Beach Trip

As far as I am concerned the best part about living where we do is that we are only a couple hours away from the beach.  This was our first beach vacation and we rented a beach house for a whole week with a couple of my girlfriends and their kids.  It was double the kids, double the chaos, and double the fun!

Let's go surfing..

AHHHH we are still too little for surfing

A trip to the aquarium

Swimming on the sound side is fun too

 A hike with the boys while the girls went to Build a Bear

A trip to a historical site.  This face convinces me that toys are way over rated.

Not sure all the kids believed us when we explained what this building was for.

Huh? You want me to do what with this?

 

The funniest part of this is actually what happened after I stopped recording.  The very kind lady was explaining the game and then walked away to the finish line.  When she turned around she was so confused and said "Hey where did they go?"  Hahaha she completely underestimated the attention span of my boys!

Good bye beach, we will miss you.

Gravedigger!

Wanna know the best place between our house and the beach?  Gravediggers home!!! 

 We were able to see them working on some of the popular trucks like Monster Mutt.

 This is the monster truck they use for rides.  I thought Ben would be the most excited...instead he was scared half to death and nearly choked me he was holding onto me so tightly.  Sam was a little bit scared but he was a trooper and said later that it was fun.  Our future monster truck driver will be Carlee.  She bounced up and down and slipped and slided back and forth on the seat while laughing and giggling the entire time!

Boys...

When I downloaded photos from my camera I found these...I obviously did not take them.  Whenever the boys do something silly Carlee and I look at each other, shake our heads and say "Boys!" and yes this includes Daddy because he is a boy too....

Procrastinating...

So it seems that whenever I am supposed to be working I have this need to find something else to do, today I decided to work on getting my blog up to date - again!  And so as I continue to procrastinate perhaps you will enjoy some posts you haven't seen before.  I have added posts to February and March.  Apparently I don't procrastinate often enough, or maybe I procrastinate too much - hmmm have to think about how that works exactly, or maybe not...maybe I will find something to think about instead

Perfect Reading for the Beach

My Foolish Heart
by Susan May Warren

If you are looking at reviews for this book, then you already know about the page-turner plot and the fantastic character development, along with the witty & refreshing writing style of the author.  I don't need to get into all that, besides the publicity did a wonderful job already! 

For me, the best part about reviewing books is that I sometimes receive books that I may not have picked up otherwise.  Books that are truly entertaining.  Reviewing books has also given me the opportunity to find new favorite authors and Susan May Warren is now one of them! She is the kind of author that you want to read every single book she has ever written!  Even better is that this book is part of a series. I absolutely adore books in a series and I can hardly wait to get the rest of the books in the series and devour them this summer at the beach.  There is something special about a series set in a small town, maybe because I can relate to it so well.  If you are a small town girl, or even a city girl with a small town heart then you will relate to this book too.

Disclosure: Litfuse Publicity Group provided me with a complimentary copy of this book as part of their blog tours program.
See the blog tour schedule here.

 
 
GIVEAWAY!!
Win a Romantic Night on the Town from Miss Foolish Heart!

Susan May Warren is thrilled to announce the release of her latest Deep Haven book, My Foolish Heart!

Read what the reviewers are saying here.

To celebrate this charming novel about a dating expert who's never had a date, Susan has put together a romantic night on the town for one lucky couple. One grand prize winner will receive a Miss Foolish Heart prize package worth over $200!

The winner of the Romantic Night on the Town Prize Pack will receive:

* A $100 Visa Gift Card (For Dinner)

* A $100 Gift Certificate to a Hyatt/Marriott Hotel

* The entire Deep Haven series

To enter just click one of the icons below. But, hurry, the giveaway ends at noon on June 16th. The winner will be announced that evening during Susan’s Miss Foolish Heart Party on Facebook! Susan will be chatting with guests, hosting a book club chat about My Foolish Heart, testing your Deep Haven trivia skills, and giving away tons of great stuff! (Gift certificates, books, donuts, and more!) Don't miss the fun and BRING YOUR FRIENDS! 

