My Day Today:

Rambling, Rambling, Ramble

Don't mind the fact that I have been feeling very uncreative with post titles lately. Usually, I try for wit, but the last little while it's felt more like puking whatever was at the top of my brain out onto the title box. Oh well...

-Aaron had a good Father's Day. I think. He said he did. Things didn't go as smoothly as I would have liked, because we got home from our camping trip Saturday night and I did NOT feel like going to the store to get a few things I still  needed to finish off my F-day preparations. I am not a morning person either, or a breakfast person really, so I did not get up and make Aaron breakfast. But while he was in the shower, the kids and I gathered up the cards we had made, and arranged them on the kitchen table on top of his present, which was a new grill. (Our old grill got smashed by a desk or a couch or something when we moved.) I think he's happy with it. He wanted to use it Sunday night for hamburgers, but I hadn't gotten buns, so we postponed that until Monday night. We had spaghetti instead, because our neighbor brought us over some authentic, homemade marinara sauce. It was excellent. I did make Aaron a two layer cake that said #1 Dad on it.

-Even though we moved to a new neighborhood, I am still sticking with my old book club, because I love the ladies in it and because we make good selections about what we read, and because we have even better discussions. It's the best book club I've been in since we lived in Texas. I think the Neighborhood Book Club and the Texas Book Club would get on really well together. Last month we picked a new theme for our up-coming months of reading selections. The theme we picked was humor. And while I love the idea of the theme, I have to admit, I'm struggling to put together a list of book suggestions that fit into this theme. I like humor, and I like to read books with humor in them, but it seems like most of the books I read don't have enough humor in them to qualify as a humorous book. Does that make any sense? It's like this, most of the books I read have comic relief moments spread here and there through out, but not enough to say that as a whole the book was funny. I've been asking around for funny book recommendations, and I've gotten a few that look promising. But I've also been recommended a lot of Mormon fiction. Those of you who like Mormon fiction (Mom), you should probably stop reading this paragraph, because I'm about to offend you. :) And of course all of the following is my own personal opinion, you are entitled to your own thoughts on the subject. I hate Mormon fiction.  It's cheesy, and terribly written. Mormon fiction authors try so hard to pound in certain lessons, or morals, that they insult your intelligence as a human being by telling you point blank about a million times what lessons you should be gleaning from the story. A good story will get the point across within the story, without having to come out summarize it's point 50 times over at the end of the story. A good story will treat you like you have brains in your head. Another thing I hate about Mormon fiction is how authors have their main characters break every commandment ever given, in the name of a good "clean" love story but it all ends up ok in the end because they repent. And yes, I know people screw up, and yes I believe in repentance, and yes it's a good thing, and yes people can make mistakes and then change their whole lives around and live happily ever after...yes, I get it. But in the books its never real feeling...the sin and the repentance are just background information to build a scene around the all important love story. Oh, it makes me want to vomit, seriously. I don't know, there are a lot of things I loathe about Mormon fiction. I'm not opposed to people writing about Mormons, I just wish the premise of the entire story wasn't some melodrama involving the aspects of our religion. Why not write a normal story that just happens to have a Mormon main character? Mormons who are decent writers don't write Mormon fiction. ANYWAYS, enough of the rant... I'm still looking for suggestions of humorous books (that are not Mormon fiction) to put on my list to suggest we read for book club in the up-coming months. So far on my list are these:
                  -How I killed Pluto and Why It Had It Coming by Mike Brown
                  -Eats, Shoots and Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation by Lynne Trusse
                  -Confessions of a Scary Mommy: The Honest and Irreverent Look at Motherhood: The Good, The Bad, and The Scary by Jill Smokler
                  -The Pun Also Rises: How the Humble Pun Revolutionized Language, Changed History, And Made Word Play More Than Some Antics by John Pollack
                  -I Didn't Ask to Be Born (But I'm Glad I Was) by Bill Cosby
                  -Brainiac: Adventures in the curious, competitive, compulsive world of Trivia Buffs by Ken Jennings

The only one on that list that I've read before is How I Killed Pluto and Why It Had It Coming, which I would say is one of my favorite books. If not top 10 at least top 15, I'd have to think about it some more before saying for sure. So what do you like to read? Got any humorous Non-Mormon-fiction recommendations for me?

