A Daddy-J Brag!

Google Alert just found this great article about Daddy-J on UtahPulse.com. Read and enjoy!

Fun ski day!

Daddy-J and I took the opportunity today to take the littles to the ski hill. K-Wiggles still has no interest whatsoever in any sport that involves her feet moving in unusual ways vis-a-vis the ground (like ice skating or skiing). She's a maniac in the water... literally no fear, but don't ask her to slide on frozen water!

M-Moo, on the other hand, is a skiing and skating champ. Seriously, this kid will be out-skiing her big sister in no time (her big sister who's been skiing since she could walk, mind you!). She's making her way down the beginner-beginner run pretty much by herself. Daddy-J even took her on the beginner chair and helped her ski down "super fast."

K-Wiggles and I, meanwhile, made a series of snow angels, had a couple of snowball fights (well, we tried... that darn Utah powder is terrible for snowballs), and then went inside for M&Ms.

Thankfully, everyone made it home safe. It was really chilly, somewhere around 15 degrees, which is super cold for these parts.

Oh, and for anyone who was wondering, Miss D was off galavanting with her G'Pa Larry for the afternoon. I think they went grocery shopping, toy shopping, and flower shopping. Sounds tiring, huh?!

Added two new books to my Shelfari bookshelf.

I got a new BookSwim shipment a week or so ago. This afternoon I finally finished The World Without Us, by Alan Weisman. I thoroughly enjoyed it, but it was a bit fragmented. I felt like it was a lot of interesting tidbits, but it didn't really cohere as a book. I guess it reads a bit like it was a magazine piece that got expanded into a book, which is what it was. Still well worth reading.

The two new books I'm adding are Final Salute, and Bright, Shiny Morning. Final Salute is about Steve Beck, a Marine who does family notification. I thumbed through the book this evening and looked at the pictures in the middle of the book. I know I'm going to cry my eyes out reading this, but I figure that all these Americans have lost their lives for this country, and their families (and all the other military personnel and military families out there) have made and continue to make unimaginable sacrifices. The least I can do is read a book honoring the fallen soldiers and the soldier that tries to ease their families' pain.

One little tidbit that I got just from reading the photo captions... all branches of the military award posthumous medals. The medals used to arrive at their families' mailboxes, loose in a brown manila envelope. Somebody realized that just wasn't right, and now there is a group that makes sure that every posthumous medal is awarded with a full pinning ceremony.

Anyway, I'm sure most of you know my politics (or like to assume you do!), but as far as I'm concerned, support of the ordinary people and families that make up our military utterly transcends politics. It's part of why I still get choked up every time I go to a sporting event and hear the American national anthem.

Ok, enough about that.

The other book is by James Frey. You may remember that he wrote a "memoir" a few years back, called A Million Little Pieces, which was apparently utterly debunked and exposed as mostly fiction. I never read the memoir (though I might go back and read it someday), but his new book is getting good reviews for being wildly inventive and creative (go figure!), and I thought it was worth putting on my BookSwim list.

I'll try to do a review of each of the books as I get them finished. I know, you're on tenterhooks!