The Help

Can I just start out by saying, "I want some of Minny's caramel cake!!" Oh, and her fried chicken.

Sean and I saw the previews for this movie and knew immediately that we wanted to see it! Such a refreshing change from the big budget blockbusters of the summer. Plus, we are fans of Emma Stone. So we made mental note of it and put it on our "must-see" list - oblivious to the fact that it was based on a book! Ha! Fast forward a little bit to then end of July. My family is getting ready to go on a road trip and my sister wants to borrow my brand-new-never-before-read-had-to-wait-until-I-finished-the-Harry-Potter-series book 'Matched'. Say what?! That's MY book. MY birthday present. I haven't read it yet and you want to borrow MY book?! So I was searching for alternatives for her to borrow and on a whim picked up 'The Help' at Costco, thinking I would let her borrow that and read it when she was done. Well, I caved and let her borrow 'Matched' {which she still needs to return!!! Hint, hint, hint!!} and kept 'The Help' on the bookshelf for Sean and I. Yeah, we both made it our next-read and were reading the beginning at the same time! I let him finish it, though, and then I read it.
Such. A. Good. Book!!! Seriously, a must-read. And I purposely bought the book with the original cover, not the movie poster version. I wanted to read it independently of the movie. This book was a real page-turner and I couldn't hardly put it down! This really surprised me because I had just come from reading the suspenseful, action-packed Harry Potter series and couldn't believe how drawn in I was by the story in 'The Help'.

After we had both finished the book, we saw the movie and loved that, too!
So well cast and acted. And stayed very true to the book. I would say, if you have time, read the book first - but seeing the movie first will not ruin the book. Either way, ENJOY!!!

Book Review: Uglies series

Have y'all read this series yet?? And do you remember that I don't read anything unless it's worth my time? Therefore, if I recommend a book/series, you know it's gonna be good! I started this series last year. My friend Vicki started the series and let me read the books as she finished them. Well, she gave me the first book (Uglies) and I let it sit on our side table for weeks (maybe months) before I finally picked it up and read it. Surprise, surprise, I loved the book! I couldn't hardly put it down. So I got the next book from her right around Christmas time, thinking I would have all this extra time to be reading while we went on our big road trip to visit family. Ha! I didn't pick it up once - we were much too busy having fun with our family! I think sometime in late Spring of this year I finally read Pretties, then I immediately read Specials and then I got on the waiting list at the library to read Extras. Yeah, my turn on the waiting list came up right after I started the Harry Potter series again {literally, I had just started book 1}. So I picked up Extras from the library and pretty much let it set on the side table all summer while I finished reading Harry Potter. I think I renewed it twice {luckily there were no holds on the book, so no one was waiting for it} but when I went to renew it a third time there was a hold on it, so I knew I better hurry and read it! I admit, it was a little slower going than the first 3 and harder to get into, but I kept reading and the last half was definitely worth it. Great, great series! Set in the future, it was interesting to hear the characters talking about previous generations and then realize they were talking about us! It's got a corrupt "government", rebellious teens, hoverboards and awesome futuristic technology - not to mention a strong cast of characters. I loved the moral dilemmas between being pretty (post-surgery) but essentially brain-washed and ugly (pre-surgery, natural) but with all your own thoughts in tact. Not as good as the Hunger Games series, but if you liked (LOVED!) that series, you will like these too.

Happy reading!

4100 pages/7 books/39 days/1 epic final movie....

Surely by the title you have guessed that I am talking about HARRY POTTER!!!

