Books...

I think my biggest problem while working was how easy it was to justify buying books.
Now that I no longer work outside the home full time it's harder to justify buying them, but no less tempting.
I picked this book up last year on a whim and never got around to reading it.  I had gotten placed in a bag that I found in my closet, but I found it recently and sat down to read it.  It's actually a pretty good read.  Not too heavy, but interesting enough to want to go get more information!  We like those kinds of books.  I saw one online for Columbia, so I assume they have them for most cities.  I think it's a great way for kids to get to know the history of the cities near them.  We're not exactly in Charleston, but close enough to visit often.  I'm going to sit down with the girls this week and read it, since Our Princess is not allowed (or able) to write...

Night Owls

Oliver and I have been waiting since last December for New Moon to come out in theaters. It was well worth the wait. I read the Novels all within one week last November (I've since read them four more times)when one of my students was reading Twilight in class(within the next week, half the female pop. at school was reading it), then saw Twilight that Friday. I was kind of disappointed in it. The cast was great,but they had changed too much of the plot. So I waited with trepidation over the next installment, even though the Powers That Be hired a new producer.
I bought my tickets (2--Oliver went with me; he read them as well and enjoyed them very much! Not too many women can say that about their other half! As a matter of fact, you could kind of tell who was there just to placate their wife/girlfriend; they had no clue). My friend Kim also went with us, as her boyfriend wasn't so thrilled and had to work. We squealed like the little girls that, surprisingly, didn't show up at 12:10 in the morning. I guess because it was a school night. Kim and I got there at 10:30 to make sure that we had good seats and there were about 20 other people in the theater. I saw three of my former students, now college freshmen. Oliver showed up, all the while rolling his eyes that we were so excited!
It was wonderful. They didn't cut so much out and only had one or two cheesy add-ins that made you think, now what was the purpose of putting that in there? There were only a couple little things they cut out...The ending they had to squish all into one, rather than drag it out as the book did(which I preferred, but understood). It was still so good! As Oliver said, "if they put the whole book into the movie, it would be like 5 hours long!" I have yet to meet someone who read the book that would mind sitting through a 5-hour movie...I know I wouldn't! And the cinematography was so much better! There was more color, it didn't look like the doom and gloom flick the first one did! The CGI animation was fantastic! They really didn't look fake! I could go on and on about it, but I don't want to spoil it for anyone!

Junie B. Jones

We started reading Junie B. Jones. Our Fairy loves Junie B! They really even look the same, as Our Princess pointed out to me!

I picked up a Junie B. book at That Big Book Sale last month for 50 cents, but it was in spanish. Our Fairy wanted me to read it to her, but she can't really handle that much Spanish, so I tried to translate it on the fly...did not work. So we got it from the library and, honestly, it's the longest she has sat still and listened to a story ever. I could tell she was interested, because she kept asking questions about the monster and the mean boy. She never asks any questions when we read her sister's books. We read almost the whole thing in one sitting! (7 of the 8 chapters.)

Here's Our Fairy on Tía Oly's church bus when we were in El Salvador last December... you can't really see her face, but please notice how well she is matched!