happily random

Happy Randomness of the Week - Hogwarts, Sunshine and More Cheese

1. "Harry Potter Fever" has taken over my home. In honor of that, the kids' grandma made them Hogwarts wizard robes -- mostly so they would stop wearing our bathrobes to play. I must admit that it's been encouraged by their father and me since it means they spend every waking moment that they are not working on chores or schoolwork outside playing pretend. Can you guess what they're going to be for Halloween? Tyler is Harry (see the glasses?), Sam is Ginny Weasley, Rebekah is Hermione and Luke is Ron. Rebekah is dearly hoping for her Hogwarts letter when she turns 11 next June!

2. My husband -- for the first time in so long I can't remember -- is making dinner tonight: tacos! Hand-fried shells with all the fixings are a Doherty Family tradition. This is one of those meals that only Daddy makes and I for one am looking forward to the treat.

3. Loving the warmer weather this week. A nice treat before the cold really sets in. Apparently it is not truly an "Indian Summer" because an Indian Summer is characterised by a period of sunny, warm weather, after the leaves have turned following an onset of frost, but before the first snowfall. We haven't had a frost yet, so it doesn't count. I say, who cares? It's gorgeous! We have been driving with the windows down soaking up as much fresh air and sunshine as we can. Any guess as to where in CdA I took this picture? Don't worry, I was sitting at a stoplight when I took it.

3. We hit the three-week mark since the first day of school. Starting to get myself back into a routine of working out. In the past week I have worked out three times -- YAY ME! I would really like a workout buddy, but so far no one has stepped up. Anyone available from 8:30-9:30 a.m. at the Kroc 3-4 times a week?

4. Made a small CostCo run today and opted for the Baby Loaf of Tillamook Medium Cheddar Cheese which is the little 2-pounder. I figure I'm paying extra to keep my fingers. Don't know what I'm talking about? Check out my post here. Actually my real reason behind it is that I got all that free grated cheese a couple of weeks ago and figure that I won't need such a big block this month. And I want to save my fingers.

Sheila's Recommended Reading

I love to read, at least fiction. All my friends know this. Hence I get hit up for book recommendations pretty frequently. Yes, I am the friend that got all of my friends to read Twilight. And The Hunger Games. You're very, very welcome.

I read for pleasure; I read for entertainment; and I read to step out of my life for a moment. Not everything I read is classic literature. Sometimes it's not even what I would consider "good" writing. My main reason for reading is because it's cheap fun.

Last year I read 88 books, which you can see on the right. I probably would read more if I had the time or didn't need to sleep. Most of these books I checked out at the public library, which was free except for the $3 in late fees. If I bought every book I read, I would be spending over $1000 a year on books, so I really only buy books I love and know I will read again.

I don't have a favorite genre of books, as there are very few I don't like. Not big into horror. Or romance, although I enjoy love stories. But I have favorites in almost any other style you could think of.

So, here's my book list for 2010. I'm on a fantasy kick lately as you can see. I wonder what it'll be next year?

1. The Twilight Saga: Twilight, New Moon, Eclipse, & Breaking Dawn by Stephanie Meyer
If you haven't read these yet, put on your big girl panties and do it. I know they're about vampires and werewolves. I know they're marketed for teenagers. But there is a reason it's a worldwide phenomenon. Honestly, the fantasy part of it's secondary to the wonderful love story between Edward and Bella and the love triangle between those two and Jacob. I've read these books more times than I can count. Don't roll your eyes at me. You can't knock it till you've read it. They're way better than the movies. And if you've read those, have you read Midnight Sun, which is Twilight from Edward's viewpoint?

2. The Hunger Games Trilogy: The Hunger Games, Catching Fire, & Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins
Yet another series marketed for young adult readers. I seem to be reading a lot of those lately, maybe because they're less smutty and have to focus on a good storyline instead of a racy romance? This story is about a girl name Katniss who is chosen from her district as tribute to fight to the death in the Hunger Games against 23 other tributes. There is a great love triangle in there as well between Katniss, her longtime friend Gale and her fellow tribute from District 12, Peeta. Don't want to miss this fantastic series.

3. The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers, & Return of the King by J.R.R. Tokien
My husband would not let me go see the movies until I had first read the books, so I did and fell in love. They're some of my all-time favorites. Not what I would call an "easy read" by any means, but I'm sure you can manage. Skip all the poetry the first time through if you want as it's not necessary for the story. Each time I read it, I see things that I didn't see before. You've seen the movies, so you know the basic story. Now read the books.