-Wednesdays are hard for me. On Wednesdays we have clubs with our home school group, and they start right smack in the middle of nap time. So my kids are cranky for one, and for two, I don't get the little bit of personal space in the middle of the day that helps me cope with the afternoon. I think the social interaction my kids get at clubs is beneficial, or else we wouldn't go. But on Wednesday afternoons, I usually check out a lot earlier than I normally would. For example, my kids are watching Lion King this afternoon, so I can have some alone time and type this blog post. Oh well. It's such a balancing act isn't it? My loathing of the kids watching too much TV and my absolute need to have a minute (or an hour) to myself every now and again.

-I was laying out an outfit for Adelia to wear the other day and it occurred to me: she's huge! I have a full-blown toddler on my hands...and a two year old to boot (well, in August). And it dawns on me that it might be time to start thinking about another one. Scary! But even if I got pregnant right this second, Adelia would be two and a half years older than the baby when it was born. I've never had a gap that big between children, and it kind of makes me feel panicky. What if that's too much of a gap for them to play together really well and be close? What if we decided to get pregnant but couldn't right away? Then the gap would just get bigger and bigger. But am I ready to be pregnant again? Sick, tired, miserable, huge? It's exhausting just thinking about it. Not to mention that any thought of the labor and delivery part sends a shot of shear terror through me. I don't know why it's so terrifying, I've done it three times, but for whatever reason it scares the living daylights out of me to think about going through it again. (Which is weird, because in all actuality, I'm very calm when I'm in the middle of labor, it's just the thought of the process that scares me I guess?) I want more kids...and ideally we'll have all the kids we're going to have before I'm 30 (not that there's anything wrong with having kids after 30, but my plan has always been to be done before 30), so now would seem the opportune time to get on the ball, I guess. I just don't know, I guess I'll have to think about it some more, because there are definitely days around here when I'd swear that three was enough. Which brings up another interesting point...how do you know when you're done? Some people I've talked to say "you'll just know." other people say you'll know you're done when  you've had one more than was enough, like you'll know you should have stopped at five when you have the sixth and can't handle it...great. I don't really feel like we're done, but I also have no feel for what the "magic" number of kids will be for us. I hope it's not 10, I really can't imagine being pregnant for that much more of my life. Although, the plus side of having 10 would be that you'd get to name 10, and that is something I would love to do. I'm a baby name person. I love to ponder over names, I love to find meanings in names I like, and think about people I'd like to name my kids after and why. I should start a business, you pay me to name your child. :) Then I wouldn't have to have a lot of children just so I could name them, and I could make some extra cash. Sweet. The only problem would be that people generally have a different taste in names than I do. Even Aaron and I have trouble agreeing on names...there are lots of great names I would love to use that he has vetoed. But if it were left up to me, I already know what I'd name my next 10 kids.

