Book Review

Taking a cue from Erin I guess... I got the idea to start up a separate blog to keep record of the books that I have read and a small, slight description of the book and whether or not I liked the book. I did this mostly for myself but if anyone wants ideas of something new to read or could offer suggestions on some new books, then go ahead and take a looker at it. I would especially love it if anyone wanted to give suggestions. I fly through books so fast that it's nice to have some options of new ones to read. I hate those lulls that you get into when you don't have anything to read :( Anyway, I will keep a link under my lists under Fascinating People (even though I am not a fascinating person) if you can't find it. Otherwise here is another. Remember, I did this for myself, I am NO EXPERT book reviewer. Don't expect life shaking amazingness.

Happy Birthday my Max!

My Max turns 24 today. I know it's not old but considering I've known him since he was 16, it's hard to believe we are already at this age. Time flies. I love you babe and I hope you have the best day tomorrow even if you do have to get up at 530am to go to work and you are allergic to your job... dang concrete. We will have a cou*fine*gh dinner cooked by the world famous chef (this is me folks) and a good movie. Anyway, happy birthday love :)

Max's birthday also marks our dating anniversary :) He finally got the courage to ask me out on his 17th birthday so here's to hitting 7 years love!

This is the oldest picture of us on my computer right now... Max is 18 and so am I.

Happy Birthday Stinkerbutt!

Since I have no kids of my own yet, my puppies count and they deserve their bday shoutout :)

Happy Birthday Chunky Monkey!

Luca Henry, born 2 years ago. Never have I had a dog that was such a pain in the ass.

Good thing he's cute.

Oh I got this...

What do you get your husband for his birthday if...

1)he's not into sports

2)he's not into the yard

3)he's not into electronic toys

4)he's not into tools or fixing things

5)he's already got a dog

............................oh, I got this covered :)

Obviously you get him Chuck Norris tshirts... what else?

Doesn't work for your husband? Mine was incredibly happy... his particular favorite, the middle one. I Looooooooooooooooooovvvveee my Max.

lalala

I’m at work and I am working. I have been doing timesheets all morning and will be leaving to go the post office in 5 min but I want to be doing is….
READING MY BOOK! Oh how I would love to be lounging on my smelly, hairy couch reading my book. It sounds so heavenly right now, like a dream :)

feels good :)

Finally, I have some photos to work on. I've been missing my camera so when Wunmi asked me to do her senior pics, I was all over it! We went to Como Zoo to shoot them and had all the Alowonle sisters with. Lots of great backgrounds, good smiles and it doesn't hurt that Wunmi is so stinking beautiful!
I finally came up with my final business name also but I'll wait to tell all of that until I have all my business cards and the website done. It might be a little while but it is a definite goal to have that done sooner rather than later.

Whoop, I was going to put a couple of the pics up but that would mean showing the name. Can't do that yet. I guess you will have to wait with growing anxiousness...don't lie. You are excited :)
I am!

Whats going on...

So, I've been MIA for a bit here except for Caitlin's pics. Sorry about that, nothing to report though! My new job is great, I really love it and thank god I got out of Ass Bank when I did because things are not so hot there right now. I feel so terrible for Nikki and Molly. They are being worn to the bone and I bet they aren't getting the appreciation they deserve for it. (Hang in there ladies!) I really enjoy the freedom I have at the law firm. I can do what I want, when I want and as long as I get my job done and I'm not sitting around doing nothing, no one really bothers me. JW and I carpool every day so that saves a crapload of money every month on gas and I don't think I could really spend as much time as I do with anyone else as I do with her. Good thing we have pretty evenly matched temperaments!
What the hell did I do last week??? Lets see...
Monday-Monday crew at my house. Taco's for dinner :)
Tuesday- Dinner with Gma and Gpa Ray at Mongolian BBQ in Stillwater. Little skeptical about going there after the whole "food poisoning" incident (which really wasn't food poisoning but you know how you associate things together) but no one got sick. Whew.
Wed-Mom and Caitlin came over and made me dinner :) Then we watched Say Anything. How come John Cusack and his sister are always in movies together? Weird.
Thurs-my only day off. I finished my book and watched a movie.
Fri- we went to Dave and Busters with Justyn. Had a lot of fun!
Sat- oh boy. Max had a poker party so JW, Colette, Shauna, Steve, Josh, Lynsie and I went to the Dive in Maplewood. Yeeowzers. I drank WAY. TOO. MUCH! The kind of drinking where you are embarassed in the morning. I don't do it very often and I'm not very proud of it but hey, I had fun.
Sun-went to Gma and Gpa Rays for lunch and did some grocery shopping. Caitlin came over at night and we watched Dirty Dancing.