4. Bitter is the New Black by Jen Lancaster
Easy summer read that is laugh-out-loud funny. Jen says the things I think, is quite irreverant and made me a little embarassed that I thought she was so funny. The books tagline says it all: Confessions of a Condescending, Egomaniacal, Self-Centered Smartass,Or, Why You Should Never Carry A Prada Bag to the Unemployment Office. Thanks to MG for recommending this one to me!

5. Harry Potter Series: The Sorcerer's Stone, The Chamber of Secrets, The Prisoner of Azkaban, The Goblet of Fire, The Order of the Phoenix, The Half-Blood Prince, & The Deathly Hallows by J.K. Rowling
I read these for the first time at the end of last year. Never had appealed to me before but I was completely out of reading material, so decided that their popularity must mean something. So I checked them out at the library and poured through all seven of them in three weeks. I promptly checked them out a second time and read them all the way through again. Then I bought the lot. It's a magical story about a boy who learns he is a wizard and his fight against the evil wizard who killed his parents... like you don't know. Read them!

6. The Inheritance Series: Eragon, Eldest, & Brsinger by Christopher Paolini
A story about a boy and his dragon and their battle against evil. Kind of reminded me of a simpler-styled Lord of the Rings. Still (not) patiently waiting for the fourth & final installment of this series. He wrote the first one book at 15. Boy do I feel lazy and dumb.

7. Study Series: Poison Study, Magic Study, & Fire Study by Maria V. Snyder
A women who is a food taster for poisons? Sold! In a land where killing someone ends you up on the end of a noose -- no matter if it was accidental or self-defense -- Yelena gets a stay of execution in trade for becoming the Commander's food taster. And that's just the beginning of the story. Great reads!

8. Mortal Instruments: City of Bones, City of Ashes, & City of Glass by Cassandra Clare
These three were a little slow here and there, but I did enjoy them nonetheless. Clary finds out when her mother disappears that she has been keeping secrets from her, most importantly that she is a Shadowhunter. This book has a plethora of creatures such as werewolves, vampires, demons and wizards. Lots of good looking guys and hand-to-hand combat too. If you like these, Clare has another Shadowhunter series she just started with the first book titled Clockwork Angel.

9. Wolves of Mercy Falls Series: Shiver & Linger by Maggie Stiefvater
These two books -- which I'm assuming will eventually include at least a third -- have an interesting take on werewolves: they shape-shift when it gets cold. Grace is fascinated by the wolves that live in the forest behind her yard after being attacked by them as a child, being especially attracted to one with yellow eyes. The story begins with her finding an injured boy, Sam, on her back porch with those same eyes which she knows is her wolf. Flew through both of these bittersweet books.

10. Graceling & Fire by Kristin Cashore
While these two books are not a series, they are both set in the same world and do have one overlapping character that I won't spoil. Graceling is about a girl named Katsa. She is a Graceling -- marked with two different colored eyes -- which are people with special talents such as dancing, cooking, -- or in Katsa's case -- fighting. Fire is about a human monster, so beautiful she has to hide from others lest they kill her. Both are two of my favorites ever. Read them!

Guess those are my top ten... for now. At least until I read something else! Love to hear what your recommendations are.

Girls' Weekend: Destination Forks

Since we had such a fabulous time on our trip to Forks last summer, our pack (that's what we call our group of gal pals) decided to make another sojourn to the Mecca of the Twilight Saga once again to see if any magic remained. Despite our Forks group dwindling from our four last year -- me, Georji, Shannon and Heather -- to two this year -- just me and Heather -- we were not disappointed.

This trip was not short on adventure in the least. About two hours from Forks -- which is a nine-hour drive from CdA -- we called our hotel to let them know we would be in late to discover that they had lost our reservation for the night and the hotel was completely booked up. What??!? As Forks is a very small town -- population 3,175 currently -- the hotel manager had a friend who put "overflow guests" up in her 5th-wheel camper trail. You read that right: camper trailer. So instead of checking into our two-room suite when we reached Forks, we instead climbed aboard a large camper trailer in the woods for the night. Not what we were planning but Heather and I certainly saw the humor in the experience. We were disappointed come morning to not have at least been bitten by a vampire nor heard the howl of the wolf pack.

Since we have been to Forks before, we decided to skip the Twilight Tour this time around. It's a lot of fun for first-timers though and I highly recommend it. Travis -- tour guide extraordinaire -- rocks! Instead we visited the local sites on our own as well as a few new places we didn't go last year, like the Olympic National Forest.

