Half Blood Prince Thoughts

So like I mentioned, we finished reading Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince Sunday. I, like many, have mixed feelings about the outcome, but I do have specific thoughts about the book in general (How about that... specific general thoughts. Confused yet?)

So if you look at all the other books so far, they end at Platform 9³/4, where this one does not... they are still at Hogwarts. And I always felt (with the possible exception of Order of the Phoenix) that the books ended kind of Brady Bunchesque, in that, everything was always resolved and life was happier at the end of the story. This one again does not do that. Since there was a hint of things still being left unresolved from book 5, this may just show that Rowling's style is evolving with time, not only her/our time but the story timeline.

As she has been so good at doing, I don't think things are all that they seem at the end of this book. I think she still has room to surprise us in the next book, and she has left enough hints that we will be surprised but we will say "Oh, we could have seen that coming."

I think Harry has grown up a lot since the last book. He is no longer acting like a teenager who thinkgs no-one understands him. And he is definitely ready to shoulder the responsibility he now feels he has.

At any rate, I'm thinking favorite HP book so far. Definitely left me waiting for the next one. And since we finally caught up, now we really do have to wait like the rest of the world. Grrrr! I'm open to discuss the intricate details for anyone that's interested in hearing someone else's thoughts.

Getting Ready For the First Day of School

So... We were getting the kids stuff ready for the first day of school tomorrow, and Goliath decided that he wanted to pack his stuff to! I guess he didn't want us calling him "Dumb Dog" anymore.

Seriously though, I can't believe I have a son going into 4th grade and a daughter going into 2nd grade. AAAHHHHH!!

I guess then next book we will have to read as a family is "Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing" now that we have a fourth grader and now that we have finished reading the Half Blood Prince. Yes, we finished it today! I'll have to try and comment on it tomorrow. (And I'll make sure not to give away anything, assuming that I have time to even post, being a Monday and all)

So this year would be a good year to have a Freaky Friday moment with Jeremy. I remember that it was in the fourth grade when I had my first computer class. Me, one other fouth grader, and a small group 5th and 6th grade students at Jackling Elementary School were driven up to the jr. high school to learn Basic. It was during math class because I apparently did not need to stick around for math. It was probably when I realized that I was pretty good at math and had a knack for logic and computer programming.

More About Our Trip

Adding my own comments to Holly's post about our weekend... We did enjoy the weekend on the whole. Though I have to say if I lived in Utah County and worked in Salt Lake County, I'd FREAK'N move around the point of the mountain! (I'd probably just move if I lived in Utah County no matter what. But that's a whole other day's posting...) Holy crap that was a long drive trying to get out of town. I came home from work, we packed up the last of what we needed and left, so it was rush hour traffic. Added nearly an hour to the journey when compared to the trip home where we beat the traffic.

Once we got there though, it was all good. We probably could have had a better spot than the one we ended up in, but there were actually quite a few campers there so all the really good spots were taken. I liked the pool at this one better than the one in Nephi (though the kids seemed to really like the slide at the one in Nephi.) I'll have to try to remember to get some pictures to post of both places so you can all see what they look like.

The only thing I can think of right now that would make these trips better is the kids getting old enough that we are comfortable letting them get up and get out of the trailer. They like to wake up early and then start giggling and playing whereas Holly and I like to sleep in.

I agree with Holly that it was nice to hear our neighbor camper tell us that our kids were well behaved. All in all they really were. The occasional little spat here and there, but what siblings don't do that at their age?

Oh, and Sis, you should totally come camping with us (when you are ready to take little RR) because our kids would absolutely keep your toddler from running off. Just ask Sherri about the last few family reunions.

Just what's up

Just something to post, nothing super exciting...

So we are headed to Mt. Pleasant to go camping tonight, as soon as I get off work. I'm taking Monday off work so that we don't have to come back until Monday afternoon.

We have an ownership in Camperworld Trust and basically get to show up whenever we want with no charge (since we pay the maintenance fees annually) and enjoy the facilities. Water and electricity hook-ups, swimming pool and playground. We haven't been to this one yet, so we are basically going to check it out.
We went to the one in Nephi over the 24th of July weekend and it was really nice, so we have high hopes for this one.

Enjoy the weekend!

Tagged

My Sis tagged me. I’ve never done one of these on a blog so here goes:

10 years ago: Had been married for nearly 6 months and still a year away from having Jeremy. We did have Goliath already though, and he was still cute and cuddly with not nearly so bad smelling puppy breath. We had moved into that house on the crane yard a couple of months prior. I was working at Convergys (actually it was still Matrixx Marketing then) and I was still on the phones taking calls for DIRECTV, though I had discovered I knew more about DIRECTV Policies, billing systems, and general info than my supervisor did at this point.

