I told Henry that it’s not good for our bodies to eat lots of sugar. He said, “Yeah. It’s good for the mouth.” Smart boy.
Sugar
Lucy the Pinkalicious Six-Year-Old
Some photos from Lucy’s Pinkalicious 6th Birthday Party we had tonight. Fun times. Great to have Sara & David and fam back in Utah to enjoy it with us.
My two new nephews
Simon Dean Joyner, born 1/23/10, son of Sara & David Joyner
Rhys Carter Packham, born 2/2/10, son of Seth & Aubrey Packham
These two are going to be trouble at future family reunions.
Thomas the Birthday Boy
Thomas turned 9 last week. He is a great kid, always willing to help, even-tempered (mostly), and a lot of fun. We had a fun birthday party with him last week.
Thomas and his best friend, Payton.
Payton gave Thomas a matching monster sweatshirt.
Thomas scoring some cash from Grandma!
Thomas asked for pumpkin pie instead of cake.
I took Thomas skiing for his birthday. It was his first real skiing and he did great. He caught on quickly and was soon cruising down the hill making some good turns.
Reading 2009
I got a Kindle for Christmas last year and my reading has increased significantly. I read 45 books in 2009 compared to 30 in 2008. Of those, 27 were Kindle books. I’m also still a big audio book fan, listening to 17 audio books this year. I’d like to shoot for a goal of 52 books in 2010, but realistically I think I’ll be more around 40. Last year was unique and I had an unusual amount of free-time and travel time to get a lot of reading in. But I still hope to take advantage of my time and enjoy some more great books in 2010. Any recommendations or must reads? Always looking for a good book.
I enjoyed most of the books I read in 2009, with just a few duds in there. Here’s my list with the highest rated first.
| Title | Author | Rating | |
| Olive Kitteridge | Elizabeth Strout | ***** | |
| Brooklyn | Colm Toibin | ***** | |
| Jane Eyre | Charlotte Brontë | ***** | |
| The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society | Mary Ann Shaffer | ***** | |
| American Pastoral | Philip Roth | ***** | |
| The Love of a Good Woman | Alice Munro | ***** | |
| The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie | Alan Bradley | ***** | |
| A Thousand Splendid Suns | Khaled Hosseini | **** | |
| Great Expectations | Charles Dickens | **** | |
| Bad Dirt: Wyoming Stories 2 | Annie Proulx | **** | |
| Let the Great World Spin | Colum McCann | **** | |
| Something I’ve Been Meaning to Tell You | Alice Munro | **** | |
| Goodbye, Columbus : And Five Short Stories | Philip Roth | **** | |
| Agnes Grey | Anne Brontë | **** | |
| Knockemstiff | Donald Ray Pollock | **** | |
| Nicholas Nickleby | Charles Dickens | **** | |
| My Man Jeeves | P. G. Wodehouse | **** | |
| Night | Elie Wiesel | **** | |
| Revolutionary Road | Richard Yates | **** | |
| Slaughterhouse-Five | Kurt Vonnegut | **** | |
| The Corrections | Jonathan Franzen | **** | |
| The Forever War | Dexter Filkins | **** | |
| The Good Earth | Pearl S. Buck | **** | |
| The Good Soldier | Ford Madox Ford | **** | |
| The White Tiger | Aravind Adiga | **** | |
| Three Cups of Tea | Greg Mortenson | **** | |
| Tell No One | Harlan Coben | **** | |
| The Humbling | Philip Roth | **** | |
| The Northern Clemency | Philip Hensher | **** | |
| The Tenant of Wildfell Hall | Anne Bronte | **** | |
| The Uncommon Reader | Alan Bennett | **** | |
| Little Bee | Chris Cleave | **** | |
| When You Are Engulfed in Flames | David Sedaris | **** | |
| A Separate Peace | John Knowles | *** | |
| Breakfast of Champions or Goodbye Blue Monday! | Kurt Vonnegut | *** | |
| Caught Stealing | Charlie Huston | *** | |
| Cranford | Elizabeth Gaskell | *** | |
| Sabbath’s Theater | Philip Roth | *** | |
| Six Bad Things | Charlie Huston | *** | |
| The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo | Stieg Larsson | *** | |
| The Mysterious Benedict Society | Trenton Lee Stewart | *** | |
| UR | Stephen King | *** | |
| Where Angels Fear to Tread | E. M. Forster | *** | |
| Serena | Ron Rash | ** | |
| Until Proven Guilty | J.A. Jance | ** |
Fun around the Christmas Tree
Piano Recital
Grace and Thomas performed in a Christmas Piano recital last Friday night. The six weeks of listening to Feliz Navidad and Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer five times a day finally paid off:
Try to ignore Henry’s begging to watch a movie on the camera.
Thanksgiving
We had a great Thanksgiving with many of Amanda’s family joining us at our house. Amanda did a great job with the food and setting.
Thanksgiving flowers
Abby and Lucy enjoying some pie.
Thanksgiving place setting
Katie, Janice, Allen, Whitney enjoying some good food.
Marc, Scott and Cheryl
Grace’s Birthday Party
Amanda and team put on a great birthday party for Grace’s 11th birthday a few weeks ago. They did a spa theme with facials, hair-dos, makeup, yoga and a movie…and lots of junk food.
Moving In
It’s been a long but fantastic weekend. We closed and moved in to our home. So many boxes. So much clutter. But we’re getting there little by little. The kids are happy and we’re loving the extra room. We’ve had many nice neighbors drop by to welcome us to the neighborhood. We went to church on Sunday and everyone was very welcoming. Very similar to our last ward, lots of young families but with a good mix of older folks as well.
Internet, TV, phones, utilities: all set up.
It feels so good to be getting settled again, and very nice to be sleeping in my own bed again. Life is great.