First Days of School 2010

Time for written and visual documentation of the first days of school for my kiddos this year. Whew, summer went by so fast! I can't believe Sophie and Ben have been in school for well over a month now. They are all enjoying school and preschool. Sophie feels especially grown up at middle school and Ben is actually loving being in school all day as a first grader (here kindergarten is only half-day). Nina comes home from preschool in such a cheerful mood - she loves Miss Stacey so much!

Sophie, 6th grade

Ben, 1st grade


Nina, preschool

Mom, aren't you glad I finally put pictures on my blog!!:)

Birthday Weekend

I had the best birthday weekend!! Adrian and I went on a date last Friday night to the King Tut exhibit which was awesome! I got to see one of my favorite ancient works of art, a statue of the Pharaoh Akhenaten and the audio tour of the exhibit was narrated by Harrison Ford. How cool is that?! Then on Saturday we went, with Jenny and her family, to the BYU vs. Air Force game in Colorado Springs. Sadly the Cougars didn't do so well, but it was still lots of fun. When we got home I was shocked to see my garage doors covered with hearts and a happy birthday sign. I was heart-attacked by some wonderfully kind friends who made me feel so loved. Then there was the family party on Sunday with cake (delicious peanut butter chocolate cake!) and ice cream and presents and cards. I was spoiled. Thank you thank you to my husband, family, and sweet friends who made my birthday special! I'm a lucky girl and you made me feel much better about turning 33!:)

Mockingjay

First Things First
Hello! I could be blogging about so so many things right now. Like more about unpacking and getting settled in our house. Or I could write about the fabulous time I had at BYU Education Week (I really must another day, because it was awesome!!) or the scary fact that I now have a child in preschool, a child in elementary school, and a child in middle school. None of which ride a bus. I am responsible to get these 3 children to and from school everyday!! 3 different drop off times. 3 different pick up times. What has happened to my life?? But luckily I am part of 2 carpools. I am already insane right now, but I am telling you I would be institutionalize-able if it weren't for my middle school and preschool carpool. But this week I am the driver for both carpools and of course also taking Ben to and from the elementary school. So yes, this week I will probably lose it. Any time now. Wait for it. No, actually right now I'm okay. Check back with me on Friday. So while I'm okay instead of writing in more depth about those probably more important things I'm going to write about Mockingjay. Mockingjay!!! You should probably stop reading now if you haven't read it yet or ever plan on it.

***SPOILER ALERT****
Getting the Book and My Tizzy Fit
Despite my loathing of series-books (except for HP *said in a reverent tone*) I really couldn't wait for Mockingjay to come out. More like I REALLY COULDN'T WAIT TO FIND OUT WHAT THE CRUD HAPPENED TO PEETA. Sorry about that. It's just that I hated the way Catching Fire ended. I wanted to stomp up and down on that book because of the way it leaves you hanging. It was awful. So. I got Mockingjay the day it came out. I just had to have the final book in my hands. Did I plan on reading it that day? No. But I HAD to know I had it on the first day possible. Crazy. Then I made myself wait to read it. I needed to finish my book club book (Zookeeper's Wife - very good, but not a page turner) and continue to clothe, feed, and run carpools for my children. I knew once I started Mockingjay I wouldn't stop till I finished it. So Friday evening the conditions were perfect. I was waiting for Sophie at her piano lesson and I started reading and guess what, no Peeta! He was off being tortured by the capitol and I was left alone with Katniss and freaking Gale (can you tell I'm Team Peeta) in oh-so-scifi-District 13. I threw a little private tizzy-fit and stopped reading. Darn it, but I wanted Peeta back in the story. Well my little tizzy fit lasted about a day and then I decided I can't have everything that I want and that I would stick it out and pay attention to the story line rather than be all disgruntled. I'm glad I sorted myself out because when I picked the book back up I was riveted. I couldn't put it down. Whoa, what a ride Mockingjay was! It has taken me a few days just to collect my thoughts and decide exactly what I thought about this book. It makes you think and that's a good thing, right?!