-I cleaned the kitchen yesterday...I mean really cleaned. Disinfected everything, wiped down the cabinets, scrubbed all the nasty kid leftovers off the chairs, mopped. Today it looks like nothing was done. Adelia threw a half-full container of yogurt on the floor, which exploded in a five foot radius. We ate rice for dinner last night, so it's everywhere (I don't know why my kids can't have rice without spreading it from one end of the kitchen to the other), someone went outside and got all dusty in the yard and then came in and opened a bunch of the lower cupboards, so they have finger prints all over them again. There are toys everywhere. Dishes in the sink. Crumbs on the counters. And I look around and wonder why on earth I bothered to waste three hours yesterday cleaning everything so nicely. No one noticed, or cared that it was clean, except me. And the fact that I cared, only made me madder at the culprits of each little act that messed it up again. I thought I was getting a head start on getting everything nice for when Aaron's parents come to stay with us next Tuesday. Now I'm wondering if I should even bother cleaning for them at all...I want the house to be clean for them, obviously, but I'm wondering if it's even possible to get it to a state where I'm not thoroughly embarrassed by it. Why is having a clean house so hard to maintain? We aren't even home all that much in the day time...but it only takes them 5 minutes to undo hours worth of doing. Should I even bother? Or just forget it and try again in 10 years? I read a quote the other day that said two year olds were like blenders with the lid left off, which I absolutely agree with, and would add that 3 and 4 year olds aren't much better.

-I kind of feel like I'm suffering from a Harry Potter hang over. The books are over and I don't know what to do with myself. I've seriously considered picking them up and reading them all over again immediately. But I don't think it will be the same. There wouldn't be the same suspense. It's more of the same that I want, not just the same over again. Never thought I'd say that. :) It just proves that sometimes you have to try things you don't think you'll like. BUT I also don't regret waiting until I came around to wanting to read them on my own. The timing was good for me.

-I need a nap. And I still have to go figure out something for dinner. If only Aaron would go for a Little Caesars...I've been wanting one all day.

Happy Father's Day 2012

 I had to bribe these little dears with a chocolate doughnut, make embarrassing child photographer noises while strangers were walking by, and take about 100 pictures, but I finally got one good enough to hang up in Aaron's office and send to the Grandpas for Father's Day.

Dinosaur Land

Adelia, Lincoln, and Ivan sporting their new vernal t-shirts

We did it! We finally took a vacation that did not involve going to visit family. Not that there is anything wrong with going to visit our family, of course, we love to do that. But this is the first time ever that we've taken a vacation for the sake of taking a vacation. Yay for us. 

I remember (vaguely, since I was only 5 or 6 at the time) going to Dinosaur Land as a kid, and thinking it was pretty cool. And we needed a trip that wasn't a very long drive away, so that Aaron didn't have to take off a lot of work. So we packed up and headed to Vernal, UT. Our friends the Parks came with us.

#1 Adelia blowing bubbles, we used bubbles to entertain the kids while we got things set up. #2 Our campsite. #3 Lincoln and Ivan under the canopy, which we set up to give us more shade, it worked like a charm. #4 Sleeping arrangements in our tent. It was squishy with five of us in a four-man tent. We meant to borrow a six-man from my mom and Kerry, but we forgot.

We spent Friday driving to Steinaker State Park, which is where we camped. Then getting our campsite all set up. We had a couple of hours before dinner, so we walked down to the lake and let the kids wade and try their hand at fishing. Props to the Parks for being a family of fishers. Neither Aaron nor I have a clue how to fish, and Lincoln has been begging us to take him fishing for a long time. So thank you Danny for letting Linc try his hand at fishing.

 #1 Ryan, Kaitlyn, and Adelia "wading" (ok, they might as well have swam, Adelia came out completely soaked) #2 Lincoln, Nathan, and Ivan trying to figure out fishing at Stienaker Lake. #3 Krystal, Suzy, and Danny chillin' in the shade. #4 Aaron and Krystal

 

 Lincoln the fisherman

 Ivan, happy to play in the sand and throw rocks in the water.

Adelia, cute screaming child that she is.

After a few hours of the lake, it was time to go back to camp and make dinner. Suzy and I had prepared a tin foil feast! Four gourmet tin foil dinner recipes and they turned out excellent. Suzy found the recipes on FamilyFun.com. Basically, you just put some of all the ingredients into tin foil and wrap it up tight so nothing leaks out the edges, then you throw in on the coals for 10ish minutes, or until the meat is cooked and heated all the way through.

