Book Reviews

Let me just say I do not consider myself a book scholar in the slightest-- I just know whether I like a book or not and that is all that matters to me! I'm always looking for a good book, so I thought I'd post my thoughts on a few of the most recent I've read. If you've read any of these, I'd love to hear your thoughts!

The Host: Stephanie Meyer

My sister-in-law Julie let me borrow her copy and I kind of read this because I was curious how Stephanie Meyer would do with a story that didn't involve vampires and werewolves. I thought the beginning was awesome (although a lot of people have complained that they had a hard time following what was going on). Somewhere towards the late middle of the book I was honestly bored to tears because the story seemed to keep dragging on and on. I felt like the same stuff just kept being repeated. Luckily towards the end I felt like she pulled it together and made it entertaining again. I'd say it's worth reading, but I wouldn't put the same enthusiasm behind it as her other books.

John Adams: David McCoullough

I was hoping this wouldn't be boring and put me to sleep. It's a pretty big book, and I was pleasantly surprised. I have to admit I only read through the Revolutionary War (a little more than half way) on purpose to keep myself from burning out. The Revolutionary War has always interested me, and this book did a great recap of the events. What I especially liked about the book was that it was written simply. It wasn't something I had to stay on top of or read continually in order to remember what was going on. My respect for the Founding Fathers grew by leaps and bounds (well... for most anyway) and I learned a lot about the sacrifices many of them made because they believed so much in America. John Adams and his wife have a great love story and it was cool to read the letters they would write to one another-- it also made me realize how writing and penmenship these days has gone to pot!

The Book Thief: Markus Zusak

LOVED it. It was written so creatively (from the viewpoint of death) and unlike anything I have ever read. It was a new perspective on Nazi Germany from the viewpoint of a little girl. The story makes you happy, sad, scared, etc. The foreshadowing by "death" was really cool. Hard to explain-- you've just got to read it. This was my favorite read in a long time!

Vanishing Acts: Jodi Picoult

This is the second book I've read by this author. The first I read was "Plain Truth," which I loved. I thought this one was entertaining at times, but I also thought she could have cut out about 200 pages and ended up with a much better story. There just seemed to be a lot of fluff in this one. For instance, she kept talking about some of the old traditions and stories from the ancient tribe of one of the supporting characters-- the stories were often hard to follow and uninteresting. I could see what was going to happen in the end and I wasn't too keen about how things turned out. I'm not saying I need a happy ending, because I don't. I just didn't agree with some of the main character's decisions. I've heard "My Sister's Keeper" is amazing so I guess I'll try that one next and hope for better luck.

Breaking Dawn: Stephanie Meyer

I'm sure many of you have read this also. If you haven't, don't read on because I am likely to spoil something! I was really excited for this last installment because I really loved the first three books. I was suprised with how quickly everything got going-- I was worried it might be like the last few books where Bella just whines the whole time about not wanting to get married and then gets into some sort of trouble and then the climax of the book takes place in the last 30 pages (and Bella remains human). I was happy this wasn't the case in this book. I have to say I was surprised at the honeymoon vampire-lovin' adventures, but it's all good! I kept thinking as I was reading that this book is not appropriate for teens, but as an adult I say A-OK. Anyway, I definitely didn't see all of the twists coming and for the most part was pretty entertained. It sorta dragged when all the vampires were congregating to take on the Volturi, but the ending made up for it. One BIG pet peeve about the book though: the name Renesmee. UGH! For real? What was she smoking when she came up with that one? Other than that I really enjoyed it and was kinda sad when I finished it. One of my favorite parts: Edward being able to hear Bella's thoughts at the end.

If anyone has read anything good lately or has books on their to-read list, I'd love to hear about it! I'm finishing up a book called "Drowning Ruth" right now so I'll be needing some reading material soon!

I'm a winner!