5 years ago: We had moved to Sandy in our double-wide manufactured home. I was working for Morgan Stanley Online and had just been offered the call routing job (or was about to be... it was sometime in July or August as I recall) where they made the mistake of training me to do what would eventually help me make more money somewhere else and to even go back and hire away the guy they replaced me with. Too bad for them that they canned me... but great for me! Was also still trying to get done with my AS in Computer Science, so life was pretty busy.

1 year ago: Quality of life has deffinitely gone up in the last 10 years... Back at Convergys doing ICM call Routing. "Top Dog" in the department and making good cash because I had been offered another job in Denver that Convergys had matched. I was teaching the 11-12 year olds in church and being their Assistant Scout Leader as well. Starting to feel old because Jeremy was now 8 and had just been baptized. Am I really old enough to have an 8 year old son?

Yesterday: Went to work at GE Consumer Finance, where I have been for the past 2 months. Did the normal stuff for a busy Monday, including followup on issues from the weekend, puting out 'Fires', joining conference calls, and trying to finish the web reporting application I have been building for the Technical Operations Center. Went to Wal-Mart and spent our life's savings as we usually do there... OK, not really our life's savings, but we always seem to spend a lot of money there! Read Scriptures with the family before bed and went to bed early (for me) because I had a headache.

Tomorrow: SSDD? Really, I'll come to work and do the norm... Read scriptures with the family, and Hopefully read some more from the Half Blood Prince with the family (we are about half way through and it's getting better as we go). Possibly do what I can to help us get ready to go camping on Friday as soon as I get home from work.

5 snacks I enjoy: Monkey Business ice-cream, Just about any other flavor of ice-cream in a bowl, ice-cream on a stick (like those orange dream-cicles, yum!), beef jerkey (the meat, since this is probably not a flavor of ice-cream that I would like), and ice-cream sandwiches. (Did I mention I like ice-cream)

5 bands/artists that I know the lyrics to most of their songs: This is a tough one really... See, I think I am getting old because I find myself listening to KSL news radio more frequently than I ever would have seen myself doing, and not to music all the time. I would have to say Alabama, I know a lot of They Might Be Giants, a bunch of Alan Jackson, Can anyone besides Danny Elfman say they really know most of Oingo-Boingo's songs? I'm at least familiar with a bunch of them, though I can't say I can follow most of the lyrics all the time (you know that one part in Goodbye where he goes really fast!), and Don Williams maybe?

5 things I'd do with $100,000,000: wouldn't this be easier to list 5 things I wouldn't do? Quit my job and just do some contract ICM jobs here and there for the sake of having work to do; Pay off everything we don't yet own (house, Jimmy, Trailer... that might be it for the list, so we would probably buy a couple of new cars instead of just paying off the Jimmy. That way we don't have to worry about car problems); Have the basement finished (see that... someone else will do the work because I can afford to make sure it's done the way we want it), Build a deck in the backyard (and yes I would do the building for the heck of it), along with some landscaping like some shade trees and such; Go on some exotic vacations. Have I used it all up yet?

5 locations I'd like to run away to: Mountains, Hawaii (at least once), A Disney theme park or two, maybe Europe so that I could say I have been (does that count as one place if several countries/cities are visited), The Moon or Mars (somewhere in space, really)

5 bad habits I have: Going to bed late, ignoring my yard until I absolutely have to mow it, forgetting to finish things,

5 things I like doing: Fixing things, Camping, Programming things on the computer, watching TV (unfortuneatly I am a junkie... I'll watch just about anything that is on if I get started), reading with the family

5 thing I will never wear: um... a dress, wait, Bryan and I did that once for a lipsync contest... nylons, oh, did that too to help get a wetsuit on when I went scuba diving... hmmm... Lets see then... Nipple rings (ok, that's one I haven't done yet), tampon (duh!), toupe, hopefully not dentures, speedo bikini bathing suit (at least not in public)

5 TV shows I like: Stargate SG-1, CSI, Smallville, The 4400, Still Standing... There's a bunch more. I have TiVo, what do you expect. I told you I was a junkie.

5 movies I like: Stargate, The Goonies, Lord of The Rings, Ferris Buellers Day Off, Young Frankenstien (just to name a few)

5 people I'd like to meet: Joseph Smith Jr., Matthew Broderick, Neil Armstrong, Mark Twain, Ben Franklin

5 biggest joys at the moment: Time off with my family, Sleeping in with my wife, 2 Kids that really are pretty good most of the time, ice-cream!, and sex (duh!)

5 favorite toys: Always Liked Legos, Magnetix (you know, those magnet toys), Johnny Jump-up (I totally want one of these for adults!), really big model train set like the one on Silver Spoons, A zipline (Would be cool to put one accross our yard)

1 tagged: Everyone I know with a blog has been tagged, so... Holly :) (you can either start your own blog or comment mine or start one of those email 'getting to know you' things with this list), and anyone else that feels so inclined...