Crossed by Ally Condie
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I liked this book more than Matched. Looking forward to the third book!

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“As we grow up, we learn that even the one person that wasn’t supposed to ever let us down, probably will. You’ll have your heart broken and you’ll break others’ hearts. You’ll fight with your best friend or maybe even fall in love with them, and you’ll cry because time is flying by. So take too many pictures, laugh too much, forgive freely, and love like you’ve never been hurt. Life comes with no guarantees, no time outs, no second chances. you just have to live life to the fullest, tell someone what they mean to you and tell someone off, speak out, dance in the pouring rain, hold someone’s hand, comfort a friend, fall asleep watching the sun come up, stay up late, be a flirt, and smile until your face hurts. Don’t be afraid to take chances or fall in love and most of all, live in the moment because every second you spend angry or upset is a second of happiness you can never get back.”

- Unknown

I learned at Parent/Teacher conference on Friday that you pretty much memorized this book, Aidan. Ms. Kwong says that you would sometimes sit by her during circle and ‘read’ louder than her and your classmates will look at you instead of her. She joked with me that she had a thought, “Maybe I’ll let Aidan teach the class”. It’s so cute to see you grow up and your interest become more and more apparent to me. You are SUCH a boy. This is innate since I am sure your Dad and I do little to promote it in you and in your princess sister. You like pirates, ghosts (even though you’re afraid of them, you’re drawn to them), bats, spiders, frogs.

We had a big birthday weekend. Mike and I attended a birthday party for our friend, Jamie, in Marina Del Rey on Friday night. This party resulted in Mommy wearing sunglasses all day Saturday for Lauren’s backyard princess party. LOL. I will not let a little headache get in the way of my kids’ fun!!! We went home afterwards all took a power nap and woke up to attend Henry’s pirate themed party. It was nice to have some time to get to know the parents of my kids’ friends. We had a great time and dropped the kids off at Mahmah’s to spend the night. Super long but fun day!

Book: Crossed by Ally Condie

I’m only in chapter 8 but can tell this book is way more intense than the first book in this series, Matched. Matched was very much a love story to build the relationship between the main characters. Van and I are reading this together and she is way ahead of me and is giving me clues of the intensity of this book.

…hopes you all had a fun and safe Halloween this year! (At least that’s what they’d say if they didn’t have lollipops in their mouths!) Oh, what a difference a year makes. Last year they had absolutely no candy. This year, they each ate 3 lollipops in the entire course of trick or treating! =)

To Aidan and Brooke:

This year, Mommy planned on making you Thing 1 and Thing 2 from the Cat in the Hat. Our visit to see cousin Riley and Mom’s profound skill of procrastination ensured that this would not happen. So we ended up wearing the costume Di Tu got Brooke as a backup. But what about Aidan? Mom took the shirt originally for Thing 1 and made it into Grumpy’s shirt. Then I got you some brown sweatpants from Target and some fleece from Joann’s glued onto an old baseball cap became Grumpy’s hat. Sorry if you feel that Mommy ripped you off compared to Brooke’s elaborate costume but to be honest, love, you hate wearing anything that does not feel like clothes. So you brought it on yourself, if you ask me. Plus, I hand crafted your costume…that’s love. :)

You both had a great Halloween this year. A little timid to start. The first couple of houses had to come up to you to give you candy. But once you both realized candy was involved, you had no problem walking up to doors by yourself. You said “Trick or Treat” to get your candy and said “Happy Halloween” as you left. We only went for an hour, but I’m sure in toddler time, that’s like 3 hours. Yeh yeh and Gu Jie went with us but your Dad was able to beat the traffic and go with you at the last couple of houses.

When we got back, a few neighbors rung our doorbell. I asked Brooke to help give candy to the neighbors. It only took one time, and you were hooked. I’ll admit I was nervous that you wouldn’t like the idea of ‘giving candy away’ but you loved it…maybe more than trick-or-treating yourself!

After a while, your sweet aunt and father started scoping out the neighborhood to make sure kids come to our house so you both can give out candy. It was a hilarious night. I think we had as much fun as you kids did. If you two had a good time, then our job is done.

Love you,
Mommy

Hi, 30-something teeny bopper here. I say, I’m entitled because I wasn’t one when I was an actual teenager. :)

Cast of twilight handprinting at Grauman’s Chinese Theater today

I read to escape. I’ve been reading for a couple of months now and am really enjoying it. Just last night, I was telling Mike…”We’re old! We rather read than watch TV.” My new reader just came in (thanks, husband) so we were laying in bed reading together. He’s reading a book on early retirement and I’m reading a book on music theory (only because I’m waiting for the sequel to Matched by Ally Condie…which comes out today!)

I’ve been a little embarrassed since Mike reads financial and non-fiction books (you know, books people our age should be looking into) and I read teenage fiction (I tell everybody I read at the 7th grade level) but I just realized today..I read to escape. Not the “I hate my life” kind of escape, but more of a “let’s enjoy the fantasy for a little bit” escape. Bao and Van always makes fun of the way I get sucked into fictional drama on TV…with books, it’s worse! Because my imagination carries me away! Haha, and I love the quiet time I have with a good book.

Books I’ve read recently:
Harry Potter & the Half-blood Prince
Harry Pottery & The Deathly Hallows – Yes, I realize it’s 2011. Hahaha. I stopped reading Harry Potter after the disappointment of book 5. I hated that book with a passion. But after the rave reviews of everybody I know who read book 6 & 7…I decided to do it and I’m so glad I did. Love them as much as I did 1-4!

Hunger Games trilogy (Hunger Games, Catching Fire, Mockingjay) – I was feeling empty from the end of Harry Potter so somebody recommended I read these. I can’t remember who recommended these to me but I hear about them EVERYWHERE. Alicia? Tina? Debbi? Either way, I read the first and couldn’t put it down! I quickly recommended it to Van and we both just flew through these books. They’re making a movie next summer and I can’t wait to watch it. Love this series…enough to have major withdrawals after I finished.

The Twilight Saga (Twilight, New Moon, Eclipse, Breaking Dawn) – Oh boy, was I fighting these. Haha. After reading Hunger Games, Debbi recommended these to me…told me not to let all the buzz and the huge franchise affect me. More so, she told me “Don’t watch the movies…the books are good.” So I read them. It took awhile for me to get into Twilight because I was use to the fast pace of Hunger Games but once the relationship between Bella and Edward came to play – I was hooked. I’ve forgotten what a hopeless romantic I am and this romance was intoxicating and addicting to say the least! After reading all of these, I watched all the movies and love them just as much. Not the same as the book, but still fun to watch. I was so convincing I got Mike to read Breaking Dawn and he’ll admit it. He’s a fan. (Hahaha. Love my husband.)

Water for Elephants – It is a complete coincidence that Robert Pattinson stars in this movie and I’m reading it. I felt I owe it to Tina who recommended this book to me after we finished Kite Runner & Thousand Splendid Suns a couple years ago. I never was able to get into it. But with Twilight being over, I needed something to read and felt the need to get out of the tween genre of books for a minute. This was a good book…well written and researched. I felt like I was back in the days when the circus is very different from the things we see in Vegas today!

Matched – Back to tween fiction! Hahaha…recommended by a coworker who is easily the biggest Twilight & Hunger Games fan I know, this was a very exciting book. Enough for me to wait for it’s sequel before starting a new book.