My sister-in-law Rachel sent me the link to this blog: Tangled & True. It is an awesome blog that features cool and unique baby and kids products. So on this blog there are quite a few giveaways. Last week they were doing a "virtual baby shower." What is a virtual baby shower you ask? Well, it is basically the greatest thing since Christmas morning. What they do is feature some of their favorite new products from different vendors and one lucky winner gets the products for free! As someone who rarely wins anything, I entered (you enter by leaving a comment on the blog post) not expecting anything. Since they were giving away like 14 items I knew about a million people would enter. Imagine my surprise when I found out I won! There were more than 600 entrants and they chose me!

So I feel like I hit the jackpot. I won nearly $1,000 chic baby stuff! The products they were featuring were all really high end (some even hand-made) and I can't wait for them to arrive on my doorstep. I've been getting e-mails of all of these different UPS tracking codes from the companies-- it's going to be a fun week. Here is some of the stuff I won:

Click here to see the whole list of stuff I won. It just makes me happy looking at the pictures!Sean keeps telling me, "Don't forget you are a winner!" haha. Anyway, if you want some cute ideas for kids or babies, I HIGHLY recommend checking out this blog. There are a few ideas I know I already want to incorporate into our baby's nursery!

Oh Boy!

As in, we're having a BOY!!! We couldn't be more excited! Sean and I both thought we were having a boy, but it is nice to know for sure. We went in for the ultrasound yesterday and the doctor said everything looked perfect. He was curled up in a little ball and crossing his legs. I was amazed at all of the things we could see through the ultrasound. They checked his lips, heart, kidneys, stomach, nose, hands, feet, bum, veins, etc.! Here’s a short clip of part of the ultrasound. Near the beginning you can see he has his arm up by his face and it looks like he is sucking his thumb --must take after his mamma!

Our ultrasound nurse was awesome… the recording is like 30 minutes long and she labeled a lot of stuff so you can actually tell what you are looking at. The ultrasound made everything feel much more real. I am 20 weeks now-- halfway! Within these past 2 weeks I've really started to feel him moving around. It's a crazy feeling! I keep telling myself I am going to have a son and I feel so proud. I love thinking of Sean being a dad! I also love that I can go shopping and decorate the nursery now :) One cool thing about doing in vitro is I can say I have seen my baby at three days old. Here is a picture we got from the doctor:

Pretty cool huh? You’ve come a long way baby and we can wait for you to join our family!

A bunch of random updates

I realize I have been slacking on the blog posting, but it seems like we’ve been running a million miles a minute since we’ve been home—but boy oh boy is it good to be home! It’s so nice knowing my way around again and seeing friends and family. I really missed the comforts of home and having all of our things (not just what fits into the car!) around.

Sean is now officially a law student. So far he’s really been enjoying his classes and classmates. He keeps telling me how impressed he is with his professors and their accolades. He also loves the fact that he doesn’t have to shave every day and can buy caffeinated drinks on campus. He’s been riding an express bus which conveniently stops right by our townhouse and it’s a good thing because his precious Miata seems to be having issue after issue (at least our Honda was an easy and inexpensive fix). He loves that the bus has Wi-fi. I love that we don’t have to pay for the bus pass (gets it free from the law school) or gas. Here's a picture I took of him on his first day like he's off to Kindergarten and I am his proud mamma!


I jumped right back into work. I’m really happy to be back so I can physically go into work everyday. It was awesome to be able to work from home this summer, but it’s a nice change of scenery and fun seeing my co-workers again. Other than work I’ve been busy with VERY important tasks such as getting my hair cut and finding a patio set for our balcony. Life or death people. Everyone keeps asking me to post a picture of my baby belly, but I don’t really have a good bump yet. Right now I am in that stage where I just look like I’ve spent too much time with my good friends Ben & Jerry. I look forward to moving out of this stage hopefully very soon! My mom said she really popped around 5 months, so we'll see. Here's a picture we took a few days ago (I am about 19 1/2 weeks here):


We have an exciting week ahead of us—we find out whether a baby boy or girl is in our future at our doctor’s appointment on Thursday!

Road trip home

We made it! We rolled in around 2am Saturday night after our little 2300 mile jaunt across the country.

