Twilight Movie Review

Today I saw "Twilight" on the big screen. My sister-in-law and I snuck out of the house early for a matinee, while my sweet brother-in-law braved watching all six of our kids. Thanks, Justin! We had heard that the movie was overrated and just a bunch of hype. So we had talked ourselves up to the possibility of being disappointed. But we liked it!

Of course, it didn't follow the book exactly, it would be too long. But a lot of the dialogue I recognized as coming directly from the book. I loved the setting in the northwest...the tall trees and moss covering everything! I thought that was ideal to the book.

As for casting, Bella was a perfect fit in my opinion (unless you saw any clips of her on the red carpet before the premiere, in that case she looked like a drunk hooker.) Edward had good chemistry with Bella, but he wasn't quite beautiful enough for my dreams of Edward. The casted Carlisle would have made a beautiful Edward, but perhaps he wasn't young enough or maybe the chemistry was bad. The other actors seemed to be casted very well with the exception of Jasper, he seemed a little too "Edward Scissorhands" for me.

Overall, I liked the movie. I thought most of the characters were all developed enough that they were pretty true to the book. Although you can never get an exact match, I was pleased that the movie mostly followed the book. Agree or Disagree?

My Twilight Addiction!

I am a book addict. When I pick up a book, I practically can not put it down until I have completely devoured it. Such was the case with my most recent novels.

I held off reading the Twilight Series because I knew that I wouldn't have time to read it. So when my Florida vacation came

I knew that I would have two nice long cross country plane rides to completely lose myself in a
good book or four. I'm cheap so I checked out

from the library and borrowed all four in the series and packed them in my carry on luggage. You can never pack too many books! Needless to say, I read all 2,000+ pages in less than two weeks. Naturally the next thing on my agenda was to hunt down the pirated Midnight Sun transcript at http://www.stepheniemeyer.com/midnightsun.html and devour that too. Crazy addictions, at least its books and not harmful substances! My poor husband and kids, they didn't really get me back from my vacation until I had finished the books. They love me so they put up with me!

Back to Life as Mom

Back to my Primary class (CTR 6) on Sunday, Activity Days on Monday, preschool on Tuesday and Thursday. It's good to be back, vacations are great, but being loved and needed is better! I love being a Mom! It's what I do. Here is a picture of the preschool girls at our house. The girls are displaying their jellyfish (brought to you by the letter J). Em is in the middle.

Airboat Ride!

We had an excellent two-hour airboat ride. Flying across the cola-colored waters brought back many Florida camping memories. (BTY, water is clear in Utah;) I loved the mossy cypress grove.
We all enjoyed a taste of gator jerky!

We saw several big alligators and even one hanging out with a herd of cattle. I thought my ranching father-in-law would get a kick out of that scene.

Florida Vacation

My sister Jennett had the fabulous idea of getting all of us sisters together in Florida (where we grew up) for a little vacation, husbands and kids not invited! Since some of us keep having babies (Jenny and I) the timing was a little tricky. But the stars aligned and it was finally possible to have our "Silly Sister Vacation." We stayed at a timeshare in Cocoa Beach that is jointly owned by some of the sisters. Here is the view from our balcony window. We all revelled in the sound of the ocean and crashing of the waves. We lounged on the beach, at the pool and in the hot tub. It was wonderful :)

My Sisters (the self portraits)

Jennett: our hostesss, resident beach bum and lovely chauffeur.


Judy: always packs enough jewelry, chocolate and Diet Coke to share.




Jean: turn the music up, look its a pic of my cute puppy from my boyfriend.

Jeri: I have to get up early tomorrow because my flight is at 11am, Settlers of Catan Pro.

Myself: the bookworm, I'm on vacation!

Jenny: I need to eat something, salsa making extraordinaire.

Julie: I'll cook the best meal and make jalapeno poppers from scratch and sleep on the couch because I'll be up all night texting.

Halloween

Halloween is one of our favorite holidays. And this year it was so warm. That got mom really excited about going to Florida.

Here's BriAnna, we put curlers in her hair the night before so she would be a cute little devil!
Lyndsay was a little bunny, complete with a cotton tail!

Josie thought her bee costume rocked. She justed laughed and laughed wearing it!

Emily the Elephant thought her costume's padding was silly!

Here's the crowd ready to go trick-or-treating. Cousin Ashley is a little too goulish for Josie's comfort and a better pic of all of them was impossible.

Overall, Halloween was a smashing success. A great excuse to make your neighbors hand over their chocolate!