One Day in New York

Feeling the love in New York.

New Moon Trailer

Ok, so you know I'm a die hard Twilight fan and that I was sooooo disappointed in the movie version. Well, I have a bit of glee that's bubbling up inside of me, because I just got done watching the newest New Moon trailer. I have hopes that it might be good. Just trying to not have high hopes. I don't want to be disappointed again.

The trailer is posted at the bottom of my blog. Watch it and let me know what you think. Do you have goose bumps? I'm putting together a group again to go and see it. Debating as to whether to see it at the very first showing (which could very well be midnight) or Friday or Saturday night. Let me know which night you would prefer. It'll probably happen at Broadway, because that's an easier theater than Edwards.

Check out the trailer...hurry! Eeekkk! Did you see his abs? Team Edward or Jacob - neither will be disappointed :) For optimum viewing - let the trailer play once so it'll load and then hit replay. It'll be nice and smooth the second time.

100 and Counting

Tonight I finished my 101st book for the year, obviously surpassing my goal of reading 100 books this year. Blood Promise by Richelle Mead is the fourth book in her Vampire Academy series, which tells the story of Rose Hathaway, a dhampir, who is bonded to her best friend Lissa. Because a struggle that occurs in the third book, Rose leaves her school in Montana to travel to Russia where the majority of the fourth book's action takes place.

I think my favorite book in the series, so far, is the third book, Shadow Kiss because Rose and Dimitri finally are together. I had anxiety for most of the fourth book, because I was worried about Rose and the situation she was in (trying to write about this without giving away too much). It ended with a cliffhanger (you were right Irish!) that has me hoping for a happy ending to occur in book five, Spirit Bound, which is set to be published on May 18, 2010. Eek! I have to wait eight months to find out what's going to happen! The sixth book is to be published late 2010.

Great young adult series. I'd say high school and older as there are some mature themes. I really got caught up in the characters. Of course, I liked Rose the best as she's the main character, the heroine, is tough and sassy. Sometimes I didn't care for Mead's use of exposition. In the subsequent books it seemed like a lot all at one time. I would chunk read those parts and get on to the new story telling. I did read them back to back and so if they are spaced out, thorough exposition can come in handy for short term memory loss folks like me :)

Thanks to Jen and a visit to a used book store in Arroyo Grande, I have a huge stack of books to dig into, so now I'm wondering how many I will end up reading by the time the year is up. Any guesses?

Wedding East Coast Style

In New York for the east coast wedding festivities. Madison and Dan had their open house last night and it was lovely. Maddie, once again, looked so pretty in her vintage styled wedding dress. It was the perfect dress for her. Dan looked handsome in his navy suit and bright pink tie. Their cultural hall has a wall covering, which made the room much warmer than our off-white painted cinder block walls. Jan's friends did a wonderful job in decorating the room and we had delicious fresh fruit and cake to eat. Dan made a play list a we danced the night-a-way to, well I guess for an hour of so anyway.

Randy and I were lent a van to drive back to Manhattan and after we dropped Madison off at her apartment in Harlem, we navigated our way through the streets of the big city assisted by the Magellan, trying to avoid taxis who liked to weave past us or stop directly in front of us to pick up passengers. Amazingly enough, we made it to our hotel, going, mind you, directly through Times Square, which was pure craziness.

Sunday, we picked up the kids and drove out to CT for Jan's mom's 90th birthday celebration, which took place at a beautiful country club. We enjoyed meeting Jan's extended family and getting to know them a bit better.

We came back to the kid's apartment and ordered wonderful New York pizza for dinner and enjoyed watching them open their wedding gifts. Now, we're going to look at Guitar Hero on the Wii and rock out.

96 and Counting

So, I'm at 96 books and counting. I'm going to New York this week for Madison & Dan's open house, so I just purchased the next three books in Richelle Mead's Vampire Academy series and I have Nora Roberts two books left in her Sign of Seven Trilogy series. I guess 100 books this year is completely doable at this point lol. I'll have to see how many books I can finish by the end of the year.

Vampire Academy

I finished Richelle Mead's young adult book, Vampire Academy, and I highly recommend it.

Here's an excerpt from Mead's website on the book:

"Two races of vampires walk our world. The Moroi are alive and wield elemental magical, while the Strigoi are undead and evil--feeding on the innocent to survive. Rose Hathaway--a half-vampire with poor impulse control--is training to be a bodyguard for a Moroi princess. Learning to decapitate and stake is hard enough, but Rose's real danger may lie in an illicit romance with one of her instructors..."

Rose, through an accident, was bonded to her best friend Lissa, a Moroi. Rose is training to be Lissa's guardian at the Vampire Academy. Typical high school intrigue and student hierarchy play into their lives as they try to figure out all the changes Lissa is going through.

Good pacing, characters and enough intrigue that I wanted to pick it up again. I look forward to finishing the series. Go to Mead's website for details on this series and two other series she is writing.