Well, I did it. I set a goal and I achieved it. I re-read the first six books of the Harry Potter series and then finally, for the first time, read the seventh book!! It was so, so good! I stayed up into the wee hours of the morning to finish the last one and I think I cried the whole last 120+ pages of the book. I couldn't even tell you what my favorite part was, though the view into Snape's life through the pensieve was definitely at the top. I realized that Dumbledore dying the in the end of the 6th book affected me more than I thought and I was still pretty ticked by the time the 7th book came out - this was actually part of my aversion to reading the 7th book!
So I finished the books a week before the movie came out and had already watched the first two movies and within the next week and a half I watched the other five movies. Then, last weekend [for our date night], Sean and I saw the final movie. SO GOOD!! Seriously, I leaned over to Sean about half-way through and told him, "I already want to see it again!" It was just so well done! Definitely one of the best, if not the best, of the movies. And I loved that it stayed so close to the book - though there were some changes that made me miss the book version. I laughed, cried, cheered, clapped... It was awesome!
To review...
* 7 books in the Harry Potter series
* 4100 pages total
* 39 days for me to read it all {a lot of people have asked how I read so much without shirking too much on my wife/mother duties, so let me tell you... 1. I watched almost no TV that month. 2. I stayed up at least an extra hour most nights that I read. 3. I read during any little downtime I had. Dinner in the oven and timer set for 20 minutes? I was reading. Ethan playing outside? I was sitting outside and reading. 4. I neglected my blog!}
* Favorite books: #1, #3, #6 and #7
* Favorite movies: #1, #2, #6 and #7.1 and #7.2
* Least favorite book: #4 {Though I liked this one a lot more the 2nd time through, the whole Tri-Wizard tournament plot just wasn't my fave.}
* Least favorite movie: #3 {This is one of my favorite books, so it was so disappointing that the movie did not live up to it.}
* New favorite supporting characters:
- McGongagall!!! {I really loved her character in the last 3 books - especially book 7. And her fighting scene with Snape in the last movie is awesome!!}
- Snape. {Seriously, after learning his secrets through the pensieve how can you not love this man for all he sacrificied?!}
- Neville. {So glad he finds his confidence.}
- Ginny. {She is much more rebel/clever/talented than I remember.}
- Fred & George. {They may be "drop-outs", but they are dang talented and have good hearts. So sad when Fred dies.}

Overall, I am so glad I re-read the first six books before diving into the seventh one. I had forgotten just how much I enjoyed the series and getting to read the books back to back made it that much more enjoyable.

Oh, and Harry's pep talk to his son, Albus Severus... Loved it!!!

June Recap

We've already had a fairly busy summer and June was no exception... We had visitors, outings, holidays, a wedding, a birthday and lots of fun! Not to mention that School's Out!! Not a huge deal in our house (yet!) but still exciting for Sean to get a little break from work (before his summer job starts up).

* Date-night-movies-of-the-month: You read that right. Movies. Plural. :) First up, we saw the new X-Men movie.Pretty good! I loved the background story on a lot of the characters and it was sad to see how some of the good guys ended up as bad guys. And especially sad to see the moment when Professor X was injured and you knew he would forever be in a wheelchair.

The second movie was during our Seattle weekend {where we ran into Kate from Our Best Bites} and we saw Super 8. Now, Sean was much more excited to see this than I was, but after some of the previews he showed me online I was very intrigued and we were not disappointed!! I would put this one above X-Men as far as a "must-see" just because it's a little different that a lot of the movies out this summer. The kids are the main characters and they do an awesome job. It is an alien movie and although I am not much of an alien movie fan, the storyline kept me interested enough to not the nasty-looking alien bother me (too much).

* Visitors: First we watched the oldest Coleman boy [Brandon, 10] one afternoon {which worked out great because Sean was off that day} and Ethan got to experience being a little brother. These two got along great!! They played cars, Transformers and a couple of DVD games, played outside and in the kiddie pool, ate pizza and watched a movie.

These were all the cars, trucks and Transformers all lined up for the mega-battle!!

Ethan all ready to go outside and play in the water.

