Summer Reading

I'm about to bid farewell to the lazy days of summer where I can get up late, stay in my pajamas until noon if I want, and read for hours on end without feeling guilty that I should be doing something more productive. Now, don't get me wrong...I LOVE teaching and I'm actually excited to go back to work this week, but OH, the joys of summer!

Before I jump back into full time lesson planning, grading essays, and wrestling with teenagers, I thought I'd share some (not all 18!) of the books I've read during my free time this summer. Some of you might not care about my literary ramblings, but if you're looking for a good read and you like young adult literature, "check out" (Ha...library puns...gotta love them!) these books.

Have you read any of the following? What did you think?

Do you have any other great recommendations for me or for my students?

Chronicles of Prydain - Graham and I listened to all five books in this series on our way through Utah, Nevada, California, Idaho, Montana, and back home again! It was Graham's suggestion, and I found I loved these books! The second book is the basis for the Disney flop The Black Cauldron, but don't blame Lloyd Alexander (author) for Disney's failure to recognize that these books aren't geared toward the six-and-under crowd. However, for a young adult or adult crowd, the books offer a classic fantasy story complete with sweeping mythical landscape, an assistant pig-keeper turned hero, and a smorgasbord of other hilarious characters with witty dialogue (My favorite is Princess Eilonwy).

Divergent - Newbie author Veronica Roth has created the new "must-read" novel in the dystopian genre. At least according to many critics. I'm suspending judgement on this book until I read the rest of the trilogy (which unfortunately means I'll be waiting quite awhile for books two and three). I found the story enthralling and well-developed, but some of the underlying ideas really bothered me. I'm hoping, however, that I'm supposed to be bothered by these ideas and that the author will address the false ideology of the main character in the end. We'll see.

The Penderwicks on Gardam Street - This book is the sequel to a book entitled simply The Penderwicks. It chronicles the adventures of four sisters: Rosalind, Jane, Skye, and Batty. The first book follows them on their summer vacation to a quaint cottage in New England. In the second, they are back home and trying to save their widowed father from ruining his life (and theirs) by dating again. Both stories are a little predictable, but I don't care because they possess an irresistible, old-fashioned charm. Who could resist four-year-old Batty's obsession with wearing butterfly wings everywhere? I can't.

The False Princess - I love fairy tales. Princesses, magic, romance...what more could a girl want? How about a surprisingly complex plot with some unexpected twists, a multi-dimensional female protagonist with morals, and a happy (but not too perfect) ending? That's what The False Princess delivers. It's the story of a girl raised as a princess, but who is told just after her sixteenth birthday that she's just a decoy for the real thing. She is turned out of the castle and sent to live with her only living relative, a harsh woman who neither knows how nor wants to relate to the cast-away princess. How she comes to terms with her life and rebuilds her identity is a great lesson for anyone, especially the teenage girls to whom the book is written.

The Missing series - Margaret Petersen Haddix is one of the most prolific modern YA writers I know of. She is known for her Shadow Children series (another interesting dystopian journey) and for various retellings of fairy tales. In this series, she sets up an interesting premise that lacks sufficient explanation to make it believable, but it's a fun read nevertheless. I liked the second book of the series more; it walked a strange line between science fiction and historical fiction. I know, weird. And yet, I still found myself turning pages to find out what would happen next. I'm currently reading the third of four (so far).

Matched - Matched is another dystopian book, but it's less action-oriented and more introspective. The cover reveals the core conflict in the story. Cassia, the main character is naively confined within her beautiful, "perfect" world. But as she begins to yearn for a voice in her society and the ability to choose her own path, she begins to push against the forces that have encompassed her and everything she knows in life. Author Ally Condie is a Utah native and BYU grad, but don't compare her work to Twilight. This isn't her first novel, but it IS her first that has been nationally marketed (she previously published some LDS fiction with Deseret Book). P.S. - The book is squeaky clean (yay!), which our young adults could use more of, I think.

