Update II

Books

Magicians Elephant by Kate DiCamillo. This was recommended by a friend and I loved it. It's written as a childrens book but it reads like an adult. Love the storyline and pictures are perfect.

The Secret Zoo by Bryan Chick
This book is really cute. Its geared for grade school kids and its a mystery/adventure book. Very well written and lots of fun to read.

The End of Everything by Megan Abbott
This book was ridiculous. Do not recommend at all. The storyline is of a 13yr old girl who is kidnapped. She's found towards the end of the book but then it turns out she ran away w/the old man that kidnapped her because she thought it was cool that he was in love w/her. OH MY GOSH. REalLY!!! I've read books before where I've been disappointed by the ending but this was just awful. Do not read!!!

The Silent Governess by Julie Klassen
This is the author of the Apothocary's Daughter which I liked and I really liked this one too. In fact, probably better. It's about a girl that is mistakenly accused of something and becomes indentured to this wealthy family but because of an attack on her, her throat is squashed and she cant talk. It's a romance but very interesting.



MOVIES

Bright Star-TV
Abbey Cornish, Ben Whishaw.
Love this movie.
The drama based on the three-year romance between 19th century poet John Keats and Fanny Brawne, which was cut short by Keats' untimely death at age 25.
Brothers Bloom-DVD

Rio-Redbox
Jesse Eisneberg, Anne Hathaway.
Really a cute movie.
Lots of colors and a good storyline. Loved all the characters. 

 Gnomeo and Juliet-Netflix DVD
This was the most boring movie ever. I was really disappointed in it. Not much else to say.
I liked this poster and realized its in another language.

Into the Pride-Netflix Instant Play
This was really fun to watch. Dave Salmoni spent 6 months w/a pride of lions to try and get them adapted to people so they could stay in a tourist sanctuary. It was really interesting and fun to watch those big kitty cats and their babies.

Addicted to Love- TV
Meg Ryan, Matthew Broderick, Kelly Preston
Maggie's and Sam's former partners are in love; she wants revenge and he wants his lost love back, so they work together to break up the happy couple. I love this movie. It was fun to watch.





TV

Would like to Welcome back the fall season. Here's a list of the returning shows that I love. (order does not specify how much I love them)
Amazing Race
Survivor
The office
Vampire Diaries
Supernatural
Modern Family
Hawaii Five o
Biggest Loser
Big Bang Theory
Parks and Recreation
It is very nice to have a TV Schedule back. 

And here are some new ones I've started watching. Some good, some ok!!

The Secret Circle-CW Britt Robertson (from Dan in Real Life)
This has a teenage witch storyline. So far so good. Kinda ame but not enough to stop watching.

Hart of Dixie-CW Rachel Bilson
This reminds me of other shows thats been done in the past. Big city girl doctor moves to a small town and its "just so hard for her to fit in".  The first show was last week and it was very week. We'll see if it gets better.






Ringer-CW Michelle Geller,
This is pretty good so far. Twins w/one leading the others life that she thinks is dead and it has some pretty interesting things going on. Some parts can be cheesy but I want to continue to watch.

Revenge-ABC Emily Van Camp, Madeleine Stowe, Nick Wechsler,(from Roswell) and many others.
LOVE THIS!!!!! 2 shows already and it's very good. The title says what the storyline is but the characters and the storyline have been great. Cant wait for more.

Unforgettable-CBS Poppy Montgomery, Dylan Walsh
this one was good. She's a sort of detective and some strange thing where she can remember EVERYTHING that has happened to her and can kind of voodoo into scenes of crimes.

Update 1

Books

Forever by Maggie Stievflater

This is the 3^rd and final (so far) book to the Shiver series and I really enjoyed it. Thought it ended quite well and was really sad for it to end. This series has been one of my favorites.

Winter garden by Kristin Hannah

This is the author of Firefly Lane which I loved and this book was even better. Has several stories w/in stories and was really captivating.

Magic hour by Kristin Hannah

So third book by this author and she is now one of my favorites. This book was sooo good. Had great relationships and storyline and characters. Definitely reading more by her.

(Before you pass out from seeing only 3 books on here, I was ill for about 14 days and the end of July-1^st of August and didn’t have the energy or the want to read. It was very awful but I’m trying to catch up now.)

