We are having a.....

I know posts without pictures are kinda lame... but I haven't posted in forever and we have some really exciting news! Most everyone knows we are expecting a baby! (Woohoo!) The due date is Christmas Eve which has its pros and cons. But--- yesterday we found out the gender of the baby! We are having a little baby boy! We are very excited-- especially Travis! Now we have to decide on a name. We have had a girl name picked out since we were married, but boys have been harder. Lately the names we have agreed on are Hank and Porter, but we are leaning toward Hank because Porter is so popular right now. What do you think of Hank? Most people don't seem to like it much... Maybe we will start a new baby name trend... probably not.

The Biggest Loser

I am thinking about starting a Biggest Loser competition. Each person who participates would put in around $25.00 so that we all have motivation to win! It would be for 12 weeks with weekly challenges to keep the motivation high. Is anybody interested? Let me know!

Family Motto

For the past few months I have been thinking about a family motto for my family. I know, I know, there are only two of us, but what better time than now to get started, right? Anyway, I was wondering if anybody had any ideas or will share theirs so Travis and I can have a bunch of different ideas. Do any of you guys have family mottos or did you have any growing up? Let me know!!!

Book Review and an Update

I was supposed to read a non fantasy book after all of my fantasy reading lately, but, needless to say, I’ve been reading more fantasy. I will blame it on the library because these books have been really hard to get ahold of and my sister was able to get them from her library and I didn’t want to miss the chance to read them. It is kind of nice having two sisters close and my mom close so that we can all share the library books each of us gets. It works out pretty nicely.

Anyway, I read the “Fablehaven” series by Brandon Mull and I really enjoyed them. It is about two children, Kendra and Seth, who go and spend time with their grandparents and their grandparents happen to be the caretakers of Fablehaven, a safe haven for fable creatures... hence the name. The first book is all about Kendra and Seth slowly finding out about Fablehaven because they have no clue it exists. They just thought they were spending the summer with their grandparents. The rest of the books are about trying to protect Fablehaven and the other safe havens for the magical creatures around the world. The books are kind of long, but very easy reading so you get through them fast. They are great, clean, exciting books that I would recommend to anyone who has a love for a fantasy twist in the real world.

Due to the book reviews in my last few posts, I hardly ever give updates on what Trav and I are up to. There have been a couple of things I have wanted to post about, but whenever I think about it I don’t have the camera to load pictures and frankly, I love posts with pictures. For example, one night at about 9:30 p.m. Travis decided he wanted to make a snowman. It was one of the many days this winter where it snowed all day and we got a few inches of snow. So— we went outside and made a snowman. It was really fun and quite random! And our snowman turned out very unique.... I really wish I had a picture. First of all, it had deer antlers. Secondly, there were no rocks to be found, so the eyes and buttons are made of snowballs rolled in mud. We did not have a carrot, so the nose is made from a extra sprinkler thing left over from our new sprinkler system. And, last but not least, I decided to make it a colored snowman by putting a few drops of dye in a spray bottle with water and spraying the snowman, but my hand got tired so only the middle ball is dyed orange. Nice. It turned out pretty odd, but it was really fun to act like kids for a few minutes and roll around in the snow! Good times!

Anyway, things have been going great lately. We are loving the warmer weather! We recently bought a 4-wheeler which Travis is pretty dang excited about. I should be classified as the best wife ever because I would much rather have spent the money on a Baby Grand Piano or something. Oh well. He will have fun. I guess I am a little bit excited about it because it will make the deer hunt a lot easier! But I still say Travis is spoiled! Problem is I don’t have anyone to blame but myself!

"Midnighters" by Scott Westerfeld

I read another series by Scott Westerfeld called "The Midnighters". It is about a girl named Jessica who moves to a town called Bixby, Oklahoma and starts having weird dreams every night where the world has kind of stopped and she can do and go wherever she wants. She soon finds out that it is not a dream, but that at midnight there is a secret hour that only a few people can take advantage of. While everyone else freezes at midnight, these few kids have a whole hour that they have to share with the 'darklings'. Each of the kids have different talents. In the first book they are trying to figure out what Jessica's talent is and why the darklings are set on killing her. In the past the darklings have mostly left the humans alone, but all the sudden they are trying very hard to kill Jessica. In the second and third books, the Midnighters, as they call themselves, have to try and save the world because the darklings are trying to communicate with others in the real world and are trying to break the barrier between the secret midnight hour and real time.

