Best Vampire Book Series EVER!

Okay, I just finished reading Breaking Dawn - the final book of the Twilight Series by Stephenie Meyer. I have to say I'm absolutely in LOVE with this series! The writing is amazing, the characters unbelievable, the world so alive! So, if anyone is looking for gift ideas for me in the future - a box set of all 4 books when it's available would be AWESOME!

For anyone who hasn't read or even heard of this series - a quick explanation. I'll try to avoid anything remotely resembling a spoiler, because (as anyone who knows me well will attest) I really prefer to let everyone experience the whole story on it's own!. In Twilight - the first book of the series, you have Bella, a sun-loving daughter of a broken family essentially banishing herself to the relatively sun-free small town of Forks, Washington where her father lives. She's fairly miserable and has a pretty low self-esteem. She soon meets and becomes emotionally attached to a boy (and by extension his "family") who has some pretty big secrets.

The book has been marketed as Young Adult, but I know MANY adults who have fallen in love with this story - and for good reason. The author herself mentions on her website that she really just wrote this story for herself, not really expecting it to become the sensation that it did. Written for herself - a grown woman! Therefore, I can see why it might appeal to an older set than "Young Adult". Also, she's a Mormon, so the content is really clean until the last book - Breaking Dawn. And even then it's just a few mild words and the sexual content is extremely tame - nothing descriptive. More like the good old days in movies where they couple might kiss and head to the bedroom and then the screen fades to black....... You know what's happening - but she lets your imagination do the work ;)

Anyway - I love it! The final book was awesome, I am not in the least disappointed! Thank you to Stephenie for the wonderful world she shared with us, and I can't wait for Edwards book to hit the shelf (Edwards book is Twilight from the guy's perspective....)

New Car!

Okay, any of our friends and family know that we have been driving the quintessential POS for about, oh, EVER. Our old 1994 Pontiac TransSport van, that we've spent 3 times it's worth just to keep running, whose A/C doesn't work AT ALL and whose power windows don't work and are stuck in the UP position - making it a veritable oven in this Texas heat. Well, it failed it's State inspection in March, so we've been driving around in at just waiting to be pulled over and ticketed. That never happened - HOWEVER, our apartment did tag it for towing, giving us until the 3rd to deal with one way or another. We've had no desire to keep this van, since it's in such bad condition and can't really BE maintained at this point. We've just continued in it waiting for CyberChaun to start teaching this fall (nothing's written in stone about that and we haven't wanted to count our chickens before they hatch - our luck runs in the bad direction most times....) But, under this new deadline, we went ahead and took the plunge and got ourselves a new vehicle! And here's our story:

We weren't sure what we wanted - except a van since we have 3 heathens and then they have friends........ But living in this city we drive by dozens of HUGE car lots of all varieties daily. So, first I did some searching of used vehicles online. I wasn't impressed but found a couple workable possibilities. But for some reason, CyberChaun and I have been drawn time again to this little Kia dealership next to our preferred gas station. So yesterday we decide to just go and see what they had in the way of used Kias. When we got there, we expected to look around, talk to the smarmy salesman/woman who tagged us, be laughed at (because our credit is sketchy at best and we have no down-payment and no one WANTS that van as a trade-in, and we're looking for a low monthly payment). Well, what HAPPENED is a bit different. When we got there, a salesman DID tag us promptly. He introduced himself and asked what we were looking for. We went inside out of this insane heat and we told him our stipulations. He was glassy-eyed for a moment, but then moved on. He noticed our wedding bands. Well, he soon used a Bible reference as part of his sales pitch and I mentally rolled my eyes. I'm thinking "He did not just try and use my beliefs as a means to sale me a car......" But he was. We talked about our credit and did some pre-qualifying. Turns out, our credit isn't good enough for a bank to finance us on a used vehicle. He explained this and it made perfect sense at the time - but I couldn't begin to repeat it now. So we're on to new cars. Eek! Expensive, serious depreciation, not the direction we wanted to go. But okay - let's see what the guy can do. We went out and took a test drive, and we joked around a little bit. The car was nice - we liked it a lot. Anything, of course, was better than what we HAD been driving after all..... When we got back inside, the guy was pretty sincere (after learning about our current vehicle) about getting us into a car SOMEHOW that fit our needs and our budget. And he worked pretty darn hard to do so. He couldn't quite get the payments down to our maximum monthly payment, but after a lot of rebates and simply knocking off a couple grand more (I don't think he made ANY money off us) he actually got it less than $50 over our max. So we took it. At this point the paperwork began, and we kept waiting for him to come back and tell us that the bank laughed. Or at the very least wanted a co-signer. The next shock came when he said - "it's done, I need your IDs and insurance". Blink Blink. Huh? Yes, absolutely went through without hardly a hiccup. So as I head over to his laptop to go ahead and replace the POS with this brand new vehicle on my insurance, I see something interesting. On his laptop are 2 David Crowder Band stickers........who listend to Dave Crowder band? Well, mostly Christians do. So I make a comment, and he's like "oh yeah! I've been to 2 of their concerts this year and plan on going to another one! They're gonna be at Six Flags with Skillet!" Skillet!!??!! I LOVE SKillet, and it's ANOTHER Christian band. SO here it turns out that guy wasn't just "using" our beliefs against us - actually shares them, and our rings just made him comfortable with sharing his thoughts on our situation. So we get everything taken care of (ouch on the cost of full coverage - it's been forever since we've needed that!) And the salesman goes to get the car ready to drive home! We of course then deal with the sales manager to sign all the dotted lines. When we go to pick up the keys, the salesman had made a quick cardboard sign he'd put in the front, saying "Congratulations! And God has blessed you!" CyberChaun gets into the car and turns on the radio, and guess what? It's already tuned into our favorite Christian Rock/Alternative station (which isn't the station that gets the most play in this area by a long shot - so it's really cool that the guy knew it)! So it was just pretty darn cool! And since everyone wants to know (pics will follow), we now have a brand new, midnight blue Kia Sorento!