Noticed a couple of changes we noticed on this visit. Forks High School is being completely rebuilt except for that small portion of the entrance. Tourism tax dollars at work?

While it's sad to see it go, I'm sure the high school students will enjoy their new facility once it's built. Don't have a clue where they are now though?

Another new addition to for the Twilight fans is that apparently you can now rent "Jacob Black" House as a vacation stop. I wonder if my pack will go for that next time around? Actually, what I really want to see is Bella and Edward's Honeymoon Cottage.

One of my favorite destinations is La Push Beach. I guess being landlocked really gets me excited about seeing the ocean from time to time. While not warm, La Push Beach is uniquely covered with huge driftwood trees that make for a stunning sight. I must admit though, Heather and I spent most of our time posing our Pocket Edward and friends and getting ridiculous looks from the locals until the rain chased us back to our car.

And what trip to Forks would be complete without a visit to La Bella Italia in Port Angeles for some mushroom ravioli and a Coke? Still really, really good. We also ate at newly opened "The Lodge" restaurant that is written about in the book but didn't exist at the time. Very yummy barbequed pork sandwiches I might add.

While Heather and I are both still huge Twilight fans -- and forever will be -- this trip wasn't so much about Twilight as it was about getting away for some fun with the gals... er, gal. We laughed. A lot. You can kind of get a sense of that if you read my tweets from September 16-20. I'm sure I lost followers over it. After spending the night in the camper, one of my favorite moments was when we accidentally got into the after school pickup line for Forks Elementary School. I'm sure they've got our picture up in the school now. Or our picnic on the beds of our hotel room with three different kinds of pasta salad. A year ago when we went to Forks for the first time, Heather and I hardly knew each other. A year later she is one of my best friends. Looking forward to more crazy trips in the future.

And that picture we took in the 5th wheel never happened.

Laying On The Couch Eating Bon-Bons

Today was a momentus day in Doherty family history: all four of our kids went to school. Rebekah started her last year of elementary school as a 5th grader; Luke is now in 3rd grade; Tyler is going all day now as a 1st grader; and Sam is going to school for the first time ever in pre-kindergarten.

Now for the question that I keep getting from everyone: what are you going to do with yourself? It's amazing how quickly the day fills up, especially since Sam is only in school for the morning on Tuesday, Wednesday & Thursday. I spent my first morning child-free drinking coffee and chatting with my friend Heather at Borders. This is not my plan for every school morning but I have no guilt whatsoever in spending one morning each week enjoying this activity. Frankly, it's been a long time coming.

I do have more a more lofty, self-improvement goal to work out a couple of those kid-free mornings each week to see if I can get this flabby body less flabby. Of course I will also be keeping up with those great couponing deals so I can feed our family for cheap and still afford four kids in private school. I am truly hopeful to fully launch our expanded couponing website next month.

I just don't want anyone to worry about me being lonely with an empty house to come home to. It will be hard to concentrate with so much quiet, but I'm pretty sure that there will be little time to be laying on the couch eating bon-bons.

Surprise Destination: Seattle

The moment we headed west on the highway on Friday afternoon I had it figured out that we were headed to Seattle. It wasn't until we arrived there though that I discovered that we were staying at a lovely bed & breakfast near University of Washington called The Chambered Nautilus. Both mornings of our stay found us eating wonderful breakfasts including granola, fresh fruit, pumpkin ginger pancakes and a Mexican-style quiche. Delightfully many of their recipes are posted at Bed and Breakfast Foodies as our inn owner is one of the mentioned 8 Broads in the Kitchen. We stayed in the cozy Tower Room on the top floor equipped with a private bathroom including a clawfoot tub.

It's safe to say that we ate our way through Seattle. That's the one thing we miss living in a smaller town is the restaurant limitations. Chipotle and Panera made our lunch stops -- we have got to get those locally. Dinner was fancier fare as we looked back on our 15 years together. Mostly we just spent time remembering what it's like to just be the two of us getting to hang out, browsing though IKEA, the Apple Store (turns out I really need an iPhone), bookstores and more. We didn't bring home much but just enjoyed being together. Even though we have lived in Coeur d'Alene for over six years now, we have never been to Seattle together. We did a whole lot of walking and by the end of the day my feet were feeling all the hills and stairs we climbed.

