Reading: The Woods

The Woods by Harlan Coben

Good Thriller

I was in the mood for a good thriller.  Picked up a Harlan Coben book I hadn’t read at a book sale for 75 cents and it delivered just what I needed.

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Reading: Rosemary’s Baby

Rosemary’s Baby by Ira Levin

I also picked this one up at a book fair on a whim. I’ve always been too scared to watch the movie and I didn’t realize it was a novel. I wanted to read a scary book for Halloween this year.

rosemarys_baby

Fun read! It took me two sittings to finish it. Very fast read, but very enjoyable. Now I definitely want to see the movie, it’s next up in my Netflix queue!

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Reading: The History of Love

The History of Love by Nicole Krauss

Picked this one up for 75 cents at a book fair.  I liked the title.

love

It was ok.  It was odd with quirky characters and I started out completely in love with it.  But about half-way through it just fell flat and I just wanted to finish it.  It was lovely, just no lasting impact.

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Science Night

I really didn’t want to go to this. Fortunately we have an elementary school with a really high level of family involvement. Which means a packed school for every single event. Crammed and crowded and noisy. I complained, I whined, I moaned, but the kids reeeeeaaaaaalllllly wanted to go, so we did.

And it was fun and they had a blast. Naturally.

Owl Pellets
Evren sorting through Owl Pellets. Apparently owls eat everything, and then regurgitate what they can’t digest? (or something…) So the kids had fun sorting through all that to find all kinds of small bones, skulls, etc. *gross*

Electricity with a potato?
The kids looking baffled – um, we’re supposed to light up a light bulb with a potato and a lemon? Huh?

Electricity!  with tin foil!
This was my favorite. With a piece of tin foil and one battery you can light up a small lightbulb! Awesome!

Static Electricity
Static Electricity was Ayla’s favorite. Evren walked around most of the time with a balloon on his head.

Mr. Bones
Evren made a new friend. He has always been very social.

Evren’s favorite part was learning about dinosaur fossils. They even had fossilized poop.

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Reading: The Geography of Bliss

The Geography of Bliss by Eric Weiner
One Grump’s Search for the Happiest Places in the World

GEOGRAPHY OF BLISS

Took longer than usual to read this book, but it was such a wonderful read.  Eric Weiner has such a pleasant writing style, I feel like we could be buddies!  I would highly recommend this book to anyone, regardless if you are looking for the key to happiness or not.  And if you are looking for what makes the most impact on personal happiness?  The answer is clear – you just have to read the book (or buy me a drink) for the answer.

Eric Weiner – Official Website

I am now stalking him on Facebook and Twitter.

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Our First Ever Dog Bath

Never have I given a dog a bath, until now.  Luckily she was a perfect angel and I had a great helper who jumped in to help.

Dog Bath
Pretending like we know what we are doing.

Who's going to clean the bathtub after this??
Ayla picked out the fruity dog shampoo.

Pretending like we know what we are doing.
Nala did a really great job, she wasn’t pleased, but she stood still and let us soap her up.

Is it over yet?
Final rinse…

Self-drying dog
Turns out we have a self-drying dog!

Done!
Done!

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Reading: The Year of Magical Thinking

The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion

Year of Magical Thinking

Didion’s husband, the writer John Gregory Dunne, died of a heart attack, just after they had returned from the hospital where their only child, Quintana, was lying in a coma. This book is a memoir of Dunne’s death, Quintana’s illness, and Didion’s efforts to make sense of a time when nothing made sense.  -from the New Yorker editorial review

This book is a memoir, written from a deeply personal and real place, and the brilliance of Joan Didion’s writing is undeniable.  Unfortunately/fortunately I could find no personal connection to the story of grief and loss so I truly felt like I was on the outside looking in, knowing full well from the beginning that I would not form an attachment.

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#26 New Pet

#26 Get A New Pet – Any Kind

We weren’t looking to get a dog, we were actually all set to get a snake, but we had a friend who needed a new home for her dog, and long story short, now we now have a new member of the family!

Meet Nala…

Nala
She’s a 6-year old Beagle, and we love her so much.

Our new baby
She’s our baby.

My belly, rub my belly
If you come near her, she’ll drop and roll over, just in case you wanted to rub her belly.

Privacy, please?
I was following her around the backyard with the camera and all she wanted was a little privacy.

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Watching: New In Town

New in Town

NewInTown

I am not a fan of Renee Zellweger, but the Harry Connick Jr. factor was enough to get me to watch this one.  It was very cute, and entertaining enough.  I enjoyed it.

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#16 Letterboxing

#16 Go Letterboxing Again

We did finally go letterboxing again, and we went with friends this time. It was a very warm day, but it was a really nice activity to do all together. Then we all went for burgers after!

Letterboxing is a very inexpensive activity that you can do with your family just about anywhere and anytime! It does take a bit of prep work as you need to find the sites you want to visit first and map out your drive. Letterboxing North America is a great place to start, or you can just google “letterboxing” for more sites.

The concept is simple. Everyone has their own notepad, stamp, ink pad and pen.  But that’s all you need!  We have put together a letterboxing bag with different colored inks and markers and I made a big deal of going to the craft store before our first time and letting the kids pick out their own stamps. 

The letterboxing community has hidden all over the world small boxes for you to find. It’s like a treasure hunt! You have to follow the clues to find the boxes. In the box you should find a stamp and a notepad.

Everyone who comes to the site stamps their stamp in the notepad and signs their name (or nickname) so that the person who left the box has a wonderful record of everyone who has found their box. Then, one takes the stamp from the box and stamps it in their own notebook with a note or story about where they found it. You can end up with a wonderful notepad of memories.

This is a great activity to continue when you go on vacation or travel to visit relatives in other parts of the country or the world. It’s a wonderful way to spend quality time with family and friends too.

Ok, now I’ve convinced myself, I want to go again…

Here are some pics from our last outing where we ended up in a couple of different local cemeteries that were very old. The most interesting thing the children noticed is that so many of the names we saw on the tombstones were now the names of local elementary schools.

(Of course I forgot my camera that day, so I just got a few pics with my phone.  Apologies.)

Really old cemetary
Reading the engravings on the tombstones.  Some of them were so old you could no longer read the writing.

Local cemetary

It was soooo hot that day

Hanging out by the tombstones
Just hanging out in the cemetery.  You know, like always.  What?!  This is totally normal.

Looking for the next clue
Looking for the next clue…

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