The Kindle

My father-in-law gave me an Amazon Kindle for my birthday last year...lucky me! :) I wanted to share 2 of my favorite books. The first book I would recommend, is a book called The Passage. It was really long, but excellent book. I can't wait for the sequel! The other book I really enjoyed was a book called The Help. I think this is one of my all time favorite books now. I would totally recommend it! It isn't very long, but is such a beautifully written book and you will fall in love with the characters. I read this book while I was on vacation and I think I annoyed my family because I always had my nose in the Kindle. :)

I always worry about starting new books because if they are good, I can't put them down. Which means I become a bit neglectful of my family.

Fun in the Pool! :)

Joshua and Christopher are playing in the pool with their neighborhood friends today and I'm sitting at the computer at the small kitchen table watching the fun out the window. :) They were having such a good time, I had to go out and snap some quick pictures of them.

The pool was a GREAT investment! :))

Jimmy....Before He had to Shave for Work After our Vacation

I love it when Jimmy grows some facial hair during vacation time. :) Joshua took the pic of us sitting on our couch in the basement relaxing before bedtime. Notice the sweatshirt I got from Carlsbad Caverns.

Fun at the Lake

The end of the summer vacation was spent at Lake Eufaula in Oklahoma. How lucky are we to be able spend several days on a lake! Jimmy's Dad owns a home on Lake Eufaula....literally right on the lake. In addition to that, Jimmy's aunt and uncle live next door and they own a super-cool boat. So we got to spend a couple days on a boat on the lake. The best part according to the boys was being pulled on a tube behind the boat. Joshua and Christopher rode the tube together and Jimmy and Matthew rode together. The first day, the water was calm and we were definitely more cautious. Not too fast. :)

The second day, the boys were braver and ready to go really fast. The water was choppy this day, so they were bouncing all over the place and looked close to being thrown off the tube! Then, Christopher took his hands off the handles to wipe the water out of his eyes and got thrown from the tube. He thought that was great fun of course! Then, Joshua decided he needed to get thrown from the tube too. So, Jim (Jimmy's uncle) spent the next several minutes doing his best to throw the kids from the tube. He finally succeeded. :)

Not only did the boys have the lake to enjoy, but Grandpa Nugent has his own personal theater with the latest game system. They also enjoyed his large pool table in the living room. I personally enjoyed Braums :) For those of you who don't know about Braums, it is an ice cream store that sells the best ice cream and hamburgers! I have to admit, I enjoyed the chocolate cappuccino crunch sundae with carmel, pecans and whipped cream more than once. :)

Carlsbad, NM!

Last stop on our NM vacation, Carlsbad. I had been there as a child and have very fond memories of it, so I really wanted the boys to have the chance to see it. It didn't dissapoint us one bit. The boys loved the cave tours and wanted more, but unfortunately we didn't have time to do the more advanced tours. We took the hike down at the mouth of the cave. It was beautiful and so breathtaking. Quite something to think of the first guy who ventured into the cave with only a small oil lamp to light his way. After we got down to the level where the restrooms were and the small cafe, we took the King's Palace tour. That was my favorite part of the trip. I just wish I had a better camera with me. It was hard to get good pictures. We also took the self-guided tour of the big room. Just an amazing experience all the way around. :)

The next day, we took the boys on a short hike to see a waterfall called Sitting Bull Falls. It was beautiful and the boys loved swimming in the swimming hole at the bottom of the falls. They climbed up the waterfall face a short distant and posed for some good pictures. :)

The last day before we left, we took the entrance cave hike down again, but this time we went slower since we didn't have to get to the bottom before the King Palace Tour started. Unfortunately, one of the cave swallows (the nasty birds that fly around the entrance of the cave) pooped on my head. Nasty! Luckily Jimmy had some baby wipes and cleaned my hair for me. Other than that, the hike down was wonderful. We really enjoyed using Jimmy's LED flashlight to peer into dark crevices along the way down to the bottom.

I know I mentioned in an earlier post about the hotel I found in Carlsbad and how excited I was to stay in it....well....it was just as I hoped it would be. :) The hotel was luxurious, comfortable, warm and inviting. The old details of the century old building were a delight to see all around us. I found out the man who killed Billy the Kid had an office in the building at one time. Lots of interesting history associated with the building. :) The hotel had a really nice restaurant on the first floor. As part of our stay at the hotel, we were able to order anything off the menu for breakfast and it was free. Jimmy and the boys enjoyed everything from steak and eggs, monte cristo, french toast and pancakes. I loved the oatmeal and yogurt with fruit. It was a really nice way to start each day we spent in Carlsbad. :)

Next post will be about our time at the Lake when we stayed with Jimmy's Dad. Lots of good pics of the boys on a big tube being pulled behind a boat!