South of the Border
hamburger
black beans
red onion
zucchini
grape tomatoes
corn
Pepper Jack cheese
Tex-Mex Sauce:

    Sprinkle about 2 teaspoons per packet
    3 tablespoons minced cilantro
    2 tablespoons minced
    chipotle chile in adobo
    1 tablespoon sliced green onion
    1 clove garlic, minced

Mediterranean Coast
chicken breast
red potato
broccoli
red onion
feta
Vinegar Splash:

     Drizzle about 1 1/2 tablespoons per packet
    2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
    1 clove garlic, minced
    1/4 cup olive oil
    Pinch of salt and pepper
Parsley Pump-Up:

     Sprinkle about 2 teaspoons per packet
    2 tablespoons minced parsley
    Zest of 1 lemon
    1 clove garlic, minced

Off to Asia
shrimp (with no veins or shells or tails)
red bell pepper (chopped up small)
asparagus (chopped up small)
pineapple chunks
sliced almonds
Ponzu Power:

     Drizzle about 1 1/2 tablespoons per packet

    2 tablespoons ponzu (a Japanese sauce)
    1 teaspoon minced ginger
    1 teaspoon honey
    1 teaspoon sesame oil
    3 tablespoons vegetable oil
    Pinch of salt and pepper
Asian Fusion:

      Sprinkle about 2 teaspoons per packet

     2 tablespoons minced cilantro

     Zest of 1 orange (about 2 tablespoons)

    1 1/2 teaspoons grated peeled ginger

    1 teaspoon sliced green onion tops or chives

Oktoberfest
bratwurst (sliced into small chunks)
butter beans (drained and rinsed)
carrots (cut into small chunks)
summer squash (cut into small chunks)
Mustard Madness:

     Drizzle about 1 1/2 tablespoons per packet

    1 1/2 teaspoons Dijon mustard
    2 tablespoons lemon or lime juice
    3 tablespoons vegetable oil
    Pinch of salt and pepper

 Aaron and Adelia keeping an eye on our tin foil dinners so they wouldn't burn.

And after dinner of course we had to roast marshmallows and eat s'mores.  I think that was the kids' favorite part. 

 Ivan, Lincoln, Aaron, and Nathan roasting mallows. I love that Nathan has four marshmallows on his stick at one time. :)

 #1 Adelia taking pictures of herself. #2 Ivan eating his marshmallow. #3 Suzy and Adelia #4 Roasting marshmallows #5 Aaron and Lincoln picking his nose #6 Ryan enjoying his s'more.

I wish I could say that our night went as well as our day...but alas, camping with children (aka Adelia) never makes for a peaceful night. We put them all in the tent around 8, but they were up until we came to bed at 10:30 or so. Then it took us another half hour to calm them down to sleep. Several hours later Adelia woke up in a screaming fit. She was hysterical (way overtired) and it took me a really long time to calm her down. I finally got her to stop screaming by letting her lay down on top of me, and then she promptly fell asleep. But unfortunately, I don't sleep well at all with 35 pounds of snoring child on top of me. Plus at that point, Ivan started waking up about every 40 minutes with a little shriek and then he'd fall right back asleep, but that continued for a couple of hours. I very seriously considered going to sleep in the van, but was afraid to move, for fear of waking up Adelia. 

Moving on to more pleasant things...Saturday morning Aaron made us a lovely pancake breakfast. Then we packed up our camp site and headed to Red Fleet State Park to go on a hike. Our hike was about a mile in and a mile back out, through the desert. But at the end of the hike was a large slanted piece of slate that ended in a lake. On that piece of slate were dinosaur footprints, real ones, that had turned to stone in the slate. It was pretty cool, albeit hard to take a picture of that really shows the footprints well. The kids were champs on the hike. It was really hot, especially when we hiked out, and our kids did awesome, with very minimal complaining. 

 Nathan, Kaitlyn, Ivan, Lincoln, and Ryan on one of the cool rock formations on our hike.