Next, we had Sean's friend from high school, Garrett, come for dinner and stay the night. He had been on a cross-country road trip and we were one of the last stops before heading back to SoCal. It was fun to talk with him and hear all about his adventures in cross-country travel. In the morning, he broke out his accordion and showed Ethan how it works.
* Brooke's Wedding: The last Sunday in June, the teacher that Sean works with at WSSB got married and Sean ended up being kinda in the wedding party. He was an attendant and pushed Brooke's grandpa in his wheelchair down the aisle so he could give her away.Sean also wore his new charcoal gray dress slacks and gray/white tie (birthday gifts) and looked quite dashing, if I do say so myself!

* June Library Books Review: "I Am Not Afraid Of This Haunted House" was hands down our favorite! It's a rhyming book, very cleverly written and funny. It is one I will be looking to add to our collection. "Tip Tip Dig Dig", "Excuse Me!", "Tissue, Please!" and "The True Story of the Three Little Pigs" were also pretty good. The other three were duds.

* Random Pictures:

Ethan showing off his monster puppet.

He was quite proud of himself for climbing on top of this dresser we inherited {that I need to do a little make-over on}. Yeah, we quickly vetoed him doing that again!

Statue at the Portland Box Office {I was getting our Les Miserables tickets - it was basically sold out, but we did get manage to get a couple tickets... clear in the back!}.

* Events already covered or still to come:
- Seattle Trip
- Father's Day
- Sean's Birthday

Harry Potter Re-Read: Home Stretch

Alright, the month is almost up and the final Harry Potter movie is due out in just a couple weeks AND I've made good progress on my Harry Potter re-read. Seriously, have watched very little TV the past month. It's been nice. Pretty much all my free time {you know, when I'm not being a mom and wife and cooking, cleaning, doing laundry, running errands, etc, etc.} has been spent with my nose in a book. I finished book 5 (Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix) and will pick up book 6 today at the library. It's already been killing me to not have it in my hot little hand because I finished book 5 yesterday afternoon and while dinner was baking in the oven {spinach-chicken stromboli from Our Best Bites - yum! I'd share the link, but I think the recipe is only in their cookbook} I had the urge to sit down and read for a few minutes and no book!! And last night I would have read for a little while before bed, but again, NO BOOK! So I'm going to pick it up today. I figure a week each for the last two books and I'll have met my goal. I am so excited to read these last two because (as I suspected) there was a LOT from book 5 I didn't remember. My hatred for Umbridge was as strong as ever, but there was lots of little bits I had forgotten and I'm guessing book 6 will be much of the same. Plus, there were parts in book 6 I remember not fully understanding the first time through, so hopefully I'll get some clarity on the re-read. And then. Then, I will FINALLY read book 7. Wahoo!!!

So, sorry if I've been a little M.I.A. but blogging has taken a serious back-burner to reading and family time while we try to enjoy the scattered days of sunshine. Plus, Sean's off work right now until his summer job starts up, so it's been fun to have him home.

Harry Potter Re-Read

And so it begins...

In the past couple years I have started reading again. Not a ton. But much better than the 2+ year hiatus I had.

I have read the Twilight series.

And the Hunger Games series.

And am waiting for my copy of Extras to be available at the library so I can finish the Uglies series. (Got an email this morning - it's finally there!)

And now I am doing a re-read of the Harry Potter series. I never read book 7 because by then I had forgotten so much that happened in books 5 and 6 that I couldn't stand to start it with so many holes in my memory of the story.

I started with Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone yesterday. I am over half-way through it and could possibly finish it tonight. I already have book 2 borrowed from the library (we only have books 4, 5 and 7). I figure the first 3 books should be fairly quick reads.

My goal is to finish all 7 books by the time the second half of the last movie is in theaters. Oh, and I'm going to watch each movie as I finish the book - except we only have movies 1, 2, 4 and 5.

It's release date is July 15th. That is a lot of reading. Good thing summer is just around the corner and Ethan and I can spend our days outside. Ethan playing in the water and sandbox and me soaking up some vitamin D and reading!! :)

*UPDATES*
6/1/11: Started Harry Potter book 1
6/2/11: Finished Harry Potter book 1
6/5/11: Finished Harry Potter book 2 and barely started book 3
6/9/11: Finished Harry Potter book 3 and started book 4
6/20/11: Finished Harry Potter book 4 (took a little longer than I expected, but we were busy!)
6/27/11: Finished Harry Potter book 5
6/28/11: Started Harry Potter book 6
7/2/11: Finished Harry Potter book 6
7/9/11: Finished Harry Potter book 7

Hungry??