Actual Book Review
I guess this book makes it clear that Suzanne Collins is no warm fuzzy young adult fiction writer. Nope. Mockingjay was violent, intense, and disturbing. Things were not neatly wrapped up as so many current writers (*cough*stepheniemeyer*cough*) like to end their multiple book series (*cough*breakingdawn*cough*). At some points I thought the violence was a little much. Yeah, my limit was reached at the end with the children and the parachutes and all the death. That was too much. But overall I really liked it. A lot.

The characters were written with depth. I'm glad we got to understand the back-stories of Finnick, Haymitch, and Gale and Katniss. I liked the stuff thrown in about Katniss' father. That little tune he sang was uber creepy. I liked that we got to see many character's underlying agenda. Gale turned out to be twisted Mr. GI Joe with some deep Capitol hatred. Plutarch didn't end up being the revolutionary leader I thought he was going to be at the end of Catching Fire. No he was a total media-mogul type just wanting to exploit anyone he could for "good TV". That's what I loved - that I was surprised all the time by Mockingjay. Nothing ever happened that I thought would happen other than Peeta and Katniss ending up together. Even that was different then I thought it would be. I love the unpredictability.

And then there was good meaty stuff. I was just talking with a friend about the great symbolism with President Snow always having those flowers around to cover the his real scent of blood/covering his real intentions and agenda at all times. And Coin who was "two-sided" being corrupted by power just like Snow. When they talked about having a Hunger Games again at the end there I knew Katniss was going to take Coin out and she did! That was a great twist. So no Mockingjay wasn't Hamlet, but it was a complex story that made you think a little deeper than your standard young adult fiction and that was refreshing.

Okay, so now I'll talk about how I was totally traumatized in addition to liking it. Was anyone expecting Finnick to die like that?? Man, it was awful. I had to reread that twice just to make sure there was no loop-hole for him. Death by mutant lizard people. Not cool. Finnick was my very favorite side character and he just barely got to be with Annie and they just got married... Then he died. And Prim. Oh that scene made me nauseous. The children and the parachutes and Gale's strategy and Coin putting Prim there. It was all so horrible. I almost couldn't handle it. And then of course I was completely traumatized by Peeta finally coming back and then trying to KILL Katniss. What the?? That was unexpected. But I loved the part were he got to talk about what a dork Katniss was never picking between him and Gale. That needed to be said and it was clever how Collins made that happen. So I was okay with Peeta's story line even though he was gone, then all wrong, then psycho-killer, then back to being sweet Peeta. I liked the honest approach for the ending. I agree that with what happened in this book those characters would be sad broken people at the end just trying to eke out some kind of life and it was fitting for them to end up in the ruins of District 12. It felt real and I appreciated that. Would I have liked a couple chapters at the end on Peeta and Katniss living again and falling in love again? Yeah, that would have been nice, but then that would have been tied up a little too neatly and this was so not a neatly tied up kind of book.

So there you go. I liked it. I recommend this series to anyone who is ready for some gritty-action stuff. I still think I like Hunger Games the best, but I'm so happy that I wasn't totally let down by a end-of-the-series-book again. It was good.

Jenni's Hunger Games Cast
One of my favorite parts about starting a book is casting the characters. So here's my own little IMDB version of the Hunger Games Series (the other characters are just kinda random people in my head, but these one's are identifiable):

Katniss - Avril Lavigne with mousy brown hair (I know, kind a weird, but it worked for me)

Peeta - Pacey from Dawson's Creek, aka Joshua Jackson

Gale - Riley from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, aka Marc Blucas

Coin - Sigorny Weaver

Finnick - Robert Pattinson (can you see why I had such a problem with him dying?!)

Johanna - Scary Spice (hee hee)

President Snow - Bill Nighy (not the science guy, the one from Love Actually and Underworld)