#1 Suzy, Kaitlyn, Nathan, Lincoln, Aaron, Adelia, Ivan, Danny, and Ryan on our hike at Red Fleet Lake #2 There were lots of cool rock formations along the way. #3 Aaron, Adelia, Krystal, Lincoln, Ivan, and Ryan, #4 Some of the trail was really steep, but the kids were champs. #5 Pretty cactus flower. 

The lake was so pretty and clear, I wanted to dive right in...but I didn't.

 #1 Adelia sitting on the shore of the lake throwing rocks with the best of them. #2 Aaron tracing the dinosaur foot print with water so I can take a picture of it. #3 Aaron skipping rocks #4 Nathan, Ivan, and Linc throwing rocks #5 Adelia and her cheeser.

 My children playing in the lake. They were definitely more interested in the water than the dinosaur tracks, but that's ok.

We got in a lot of rock throwing on this trip.

Red Fleet was really cool. If we ever go back, we'll definitely camp there instead. After hiking out, we got in the van and drove to Vernal to the dinosaur museum. It was fun too. Not as big as the one at Thanksgiving Point, but all the specimens were from local dig sites, and they did have a lot of hands on things for the kids to do. 

 #1 and #2 digging in the bark chips with paint brushes to find the dinosaur bones. #3 Wooly Mammoth

 Ivan, Lincoln, Krystal, and Adelia with the T-rex! 

And the crash, about 30 seconds after we got in the car to drive home. 

Sometimes I Hate Coming Up With Titles

Picture number one (top left) and picture number 5 (bottom right) are our adventures with Mat Man. (Mat Man is a little game in the Handwriting Without Tears program, that teaches the kids the names of the different shapes they use in their curriculum to teach handwriting. The shapes include big lines, little lines, big curves, and little curves. For more on HWT see their website http://www.hwtears.com/hwt) We've been doing Mat Man the last few days to gear up to start Handwriting Without Tears, and the kids have been really excited about it. I've decided that Ivan is going to join in with Lincoln and I for this part of the school day. A lot of the activities each day are building the letters with the shapes, and finger tracing, and tracing in the air, and only just a little actual writing. So I think Ivan will be able to do almost all of it. Adelia can pretend to follow along too. I'm hoping handwriting will be a fun part of our day that all the kids enjoy.

Pictures 2 and 4 are Ivan's art projects from Letters Y and Z day. I don't really feel like posting the details of these letters days. They were good. And while we have thoroughly enjoyed Letter Day this go around, I have to admit that it's going to be nice to have a break from it.

Picture 3 is a picture that Lincoln painted for me, which in and of it's self isn't unusual, he draws and paints me things all the time. But I wanted to save this one because it's the first time Linc has written something on it all on his own without any help from me. He was up having quiet time and brought this down to me. He was very pleased with himself for having written on it all by himself. And I was pretty pleased with how well he did. It says, "Mom the is u renbo" (Mom this is a rainbow). I love watching my kids learn things and seeing the progress that they make...and really, even though it's tough some days, I love that I get to be a big part of that progress. I wouldn't trade homeschooling for the world.

Speaking of homeschooling, these last two weeks we've taken a break from some of our regular school activities so that we can do some different things. Swimming lessons being the big one. We'll call it P.E. Lincoln and Ivan have had swim lessons every morning for the last two weeks, and they've been loving being back in the water. We've also been hitting up Seven Peaks Waterpark once a week, and plan on continuing that for the rest of the summer. My kids take such great naps afterwards. And we've been taking advantage of all the awesome programs the library has been offering for the summer. We've been doing the summer reading activities, where the library puts on some kind of little program, and then has an art project and a snack for the kids after. And starting next week, they'll be giving once a week presentations on different animal habitats, and I think they're going to bring real animals. Cool, we'll call it Science!

