Sunday, September 25, 2011

It's Been Awhile

Wow, it has definately been a while since I had time to think of anything to say... Much less do anything... It was a long summer, filled with lots of activity... Some fun, some not so fun... We had lots of activities going on.  We visited the Tauphus Park Zoo several times... We got to take a weekend in Utah and visit Holgo Zoo as well.  We also spent every Wednesday at the Idaho Falls Public Library, checking out books and the kids participating in the kids theater that they did every week...  This year the kids performed in several of the plays, all ranging from Greek mythology to Shaekspear... They had a blast and learned a few things along the way.   Every Thursday we got to go to the Paramount Movie Theater and watched quite a few of the newer kids movies that had come out.  Gnomeo and Juliet, Mars Needs Moms, Megamind, Despicable Me... It was a great time... We even did a few arts and crafts projects.  One of which was about fossils.  The kids went on a nature walk and picked out a few plants and when we came back, we used plater of paris and pressed the items they found into the plaster to make an impression into it.  It was messy fun. 
The kids have since started back to school and are loving every minute of it.  (And So am I!) It has been very quiet around here with them gone all day long... (its sooooo nice and peaceful) I have been able to get back to working on some projects that had been put on hold for the summer.  If you have children, you understand that you have to keep them occupied and entertained.  I chose to keep them busy by doing a lot of learning type activites.  For the most part we had a good summer.  But with kids, its not all fun and games, and sometimes they get into trouble, and with mine, that was every other day. 
Some times I wonder how some of these moms do it with the crafting, the organizing, the blogging, the fancy meals everyday.  I can barely go to the bathroom by myself, (and that's stretching it...) much less find time to be creative.  By the end of the day I was so brain dead tired I could hardly function much less try to think about crafting or organizing. 


















Well hopefully now I can get back on track. We'll see...

Thursday, June 23, 2011

A Few Book Reviews

Plot summary
Nora finds Patch intolerable and unsettling, as Patch is in turns able to draw her in and repel her with his behavior. Patch seems to know more about Nora than her best friends do, and after several inexplicable and life-threatening encounters that all seem to involve Patch, Nora becomes obsessed with figuring out who Patch is and why he is so determined to be in her life. Her quest for answers lands her in several dangerous situations, finally leading to the stunning reveal that Patch is in fact an angel who fell from Heaven, and who meant to kill her: explaining why he was in her school to begin with. Patch had found a way to become human through the text in the Book of Enoch. By killing Nora, he succeeds in killing his Nephilim vassal, Chauncey Langeais, turning Patch to human. Dabria, Patch's ex-angel-girlfriend, wants Patch to save Nora's life, thus turning him to a guardian angel so that they can be together again. Patch insists on becoming human, following his original plan. But this plan goes haywire when he accidentally falls in love with Nora.
In a turn of events, Jules is revealed to be Chauncey, who wants revenge on Patch for tricking him into swearing an oath that will allow Patch to take over his body during the Hebrew month of Cheshvan. Nora kills him by sacrificing herself amidst their fight in the school. Patch, having fallen in love with Nora, chooses to save her rather than accepting the sacrifice to become human. By saving her, he becomes her guardian angel, but also effectively killing Chauncey, who had no soul to reanimate his dead body. At the end of the book it is clear that Nora and Patch have their happily ever after... for now.


