{wordless} Wednesday

Safe Haven by Nicholas Sparks

I love Nicholas Sparks-- he is one of my favorite authors.
This book was a little different from Sparks' typical love story. Sure, it is a love story, but it started out much differently. It wasn't a "love at first sight" story like most of his books are. This story moved very quickly and it had a somewhat surprising ending.
Katie is new in town- she moves into a small house and works at Ivan's, a local restaurant in South Port. She meets her neighbor, Jo, and starts a friendship. She also meets the local store owner, Alex, who has two kids. Katie learns that his wife died a few years ago and left Alex to raise his kids alone. Katie, on the other hand, doesn't want to tell anyone about herself. She fears that her husband, Kevin, will find her. Kevin is a violent, controlling drunk, who also happens to be a police officer. Katie knows that if he ever finds her, he will kill her. I really hated this control freak!
I listened to this audiobook during my daily commute. A few times I listened while I was on my lunch break, especially at the end. Very good book!
4.5 out of 5 stars and highly recommended.

The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson

This book started out very slow to me- but I couldn't put it down once I got into it. The story begins when Henrik Vanger receives the mysterious birthday present, a pressed flower, that he gets every year. He thinks someone is messing with him from years ago. His grand niece Harriet started this tradition on his birthday one year when she was a young girl. The mystery of the sender has him as puzzled as the mystery of Harriets' disappearance years ago.
Then the book moves to the trial of journalist Mikael Blomkvist. He is accused of libel. He is found guilty and sentenced to jail time and a huge fee. After the trial, he is contacted by Henrik Vanger to write his autobiography, but more importantly, to investigate Harriets' disappearance that happened over 40 years ago.
Another story that is going on is about Lisbeth Salander, a tattooed up, anorexic looking girl who works for Dragan Armansky doing background checks on people. They work for Milton Securities- Salander is a computer hacker and a little bit of a freakshow. ;)
Once Blomkvist starts working for Vanger, you find out how Salander fits in. This is a great story with a lot of intriguing characters. I liked it- and I would recommend it. I can't wait to read the other two books in the trilogy.
4 out of 5 stars...

Nature & Science Museum--March 12th

Last Saturday Kyle and I took the boys to the Real Pirates exhibit at the Nature & Science Museum in Denver. This was also Austin’s first time at the museum. The exhibit was really fun-- the boys love anything having to do with pirates, so they are easy. The exhibit features the untold story of Whydah, from slave ship to pirate ship. This was the first authentic pirate ship to be discovered in U.S. waters. The bell that was on the ship is at the exhibit-- which is how the remains of the ship were found. We learned about the pirates on board that ship-- even the 9 yr. old boy, John King and Captain Sam Bellamy. We saw the booty that was discovered with the ship and even got to touch some of the silver coins. The boys got pirate hats and tattoos at the end of the exhibit.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whydah_Gally
We walked around the dinosaur exhibit, the native North American Animals exhibit and the space exhibit before calling it a day. We were all hungry and Jack-n-Grill was calling our name! ;)

{Blue Bell} is now in CO!!!!

Finally!!! Blue Bell, the best ice cream in the country!

I bought the new flavor, Rocky Mountain Road, to share with my co-workers and we all loved it.

Happy day for all of us Texans living in Colorado! ;)

{winter park}, CO

So, this family loves the mountains. We were planning to stay overnight in WP, but we ended up coming home because it started to snow Saturday night and I didn’t want to run the risk of being stranded on the West side of the Eisenhower Tunnel on Sunday. We still had plenty of time in Winter Park, and even squeezed in some time to shop at the Outlet stores in Silverthorne before dinner at The Mint.

Peyton & Brendan had a BLAST snow boarding at Berthoud Pass-- I took Austin on a few runs on the sled, which he didn’t like… Kyle took the sled and the boys down the mountain-- about a mile and a half run. I picked them up on the way out of town. They had a blast-- Kyle was telling me about it as if he were a little kid again. ;) Boys are hilarious. Austin was content just watching the movie Cars in the van, all warm and cozy in his carseat. He was so cute in that snow suit, though, and wouldn’t you know I didn’t even think to take a picture of his cute self. :( Next time!

We decided to go to Silverthorne to shop for a little while at the Outlet Mall. Bug needed new shoes. What a good excuse! We only hit a few stores, but I found a lot of cute stuff for Austin and even a few shirts for P & B.

Next-- DINNER at The Mint. This place was cool-- you cook your own steaks. YUM! It’s set up for you to pick your own steak at their “butcher shop” then you take it to the grills. There are seasonings to use and you cook to your liking. Kyle had the cooking under control-- and enjoyed talking about baseball with the other guys that were cooking . ha! An expensive dinner but we had a lot of fun. It was a great ending to our day.

**as we were leaving The Mint, it was snowing. This made for an interesting drive home down I-70! On another note, Austin did not cry on this car ride at all!!! I think he may be outgrowing his hatred for the van! ;) This is HUGE!