Movies

Harry potter 7 part 2-Theater

The finale in the series! Cant believe it’s been this long. We saw the very 1^st HP movie for Dylan’s 9^th birthday. It was a really good movie and tho of course things get left out…it did what it needed to do. I was really happy w/it.

Made in heaven-TV

Timothy Hutton, Kelly McGillis, Debra Winger. This was made in the 80’s and was one I liked to watch but haven’t seen it in a very long time. It’s about a boy that dies and in heaven falls in love w/ a girl but she gets sent to earth as a baby and he’s allowed to go back as well as a baby and has till he’s 25 to find her. It was good even after all these years.

Burlesque-TV

Christina Aguilara, Eric Dane(twilight), Cher. I only watched this one out of boredom but it turned out to be ok. Christina wasn’t too bad as an actress and the movie wasn’t boring but does have a typical storyline, so if you like musicals…this one would be a good one to watch.

 Lor-DVD

So there’s a whole lot I can say about these movies. They’ve been my favorite for a very long time. I was just going to watch the first one and ended up watching all 3 over a few days and it was a lot of fun!!!

American Mormon-Netflix

Been wanting to see this for quite sometime too and loved it. How could you not. It’s made by Daryn Tafts(singles ward) and Jeff Knudsen and they go around asking people questions about the church and get some really off the wall answers at times. It was funny and interesting and really enjoyed it.

Singles Ward-DVD

Will Swenson, Connie Young, Daryn Tufts, Kirby
Heyborne. I think this movie was the first in a series of funny, popular church movies.

Partially inactive guy, meets pretty very active girl and sparks fly. Guy has very interesting friends which add to the mix , along w those primary songs turned into modern rock music. How can you not love the humor of it all??? There’s a sequel as well that I haven’t seen.

 Pride and Prejudice Pink-DVD

Another in church made movies…based on P & P and it has a pink cover so I call it the pink one since I have 4 different versions I have to differentiate from. This one is an updated version and has great acting, likeable actors and is done really well. Another favorite.

RM-DVD

Another churchy movie about an Rm that returns and no once is expecting him and his life does not go how he thought it was supposed to go after you serve a full time mission. This one has a lot of Church Lingo and has one of the best lines I’ve heard…..

Rm- “mom, you’re pregnant?”

Shot to the dad w/his hands up

Dad-“Hey, I didn’t know til the Visting Teachers told me.”

Classic!!!!!

The third wheel-Netflix Instant

Ben Affleck, Luke Wilson, Denise Richards, Jay
Lacopo. This is a comedy about a guy who falls in love w/ the hottest girl in the office and finally after about a year asks her out on a date and during the date hits a mentally challenged man w his car and the date ends up being all that guy. It was cute.

The animal-Netflix Instant

Rob Schneider,

Seen this one before and was kind of funny. As w/ any Rob movie there’s always funny parts and inappropriate parts as well. But I enjoyed watching it again.

Hackers-Netflix Instant

Johnny Lee Miller, Angelina Jolie

This one was funny to watch cause they’re all so young it and it’s such a bad movie but it was fun to watch in that it was so bad I couldn’t stop.

Four weddings and a funeral-TV

Hugh Grant, Andie MacDowell, James Fleet,
Simon Callow

Love this movie soooooo much. Love Hugh of course, love the accents, love the clothing, love the scenery, love the storyline. Just love it all.

 Not since you-Netflix Instant

Elijah woods and other people but not worth mentioning.

This was just ok. It wasn’t bad but not brilliant either. College friends get back together for a wedding, but the bride is still in love w/ one of  the others and that’s what the story is about.

Skyline-Netflix Instant

This was a terrible movie. The previews made it seem ok but I remember Dylan telling me it wasn’t so I watched this out of boredom. Some parts were ok. I liked how the aliens were really aggressive in killing everyone, but the ending was just soooooo stupid that it killed the whole movie.

Someone was watching-byu TV

This I watched off the BYU channel and it was actually kind of cute. I sister is abducted while the brother is supposed to be watching her and because they were near a canal, everyone believes she is dead. But the brother and his friend don’t believe that and start investigating a family that moved the next day of the “accident”. Its kind of weird to say it would be a great family movie given the abduction and all, but it was good and it was on the BYU CHANNEL!!!!

Powder-TV

Love this movie.

An enigmatic young man with startlingly white skin and
extraordinary abilities is discovered living in the cellar of a remote farmhouse and changes the people of the town.