                           Plot
Present times in Coldwater, Maine, Nora Grey lives with her mother in a old farm house right out of the city. Nora goes to Coldwater High. She should have known her life was far from perfect. Despite starting a relationship with Patch. Patch came to her as a fallen angel, an angel that lost his wings and was brought to earth, and he was looking for Nora. Nora fell in love with Patch and was curious about his life. But his world is dangerous. Nora almost died, but Patch saved her and also got his wings back. Now Patch is her guardian angel, and he is supposed to protect her no matter what.
Crescendo begins with Nora and Patch being happy in their new relationship, even though Patch isn't as content as he should be being a guardian angel again. After spending an evening together, Nora and Patch say goodbye at in his Jeep, but as they do Nora tells him that she loves him. Nora is heart broken when he not only doesn't say it back, but leaves abruptly; she thinks he doesn't feel the same. After finding out that after leaving her home Patch went and stood outside Marcie Miller's window, Nora takes this as confirmation that Patch is freaked out by the fact that she said she loves him. After seeing him soon after he seems cold and detached and tells her that the archangels will probably send him to Hell because they are together. Nora is upset and scared, and when he won't tell her why he went to Marcie's house, she breaks up with him. She does this partly because she doesn't think he loves her but also because she wants to protect him.
Nora starts having black and white dreams. She is haunted by the images and she becomes obsessed with finding out what really happened to him the night he left for Portland and never came home. She found out that Marcie Millar’s dad, Hank Millar was in her dream. She woke up and remembered she needed to give Scott, her childhood friend that just moved back to Coldwater, a tour around town. Scott and his mother had dinner at Nora’s house the night before. The mothers talked but Nora wasn’t in the mood, because she and Patch just broke up. Nora didn’t want to talk during dinner, but her mother tried to lighten everything up by bringing Nora into the conversation. Scott’s mother asked Nora if she could give Scott a tour around town tomorrow, but inside Nora didn’t want to at all. Scott got mad and Nora decided to ditch him. She told him that she couldn’t give him a tour, then she followed him, driving Vee’s car. Nora was suspicious. She wanted to find clues and find the answer to the death of her father.
Nora was curious about Scott. She followed him down to the middle of the town. Suddenly Nora saw her dad, sitting in a cafe reading a newspaper. She chased into the cafe to find her dad. The place was crowed and disappeared. Scott found Nora crying in the bathroom. He decided to take her to the “Z”, a pool club, on that rainy afternoon.
Nora is invited to a pool hall, The “Z”, with Scott. All she was thinking about was making Patch suffer for breaking up. She lets Scott convince her to come with him to the pool hall. When she is there, a fight breaks out but something else happens. She spots Patch at the pool hall with Marcie Milliar draped around his neck. But before Nora could do something about it someone shoots a gun and she tries to run and ends up with Patch. Patch gives her the keys to the Jeep so she can leave,but she doesn’t want to accept it, she doesn’t want to prove to him that she needs his help.
The next day Nora decides she needs to work on some summer school work. She heads off to the media center and looks up some information on the “Black Hand”. When looking for the info she tells herself it’s not real. While she is there she starts to get really tired and passes out. She wakes up much later, she looks outside and it is pitch black, she hears someone is there with her. She has the voice in her head telling her to run. There is a problem with running, all the doors are locked and the person is coming closer to her. She makes a decision to throw a computer through a window. She jumps out and runs home. Later, she hears someone outside thinking it’s just her imagination. Then she hears someone at the door, she runs upstairs to hide. The door is broken down by Scott. He is looking for the box Nora had stolen from his house a few days ago. In the box was the Black Hand’s ring. She knew that is what he had come for. She is hiding and waiting for Vee to come, they had plans to go to the amusement park at the pier. Vee comes in with Rixon. Rixon finds Scott and they go into a full blown fight. Vee is hiding with Nora freaking out trying to get Rixon to stop. When he does, Vee calls the police to come and pick up Scott. They look at the door and notice that it was locked with a dead bolt and in order to break through it, it would take a lot of power. Nora and Rixon know that Scott is a Nephilim. They all head out to the pier after a few minutes.
Nora and Vee, including Rixon, went to the amusement park at Delphic Beach. Scott escaped from jail and was looking for Nora at Delphic, because she has what was in the box, the black hand’s ring, that belongs to Scott. The police calls Nora and warns her that Scott had broken out of jail. Nora ran everywhere trying to hide from Scott because she knew he will easily find her, and she was right she sees him at the beach. He heads straight toward her, she runs for her life. Rixon then comes to protect Nora. Scott shoots a gun in the air and it sends people scattering. Nora then is grabbed by Rixon. He says he is taking her to a “safe” place. He leads her to this under ground tunnel and doesn’t say a word. Nora starts hearing her dad’s voice in her head. Her dad’s voice tells her to touch Rixon’s scars. She tries to get under his and succeeds. She sees Rixon holding a gun to her dad. Then she comes back up to present time. She notices Rixon smile. He tells her everything he said to her was pretty much a lie. He was the one who put the bomb in Patch’s place. He only dated Vee to get closer to her.
She is panicking and once again runs through the tunnel. She finds a door and she goes on one of the rides called “ride to hell”. The ride turns on and she rides on it, hoping to get away from Rixon. Rixon hops on the back of the ride. He hops from car to car to get closer to Nora. She has nowhere to go except for the water. He keeps coming closer to her saying he is going to use her as a human sacrifice. She sees an emergency exit door and jumps of the ride into the polluted water. She hears Rixon do the same, he is getting closer. She opens the door and jumps in. She hits something that feels humanly. It’s Scott, he has a gun wound in his shoulder. He sees her and says he is sorry. Nora tells him he is a Nephilim and that he is immortal so he won’t die. He smiles through blood stained teeth. Then Rixon starts to break down the door. Another door opens above Nora. It’s Patch. Then her vision fades, as Rixon has shot her.
Later, after getting checked out by the ER people she goes back to find Patch. He has a few scars on him and some blood but not much. She runs to him. She sees him smile. She asks him what did he do to Rixon. He says with a frown, “I sent him to Hell”. It starts to rain and Patch takes Nora to a small little hut. He tells her that he loves her. Then Hank Millar, her real father, comes in and takes Patch away from her. She hears Patch go into to her mind and he tells her to run and take the Jeep when he starts fighting. He also tells her to stay in the Jeep and not to leave it until he finds her. It is then that Hank Millar says "Tell me Nora. Was it you who killed my dear friend, Chauncey Langeais?" The book ends on that sentence.

Thursday, April 21, 2011

Easter Pictures

Last Saturday, we had Easter Pictures taken of the kids and they turned out Awesome... Thanks You Very Much Andrea... http://www.designsbydreana.com/























Thursday, March 3, 2011

What is Wrong with the Education System

For so many years we have heard about nothing but how bad our children are doing in education as compared to other countries.  Well, I am fed up.  I am fed up with the budget cuts to education, the emphasis on Math and Science as a curriculum and fed up with comparing our children to other countries.  I feel sad for my children and the children of my friends and family because they have no idea what it's like to learn the things we did, or even our parents did. 
If the education system wants to be in the running with these other countries that we compare ourselves to, then maybe they need to stop and take a look at what those others education systems are like.  Take China as an example: Their curriculum is filled with Art, Music, The History of their Culture, different languages, along with the studies of Math, Science and Reading. 
Our education system has cut too many and too much from our childrens curriculum.  Art, gone... Music, gone... History, gone... They focus on Math and Science.  But if you don't have the others, how can you even have a well rounded education?  The Arts and Music and History help open the mind to understanding Math and Science. 

I think it is time that we take back our children's education from the politicians and get our children learning again.

Saturday, February 26, 2011

Whole Wheat Buttermilk Pancakes

Whole Wheat Buttermilk Pancakes

Ingredients:
½ - ¾ c. buttermilk
2 tsp. melted butter
1 egg
2/3 c. white flour
1/3 c. whole wheat flour
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tbsp. sugar
½ tsp. salt

Directions:
Have milk at room temperature. Beat milk, butter and eggs lightly. Mix flour, soda, sugar and salt. Add to milk mixture. Stir just enough to dampen flour.