The Secret Keeper -Book Review

The Book: The Secret Keeper

The Author: Beverly Lewis

The Synopsis on the back: Jennifer Burns shocks everyone when she bids farewell to her modern life in favor of the Old Order Amish world, settling in with Samuel and Rebecca Lapp.

The people of Hickory Hollow are curious about the beautiful young seeker among them--one handsome Amish man in particular--and Jenny faces many challenges in the Proving time the brethren set for her . . . challenges of the heart, as well as the spirit.

My Review: I liked it. I've been lucky with the books I've received from this company because there hasn't been a single one I haven't liked so far. This book was interesting and really made me thing. It was about a girl (Jenny) who decided to leave her family and modern life for the life of an Amish woman. Now I'm not saying I want to be Amish, because I don't, but often times I do long for a simpler slower life than that of the world around us. Jenny from the book had a little case of the grass is greener on the other side syndrome in this book I think. She thought that life as Amish would be perfect and that everyone there would be perfect and she was very surprised to find out that they weren't and that they were people too with problems and faults like any one else. I was really interested while reading the book if Jenny was going to make it as Amish or not or if she would end up going back to the modern world and all its conveniences. I will admit that there are quite a few modern conveniences I would miss sorely if I was Amish! I'm glad I don't have to go through that, but it was a really interesting book that gave an insight into the Amish way of life, and I really enjoyed reading it.

I received this book from Bethany House Publishing in exchange for an honest review of the book.

Stranded (A Book Review)

I got another book from the Bethany House Review Program. (In fact I'm a little behind on my reviews because of our move, so I'll be catching up on that here shortly). Here's the scoop:

The Book: Stranded

The Author: Dani Pettrey

The Synopsis on the back: Darcy St. James returns to Alaska to join a journalist friend undercover on the trail of a big story. But when Darcy arrives, she finds her friend has disappeared. Troubled by the cruise ship's vague explanation, Darcy uses her cover as a travel reporter to investigate further. 

The last person Gage McKenna expects to see during his summer aboard a cruise ship leading adventure excursions is Darcy. And in typical Darcy fashion, she's digging up more trouble. 

He'd love to just forget her--but something won't let him. And he can't help but worry about her as they are heading into more remote regions of Alaska and eventually into foreign waters. Something sinister is going on, and the deeper they push, the more Gage fears they've only discovered the tip of the iceberg.

My Review: I really liked it. The whole time I was reading it, it kept reminding me of my favorite TV show Lois and Clark because of the whole investigative reporter angle. I stayed up way too late (yet again) two nights in a row reading this book because I liked it so much. When I picked it up I was thinking, "I'll just read a chapter of this before I go to bed to help me get sleepy." but before I knew it 7 chapters had gone by and I wasn't sleepy because I just wanted to know what was going to happen next. The book starts right in with the action and doesn't let up until its finished and the whole time you are left guessing about who the bad guys are. This is the third book in the series and I haven't read the first two, but it was good as a stand alone book. I definitely want to go back and read the first two in the series now because I liked this one so well, but this one wasn't lacking with out the first two. It was a fun mystery and very clean. No swearing or sex, which is just the way I like them. :) 

I recieved this book from the Bethany House Review Program for free in exchange for my honest opinion. If you are interested in also recieving books for free to review follow this link www.bethanyhouse.com/bookreviewers

Our St George Adventure

So as you know, a few weeks ago, I took my kids and drove the 10 1/2 hour drive to my home town to watch my sister's kids while she went up north to stay with my niece while she had heart surgery. Here are a few pictures from our adventure. My sister Sarah and her baby came and stayed and helped us as well so we had 5 kids between us 3 of which were babies. It was oh so much fun and wild at the same time.

We took care of these kids for 8 days. These pictures were taken the day before. The one in pink is my brave niece Sydney that had the surgery.

We started off our adventure by getting sick. Sore throats, fevers, runny noses, coughs, no voices, and eventually a double ear infection for Rachel...Everyone ended up getting sick except my sister Sarah. It started with Maisy and Lexi and spread to me, Kent, Rachel and by the very end of it Brock started to get sick too. It was lovely, let me tell you.

We spent our time doing lots of 

playing, 

listening to music,

eating,

taking baths,

cleaning up messes (over and over again),

being silly,

and of course sleeping.

I saw this picture on Pinterest had it just made us laugh because with those 5 little little kids this totally applied to Sarah and I:

 

It was amazing how good it felt to take a shower (when we could get one).

We made it through and everyone survived and ended up having a lot of fun! I was quite sad at having to leave these extra little munchkins to go home. I was wishing so bad that I could just take them home with me. It is amazing how when you are doing service for someone else, you are filled with love for them and I totally grew to love these kiddos as more than nieces and nephews. The love I felt for them was more like they were my own kids. I also felt more like I was the one who was blessed in getting to experience this time with them. I'm thankful for my sister in giving us this opportunity to serve her and her family when they needed it. I feel like we had help from Our Heavenly Father to make it through this so well. I told Jacob afterwards "Okay, I'm ready to have twins now!" He was cute and humored me and said "Okay, come home so we can get started on that!" I love my husband. ;) I was glad to go home and have my family be together again. I miss that boy when we are apart!