There you go. See why I haven't really written anything? As far as I know, you are bored off your ass right now and are slouched over on your chairs with a bit of drool coming down out of your mouths. Not a pretty mental picture. Not at all.
I wish I was more clever and had more clever things to say... I also wish I had nice legs. A girl can dream right?

Week17

She definitely got bigger this week!

My Niecer or Nephew in action

The first month of pictures... only one more month and we will know what it is!

Soon

I'm a summer girl but I'm craving fall... soon!

Sarah's Key

This book that I am reading, it’s just the saddest book I have read in a long, long, long time. I am not an overly emotional person, I’m not a crier. Weddings, movies, heck commercials, never but last night, I could not stop reading this book and I could not stop the tears from streaming down my face. Max came out of the office at 11, surprised because I was still awake for one and for two, I was crying over this book. Oh it is so good. The subject matter is a sad one anyway but the author is just so talented at getting the details and the setting so right that the mental pictures in your head are just heart wrenching.
When I was in high school I had a really hard time putting down any book but I have been much better at disciplining myself. Pace it out, enjoy it but I just don’t think I will be able to do that. Nope. I’m pretty sure I’m going home tonight and finishing it. Yep. For sure.

Hickville cirque du soleil

The Big Glenwood City Extravaganza!

The overworked, underpaid main attraction.

Prime seating....

Caitlin fed the elephant...

I personally think Caitlin looks just like Dad in the middle picture... and the last pic shows that it was chilly.

This girls leotard was much, much to small for her... "blossoming" body but dang, DANG was she flexible.

Sister shots.

What else can you really say about a hick circus?

Did I catch a niner in there? (cabin 09)

8 friends + 8 dogs + corn hole + seven/duece + night owls + campfire + cooking + DQ + badminton + pontoon + well, you get the picture = priceless :)

future blog checklist

I have an awful short-term memory so this both a preview and a reminder on what I need to blog about still...

Hickville Circus

Cabin Trip 2009

I don't need to blog about this but isn't she the cutest thing ever!!!!

Road Trip continued

First of all, I just wanted to show you what my husband got me for my birthday... isn't it beautiful? This lady in Bristol had this shop just full of awesome jewelry, all Jessie A. specific, that I LOVED. I could have bought all of it but this here stuck out at me. Its all handcrafted from the petals to the middle. I love it. I think it's a very fitting present for my first birthday as a married lady because the first piece of jewelry Max ever bought me was a rose ring. Very fitting.

We left Kaela's with no particular destination in mind. We were thinking of going to... well, I can't remember right now. Oh, Boston... but for some reason we just ended up driving through it and after a bit of looking around on the map, decided to go to Plymouth. When would we ever go to Plymouth and it might be fun to go see Plymouth rock, the supposed first landing site of the Pilgrims in 1620. Not that we knew that exact date at the time but now of course, we do. We spent the night in the town at the first hotel we paid for (it had continental breakfast ;) oh yeah). Woke up, got ready, pigged out and headed out. It was a gorgeous day. Sunny, hot, slightly humid and perfect for walking around, at least for me. You know how Max does with heat.

We walked right past the rock at first not even knowing that this little pavilion was where it was held. We just thought it was a decorative look out. Haha, we are smart ones.


Headed over to where we saw a big boat. It was a recreation of the Mayflower. I wanted to go on the boat and look around. I thought it would be pretty cool to try and imagine being stuck on a boat like this with a bunch of other people for 3 months while traveling across the Atlantic. Tight Wad didn't want to spend the 10 bucks to pay for the tour. Jerk. So I had to look at the boat from far away and then next to it on the dock while other people who aren't married to tight wads got to explore.

Ok, then we figured out this is where the rock is. Now, I don't know about you guys but in my head, I was imagining this big ass rock, enormous enough for a boat to stop by it and people to get off. Gigantic enough to actually make people drop it in half (it was cracked in half when being transported to this building... remember your history?). Basically something that would really inspire in your mind, the possibilities of this country being populated by a bunch of white people who crossed over the big blue into this unknown country, all starting at this rock.

Now, I'm not disrespecting history of course, but this rock was not quite what I expected.

Yep, that's what I thought too... this is it? Wow, no wonder they dropped it. There was probably only a couple of guys trying to move it! Still, I looked at it and tried to imagine the history surrounding this rock. Can you see where they patched up the crack? On the left side of the "1620".