About the book: My Foolish heart

Unknown to her tiny town of Deep Haven , Isadora Presley spends her nights as Miss Foolish Heart, the star host of a syndicated talk radio show. Millions tune in to hear her advice on dating and falling in love, unaware that she’s never really done either. Issy’s ratings soar when it seems she’s falling in love on-air with a caller. A caller she doesn’t realize lives right next door.

Caleb Knight served a tour of duty in Iraq and paid a steep price. The last thing he wants is pity, so he hides his disability and moves to Deep Haven to land his dream job as the high school football coach. When his beautiful neighbor catches his eye, in a moment of desperation he seeks advice from My Foolish Heart, the show that airs before his favorite sports broadcast.

Before he knows it, Caleb finds himself drawn to the host—and more confused than ever. Is his perfect love the woman on the radio . . . or the one next door?

Read an excerpt here: http://www.susanmaywarren.com/novels/contemporary-romance/



About Susan:
Susan May Warren is an award-winning, best-selling author of over twenty-five novels, many of which have won the Inspirational Readers Choice Award, the ACFW Book of the Year award, the Rita Award, and have been Christy finalists. After serving as a missionary for eight years in Russia , Susan returned home to a small town on Minnesota ’s beautiful Lake Superior shore where she, her four children, and her husband are active in their local church.

Susan's larger than life characters and layered plots have won her acclaim with readers and reviewers alike. A seasoned women’s events and retreats speaker, she’s a popular writing teacher at conferences around the nation and the author of the beginning writer’s workbook: From the Inside-Out: discover, create and publish the novel in you!. She is also the founder ofwww.MyBookTherapy.com, a story-crafting service that helps authors discover their voice.

Susan makes her home in northern Minnesota , where she is busy cheering on her two sons in football, and her daughter in local theater productions (and desperately missing her college-age son!)

A full listing of her titles, reviews and awards can be found at:http://www.susanmaywarren.com/.


Link to buy the book: http://www.blogger.com/goog_1528197088

Must be a great book

No He Can't - How Barack Obama is Dismantling Hope and Change
by Kevin McCullough

I chose this book to review for two reasons. First because I am generally pretty clueless about - and certainly not up to date on - current politics. I thought it would give me some insight or at least an opinion of what is going wrong with the government. Secondly I thought that my hubby could read the book and give me an opinion about the topic, giving me further insight into the current state of the country.

So that was the plan and he took the book with him on a short trip. It must be a really, really good book because it was stolen from his hotel room!!!


Disclosure: Thomas Nelson Publishers provided me with a complimentary copy of this book as part of their BookSneeze.com book review bloggers program.

Took a break from the computer!

So the first thing tht yo need to know is that my dad has been at home for a couple weeks and he is recovering and gaining strength back quite well.

The next thing you need to know is that it took me 6 days to drive backto North Carolina because we drove across Canada, which is about the same distance but western Ontario is a slower drive - very beautiful, just slower.  We had to stop and stick our toes into the biggest lake, Lake Superior. 

Well, my suggestion was to put our toes in, they decided to throw rocks in!

We also stopped in Toronto, the biggest city in Canada to see the biggest tower. This is all we saw...

The fog was so thick that only the base of the CN Tower was visible.

Then we stopped in Welland to visit some relatives and wished that we could have stayed longer, but we had to keep going.  We stopped briefly at Niagara Falls to see the biggest waterfall in Canada.

Stunning, breathtaking - all of it.  We have to go back!

Ok, so it was a great drive and we got to do a few fun things this time, but as I said it took 6 days to get home.  Meanwhile I was not checking email and once I finally did there were something like 1,546 unread emails. I really didn't want to deal with all that so instead I turned off the computer and read some books for a few days, which turned into a couple weeks and several books!  I am still trying to get caught up, which seems to be the story of my life!  Anyway, I do what I can and hope that you hang in there to see what happens next...

At some point I will go back and post more photos from our trip.