a Youtube sensation - around 6 million people have viewed it (even though it is over an hour). I downloaded the actual lecture to my Zune player and plan on viewing it on my Korea trip next month. The book is very emotional, especially when he talks about his 3 young children (2 boys ages 6 and 4 and a 2 year old girl). He made individually-tailored videos for each so they could remember him, especially his daughter because she will have few/no memories of him. For her, one of the things he wanted her to remember was he was the 1st man to ever fall in love with her. I don't want to give away many details because I highly recommend that you read (or listen to) it; it is one of my all-time favorites.

Randy lost his battle with cancer a couple of weeks ago (July 25th); he was 47 years old. ABC's Primetime did a great follow-up story on him a few days later (I'm sure you can find it on Youtube).

COSI

Last Friday, we spent the afternoon at our city's science museum COSI (Center Of Science and Industry). Even though we have lived in the Columbus area for 4 years, we had never been to COSI. I was very impressed and we had a great family day. There were many different exhibits, but Briana really liked the one called "Progress". In this exhibit, you walk through a city street in 1898, then walk through a door and the same street becomes 1962.

Briana in a wagon from 1898

Briana riding a coin-operated spaceship in front of a store in 1962

Briana "reading" the news at a 1962 TV station

Briana in a submarine from the "Ocean" exhibit

We definitely plan on going back to COSI. "Sesame Street Presents: The Body" will be in town from October to January. As an added bonus, Gretchen and I always get in free as educators.