The Golden Spiral (book 2 in the Hourglass Door series) - A teenage girl becomes intrigued with a mysterious boy who is different from all the other high-schoolers around her. The closer she gets to him, the more complicated, and dangerous, her own world becomes. Sounds like a Twilight copy-cat, right? And, yes, there are some strong similarities (but no vampires here, I promise). The writing is not overly impressive, but the plot is interesting and Lisa Magnum keeps her story considerably less scandalous than Stefanie Meyer's stories. So, if you like the idea of dangerous romance, good vs. evil, and a few surprising twists and turns along the way, it's a good read and definitely a winner with it's target audience.

Experiments

I have a problem. Whenever I have people over for dinner, I decide it's a good idea to experiment. I get so excited about entertaining and making yummy food, that I sometimes neglect to think about the fact that the food might not turn out as planned.

Exhibit A:

This is the peach/nectarine cobbler I made last night. No that's not some fancy pan, it's just that the cobbler's crust boiled over SO much that it completely encased the glass pan. (Thank goodness for the foil sitting on the bottom rack to catch "drips"!)

This "experiment" was after the pesto/mozzarella bread I burned the bottom of by taking the pan from the oven and accidentally putting it on top of a burner that was still on...and after the chicken triangles that I almost couldn't make at all because I forgot that you have to defrost the phyllo dough...OOPS!

The good news: All the food was still edible!

The other good news: I think I successfully "entertained" our guests with all of my cooking antics.

The bad news: That's not the way I intended to entertain them.

The other bad news: I have never seen my kitchen so full of dishes...and that was after I did one round of dishes while I was cooking!

The moral: It's probably fine to experiment when having people over for dinner, but it might be a better idea to choose ONE thing to experiment with instead of THREE!

C'est la vie!

Oh, and remember this guy?
He didn't make this face even once during the chaos. He just pitched in and helped (and laughed). Thanks, My Love!

Beautiful Banff

I love traveling, and I'm constantly talking with Graham about all the neat places I want to visit "someday". We've decided to try to pick at least one new place to go each year. That way, we will eventually work our way through our LONG list of "Places to See Before We Die." This year, as we were talking about possible vacations, Graham said to me, "You know where I've always wanted to go? Banff."

Where?

Maybe you all are more informed than I was, but I had never heard of Banff; I didn't even know how to spell it. Still, Graham's descriptions of gorgeous natural scenery in the Canadian Rockies won me over, and our big summer vacation for this year was decided. Even better, when we were telling my parents about our idea, they said that they had wanted to go to Banff on their honeymoon years ago, but it wasn't feasible at the time. Before we knew it, we had a "double date" vacation. SO FUN!

We took nine days at the beginning of July to drive up through Montana, British Columbia, and Alberta. We went through four national parks: Glacier National Park, Kootenay National Park, Banff National Park, and the southern tip of Jasper National Park. In all of this, we took close to 300 pictures. I will not subject you to all of them here, but I thought I'd share a few along with some of the interesting things I learned along the way.

Top 5 things I learned on our trip:

#5 Glaciers are fascinating, especially to my geology-loving husband. The definition of a glacier is basically any snow that doesn't melt from year to year and compacts over time into ice. Many of the canyons in the areas we visited (and several in Utah, too) were formed by the slow movement of glaciers carving out the rock. Who would have thought that water would win against rock? But it's the constant pressure over time that makes the difference. Cool gospel insight there.

This is the top of the Athabasca Glacier, where it meets the rest of the Columbia Ice Field.

#4 Glaciers not only affect the rock, but they affect the water. Glacial runoff carries tons of minerals into the water (called "rock flour"), which makes light reflect differently. Thus, the crazy light turquoise color. It was brilliant, and not enhanced at all by Photoshop. It really is that vivid.

Peyto Lake overlook. Gorgeous and worth the two mosquito bites I got. :)

#3 Graham's walking cast made a good impersonation of Bigfoot tracks. (FYI - he injured some ligaments right before the trip, so he had a boot part of the time, but we were still able to do quite a bit of hiking. YAY!)