This weekend we're scheduled to go on our first camping trip of the season...to Dinosaur Land. I remember going to Dinosaur Land as a kid and having a great time. So I hope our kids do too. And I really hope it's not too hot. Lincoln is convinced we're going to Dinosaur Island (out of the book My Father's Dragon) so he might be a little disappointed at first, but hopefully he'll get over it.

Aaron and I have spent a lot of time working on our raised garden bed lately. I won't post any pictures until it's done, but we're almost there. First we built the bed out of decorative cinder blocks. Then we had to fill it with dirt. That's what's been taking us forever. We're trying to use the extra dirt from around our yard that just got piled up in corners when the guy came to flatten the yard. We don't own a wheel barrow, so instead we've been using one of my 20 gallon plastic buckets and putting it inside our wagon, as kind of a make-shift wheel barrow. It works but it takes a long time. I think we're finally at a point though, where we're ready to buy a few bags of really nice top soil to spread on top, and then buy our plants. I'm hoping that if we get big enough starts that we still have time to get some decent produce out of the garden by fall. We'll keep our fingers crossed on that one.

Y

Ever since our very successful hiking trip up Rock Canyon, I've been feeling like we should tackle the Y. So today Mom and Kerry came down and we all gave it a try.

I forget how much I hate hiking trails like the Y trail. Steep the whole way, not gradual at all, and never levels off a bit to give you a break. But the scenery on the way up is breath taking, and today the weather was nice for hiking. So, now that I'm back on the ground, I can say that it was a pleasant trip! :) Really though, we had fun, even though it was hard and we had to takes lots of stopping breaks. The kids did great too.

A little over 6 years ago, Aaron proposed to me on a large rock 2/3rds of the way up the trail. We found the rock today and posed for the photo-op. I haven't hiked up to the Y since that night 6 years ago when we got engaged. :) Yay for us and our love rock!

Making Up For Lost Time

We are finally healthy. Knock on wood. And this week has been crazy! Almost like we were trying to make up for lost time. Last  Saturday Aaron and the kids decided they wanted to have a picnic on Grandma and Grandpa Swan's trailer that we are storing for them until the move out here. I think Lincoln is the one who had the original idea. It was bloody hot...not a good day for a picnic. But they kids had fun.

Sunday we went up to Hooper for Emree's baby blessing. I forgot my camera, so I didn't get any pictures, but Emree looked darling, and the blessing went well. We hung out at Mom and Kerry's house for a long time afterwards eating good food and playing Testicle Toss (I can't for the life of me remember the real name of the game, only that Kyle and Nelson kept calling it Testicle Toss! Sorry!)

Monday morning the kids started swimming lessons, and afterwards we went to the library.

Tuesday we went to swimming lessons then to Costco, and then in the afternoon we did Letter Day. I need to catch up on letters Y and Z but that's going to have to be another post.

Wednesday we went to swimming lessons, then to the park to meet up with our friends from our old Springville neighborhood, then we went to clubs with our homeschool group. I was in charge today, we met at a church parking lot and rode bikes/scooter and blew bubbles. 

Thursday we went to swimming lessons, then Julie and I took the kids to Seven Peaks with our Pass-of-All-Passes that we got for only $10 a piece. (These are the equivalent of a season pass to Seven Peaks, Trafalga, and season tickets to the Orem Owlz, plus a few other things, trust me it was a STEAL of a deal!) Julie and are planning on taking the kids once a week for the rest of the summer...might as well, it's free!

Sam, Ivan, Adelia, and Lincoln at Seven Peaks

Thursday afternoon we met up with some more friends and decorated bikes for the Springville Children's Parade.

Friday morning we went to the Children's Parade, then to Park Day with our home school group. The kids had a good time being in the parade, and the slushy at the end was definitely the high light.