This was one of those movies that I consider a generational movie. It was a big deal among the teens of that day. I love this movie….only problem is I don’t watch it too often cause the song in the movie, they play that same song throughout the whole movie and it gets on my nerves.

Moving mcallister-Netflix Instant

Benjamin Gourley, Mila Kunis, Jon Heder, Rutger
Hauer. Benjamin is from the Pink Pride and Prejudice I talked about earlier. Mila Kunis, that 70’s show. Jon Heder, Napolean Dynamite and then Rutger Hauer…

This is a quirky very cute movie about a guy working in a law firm and the boss hires him to move his niece and its all around the time he has to take the bar exam so of course all these crazy things happen along the way. It’s very well done and I love it.

The help-Theater

We read this book for bkclub and I couldn’t put it down so I was really excited when I heard they were making it into a movie. In my opinion Its one of the better book to movie movies. At the time of this writing, I’ve actually seen it 3 times and each time was just as good!!!

Tangled-Netflix Instant

What an awesome movie. Disney did great once again. Great characters and storyline and just loved the horse. It really is a must see for everyone!!

Babe pig in the city-Netflix Instant

Such a classic movie….Love that little pig and all those pets in the hotel they stay at.

Planet of the apes-Theater

Wow…..Loved this movie. It didn’t hurt too that Andy Serkis (LOR fame) did the acting for the ape. This is one of those movies that you’re not quite sure how it’ll be but I was very happy w/it….tho not too sure about the ending.

Bed of roses-Netflix DVD

Christian Slater, Mary Stuart Masterson

A romantic movie from the mid 90’s back when Slater was GORGEOUS. I haven’t seen it in a long time and still enjoyed it.

Little black book-TV

This one is another romantic comedy tho its more of a train wreck comedy. This girl becomes paranoid of her boyfriend and when he leaves his palm pilot behind, she looks through it and all heck insues. It should be seen at least once. Oh and Gavin Rossdale (of the band Bush) is in it.

 Source code-Redbox

So this is a rather new and strange movie. It was pretty interesting and I don’t want to talk to much about it because you really just have to watch it

Adjustment bureau-Redbox

This one was pretty good too. Kind of strange storyline and you know how its going to end but it was fun watching it.

Limitless- Redbox.

This one was really good til about the middle and then it got predictable and boring. But the concept of the movie was good.

TV

That 70’s show

I watched this the last week of my horrible illness I had. Dylan had watched it all a few months back and it took him about 2 months(granted he was still in school) but it took me 7 days. 7 seasons, 20+ episodes a season and it was a lot of fun. It was one of those where when you finish you feel like the characters are your friends. Some parts were kind of inappropriate due to talking about sex and smoking pot but there are a lot of funny characters and situations that happen. My favorite characters are Red, the hard nosed father that hates everybody and everything and Kelso who is so concerned w/his looks and trying to “burn” all of his friends. The last season was a little awkward, Kelso was gone, a new guy was in, Eric was gone so you just kind felt like they were just getting through the season. But it ended well which almost like the beginning of the 1^st season which I thought was really clever.

MUSIC

IPOD

So, I’ve never been one to have the latest electronic devices mostly to due to money or sometimes no interest. Awhile back, one of Dyls friends sold him an Ipod and he used it and I tried a couple of games on it and it was fun. After he got back from working in Bellingham and having extra money on hand, he purchased one that had a camera and could do ‘facetime’ and he gave me his. So….now I cant imagine what life was like before I had this. I have my Foo downloaded to it and it’s all digital so even the cd that had scratches on it….you don’t hear them on this and I love to play all these different games including the words games you play w/other people. I have bought books to download and read off of it and I can check my Facebook from any part of the house.

So, Now I’m in love and stay up way too late at night playing games and getting on the internet. My reading and work has suffered because of it and the bad thing is now I want an IPAD!!!!

July, August, September Bookclub!!!

The book for the month of July was Alice Bliss by Laura Harrington. The meeting place was at Jana's and actually, I didnt go to this bkclub night because I didnt finish the book and I was dead tired. Turns out it had poor attendance w/ even more poor reading of the book, so they decided to push the book to the next bkclub night which was September.