Been A While.....

Sorry about that. See, we were without internet for about 2 and a half weeks. Not a very interesting story - just switching service providers. But now we're back up and running, so all's good! Not much to share at this time. We're just spending our time working, cleaning and playing. In a few more weeks I guess back-to-school activities will be beginning, and my mother will be here visiting as well. So, there'll probably be lots more posting happening then!

Be Still My Beating Heart........

Okay, I am SO FREAKING EXCITED!!!!!!! And it's so very cool to have this information before my husband ;) What information? Oh, I didn't say? So very sorry!

My excitement this day is over the news that a third installment of my ALL-TIME favorite game is in the works!!!!!!!!

Check THIS out!

If you're not a gamer......I pity you. However, I know you exist, so you can feel free to ignore this post and move on. The rest of you, however, my feel free to drool (just not on your keyboard - that could be problematic).

I really can't say anymore - I'm too excited for sustained coherent speech......typing......whatever......

A Plea For Help

There is this fun little site that my heathens (and I'll admit it - I like to play there, too) enjoy called Dollmakers. It's the new generation of paper dolls, lots of fun. I haven't been on in AGES - but decided to pop on today. On the main page, I see a link to THIS.

Now, I haven't checked it out completely, but so far it seems very legit. I encourage everyone to first check it out, then to give if you can!

That's it for today!

Yeah I know - it's been too long

So, it seems it's still hard for me to make time to post. I'll keep working on it, though. So, things are busy as usual. The Cyberchaun and Heathen number 1 are preparing to go on the church Youth Summer Camp. Which means I'M doing a lot of laundry and packing so that they have all they need. I've also been going through a lot of fabric - but that's something I'll talk about another day ;)

I did promise some pictures of awards and such, so that's what I'm doing today. First a picture of Heathen number 3 with her awards.



It's been too long now - I've slept a lot since then - so I can't remember all the awards she got. Obviously Math Wizard was one of them. I'm pretty sure that Sunshine was one as well - she's always happy (at school at least). Of course she got the Spirit Award - for wearing her uniform everyday (insert eyeroll here)

And now for Heathen number 2.......



Again, I can't remember all the awards. And I can't quite make out what that first one says......anyway - he got 5 of them.

That same day, Heathen number 3 and her Explorers group put on a play in the library. Here are some pics:







The blondie, of course, being mine. She was Little Red Riding Hood. I actually filmed it on my camera, but the quality is extremely poor, and I don't have a handy place to host it at the moment, so there :P

And now for Heathen number 1. We weren't able to go to her school awards due to work. She got an academic award and a Sports award. But we DID make it to her DukeTIPS award ceremony, and here is a pic from after the ceremony, and then one from around the UNT campus where it was held:




There are actually more pictures - of all the kids - but they are all on The Cyberchan's phone, and he has yet to pass them on to me :s

So that's it for today. I need to eat lunch and then get back to the laundry. It never ends..........

Better Late Than Never

SO it's taken me a while to have the time to get my pictures from my phone and get them hosted and then have time to make a post, but here I am! Today I'll be sharing with you some about my two youngest heathens. There has been a lot in our lives lately revolving around the eldest heathen, so they need some special time of their own. The school year is over, and one of the great things about elementary school at the end of the year is that there aren't finals, instead there are parties! YAY!!

SO, the last Friday of school (which is not to be confused with the last DAY of school) was what they now call Buddy Fun Day. Now, back in the day (cough cough) we had Field Day. And on Field Day they actually had little track and field events. The 50 yard dash, long jump. Along with some more fun events such as the three-legged race and the ever popular egg race. (You remember - the one where they put the raw egg in the spoon and you had to run without letting the egg fall out and break). Well, they don't do that anymore.

In this day of anti-competitiveness (because no one competes in the real world and everyone is a winner - what a disservice we're doing today's youth - but that's a rant for another day), they have changed it to Buddy Fun Day, where the kids are paired off with a peer and they run around aimlessly playing silly little games like go fish, or eating powdered donuts off a string, while getting rewarded for being polite (saying please and thank you) and for showing good sportsmanship (saying good job to your buddy or the pair who played before you, etc.)

I volunteer for Buddy Fun Day in some way every year. Last year was easy - I was the water station and simply handed out water to the youngsters. That worked for me because I am unashamedly lazy at heart. This year I had the station called "Football Flag Tag". Do not be fooled - the only thing it has in common with football is that one person holds the football. They both put those little flag-belts on. One holds the football -making them "it". They have to stay in a circle spray-painted on the ground while the football-less child chases the other and tries to yank off their flag-belt. It takes all of 5 seconds for most kids. So I did that all day - and got a pretty bad sunburn in the process. (Yes - I DID put on sunscreen! Apparently it just doesn't matter. Burning is my lot in life......) I got a couple pics of the kiddos that day that I'm sharing here:



That one on the left belongs to me. No, she doesn't have a strange skin-peeling disease on her face - that's powdered sugar from that event I mentioned earlier.......



My boy is on the right - isn't he handsome? I know - the hair. He has this really cute Pete Wentz haircut - that just looks like a bowl cut without the gel. I just didn't see a point in fixing his hair that day - it wouldn't have lived through the water games or the wind anyway.



And here they are together. Awwwwwwww........hey - I've got an even cuter one (although it didn't come out quite as good....)



They never really got the memo that they aren't supposed to like each other.......

Coming Soon: Awards ceremonies and last days of school!