All I can say is there is no place like home! It feels so good to be in familiar surroundings. I knew I missed home, but I didn't realize how much until we walked in the door. I'm excited to see our friends and family again and I'm loving the absence of humidity. Also, no more waiting until 10pm to eat dinner-- hooray! Our waistlines will probably thank us for that. Sean got home around 4:30pm yesterday and it was such a nice change to have him home in the evening.

A lot of people have asked me what our road trips across the country are like, so this year I kept a little travel log-- it's just thrilling, believe me. You will see that you really don't want to be in on this action. It was fun MAYBE the first time-- sort of loses its luster by the 5th or 6th time around! It wasn't all bad though... it was really nice to have some time to just chill with Sean for two days straight.

Friday, August 15

8:30 am: Fill up with gas at Wawa (best gas station EVER) for $3.79/gallon hit up McDonalds for an egg mcmuffin and hit the road.

10:30 am: Pass through gorgeous PA countryside and learn that Pennsylvania does indeed have mountains.

11:00 am: Went through a long mountain tunnel where Sean proceeded to honk the horn and scare other drivers (continued to do this in every other tunnel we passed through).

12:06 pm: Laughing at idiot driver who cut us off and is tailgating a semi.

12:30 pm: Notice some of the leaves on the trees are already changing colors right outside Pittsburgh.

12:44 pm: Paid $17 toll. Ugh.

1:00 pm: Stop in a little town called Beaver and fill up for $3.79/gallon. Stopped at Subway for lunch and when we went to leave our car wouldn't shift out of park-- finally got it to work and vowed to leave it in neutral for the rest of the trip.

1:50 pm: Peace out Pennsylvania and hello Ohio!

2:14 pm: Pass giant GM plant where they build Pontiac G5's.

3:25 pm: Hear fuzzy recording on radio of song called "Wild Horses" and for some reason Sean becomes obsessed with it (he sang the chorus to the dang song about 500 times by the time we made it home).

5:00 pm: Sean snoozing in the passenger seat with his mouth wide open and Jenny is behind the wheel.

5:20 pm: Adios Ohio, Hola Indiana! Paid $10.25 toll.

6:48 pm: Stupid trucker almost runs us off the road.

6:56 pm: Seriously bored; Singing Funky Town.

7:28 pm: Paid $6.75 at toll.

6:47 pm: Goodbye Indiana, hello Illinois and central time! (Sorry, bad picture. The sun was blinding!)

8:30 pm: Make slight detour to Naperville, IL for some Lou Malnatis deep-dish pizza. We've been craving this pizza since the last time we ate it (three years ago). Yes, it really is that good.



11:00 pm: Stop for the night at the Hampton Inn in Quad Cities (border of Illinois and Iowa). Catch up on the Olympics and hit the sack. Bed feels like heaven after being cramped in the car all day.


Saturday, August 16

8:25 am: On the road again after hitting up hotel breakfast.


8:38 am: Crossed the mighty Mississippi River and enter Iowa.




8:49 am: Pass the "World's Largest Truck Stop" and the Herbert Hoover Museum. Simply exhilirating.


9:40 am: Listening to local coverage of the Iowa state fair on A.M. radio because we are already that bored. Fill up for $3.64/gallon in a place called Williamsburg.


11:01 am: Saw gas for $3.42 in Des Moines! Tired of looking at corn fields.


11:49 am: Played an intense ABC sign game. Jenny was victorious after Sean got stuck on Q. Decided Iowa isn't the best place to play this game since the signs are few and far between!

11:59 am: Welcome to Nebraska... and traffic.



2:30 pm: Stop at Wendy's for lunch in York. Filled up for $3.65/gallon.


3:00 pm: Passed through giant arch thing that is in the middle of nowhere. Still tired of looking at corn fields.



5:00 pm: Passed giant sunflower farms-- very cool. Couldn't snap a picture since I was driving and Sean was asleep!

6:35 pm: Howdy Wyoming!

7:20 pm: Stop for gas in Cheyenne for $3.63/gallon. It is freezing outside! Sean tries changing a fuse to see if it will fix our problem of the car not wanting to come out of park. Also realize our brake lights are not working-- fabulous.

9:15 pm: Go through KFC drive through. Sean puts car in park accidentally and we are stuck. Finally gets it to come out of park and we pull up to window to pay. Sean puts car in park again-- doh!

