Book Reviews

Admittedly, I have not been reading that many books in the last year compared to normally. However, I thought it was high time for a book review. So here are the books I have read over the past year or so.

Mental Floss. This isn't really a book, but it is a magazine I have really come to enjoy. You can check out the website here. It is basically a trivia magazine filled with interesting facts and stories about everything from pop culture to classic literature. Very interesting. And if I ever go on Jeopardy one day I might actually know some of the answers. The subject of Rooster Sauce (you know the red sauce at Chinese restaurants) came up at dinner once and I was able to regale our guests with the history of how it came to be -all because I read Mental Floss. Now don't tell me that doesn't make you jealous.

The Hunger Games. I love this book. It is about a post apocalyptic world where the Capitol of a country that is the ancestor of the United States demands that  two "tributes" (two children) from each of its territories come to The Hunger Games each year and fight to the death on live TV. It is such a unique book - unique plot, thought-provoking, disturbing, strangely real in an unreal world. It has the classic theme of the battle between humanity and inhumanity. I love that the heroine is a strong, capable, down-to-earth girl who is gritty and tenacious and does what it takes to survive, and yet you still like her. It is shocking in it's nature, kind of how I was shocked the first time I read Ender's Game, only more so. I was riveted and repulsed at the same time.

 

Catching Fire. This is the second book in The Hunger Games series. I loved it as much as the first, maybe even more. Which is rare in a sequel. It has the same action, sadness, horror, romance, and grit as the first one. I just kept thinking "what kind of twisted person came up with all of this?"

Mockingjay. I am still contemplating this one. This is the third book in the series. I thought it was a realistic ending to the series, which is probably why I was kind of ticked about it. I won't say much since I know it just came out and many probably haven't read it yet, but I was so conflicted in how I felt both reading this and completing it. It is brutal and bleak. But, then again, war is bleak. I thought some of the resolutions were a little trite, but overall my main thought was that I felt bad about what a suckfest Katniss' life was.

Still Alice. This book was loaned to me by a neighbor, and honestly, I wasn't that interested in it, but decided it would be awkward to give it back unread. So I read it and am glad I did. It is a fictional book about a 50 year-old Harvard professor named Alice who is diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer's disease. What makes this book interesting is that it is from Alice's perspective. It is heartbreaking and thought-provoking and totally changed the way I viewed this disease. It is also endorsed by the National Alzheimer's Association.




 

 Night. This is the second time I have read this book. I am not usually a re-reader, but I thought I might join a neighborhood book club and this was the book they were reading next. You know of my weird fascination with WWII, so that is why I owned this book already. Night, however, is a very difficult book for me to read because it is so very raw. You can feel the hate, anger, despair, confusion, and devastating grief that the author felt as he shares his story as a teenage Jew sent to Auschwitz with his family toward the end of WWII. Many of the survivor stories I read will comment on the horror they saw, but sandwich it with the beauty they found. Not in Night. It is painfully honest. It is a short work and extremely powerful.

 
The Boy Who Dared. This is actually a youth book. I picked it up at the boys' school book fair in the spring, because it was a true story about a teenage boy that stood up to the Nazis. Imagine my surprise when I discovered that the boy whose story they were telling was a Mormon boy growing up in Nazi Germany! I had no idea, but that obviously peaked my interest. I didn't particularly like the style the book was written in, but the story is definitely worth reading.

The Dirty Secrets Club. This book (the first of several) is about Dr. Jo Beckett, a forensic psychiatrist, who is brought in by the police to do psychological autopsies on people who have died in undetermined ways. She reconstructs their life to find out their mental states, etc. before they died. I didn't really like this book. It was engaging, but to me it felt like the author was trying too much on several different levels. Almost like the kid brother who wants to get in on all the action but just can't quite fit in. A little too contrived. Plus, there was a little too much raunch in it for my taste.

The Memory Collector. This book is also a Dr. Jo Beckett book, and I actually read it before The Dirty Secrets Club, which is why I got the other one. I did like this book better, however. It was fast-paced and I couldn't figure out how all the pieces were going to come together. I like the main character, Dr. Beckett, because she is smart and spunky.








I think I have started and stopped a few other books along the way, too, but I can't remember them all. I am now looking for a good book or series to read, so let me know if you've read something you've loved!

Open Up and Say...Ahh!

Like that Poison reference? 

When it rains, it pours. That's how the saying goes, isn't it?  It seems that way lately with us. This summer we have had to shell out so much moola for various things.  Our house got hit by lightning last month and that caused quite a few of the expenses. Then it seems like other things decided that if we were going to be fixing something else, then they should get fixed, too.  Here is a list:


Already Fixed and/or replaced:
Phone line
Complete phone set
Civic brakes
Outdoor lights on house
Ceiling fan light in kids' room
Microwave
Shower fan/light in master bathroom
Air conditioner
Xbox
DSIs (under warranty so only cost shipping)


Still needing repair and/or replacement:
Ceiling fan in bedroom
Dishwasher (went from not working after lightning strike to one cycle working)
Van brakes (getting fixed this weekend)
Shower light in master shower (have the parts to fix it now, just need to do it)
Shower tile in kids' bathroom (this is not a new repair needed - Big J ripped off the soap dish - yes, the tile soap dish out of the tile- a long time ago)


I think that's it. I really can't remember at this point. That's on top of regular stuff (like food for kids that never stop eating) and "non regular stuff"  like the $300+ shelled out for preschool and school registration fees (we live in one of the only states that has fees for having your kid go to public school), school supplies, sports registrations, oil changes, transmission fluid changes, swim lessons, etc.

