Captain Johnson

Following in the footsteps of Kirk, Crunch, and Kangaroo...Jerry has finally been promoted to Captain!  We are so excited and proud of him!

Book Review: The Goose Girl

The Goose Girl by Shannon Hale

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


The book was in three parts, of which I really enjoyed parts 2 and 3.  Part 1 (The beginning of the story) was really difficult for me to enjoy and it took forever for me to get into this book.  The beginning felt like every other princess story I've ever heard.  Princess who doesn't fit the mold of the perfect stereotypical princess and is a little rebellious. A wicked or unloving mother. A father loves her but is tragically taken away. A little bit of magic mixed in, etc. (I will say, don't be too put off by my dislike of Part 1.  I was a necessary set up to the rest of the story, and I just wasn't really in the mood for a princess story and it's also not my favorite genre to begin with)

Luckily in part 2, the story becomes original and very cool. I love journey stories.  This one had both a physical journey as well as the journey of the character of the princess.  She grows up and figures out who she is and what is her destiny so to speak. I really liked it.  Even the love story felt like a happy coincidence rather then happening because of 10 different miraculous events.

I liked it.



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We're home now!

Short update.  We did find a place.  We just decided to rent a place for about 6 months while we figure out where to live and if we want to buy, build, or live in our house that we own, but currently rent out.

Anyway, we are very excited to be in our own place, and we're just busy busy trying to unpack and not freeze to death (it's been between 2 and about 15 degrees everyday this week, yuck!)

Housing Update

Have I mentioned that we don't have a house yet?  We've been living with my mom until we can get a house and it's been pretty frustrating.  Me, Jerry, and my two boys are all sharing one room. It's almost been 3 months!  So, again, sorry for my constant bad mood.  And if you're in Utah and I haven't really been a very good friend, please forgive me.  Things really will be better when we have our own space and we don't have this constant stress and time requirements of buying/building/renting a home.

Anyway, we just got some more bad news.  There is a mistake on our credit report which takes 30-45 days to be fixed.  The mistake caused us to loose a beautiful home we were hoping to buy.

So when you hear that you should periodically check your credit report to make sure it's accurate, DO IT!  If I'd known about this issue I would have fixed it 2 years ago (or at least this summer before we  moved). 

Anyway, I can't live here for another 2 or 3 months, so we've decided to just rent a place till next summer, then decide what to do next.

Hopefully, I'll be posting pictures of our new place next week.  I'm REALLY, really hoping to be able to move this weekend and have our own place for Christmas, but it's probably not going to happen till the beginning of the new year.

Book Review: Beauty Queens

Beauty Queens by Libba Bray

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


This was a funny silly novel.  But also deep.  If that makes sense.  She brings up some serious issues that face young women today, but does it with stereotypical characters.  Sort of.  I guess you could say she does it in a lighthearted way.  One of my favorite parts of the story is when one of the girls is called out for saying "sorry" a lot.  They tell her that as women we often feel like we have to apologize for having an opinion, or for speaking or sometimes for just existing. And that's crazy! I know that I said "sorry" in almost every sentence when I was younger. Without really realizing it. Then I met a woman who said it more than I did, and it drove me crazy!  That's when I realized that I'm not going to say sorry for living anymore, and even though it's a small thing, it's really helped me a lot and given me a lot of confidence. 

So this was a fun book and the audio was hilarious!  The reader did all the voices (which really helped me keep all the characters straight). 

General MoMo and his stuffed lemur were my favorite characters. 

So, If you want something funny and light, but thought provoking too, read it.  I will also refer you to my friend Bridget's review (http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/...), because she is much better at reviewing books than I am.



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