Now, we didnt really skip August....we did a very special bkclub night for the theatrical release of The Help on August 10. It was very well attended and an excellent movie. Everyone enjoyed it and it was fun having a movie night to one of the more popular bkclub books. Then September came around and we had our regular meeting at Bry's house. I actually did not go to this one either because I really couldnt get through the book and it was premiere night of some tv shows that I really wanted to see. I guess this one a better night and the ones that read it seemed to enjoy it. The next bkclub will be at Sylvia's house (yay) and we're reading
Left to tell : discovering God amidst the Rwandan holocaust / Immaculée Ilibagiza, with Steve Erwin.

June Bookclub

This months bookclub book was The glass castle by Jeannette Walls and we met at Kelly Cobbs house(which is very nice by the way). This was an amazing book. I read it in like 8 hrs, I couldn’t put it down. It’s a biography book but it doesn’t read like one. The life this girl had growing up makes a normal person cringe. I loved how as a small child she didn’t understand the things that went on in that family but you can see her slowly realizing as she gets older that things were not normal and the parents could’ve been different if they really wanted to. When the book was being described to us, there was mention of abuse but I loved that this family was not physically or verbally or mentally abusive as far as hitting the children or cussing/yelling at them or making them feel less than they should, but the abuse stemmed from the poverty level they were raised in and the lack of food and clothing they endured due to the parents unwillingness to better themselves for the sake of the children.

So, once again…Great Bookclub!!!

Next month we’re reading Alice Bliss by Laura Herrington.

UPDATES

Books

The Dry Grass of Autumn by Anna Jean Mayhew

This book is what I described as The Help meets the Secret Life of Bees. This is set in the 50’s and the main character has a dysfunctional family but has a good relationship w/the families negro maid and the book just goes through racism, even within the family and there’s a tragedy as well. It was a good read, but the ending for me just sort of left me w the feeling of what was the point of reading this.

Angela’s Ashes by Frank McCourt

This is another biographical book set in the early 40’s in America/Ireland of a little boy and his life growing up w/ an alcoholic father who would rather drink than bring home money for his family to eat or live properly. It was a good book. Someone somewhere, don’t remember, was all hyped about this book but even tho it was a good read, I didn’t see the big hype about it. And it might be because I loved Glass Castle so much, so maybe since the stories were basically the same it wasn’t fresh for me. I’d like to know other peoples opinions of this book.

Firefly Lane by Kristin Hannah

This one is a big hit with me. It starts out w/ 2 teenage girls but the story goes through to adulthood and their friendship that lasts through all the crap the people bring to their lives. It does have a few swear words and has some moral issues but I loved it so so much. This is a must read.

The Davis Family History

This is a book my dad started after my mom passed away. It basically chronicles his life, my moms life, a little of us as their children, people, stories, letters, drawings and pictures that he remembers and mean a lot to him. It’s for his posterity!!!  It was a lot of fun to read. So many memories are in this book and it’s kinda fun to have little pieces of yourself and your memories laid out in a book like this. It was fun and stressing for him to make (Its over 600pgs.) but was very very worth it.

Half Broke Horses by Jeannette Walls

This book is related to The Glass Castle book as it’s about the grandma from said book Lily Casey Smith. It was another great book by this author. I realy like her style of writing and I like how she describes these two books as “True Life Novels” since they are biographical but read like a novel. This book should really be read along w/the Glass Castle either before or after. I found it really interesting reading it after cause you could see the patterns starting the Glass Castle story.

Movies

there are too many movies this time…(Ive had a lot of time on my hands lately.)

So I’m doing a rating system……Must see, Loved it, Just Ok, or Booo!!