Mostly this week, I've been 1) very grateful to be healthy and alive and 2) feeling like we've been running around like chickens with our heads cut off. And in the midst of all the madness, I've been trying to cram in as much Harry Potter as possible. I read books 5, 6, and 7 this week. Wow! I couldn't stop. Reviews coming soon. But now I'm done, and I'm glad I read them, and I'm even a little bit sad they're over. I might have to go back and reread the last 5 chapters of book 7, by that point I was reading so fast that I know I didn't read every single word on the page, and was probably skipping whole sentences at a time just to try and read faster to figure out how it ended. So now that there is no more suspense, I might have to go back and fill in on some of the minor details.

Anyways, that's been our wild week, how was yours?

False Alarm

I thought we were healthy. We had two gloriously normal days. But this morning Adelia woke up throwing up, and has been throwing up about every hour or so ever since. Looks like we're going to be spending yet another day like this:

watching movies on the laptop. I'm already on my second load of laundry for the day. Yippy-skippy.

At least the 5th Harry Potter book came in the mail, so I'll have something to do besides cleaning up puke.

*sigh*

Riverwoods Splash Pad

I think we're finally getting well. I hope so. We've spent the last two days almost entirely outside. Wednesday morning we met up with our friends the Shaws at our old neighborhood park. Then in the afternoon we went to clubs with our homeschool group and played some soccer and on the play ground.

This afternoon we went up to the splash pad in the Riverwoods shopping complex in Orem and met our friends from Provo there. We had a great time. Adelia was all over the fountain. The boys played in it a little bit and then decided they were cold, so they spent the rest of our time there laying on the hot cement. (It was almost 90 degrees outside, so they couldn't have been that cold.) And I just enjoyed being out of my house with other adults.

It's great to be healthy!

What Have I Been Doing?

Don't worry, I'm not dead. Almost, but not quite. We've had a little visit from the black plague at our house these last few weeks. Throw in some allergies to top it off, and mostly we've been miserable slugs lying about on the couch. Not all at once, just two or three of us at a time dragged out for 2 weeks. We're still coughing and sniffling, but we've been fever free for 3 days now, so I think we might pull through. Praise the heavens above. If one more member of this family even thinks about getting sick in the next year, they're going to be banished.

So, ya, I haven't been blogging. Why? Well, because there hasn't been anything going on to blog about. I've been wiping noses, parceling out medicine, cleaning, cleaning, cleaning...and not to make my house look nice, because it hasn't once been clean in the last 2 weeks, but cleaning up cups, and tissues, and blankets and stuffed animals, etc. that get used and left out and dragged around. It's been a long two weeks. I've been snuggling a lot of children, watching a lot of kid movies, and reading, reading, reading. (As you might have noticed from the plethora of book reviews that I published before this.) Good thing we have books, so that we can escape when we can't escape, right?

Yesterday was Memorial Day, and I think we felt fairly decent. Everyone is still coughing, and Aaron has really bad chest and sinus congestion, BUT we ventured out into the populated world yesterday to buy some more trees! Yay! Happy late Mother's Day present to me. I got two new trees. Of the 6 that I got for my birthday, 2 of them died. So I no longer have a pear tree or a plum tree. We checked as Lowes, when we returned the dead pear tree, but they didn't have anymore pear trees, or anything that we wanted. So we went to Home Depot and found a couple of shade trees. In the front yard we planted a purple flowering plum tree. It has purple leaves and gets little pink flowers in the spring. We also decided we need a shade tree in the back yard too, so we have a shady place to play in the hot summer time. We bought a Little Leaf Linden for that. It'll get about 50 ft tall at some far away future point in it's existence. It will also screen us a little from the houses that will eventually be built behind us. So that's nice. 

Hopefully things will start to pick up this week and get back to normal. I have big plans for June and need everyone to be healthy!