Before we left Joel had me pick out a lovely bouqet for myself from the flower vendors in Pike's Place Market. At just $10 for the most amazing bouquets, he picked out two others to bring home to our daughters. Not to be left out, the boys got chocolate frogs from The Chocolate Box that went along well with the Harry Potter kick they have been on lately. I'd also like to mention that The Chocolate Box has the most delightful Raspberry White Chocolate Mochas including pink whipped cream -- best coffee on our trip.

The kids were not left out on the fun while we were away but had quite the weekend with their grandma and grandpa. Friday night they made their own pizzas and watched a movie, Saturday night they went to a cowboy dinner show and Sunday they went on the Pirates of the Coeur d'Alene cruise. Needless to say, it was a great end to their summer break.

Anniversary Tradition Revisited

On our first wedding anniversary years and eons ago, we made a decision not to buy one another gifts but instead to take a trip together. The last thing either of us needed is more 'stuff.' What better way to build a healthy marriage than to get away together for some quality time?

Our first anniversary trip was epic. You see, we were married on Labor Day weekend. At the time we didn't think anything of it, but looking back it makes for a challenging weekend to book a trip as everyone seems to want one last getaway before the end of summer on that weekend. So goes the epic first anniversary where we drove all the way from San Diego -- where we lived at the time -- to Monterey and back in 24 hours. My loving husband, despite my urgings to the contrary, decided that we didn't need a hotel reservation and that we would just find a place when we got up there. When we made it up to Monterey there was not a hotel to be found. Thinking we would check a little south of Monterey, we still had no luck. That long night we checked every hotel south of Monterey until we finally found a hotel literally 30 minutes from home. Needless to say, we did not take it. Talk about a need for grace and forgiveness as well as a sense of humor early in our marriage.

Each successive anniversary has not been quite so memorable, although we have had some great times together: trips camping on the beach in Mexico, staying at The Drake Hotel in San Francisco and on our 4th anniversary at The Monteleone in the French Quarter of New Orleans. But that's where our trips take a little break with the birth of our first child before our 5th anniversary.

The next five years we had 3.75 children, so anniversary getaways were put on hold with newborns in the house. Finally our 10th anniversary found us on a trip to a bed and breakfast in Whitefish, Montana, to visit Glacier National Park while I was 7 months pregnant with child #4.All I remember is the beautiful views and the giant bathtub in our room that would fit my entire pregnant belly.

Today we start the tradition anew with our fourth and final child nearly five years old. But where to? Actually, I have no idea. My sweet husband has planned a surprise getaway this weekend to a destination unknown. He even arranged childcare. So in a few short hours we are getting away for some much needed alone time to who-knows-where. Looking forward to spending some time with the love of my life.

And of course, he did make reservations....

15 Year and Counting

Today my husband and I celebrate 15 years of marriage. Honestly, it seems like just yesterday were walking down the aisle. We often look at each other and question, "Who do all these kids belong to and why do they keep calling us Mom & Dad?" These last 15 years have truly flown by.

I am so blessed to have a husband who chooses to follow Christ as his Lord, who makes the choice to love me even when I don't deserve it and who is a loving and strong father for our children. The day we married we promised before God to love each other for the rest of our lives and each day we each make that choice again and again and again. In  honor of our 15th anniversary, here are 15 reasons that my husband rocks.

1. He gets it when I randomly say a line from a movie out of the blue. "I wonder if he is using the same wind we are using?"

2. When I climb into bed with cold feet and I snuggle them under his legs he doesn't complain -- much.

3. When he comes home and sees that I have had a rough day, he sends me to my room and takes over dinner and the kids.

4. He loves going to the movies with me. And not just "guy" movies. He likes the romantic stuff too.

5. He read all four of the Twilight Saga books -- and liked them.

6. He can fix anything. And if he doesn't know how, he can figure out how.

7. He doesn't give me a hard time about needing "girl time" with my friends. He lets me know he misses me when I'm gone but always wishes me a great time.

8. He always makes me feel like I'm the most beautiful and sexy woman on the planet.

9. He is a good provider for our family. He does not sherk working hard.

10. He can fly a plane. That's just cool. And drive a car with the skill of a race car driver. Uber cool.

11. He really knows how to turn a phrase. I know one of these days he will have a book published.

12. He lets me be me.

13. He likes almost all the same shows that I like. Makes deciding what to watch much easier.

14. He is a very involved dad. Reading to, playing with and teaching our children is a priority.

15. He is a great kisser.

I love you, Joel. Looking forward to the next 15. And beyond.