Easy A-TV

Emma Stone, Penn Badgley, Amanda Bynes

Loved it

Just go with it-redbox

Adam Sandler and Jennifer Aniston

Just ok

Chronicles of Narnia Voyage of the Dawn Treader-redbox

Must see

True grit-redbox

Jeff Bridges, Matt Damon

Loved it

Butterfly effect-netflix dvd

Ashton Kutcher, Amy Smart

Just ok

Iron man 2-netflix

Robert Downey Jr, Gwyneth Paltrow

Loved it

 Wings of the dove-netflix

Helena Bonham Carter, Elizabeth McGovern, Michael Gambon

Just ok

Molly-tv

Elizabeth Shue, Aaron Eckhart,

Just ok

Battle LA-redbox

Aaron Eckhart, Michelle Rodriguez

Boooo

 I am number 4-redbox

Alex Pettyfer, Timothy Olyphant

Loved it

Notting hill-netflix

Hugh Grant, Julia Roberts

Loved it and must see

Lucky 7-tv

Kimberly Williams-Paisley, Patrick Dempsey

Must see

Benny and joon-netflix

Johnny Depp, Mary Stuart Masterson, Aidan Quinn, Julianne Moore

Must see

Wild target redbox

Emily Blunt, Bill Nighy, Rupert Grint , Rupert Everett

Loved it

Forget paris –tv

Debra Winger, Billy Crystal

Booo

The bumblebee flies away-tv

Elijah Wood

boooo

The invasion-tv

Nicole Kidman, Daniel Craig

Just ok

Scorched

Alicia Silverstone, Woody Harrelson

Must see-netflix

My 1^st wedding-netflix

Rachael Leigh Cook, Kenny Doughty

boooo

Americas Sweethearts-netflix

Julia Roberts, Billy Crystal, Catherine Zeta-Jones, John Cusack

Just ok

 My girlfriends boyfriend-netflix

Alyssa Milano

Boooo- didn’t even finish it

The scarlet tunic-netflix

Jean-Marc Barr, Emma Fielding,

Boooo

The best of times-netflix

Robin Williams and Kurt Russell

Just ok

Secretariat- Netflix

Diane Lane, John Malkovich

Must see- I ddnt think I was going to like this one and only watched it out of boredom but it was really really good.

 TV

Americas got talent season3

So this show started back up a few weeks ago. Now they’re down to the final 48 and so far they’ve kept who I wanted to see on the show so I’m happy so far. We’ll see cause the last 2 seasons I watched did not go the way I wanted it.

So far I like the pole dancing guy and Snap Boogie

Expedition Impossible-ABC

This is another reality show and also done w/Mark Burnett(survivor) and is A LOT like Amazing Race though I think they’re only in one spot not traveling all over. I only watched it once cause I didn’t like it. They had the team that all they did was fight and scream at each other which gets old and then they focused on this one team that I ddnt find very interesting, I wanted to see more of the other teams. I was going to try it again the next week and forgot to tape it and now another show is on at the same time which is more important.

Love in the wild-CBS

This is another reality show and its premise is 10 girls and 10 guys are out in the jungle and they can choose a partner each week and try to find love. At the big ceremony at the end of the show, they choose their next partners and the one girl and one guy that haven’t been chosen, go home. It’s actually been good so far.

Melissa and Joey- ABC Family

This show has been on for awhile but I’ve never watched it til I wanted to watch the series of State of Georgia and its on before that one. It’s a single aunt taking care of 2 kids while their mom is in jail and she hires a boy nanny for the kids. I’ve watched this one twice (at the time of this writing) and am not impressed at all. There’s too much talk about sex and unmarried pregnancy and all in front of the kids and it has bad acting and I don’t like it. Wont watch this anymore.

State of Georgia- ABC Family

This show is new for the summer and it has Raven Symone who hasn’t done anything since Disney, but now she’s all grown up and this show is trying to prove that. It’s been ok. There’s only been 2 shows at the time of this writing and while its not GREAT…it’s been ok to watch.

Switched at birth-ABC Family

This is a new show for the summer and it’s really good. It’s about 2 teenage girls that find out they were switched at birth (hence the title) and the families kind of mesh together so that both sides can get to know one another. One of the girls is deaf which adds to the drama. It’s been really good so far….even Dylan likes it.

Big brother 13

BIG BROTHER is back!!!! Anyone that knows me well, knows this my all time favorite summer show. This season’s theme is Dynamic Duo’s and they brought back 3 past couples. Jeff and Jordan,(yay) Evel Dick and Danielle(yay)  and Rachel and Brenden(UGH)! BB also paired up the other houseguests so everyone plays as a team. Only the voting is separate. I’m really excited to start my BB Summer.

Music

Christina Perri

I heard a song on my drive to work one day. I don’t ever turn on the radio on my way TO work, sometimes on my way home, so I like to think that I was inspired to turn my radio just to hear this song. I had to google the song just by using a line from the lyrics and up popped “Jar of Hearts” by Christina Perri. So I youtubed it and found the video. She has another song called Arms and both of these songs are on her debut album Lovestrong. She has a great voice and just love both songs I’ve heard.