Some Books I've Read Lately...

"Regeneration" by Pat Barker was kind of a slow read but was a great historical fiction about the impact of trench war in Europe and the psychological impact of PTSD that wasn't really recognized then like it is now. I have put the other two books in this trilogy in my wish list on www.paperbackswap.com.

"A Reliable Wife" by Robert Goolrick. I read this book in one night. Also a historical fiction, a woman with a past answers an advertisement looking for a wife placed by a man with a past. How their lives intertwine is a definite page-turner, and it was a great love story with a powerful theme of ultimate forgiveness.

"Witch & Wizard" by James Patterson (umm wow the picture is big but I can't figure out how the heck to resize it, sorry) This is the first installment in a new young adult series by James Patterson. A brother and sister who find out they are a witch and a wizard are imprisoned by a "new order" government. I think this series is going to be worth keeping up with.

Last night I started "A Lesson Before Dying" by Ernest Gaines and got about a quarter of the way through it. So far I've added a couple books to my original reading list but I think I'm keeping up pretty well...

Our Friday adventure part II

The other part of our Friday adventure, also in Crown Center was visiting the fairy tale village exhibit they had going on for free (free is always good in our world).

They had kid-sized little rooms built inside a large exhibit area...just large enough for kids to dart through the passages and me barely to squeeze through as I chased them from spot to spot...
Here they are checking out the Little Red Riding Hood area...you could push the button on the wall and it would say a line from the story...honestly some of them were a little creepy..."My what big teeth you have!" LOL
Liam thought being a knight in the castle was awesome!
When Delaney pulled down the rope, the curtain swung back and revealed Sleeping Beauty, who was also a little creepy...kind of haunted house style if you ask me, but she thought it was cool.
Liam really enjoyed hopping across this bridge.
Here's Delaney sitting in Mama Bear's chair from the Goldilocks room.
Me and the kids...I am totally squeezed in this little tiny space...
Here they are sitting in Cinderella's carriage...they can never ever look at the same time...sigh.
Well that was the last of the Friday adventure...as you can see they really enjoyed it. Now it's time for a big brother adventure soon!

Fun eats in KC!

Hubby had the day off work, so when he asked what we wanted to do for dinner tonight, I had an idea to get out and have some fun with the little ones (the boys are on a "father" weekend).

In Kansas City (for those who aren't from the area) there is a great place called Fritz's that if you have young kids, it's a must to check out and the burgers are great too. There are two locations, one in Kansas City KS and then the one we went to located in Kansas City, MO at Crown Center. Here's what the front looks like. Pardon my crappy camera but you will get the idea...

Here they are in their conductor hats waiting our turn to be seated.

This is the "view" from our booth. A painting of the Kansas City skyline behind the glass and an actual model train that goes around the loop of the restaurant and comes by every few minutes. You pick up the phone below the window to place your order.

Here's Daddy perusing the menu while Liam watches for the train to come by again.

Little Miss Fashionista sporting her conductor hat.

"Chugga chugga choo chooo!!!"

Here are the tracks that go all around the top of the restaurant...

When someone's order is ready, it gets put in the basket underneath the train there and comes around the tracks...cool huh?

Here comes ours!

It gets dropped on this little platform...

Which lowers itself down....

And you can grab it off the tray...

Here's my fattening burger, complete with hash browns on top...yummmm

Here's what it looks like when a conductor is pouting about being too busy watching for trains to eat his dinner...

Delaney is enjoying it though...

Daddy and Liam are debating about how many more bites a kid has to take before we can move on to the next part of our afternoon adventure...

I think I've posted the limit of pictures on this particular blog, so I'll continue the adventure tomorrow. Here's Fritz's website - their prices are reasonable too and definitely worth it for the novelty of the place. http://fritzskc.com/

Thursday ramblings...

I realized after Brittany over at The Greer Five http://thegreerfive.com/ featured me on her blog (Thanks Brittany), I hadn't gotten a chance to blog in a while so I'm going to ramble for a few minutes and then try to get myself back in a routine again.

Things are crazy busy around here. I'm in the process of spring cleaning (wishful thinking with snow on the ground but I'm ever hopeful) but it's makng my house more of a mess than it was to begin with. :) I'm trying to go room by room and get rid of things and rearrange and reorganize so making a mess to get everything in order is well worth it to me.

Court proceedings are...well they are proceeding...it's a long process but I'm confident of the end result and I'm trying to have faith in the system to do the right thing, and although they have yet to prove it to me, I'm holding strong.

The two and the three-year old are going through a "terribles" phase and good grief, it wears me out! The seven and eight-year old are doing great although a little rambunctious (as boys generally are) with not being able to get outside and play in this freezing weather. The thirteen-year-old still isn't speaking to me but I still love him and have faith we will work it all out.

I've read a few books lately that I enjoyed, but I didn't love them enough to do individual reviews on them, so I'll do a short synopsis of all of them in the next blog. I do, however, totally recommend the new YA series that James Patterson is doing and read the first installment "Witch and Wizard" and now I'm kicking myself. I hate, hate, hate waiting on the next book in the series to come out. I would rather wait on the whole series to be written and then read it straight through. I didn't touch a Harry Potter book until this past year for that very reason.

OK I'm off to work on the cleaning some more and see if the "wonder spray" that the hubby got me will actually take Sharpie off the walls like it claims (thanks to the little guy for the extra work, ughhh).

Anyway, to wrap it up, there's a ton going on around here but I'm hanging in there like a champ and ready for the next challenge to make good things happen. Have a great day!!

Stupid Groundhog, Stupid Winter, Stupid Meteorologists

It's Groundhog Day. Every year on this day, thousands of people gather at Gobblers Knob, Pennsylvania to see if a rodent named Punxsutawney Phil sees his shadow or not to know if we will have six more weeks of winter or if spring is on the way. This is supposed to be based on hibernation and if the groundhog is ready to get out of bed or not for the year. Heck, if I could be a weather predictor in winter, I'd never get out of bed just for the extra sleep, so it's no wonder he sees his shadow. Really, it's more of a tradition than a weather indicator and the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (sounds like a pretty important government faction to be commenting on a groundhog, doesn't it??) even says that Punxsutawney Phil has "no predictive skill". Really? Are people not smart enough to figure this out about a groundhog that you felt the need to come out with an official comment??

Of course I don't think that Punxsutawney Phil has much more predictive ability than the meteorologists on the news. I think I had it all wrong as a little kid when I said I either wanted to be a mommy or a teacher - I should have said I wanted to be a meteorologist. They can be wrong at their jobs CONSISTENTLY and still make good money - what other career can boast about that??

I really wanted to write this post so I could repeatedly type "Punxsutawney" (say it a few times, it rolls off the tongue nicely) but here are a few fun facts about Phil:

• Phil made his first appearance in 1887.
• His official website says he is over 100 years old...righttttt.
• The average life of a groundhog is 6-9 years.

Let's think about that for a minute... It's 2010 now.

2010 - 1887 = 123

If we give Punxsutawney Phil a decent groundhog lifespan, considering he's probably better taken care of than the average wild groundhog at 8 years:

123/8 = 15.375

Seems to me, we're on our 16th or so (give or take a few groundhog mishaps) Punxsutawney Phil. It could probably be more than that - maybe the townsfolk of Gobblers Knob start to go crazy after a particular rodent has seen his shadow a certain number of times and send him off to groundhog heaven to try their luck with a new one?

My take on this is F you Punxsutawney Phil, F you winter and F you meteorologists!