12:02 am: See ya Wyoming, hello Utah! No state sign picture because at this point I was slipping in and out of conciousness.

2:01 am: Pull in to our garage. Home sweet home!

Packing up

I’m spending my time packing for home this week. We leave Pennsylvania bright and early Friday morning and plan to be back in the Beehive State on Sunday! Since we’ve been married Sean and I have moved 12 times. Yes, 12. Actually, after this week it will be lucky number 13. The end of our moving madness is just around the bend. We’ve lived our lives in four and eight month increments for so long, I don’t have any idea what it is like to live somewhere for longer than that! I’m excited to find out.

I’ll tell you what though; I have gotten pretty darn good at packing everything we need for the summer into a Honda Accord. It’s funny because each year we end up taking less and less. I guess you start to realize just how little you need and that it’s not worth hauling extra stuff across the nation. It’s also funny because when you get home, things like a toaster and kitchen-aid seem like luxury items!

Summer sales has been a great experience for us. I can’t believe we’ve (I guess I should be saying Sean) done this for five summers now. I can see how outsiders can look at the industry with a skeptical eye—especially since the only stories you seem to hear stem from dishonest or unethical sales reps. I’ll tell you what though, I will always be grateful for the opportunities and experiences this job has provided us. We’ve made friendships for life and travelled all over this country. This job afforded us the opportunity to be financially independent, get through school and to see doctors to help us start a family. Maybe it’s not for everyone, but I truly believe it has been a giant blessing for us.

Purely for my own enjoyment, I thought I’d take a trip down memory lane and list some of my favorites from the past few summers:

-Searching for shells and sand dollars on Kiawah Island in South Carolina
-Visiting Navy Pier and Lincoln Park Zoo in Chicago
-Touring Independence Hall and seeing the Liberty Bell
-Living close to my Uncle Brien and Aunt Jane in Colorado Springs
-Touring historic plantations around Charleston- I especially loved the bridges at Magnolia Plantation
-Visiting Washington D.C and seeing the monuments, the national archives, Arlington Cemetery, White House and Smithsonian Museums
-Sitting in rocking chairs with my family out on the big porch at Mount Vernon
-Going to see Wicked with Sean in NYC

-Hanging at the pool and reading US Weekly with friends. Also watching Heidi and Rob's kids turn into fish :)
-Finding great new places to eat like Lou Malnatis, Nona Rosa’s, California Dreamin’, Manny’s, Pat’s King of Steaks, Panera and Wawa!
-Visiting Colonial Williamsburg, Jamestown and Yorktown
-Attending “Taste of Chicago”
-Riding in a flat-bottom boat through the Lilly pads with Sean at Cypress Gardens
-Hanging with friends at Folley Beach
-Going to Nauvoo with Sean and his parents
-Visiting King’s Dominion and riding a roller coaster that I thought would kill me

It’s been a great run and we’re excited to be coming home. One more drive across the nation and on to our next adventure!

A day at the beach-- Ocean City, NJ

We went to Ocean City this weekend with our friends Rob and Janelle. It felt great to be at the beach (even though the crazy New Jersians charge you $5 per person). The beach was really nice and it was a fun family-type atmosphere. We had a great time walking the boardwalk (where we happened to run into our friends Glade and Gina) and stuffing our faces with junk food.




mmmm... funnel cake. Watch out for the dive-bombing seagulls who try to steal your food! I saw a little girl get a piece of pizza stolen right out of her hands by one of those stupid birds. I am pretty sure seagulls are the coldsore of the earth. I made sure to guard my funnel cake with great care!

The water was definitely a lot colder than we were used to from previous summers, but I even put on a brave face and ventured in! Here's Rob and Sean being eaten by a wave:

We found a bunch of crabs in the surf and borrowed some kid's bucket and caught a few. We were highly entertained by this little activity. It's all fun and games until you feel a pinch on your foot and look down and see a big crab staring up at you. It didn't hurt, but it did creep me out!

Hard to believe, but we only have one more weekend here in Pennsylvania!