Awwwwww.....Summer fun!

Next Stop....Las Cruces, NM!

After we left the Ice Cave, we drove to Las Cruces and checked into our hotel. The boys had another fun time swimming and we all enjoyed the complimentary dinner that was served at the hotel. Next morning, we drove to White Sands to play in the white sand of course! :)

Something about New Mexico....it has A LOT of wide open spaces with no civilization for hours. I was the primary driver because I get carsick when I'm a passenger. I had done a pretty good job of keeping the gas tank filled up, but for some reason I totally forgot to glance at it and realized I was on empty and quite far from a gas station....ugh. We came upon a road block where we were forced off the highway so that border control could check and verify we were American citizens. This was pretty close to White Sands, but my gas light had come on and I was getting really worried about running out of gas. We were driving a minivan that we rented for the trip and so it burned gas pretty fast. Luckily, the border control cop was able to direct me to a gas station and we made it without running out of gas. :)

After filling our tank and wiping the sweat off my brow, we drove the last few miles to the White Sands National Park. We decided it was just WAY too HOT to hike the dunes in August, so we opted to buy (rent really) some saucer style sleds you usually use on snow and drive to the dunes so the boys could sled down the sand dunes. There is a really great drive you can take that is about 16 miles round trip that takes you through the park. It was basically a sea of white sand dunes all around us. Finally, we stopped and let the kids get out and climb the dunes with their sleds so they could slide down. They had a great time despite how HOT it was. Even Jimmy and I took part in the sand sledding. :)

Vacation in New Mexico....First Stop....Albuquerque!

I'm finally getting around to blogging about our vacation. :) First we went to Albuquerque, NM so that we could visit the Bandera Volcano and Ice Cave. After we arrived at our hotel room, the boys swam and had the complimentary dinner that was offered at the hotel. Then, we got them settled down with a good movie and Jimmy and I left and went to a restaurant to have dinner that we had seen on the Foodnetwork's show, Diners, Drive-ins and Dives. It was in a sketchy part of downtown, located behind a bowling alley, but the food was AMAZING! We started with an appetizer of shrimp cocktail (this was unlike any shrimp cocktail we had ever eaten) and then Jimmy had a salmon dish and I had duck enchiladas. I just can't fully describe just how amazing the food was!

The next morning, we checked out of our hotel and went to see the Bandera Volcano and the Ice Cave. We had to hike up a mountain (not too bad, and the trail was actually a dirt road) to see the mouth of the volcano. It was breathtaking and quite amazing. Then, we hiked down and took another short hike the other direction to see the Ice Cave. It was quite something to start down the stairs to the Ice Cave and have it sweltering hot at the entrance, but start to feel the cool air as we descended. The hand rail got cooler and cooler as we descended and the cool air felt so good on our sweaty bodies. By the time we reached the bottom and stood on the deck and looked out at the ice, we were actually getting cold since the temperature at the bottom never gets above 31 degrees even in the summer. Very, very cool experience!

I want to move.....

I just arrived home after our great vacation and will post lots of pics and stories later today, but I have something on my mind and needed to blog about it. :)

I LOVE my house here in Urbana, IL and I love the friends my sons have here in the neighborhood. I also love the downtown and living in a very light urban neighborhood. But, I really, really miss having friends. I've lived here in Illinois for 8 years and have made only 1 good friend since I've been here. She moved 18 months ago. :( It was one of those perfect scenarios where she lived across the street with her husband and Jimmy and her husband got along great too. I have made a couple of acquaintances since moving here, but really no close friends. It is not for lack of trying, but I find that this area is one where if you are not born and raised here, or are not a part of the university professor club, you really have no chance of making longtime connections. Lately, I realize I really NEED that female connection with friends. I want to live in the kind of neighborhood where everyone knows their neighbors and people look out for each other. Where neighbors do things together.