Book Review: Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

by J.K. Rowling
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I really liked this book. It's the first one in the series that I have thoroughly enjoyed. I read it in about a day and a half. I probably would have read it faster, if I hadn't had to take breaks to be a responsible adult. :) I thought this book was fast paced and moved along well. Meaning, I thought that one thing lead to the next smoothly. I like that the characters are developing in personality as well as in their relationships with one another. Rowling did an awesome job of creating suspense throughout the book. I think maybe that was helped along by the three tasks being spread out evenly, and the fact that there was very little quiddach to read about. I guess I'm not a fan of quiddach. I liked that the story didn't wrap itself up into a neat little package, even though Harry wins the cup. I guess I like that the story is starting to get a little complicated. I'm dying to find out more about Snape and what his story is all about. The writing really isn't improving, but the story has gotten intense enough that I'm not noticing it as much as I did with the other three books. Book 5 won't be here until Thursday, which is probably good, because I need to get some stuff done.

Book Review: Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

by J.K. Rowling
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This one is back down to 2 and a half stars. The first half of this book dragged on and on for me. Too much quiddach maybe? That being said, once things started to pick up with Sirius Black the book got really interesting. So I really enjoyed the last 5 or so chapters of the book.

Book Review: Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

by J.K. Rowling

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I liked this one a lot better than book one. I thought the story really picked up and had some interesting things in the plot. I liked the idea of Tom Riddle's diary. The writing still isn't great. There was never any part in the book where I stopped and thought, "wow what a beautifully constructed sentence" or anything like that. But the story was good, and held my attention.

Book Review: Harry Potter and the Sorceror's Stone

by J.K. Rowling

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

If it were possible, I'd give this book 2 and a half stars. I'll admit, I was pleasantly surprised by it. Aaron and I read the first 6 chapters or so together, and then he got busy doing other things, so I kept going. It was a cute story. And interesting. The writing is not top-notch, but I think Rowling makes up for that in story-telling. The story is good, the writing is mediocre at best. I think I'll read the second one.

Book Review: Things Fall Apart

by Chinua Achebe

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I've been on a Congo/Colonial Africa reading kick, since I reread The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver a little while ago. I remember reading Things Fall Apart in high school almost 10 years ago and not liking it at all. But, I don't think I was mature enough to understand it just yet. Our teacher didn't give us any background information on it whatsoever, so not only had I never heard of colonial Africa, but I had no knowledge of the author, who he was, or why he wrote the book. 

Needless to say, I liked the book much better this time. And even though I didn't particularly like, or relate to the character Okonkwo, (he and his clan and their culture were really foreign to me) what I keep coming back to is that these people had an established culture/government/way of life. And even though this way of life was very different from western culture, it was still there. And as a reader, I didn't like the white men, or their religion, or their government coming in and assuming superiority, without even caring to try and learn about the peoples and tribes they were taking over.

I think Christianity is good. And I think democracy is good. But I read this book and it occurs to me that you can't ramrod either of those things down peoples' throats, because the thing that makes Christianity and democracy good, are people deciding for themselves to follow that way of life.

Anyways, this review is coming out all in a jumble, but my Africa kick has really gotten me thinking. I wonder if I assert myself and my beliefs on others without meaning to because of differences I don't understand. I wonder if I ever think less of people because I haven't taken the time to learn about their way of life or ideology. Not that I feel a need to change my own ideology, I can still have my own beliefs and value system, etc. But maybe what I need to think about changing is the way I treat other people who differ from me in that regard.

So yes, lots to think about coming out of this book. I recommend reading it, but do a little research (Wikipedia would probably enough sufficient info) on colonial Africa and Chinua Achebe before diving in.

Solar Eclipse

Yesterday we took a picnic blanket and our awesome eye protection outside after dinner so we could watch the solar eclipse. The article I read in the paper said that the solar eclipse happens every year, but that we haven't been able to see it happen in UT in 18 years. I don't remember the last one. So I'm glad we heard about this one in time to be prepared to watch it. It was pretty cool to see.

 This is what the eclipse looked like without the special glasses

This is a picture Aaron took through the lens of the special glasses. Pretty cool, eh?