Tuesday, April 29, 2008

Book Review - The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls

Interesting but sad... If you've read it we need to talk. I'm not sure whether I recommend it.... Sorry for the confusion.

Thursday, April 24, 2008

Book Review - David Copperfield by Charles Dickens

They don't call it a classic for nothing! I loved this book. At 880 pages and just because of the style of writing it took me over a month to read, and I had to have the dictionary with me the whole time. That Mr. Macawber - Wow! What a vocabulary. Most of the characters were sweet and endearing and I was genuinely hoping the best for them. There were parts where I wondered where it was all going. There is sooooo much to this book, so many characters and quite a bit going on with each one. But it all tied together in the end and I was so happy. I hate it when a book doesn't wrap up well. There wasn't a single loose end at the end of this book. Even characters that seemed - not even secondary explains it - inconsequential, had closure. Not all of the characters we good - of course there were villains - and Charles Dickens writes the best villains. The Murdstones made me ill and Uriah Heep made my skin crawl. Even just typing his name gave me the creeps.
Without giving any thing about the plot away I just wanted to mention the main theme. The Undisciplined Heart. Interesting. I am one of the most undisciplined people I know…. Something to think about.
I've only read two other books by Dickens. A Tale of Two Cities which was excellent, despite the fact that it took me a whole summer to read. And I read A Christmas Carol in 8th grade, but I don’t remember it. Obviously I know the story, I just don’t recall how I liked the book, or if I even liked it.

Saturday, April 19, 2008

Spring Break!

We have had an amazing spring break. Of course the first thing to happen was for me to sick,sick,sick. But I plugged along anyway. I was bound a determined not to spend my vacation in bed. Matt took the week off and we planned day trips.
Monday - I had to work in the morning because we had to make up a snow day at school. It wasn't exactly a snow day we were making up though. Remember when we got evacuated and then the school was closed the next day? That was what we were making up. So the school was open until Noon. Then I went home and got the boys and we were off to Tucanos, Matt's favorite. We had a coupon from my birthday. Then we did my favorite and went to Borders and browsed all the books. On our way home we stopped by a friends house to see her sweet new baby. Then we relaxed at home with a video rental, We Are Marshall. It was a freakin' sad movie.
Tuesday - We went up to Salt Lake City and took a tour of the Conference Center. Sam was asking all kinds of questions about it during General Conference. "What are those gold things?"( the organ pipes) "Where are they?" Etc. So we went up and he liked it. I liked it too. Our friends M and T came with us and that made it extra special. Then we went over to the art museum which it seemed I was the only one interested. On our way back home we stopped at The Cheesecake Factory. YUMMY! It was so good. I had to hit the sack early that night because my cold was kicking my butt.
Wednesday - We took it easy in the morning and then we took Sam to a skate park. He rode his scooter around doing "tricks". He loves to go.It's mostly big kids/teenagers that frequent this park. But they were all really nice to him and they watch out for him. Look forward to a future blog about said teenagers. I did happen to notice about two minutes before we left that rule number one for the skate park is NO SCOOTERS. Oops. We took Matt's car to two brake shops and found that we will be shelling out $600 for breaks, rotors and calipers in the near future. Then we went to Highland to see Grandma Johnson. That night we watched August Rush at home. A movie that definitely kept our interest but didn't have the resolution we were looking for.
Thursday - We had great plans to go dig trilobite fossils out near Delta. Because of my over abundance of mucus and the disappointing news about the car and the money situation we decided not to go. We went to the Thanksgiving Point Dinosaur Museum instead and a good time was had by all. Including M and T who came with us again. We had a great picnic on such a beautiful day. We even got to watch a 3D movie about Sea Monsters and their fossils on a Mammoth screen. It left me feeling very queasy. I'll spare you all the details of that.
Friday - We stayed home as most of us were under the weather. Matt and Sam did go out and bought some new shoes and socks which were both desired and required. And we watched The Last Mimsy.
Saturday - Despite my plans to stay in bed all day Matt made me get up and take a shower. Then he made me go to the park with them where he carried a chair out for me to sit on. I'm not breathing too well, so i sat and read/watched them throw a ball. And we got lucky and saw several of our neighbors there. Then it was back home to the couch for me. So I thought I'd do a quick little blog about our week and it just got longer and longer. Sorry about all the details. It was fun and it went way too fast. 6 MORE WEEKS TILL SUMMER!!!!