On a good financial note, we did refinance our house, so we got a great interest rate and knocked a few hundred off our mortgage payment!

Beautiful

LOVED this routine

I've been watching SYTYCD again this season and I like it way better than the fall season. This hip-hop routine from last week with all-star Twitch and this season's contestant Alex ROCKED!! Especially when you consider Alex is a ballet dancer in the Miami City Ballet and when they were teaching him the routine he totally looked like a ballet dancer so far out of his element. But he nailed it. So fun! All the embedding is disabled, so you will have to go to You Tube to watch it. I also loved the one by Ashley and Ade.

Summer Vacation to the Redneck Vegas

Last week we went to Branson, MO, for a family vacation that included my parents and sister Ali. Again, my parents were very generous to let us use their time share points so we had a place to stay. If you've never been to Branson (or heard of it for that matter) the best I can describe it is a sort-of Vegas like atmosphere minus the casinos. And with various lawn ornament vendors dotting the sides of the road. It is purely an entertainment destination with shows, museums, good places to eat and things like that. There are also lots of outdoor things to do like water skiing, although we didn't do any of that. We had a good time.

We pretty much let the boys pick what appealed to them most and did that.We were there from Monday afternoon until Friday morning. The first evening we were there we stayed at the resort and had a really good dinner out on the pavilion with live entertainment in the form of a Branson show sampler. Basically, for 3 hours lots of the different shows around Branson came and did a 3 - 5 minute mini-show to give you a taste of their show in hopes you would buy tickets to the real thing. The boys voted on one called Buckets-n-Boards. It was the perfect show for my group and quite entertaining if you like a show with two goofy guys who do a mixture of rhythm on - you guessed it - buckets and boards and other various things, as well as some tap dance, guitar playing, and silly skits thrown in. It was fun.

My favorite show was the Dixie Stampede. If you have ever gone to Medieval Times or Excalibur at Las Vegas, then it is that same concept, except country-style. You get a 4-course meal that you eat without silverware (and was really good, I might add) while you watch in the middle of the arena a big extravaganza with people doing tricks on horseback, friendly competitions, singing and dancing. They divide the arena between the North and the South and so the entire time you have to cheer for your team and boo the other team. It was really fun and the kids had a blast. We couldn't take any pictures inside, though, so we just got a few outside.

We also went to the Ripley's Believe It or Not museum. That was full of weird stuff, to say the least. I think my favorite things were these tiny little intricate paintings people had done on various objects such as a fly, a grain of rice, and a button. Why? I don't know, but it was cool. You had to look at them through a magnifying glass to be able to see them. They had interesting things like a real shrunken head and a genuine vampire killing kit people in Europe used to carry around with them. The building represents the largest earthquake to hit the U.S. which also happened to be in Missouri, which is a strange fact in itself.

We went to a Dinosaur Museum which had about 50 life-size dinosaur replicas and then an interactive learning center. We mainly liked it because we could take pictures like this:



We also saw the Titanic museum which everyone really enjoyed. In one of the rooms that was simulated to look like the 3rd Class Passenger rooms, there was lots of pictures up that had been taken of a little boy playing with a top on the deck of the Titanic. Little J told me later that when he saw all those pictures his "legs got all shaky" because he thought about all the people who had died on that boat. It was a sad thing, but a really great museum with several hands-on interactive things you could do like putting your hand into water that was the temperature of the water when they hit the iceberg, climbing up the various inclines the deck would have been at as it sank, touching the side of an "iceberg". Again, no pictures inside.

We went to the Family Fun Factory and played a few rounds of laser tag and glow-in-the-dark mini golf, both of which were lots of fun. Everyone got in on the laser tag action and we even went back the night before we left for some more. We also did lots of swimming at the resort and eating of good food. We had to take off on Friday so we could get back in time to close on the refinancing of our house, but it was a good trip. We were pooped out.

Little Miss's "Garden Party"

We had a fun little birthday party for Little Miss on Friday. We did a low-key, simple "Garden Party" in our backyard with a few people. We grilled, had balls and bubbles for the kids, and had cupcakes. The boys, especially Little J, was so excited to help with her party and make sure everything was perfect for her. They helped with the decorations and the set up. We had balloons and little bouquets of pinwheels shaped like flowers, and had other flower pinwheels lining our patio area stuck in the ground.

I admittedly did "girly" things like had pink (strawberry) cupcakes and we gave her a little stroller and a baby doll. Little J came down when I had just finished pulling the cupcakes out of the oven and was looking at them strangely. He goes, "What are those?" I told him they were the cupcakes. He looks at them confused and says, "Why are they pink?" I guess I need to expand his horizons beyond chocolate, yellow, and funfetti. Little Miss enjoyed the cupcakes, though. At least she enjoyed smearing it all in her hair!

Little Miss was just busy, busy, busy the whole time. She spent her party climbing up on the Little Tykes tables over and over again, climbing on the swing set slide, playing with utensils and other paper products, or just running around doing her own thing in the yard. We had to just let Little Man open her gifts for her, because as soon as she saw the baby doll she grabbed it (not lovingly, mind you) and took off to go bury it in the sandbox. Well, I don't know if that was her intention, but she was a toddler on a mission and she would not come back for the rest of the presents. She had THINGS TO DO.

Little Miss is a joy to have and we are so happy she is part of our family! If you want to see her first portrait session, you can click here. (again, she was much too busy to just sit and smile, but there are some cute ones!)

This is Why I Love Sports

I don't even care about soccer, but that makes me want to shed a few. GO USA!!!