So, I'm not sure if you've figured this out, but Sean is the reader between the two of us. It's not that I don't like reading - in fact, I love it. But I have a hard time reading during the day - I can almost always think of something else I could be doing. At Christmas time I put one or two books on my list while Sean usually has 7-10 books on his list. All of that being said, have you figured out that you should listen up when I actually give a book recommendation?! I mean, it's gotta be pretty dang awesome for me to take time to read it. This book:
was pretty dang awesome! I read the bulk of it in one day - on the car ride home from Utah because my mom is super possessive of her car and only lets my dad drive. This left me free to read for hours on end. It was great! Total page turner. It's written in the first person, which bugged Sean, but I didn't have a problem with it. I finished it and immediately dove into this one:
the next in the series. It is just as good! I'm about half-way through and we don't have any plans this weekend so I'm hoping to finish it up.

Final analysis: Put these two next on your reading list!! [The third is due out this fall.]

PS: For those who have read them, I have yet to decide if I'm "Team Peeta" or "Team Gale". Maybe after I finish the second one. Thoughts??
PPS: I realize I didn't really give any information regarding the plot. It's kinda hard to explain in one or two sentences... If you really want to know, leave a comment. Otherwise, just take my word on it's awesomeness!

Sparkly Vampires and Friendly Werewolves

Alright.

Fine.

Sign me up.

I am officially a member of the Twilight fan club.

Friday night I stayed up until after 3am to finish Eclipse. I was about 220 pages from the end when I started reading that night sometime after 11:30pm and couldn't put it down. I knew I wasn't going to have another opportunity anytime soon to stay up into all hours of the night and just read to my heart's content. So I took advantage of not having to work in the morning and sacrificed some sleep to finish it up. The next morning, at breakfast, I decided to get started on Breaking Dawn and was hooked on that one by page 2! I just wish I had the time to sit and read all day. But alas, there are certain responsibilities that I can't let slide. Like going to work and taking care of Ethan. Apparently you can't call in sick for staying up too late to read - no matter how good the book is. Dang it!

So here I am, 400+ pages into Breaking Dawn and less than 350 pages to go! Tonight I've got to make dinner, get to the gym (I skipped out yesterday to read some more!) and make sure Ethan gets a bath. Other than that, you can bet I'll be reading as much as I can as long as I can force my eyelids to remain open!

Also, I've got to give props to Stephenie Meyer for writing a series that has gotten me interested in reading again! I used to read a lot, but have put one of my favorite hobbies on the back burner since I've been married and especially once Ethan came along. Dishes, laundry and paying bills normally trumped sitting down with a good book (though I did read all but the last Harry Potter book), so it's been nice to read again. :)

"Stupid shiny Volvo owner."

Approximately 60 pages from the end of Twilight. They are being hunted... and I am hooked. Not quite addicted, but hooked none the less. Hooked means I stayed up until 1 or 1:30 in the morning trying to find a stopping place. If I was addicted, I would have just stayed up and finished the book and then would be stopping by Target or Wal-Mart on my way home to pick up the next book. I'm not there... yet! I'll probably finish it up tonight and I am excited, but also anxious to see how Twilight will leave you hanging and... thirsting for New Moon!!

And to the concerned HP7 fans - you needn't worry. I will read the final Harry Potter book, but you have to understand where I was at last summer. I had a brand-new baby and I was working part-time from home and part-time at work. I was very busy and it wasn't real high on my priority list. Besides, everyone told me the 'highlights' and now it will be fun to read it and get all the details. I'm thinking, though, it will probably have to wait until after the Twilight series.