I enjoyed these books. Like "The Uglies" series, the books were easy reading and enjoyable. When I read too much from one author at one time I tend to get a little sick of them, just because most authors have similar writing techniques, but I still enjoyed the books. Scott Westerfeld doesn't totally believe in happy endings and I do, so the end of both series had a sad part about it that I pretend didn't actually happen because it is sad. I would recommend these books to anyone who likes a little fantasy world mixed up with the real world!

Since I have read so much fantasy lately, I think I will read a nonfiction or history book. Any suggestions???

"Uglies", "Pretties", and "Specials"

I just read a trilogy by Scott Westerfeld. The books are entitled: "Uglies", "Pretties", and "Specials". After reading "East of Eden", these books will definitely be classified as "Brain Candy". They were a very easy, and quite enjoyable read. The story takes place in the future after the "Rusties" have all died off--- Rusties meaning us. In this world, when you are younger than 12 years old you are called 'littlies' and you live with your parents. When you turn 12 you move to dorms-like places--- at least that is what I compared it to--- where you live with people your age and are called 'uglies'. You are an 'ugly' until you turn 16 years old. On your 16th birthday, everyone is given an operation which makes you beautiful and you live on the 'pretty' side of town and get to party all the time. Tally is the main character and she is just about to turn 16 when she meets Shay. Shay tells her about a whole new world where people have run away before their 16th birthday and live in a place called "The Smoke" to avoid the operation. I don't want to give anything away, so I won't give any more details about the story line. I really enjoyed these books and would highly recommend them. However, just as a warning, there is bit of environmental stuff in the books, but unless you are pretty touchy I don't think it will bother you.

Also, there is a fourth book in the series that takes place a few years later. The main characters in the first three aren't the main characters in the last one, but they are still part of the book. The fourth one was my least my favorite, but it was still a good read.

My first Book Review!

I have seen a couple of blogs where people wrote up Book Reviews for books they read in 2008. I thought it was a really good idea and I really enjoyed reading them so I decided to do something similar. However, instead of waiting until the end of the year I decided I would do it as I go along. Maybe it will make me blog more often!

The first book I read this year is "East of Eden" by John Steinbeck. It took me FOREVER to read. I made a goal to read more Classics and more non-fiction books this year and this was the first attempt at my goal. I chose it because my brother Sam kept telling me how great a book it was and kept asking if I had read it yet. I would tell you what it is about- but it is really complicated. It takes place before and during World War 1 and most of the story takes place in Salinas, California. I can't tell you if whether or not I liked the book because honestly, I don't know. While I was reading it I was really frustrated because it was depressing and I hate depressing books! But now that I look back it is interesting to think about the characters and what Steinbeck was trying to do. My favorite character was probably Cal even though he was the "bad" twin. One of his struggles in life was that he felt he was bad because his mom was bad and it had carried on to him. He didn't want to be bad, but he just was. It took a lot of effort for him to be "good" and sometimes he gave into his "bad" instincts. His character is probably the one I related to most because I think we all have "bad" in us that we have to overcome and even though it is hard and sometimes seems unfair, we can still do it. Aron on the other hand was the "good" twin that everybody liked. It was interesting how, in my opinion, Steinbeck made the reader like Cal better than Aron. Maybe it was because more of the book was from Cal's point of view rather than Aron's. But even in the book, Aron's own girlfriend didn't like him much because he was too good, or at least he thought he was, and he expected everybody else and everything in his life to be the same.

Anyway, I would recommend this book if you are a fan of Classics and like to analyze books or find a deeper meaning. It definitely wasn't "brain candy" as Debbie would say, but not many Classics are. It took me awhile to read--- it is about 600 hundred pages I think. In 1981 they made an 8 hour mini TV series that I would like to get my hands on, but I haven't had the opportunity yet.

So there is my first book review. A little long and kind of boring I know. But at least I have a new blog!