#2 Mom REALLY does not like being up close and personal with large wildlife. She's happier to look from the safety of the car. To be fair, that's smart when dealing with a bear. We all kept our distance with those guys.

This was one of five black bears we came across during our trip. He was really cute, though I wasn't tempted to pet him. Along the way, we also saw four elk, several wild turkeys, countless deer, squirrels, and birds, and some really pretty butterflies and flowers.

See the elk's velvety antlers? So pretty. Apparently the velvet rubs off when they start crashing around and fighting in the fall.

#1 Driving through new countryside can be as good as getting to the destination. There are so many gorgeous places in the world, and not all of them get a lot of attention. We accidentally happened upon many photo-worthy spots as we drove.

P.S. - There are more fun photos on Facebook.

A Few Random Memories

I've neglected my blog in the last few months, and now that I have time, I've realized that I meant to blog about several things, but I never quite got around to it. So this post will be a brief mishmash of a few fun activities we've done during the first half of 2011.

In January, I found out that each winter in Midway, Utah, there is a man who builds ice castles in the town square. It sounded like a unique idea, so Graham and I drove up one night to go look. I wasn't sure what to expect, but I was impressed by the 20+ foot castles that greeted me. You could actually walk through the middle of them (no thrones, though). Sadly, my camera ran out of battery about three minutes after we got there, so I only got a couple of pictures. Oops.

During Graham's busy season at work, I kept myself busy with numerous projects while waiting for him to come home. :) This is a quilt I made for my college roommate Kristy's baby girl. I didn't want to post the picture until after I gave her the quilt, and then I forgot. Oops again.

For my first week of summer vacation, Graham and I drove to California. He had to work in San Jose, so I went with him and split my days between Ann and Teanca, and Kristy. It was so nice to see them all and have a fun way to kick off the summer. One day, Ann, Teanca, and I decided to go to the Villa Montalvo for a picnic and a walk around the grounds (you can see the villa in the distance through the gates).

Here are a few shots from our nature-loving excursion.


Now, off to have some more adventures!

Slowing Down

This video totally inspired me this morning. It's a great reminder to slow down and not get caught up in the craziness of life, and to put down our distractions and look at the life and beauty around us.

I (as I think many people do) have a tendency to rush around and feel like I have to be productive all the time. I have been training myself over the last year to allow myself leisure time and to focus on the moment more. I'm trying to get away from the idea of just "getting through today" or this week, or this month, or this summer, or whatever. I'm trying to enjoy each stage of life, bit by bit, because I only get one life. This summer, as I have a lot more time to slow down, I'm making a goal to enjoy the time, use it well, and not rush myself through it! We'll see how it goes.

So, slow down for three minutes and eleven seconds, watch the video, and see what you think.

How I Defied Death and Became an Angel (of sorts)

Note: This post is a little belated because it took awhile to get the pictures in, but I'm posting it anyway. :)

...

What is a girl to do when her husband has been working long hours, they both finally have a long weekend, and the weather is supposed to be warmer 300 miles away? Take off on a road trip, of course!

Graham and I have been wanting to get away for awhile, but our work schedules hadn't allowed it...until Memorial Day weekend. We decided last minute to take off and go reconnect with each other and the great outdoors in Zion National Park. I have lived in Utah for almost 9 years and I had never been to one of the most popular vacation spots in the state.

We drove down to Cedar city on Friday and relaxed at a hotel there. The next morning, the hotel served a great hot breakfast (YUM!), and then we were off to Zion! We had both been a bit sick, but that didn't stop us from choosing to embark on one of the most strenuous hikes: Angel's Landing. It's 5+ miles of steep switchbacks, a nice walk back into the canyon, more (awful) switchbacks that are named "Walter's Wiggles" to deceptively make them sound fun, and finally, a stroll along a narrow ridge that has HUGE drop-offs on both sides.