I found that neighborhood 18 months ago.....and Jimmy and I even went and visited it. It is a downtown neighborhood in Jacksonville, FL called Springfield. I discovered it when I was looking at locations where Jimmy's company has facilities. We have been there twice. Once with the boys and once with just Jimmy and I. I actually made connections with several people (other stay at home moms) living in the neighborhood. We talked on the phone, emailed, and I was a part of the neighborhood forum. Let me give you some information on Springfield. It is a neighborhood just north of downtown Jacksonville. It was a blighted neighborhood until the late 90's. It was overrun with drugs, prostitution and shootings. But, it had beautiful, huge homes. So, some brave souls moved in and started refurbishing the homes and reclaiming the neighborhood. It was really tough for the first ones to move to Springfield. Slowly but surely the crime went down and a neighborhood was born. Now, the residents of Springfield still fight crime (it is, after all, a downtown neighborhood) but spend more time at block parties, traveling cocktail parties, old-time baseball games, growing a community garden, beautifying the huge parks surrounding the neighborhood and looking out for each other. :) This is exactly what I want in a neighborhood. Not to mention, the beach is very close. :) Oh.....here is maybe one of the best parts, Jimmy would work only about 5 miles from the neighborhood! Almost always, we can not live anywhere close to Jimmy's work because chemical plants and refineries are generally built in really undesirable places. Jimmy has always had to commute almost 45 minutes to work.

So...I want to move to Springfield in Jacksonville, FL. Wether that will happen or not, I'm not sure. Part of me is worried about moving the kids because they are very happy here. But, I need something more than what Urbana, IL has to offer. So, I keep waiting and hoping that an opportunity might present itself in the future. :)

Here is a cool website about Springfield if you care to have a look. :)

http://www.myspringfield.org/

http://www.metrojacksonville.com/article/2008-apr-a-springfield-photo-tour

We've arrived in Oklahoma :)

We arrived around 11pm Saturday at Mildred's house. Not too bad considering we didn't actually leave until around noon from Urbana, IL. The drive was very easy and uneventful. Sunday we hungout and relaxed. We decided to go have a late lunch at a restaurant called "The Diner" in Norman that was featured on Guy Fieri's show "Diners, Drive-ins and Dives". Sadly, it closed at 2pm and we didn't arrive until 2:30pm. Instead, we headed to a chain restaurant and had lunch at Chipotle's. Monday, Mildred had to work so we were on our own. We decided to have brunch at The Diner first before heading out for a few errands that day. Alas, we were dissapointed again. Apparently, in August, The Diner closes on Mondays and Tuesdays so the owners can go fishing. What a drag. :( Anyway, we went to a place called Heyday that has video games, laser tag, a ropes course and a pizza restaurant. After the boys filled up on the pizza buffet, they chose to do the ropes course. They had a good time, although they were nervous at the same time being suspended up in the air walking across tight ropes and ladders.

Next, was lazer tag. They spent an hour running around in the dark with smoke and black lights trying to shoot the other team while avoiding being shot themselves. Joshua was the top player 4 out of 6 of the games in the first half hour they played. Jimmy joined them for the second half hour of lazer tag. They enjoyed having Dad out there with them. :)

I only have pics of the boys on the ropes course. I couldn't get pics of the lazer tag games. After we finished with Heyday, we stopped at the grocery store then headed back to Mildred's house where we relaxed until she arrived home after work.

That night Jimmy and I decided to go out and see if we could find a good club or bar that had live music. First, while walking along main street looking for a club, I was shocked to see the huge Crickets, Roaches and Grasshoppers flying around. They were attracted to the street lamps light. I screamed like a little girl when one flew at me and landed on my chest. YUCK!!! I forgot what it was like to be in the south in the summertime with all the giant sized bugs. :P I almost decided at that point to head back to Mildred's, but instead decided as long as I found a nice INDOOR place, I would be fine. :) Then came the big rude awakening of the night. We discovered, much to our dissapointment, that Oklahoma has not enacted a law that bans smoking in public places. Which meant, that every club or bar we went to was full of smoke. That was it for me, I threw up my hands and decided it was time to go back to Mildred's place. Ok, so I realize I might be a tad spoiled by Illinois, but I really can't stand the smell of a place full of cigarette smoke.

After we arrived back at Mildred's house, we crawled in bed to watch a movie on the laptop. After searching through Netflix we decided to give the Showtime TV series called "Weeds" a try. Well, we ended up staying up until 3am watching episode after episode of Weeds and we have watched a few more episodes this morning. It's like a soap opera and it's easy to get hooked, obviously. :)

Today we will get Christopher a cell phone and Joshua will get a new phone. Now that Christopher will be starting 6th grade he gets his first cell phone. He has been very excited to get his first phone so he has saved his money in order to upgrade from the freebie phones that are offered. In addition to phone purchases, we will be getting ready to leave for New Mexico. First, Mia (our samoyed) will be dropped off at the boarding kennel, next we will pack up the van once again. The boys are sad to leave Mia behind, especially since she has never been boarded before. But, they are still excited about seeing the caves in New Mexico. :)