And what of Sydney? She came through with flying colors. She is with out a doubt the bravest little girl I've ever met! It wasn't easy, but she made it through and looking at her now, the way she acts, you would never guess at the pain this little girl has had to endure in her short life.

Fairy Dust (A Book Review)

So a friend of mine has a sister that wrote a book. She was trying to help promote her sisters book and so she bought it for me in return for me writing a review, so here it is:

The Book: Fairy Dust

The Author: Camryn D. Kearns

The Synopsis (taken from Amazon): Samantha Sunderland is a outdoorsy girl, with a great life. She has the perfect family and a best friend that she can't live without. What she doesn't know is that she was marked at birth to someday become a fairy. Now that her gifts and powers are emerging Samantha must say goodbye to everything she knows and join the fairies. Samantha must learn to control her emotions, which proves harder than it ever has been before. Between losing a chance at love, finding a chance at love and the dangers that this new life affords, the task is almost impossible. Samantha has big choices ahead of her and all she has to do is live long enough to make them.

My Thoughts: I liked it. A lot. There were a few grammatical typos, but they weren't hard to overlook. I really enjoyed the book and I read it quite fast (despite being exhausted from my trip and being sick). It was very clean. No profanity or any other junk that there shouldn't have been. The book painted fairies in a new way that was fun and interesting. I liked the action, enjoyed the story, and was a little bugged by the romance (because I wanted her to like someone else), but over all thought it was a good read and couldn't stop reading it until the very last page. My biggest complaint about the book is that it didn't quite resolve everything with the characters and there isn't another book out yet. (Trust me, I looked.) It was definitely left open for a few sequels. When there is, I will definitely be reading it. 

What I'm going to do: Because I thought it was a good book, and I want to help a friend (and her sister) and because the book is pretty cheap on amazon :) I am going to give the first two people to comment on this a copy of the book, also because face it, who doesn't like comments on their blog and I almost never have any. All I need from you is a comment (on this post) and an email address that is linked to your amazon account. The book is an e-book so you would need a way to read it. (Kindle app anyone?) Also if you are really nice, you would leave a little review on Amazon telling what you thought about it. Not required, but it would help the author promote her book a little. Seriously though, it takes like 2 minutes.

Anyone ready to comment and get a free e-book?

San Diego Beach

Of the three days we spend playing at the zoo, at Sea world, and at the beach, we all agreed (even Rachel) that the day spent at the beach was the most fun. We went in the morning and ate a slightly sandy pizza for lunch and played and played and played. It was a nice low key fun sandy day.

I wish the beach in Monterey was as warm as the one in San Diego. The one here is more crowded than the one we went to and is much cooler.

 

 

Jacob was cute making projects in the sand with the kids. They loved it. I was content to just soak in the sunshine and watch my family play. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This was our first real and true family vacation that wasn't just visiting our family back home, and we had a lot of fun! It was nice to have so much time with Jacob. He had only gotten home from his deployment 6 weeks previous and those 6 weeks he was extremely busy in his Airman Leadership class so it was nice to just have time to play and be a family. We were extremely glad to finally get into our house and out of hotels when we got to Monterey though.
I just love this family of mine! 

Sea World and San Diego Zoo

So we really didn't take very many pictures on the days we went to Sea World or to the San Diego Zoo. We just spend most of our time playing and having as much fun as we could!
I have been trying to get Jacob to take us to Sea World for a few years now, but (mostly because of military stuff) we haven't been able to go. We finally got the chance to take our kids and it was soooo much fun. It was made even more fun by the fact that we got in for free. Sea World will let Active Duty military members and their family in for free once a year on any day we choose. I think we will have to try to take advantage of this and go again because we really had a good time.

 

 

 

Rachel got to feed the Sea Lions some fish and I think that was her favorite part of the whole day! She loved it!

By the end of the day Kent was totally worn out (he wasn't the only one) but he was the only one who had a chance to fall asleep.

He is so cute!

Sea World was more fun than the Zoo we thought, but it was still a fun day to play and be together. We also got into the zoo for free (thanks to the military and a nice friend who shared a pass for me) and we were glad. If we go back to San Diego, I don't think we will go to the zoo again. It was a long day with long lines and we weren't able to see as many animals as we had hoped.

 

 

 

 

Something sad and a little funny happened while we were at the zoo. We were walking through a little aviary and what should happen but a bird pooped, and my head was the poor recipient of the deposit. Yes, I got bird poop in my hair. I was quite disgusted and slightly amuse as well. I'm sure I wasn't quite as amused as Jacob was, but I didn't mind too much because if the situation was reversed and he was the one to receive the present of bird potty, I'm sure I would have thought it was hysterical. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

All in all it was fun, but next time we will skip the zoo and spend a day somewhere else instead. San Diego has a fun wild life preserve place I went to once. Maybe we will try that one next time.