Onward to exploring the other things in this area. We were still pretty cramped up in the legs from so much driving so walking around felt amazing. There were just tributes everywhere. This one caught my eye as there were so many names... so so many. These are all people that died in the first year that came over on the Mayflower. Now, after reading this, a couple things really bothered me. First, did you realize that they moved the bones of these people from their graves into this monument. I'm sorry but that kind of grosses me out. All these peoples bones mixed up with their neighbors bones. Yikes. Second of all, I know how in history, women didn't really matter too much but come one. They spell out every guy on there but every woman is described as "John T. Doe and his wife. Thomas A. Jones and his wife." I'm pretty sure she had a name too.

Obviously some of the buildings in this area were quite old. This one particular house was very old and in really awesome shape. Max wanted to go tour around it. (We can tour an old house but not a big sailboat... hmmm) Fine, whatever. It ended up being pretty cool! We didn't have time to go on a full out tour but the old ladies sitting out front on the rocking chairs said they would be happy to give us a quicky tour... "oh put that money away, we don't want your money" they tell us. Awww, old ladies are so cute.

This house was build by one of the people that came over on the Mayflower, or one of the sons... I can't quite remember but somewhere along the line, it became the Mayflower society house and you can only be a member of this society if you can trace you lineage to the Mayflower.

They had all the old furniture in this place, all the original tiles, the original woodwork, everything. It was incredible. I can't even imagine living in a place like that. Wow.

Ok, we needed to head out. Philadelphia was next. We underestimated the distance a bit (whoops... I thought everything was by everything over there. Not so much) so we drove until we got about an hour outside Philly and stayed at a KOA there. Max and I are super fond of KOA's on roadtrips. They are everywhere, cheap and if you really don't feel like pitching a tent, they have cute little cabins like this that you can stay in for a bit more money. The mattress in there was extremely flat and creeped me out a bit so we blew up our giant air mattress to help out a bit.

This was before we started getting super annoyed with each other... haha. Just kidding, kind of.

We played Spades and Max just had to take a picture of this hand.

"It is so amazing Jessie, you are about to get OUTPLAYED"

For those of you who don't hang around Max and Justyn very much, this word is one of their favorites. Right up there with: the wheel, Bob/Robert, and wow.
He did beat me pretty good with this one. I obviously had no spades since he had them all.

Mmmmm, morning time. Got up, got ready and headed out to Philly. Philly had some serious traffic but not as bad, we found out, as DC. We got parked and of course, we had to make some lunch before heading out. Forever the tightwads. Max was pretty much the official food maker, just like at home. I helped out though sometimes, just like at home.

But then again, how was I going to make lunch when I had to slather my whole body in sunscreen. Like I could do both?? Max is also obsessively careful about my pale, Scandinavian skin. God forbid I go outside for 5 minutes without it. For those of you who don't know this about me... I HATE LOTION. Any kind. I don't care if my skin is bleeding because my hands are so dry, I'm not putting that crap on. I don't care if I fry like a lobster, I'm not putting that stuff on. I guess it's good I married Max because this man is a nagger and it's easier to put on the sunscreen then listen to him bug me about it.

The Liberty Bell.

The frustrating thing about the Liberty Bell and most other things on this history trip we were on, is that no one really cared what they were looking at. They weren't trying to really imagine the times and the history surrounding this thing. They just wanted to wrestle to the front and get a picture then get the hells bells out of there. Not very patriotic if you ask me. It might sound corny but I was really sad about it... I even said something to Max about these unappreciative people. Jerks.

See them all... tsk tsk.

We got a side shot because I sure as hell wasn't about to fight for a spot up front.

Independence Hall. We didn't tour around this either... Why not? Who knows. I think actually, that since it was a Monday that we were here, that there were school buses everywhere with kids in summer school so the lines. were. LONG.

The buildings around here were amazing... so detailed!

We then moved on to Christ Church Burial Ground. Why go to a cemetery you say? Why, Ben Franklin is buried there of course! With 3 other signers of the Constitution. Did you know that?? Some of these I took purely for my mother, who, likes to find the oldest gravestone in the cemetery. Remember those walks we always used to take mom to the cemetery in Baldwin? These are ooooold.

A lot of the gravestones had been replaced by people in the society clubs. There were many that you couldn't read or that had cracked and fallen over or that sunk into the ground. It's crazy to think that these peoples bones have been laying here for 200+ years. No thanks, I'm getting cremated. Scatter me off in the wind please. That's a little off subject, sorry.

That kind of concludes this portion of the road trip... next stop, Atlantic City!!!!!!