But after all the breathless steps and the encouragement from Graham that I wouldn't die, we got our reward: a BEAUTIFUL view of the park, and the knowledge that we had beaten the mountain. Or, better, we had worked with the mountain and ascended to the peak that was seen as unreachable when explorers first came to the area. The name "Angel's Landing" was actually given to the peak because it was thought that only an angel could reach the peak; it was untouchable by man...or so they thought.

(This shot is us on top of the peak in the top picture.)

Of course we didn't stop there. After we got down from the peak, we did two more hikes (MUCH easier ones). By then, we decided that we were sufficiently exhausted and headed home. It was a short trip, but SO much fun. I highly recommend it. But, if you can't go that far, definitely find some mountains to commune with closer to home. It's amazing what they'll say to you when you listen. :)

(Graham poking through a hole in the rock. Erosion and time do cool things to sandstone.)

(Pretty trees in the canyon. I took a lot more pictures in this part of the hike. It was pretty flat and I didn't have to worry as much about dying.)

(Cactus Flower. Who'd have thought that a prickly plant could produce something so beautiful?)

Thanksgiving in April

Yesterday, I finished a book that I had been meaning to read for more than 13 years: The Hiding Place. On the surface, the story is that of a woman who is imprisoned during WWII for aiding Jewish people and hiding them. At its core, though, The Hiding Place is about how faith in Jesus Christ will sustain the weakest person in the harshest of circumstances.

I felt moved to share one of my favorite passages from the book. When the two sisters, Betsie and Corrie, arrive in Ravensbruck (one of the worst of the concentration camps), Corrie is dismayed by their surroundings. She implores the Lord aloud in prayer, "Show us how to live here."

Betsie, always full of faith, finds her answer in 1 Thessalonians 5:18. "In everything give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you."

Corrie, a bit skeptical, challenges Betsie in the following conversation:

Betsie said, "We can start right now to thank God for every single thing about his new barracks."

I stared at her, then around me at the dark, foul aired room. "Such as?" I said.

“Such as being assigned her together."

I bit my lip, "Oh Yes, Lord Jesus!"

"Such as what you're holding in your hands."

I looked down at the Bible. "Yes! Thank You, dear Lord, that there was no inspection when we entered here! Thank You for all the women here in this room who will meet You in these pages."

"Yes," said Betsie. "Thank You for the very crowding here. Since we're packed so close, that many more will hear. She looked at me expectantly, "Corrie!" she prodded.

"Oh, all right. Thank You for the jammed, crammed, stuffed, packed suffocating crowds."

"Thank you," Betsie went on serenely, "for the fleas and for--"

The FLEAS!! This was too much. Betsie, there's no way even God can make me grateful for a flea."

"Give thanks in All circumstances," she quoted. "It doesn't say in pleasant circumstances. Fleas are part of this place where God has put us."

And so we stood between piers to bunks and gave thanks for fleas. But this time I was sure Betsie was wrong.

As I read this, I admired Betsie's faith and optimism, but, frankly, I agreed with Corrie. There was no possible way that fleas could be part of God's plan. Surely, there are some things we are just meant to endure, but we don't have to be thankful for them.

I was wrong. Betsie was right. The Lord really did mean ALL things.

I was humbled to this realization a little farther on in the book when Betsie realizes why the women are given so much freedom in their bunkroom. In this room, Corrie and Betsie held prayer meetings and read their smuggled Bible (a miracle all its own) to the other prisoners. Had they been caught, they would have been immediately executed. However, no guards supervised their activities in the bunkhouse. Why?

Betsie excitedly told Corrie, "I found out for sure, Corrie. I overheard two guards. The guards will not step foot in the bunkroom because of the FLEAS! Thank God for the fleas!"

Truly, the Lord works in mysterious ways. Surely, the fleas weren't enjoyable. But, the Lord can use even a flea to bless the lives of his children in unconventional and unexpected ways. May we always be thankful for whatever experiences life brings, even if we don't understand how it could possibly be a blessing.