As Christmastime approaches . . .

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I like to give grandkids books for Christmas, but don't want to duplicate some that you already have. Would you like to make inventories of your kid-books so I can choose something new? Or actually, old, since I want the kids to have all of our old favorites available to them.

Thanks. Omi

Roman Holiday

When Omi and I heard the announcement of the temple in Rome, we sent up a collective cheer with the rest of you. The we had a fantastic idea. Let's all go over to Rome for the open house and dedication of the temple. No, I'm not kidding. Here are some ideas flying fast and thick at TORH:

• Design a 2-3 week vacation in Italy and surrounding areas
  
• Rent a villa or something close to the area
• Invite the Banchis to join us (Ali and Scott G, don't you have some Italian friends? Maybe they could come, too.)
• Ethan and Beanie would be old enough to go to the dedication (don't you have to be 12?)
  
• Start brushing up on our Italian
• Start saving money
• Start saving up vacation time
• Think of a Beebs-like person (a nanny, like what Beebs did for that one family) we could take with us to watch the kids while the adults go have fun
  
• Get into shape so we won't faint by the wayside or allow our feeble knees to slow us down
• Do many other exciting and educational activities

Well, what do you think? Let me know. We have enough time to really plan this and make it fun.

Halloween help, ASAP

Hey, I am in charge of Westons class Halloween party. In one section, they read a story. Any ideas of good Halloween stories? Also, they need to learn a chant, or something. All I remember of one when I was a kid is "Stirring and Stirring the brew, boo!" Anybody remember the rest? Other chants that are fun?

And, any idea other than donut on a string, for the donut eating area?

Happy BIrthday Scott Garner!

Hope you had a great day!!! Enjoy your new year that you have before you!

Have you read these?

The Big Read is a NEA program designed to encourage community reading initiatives and of their top 100 books, they estimate the average adult has read only six. So, knowing this family, this should make you feel good. (I on the other hand, will probably lose this game...)

1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6 The Bible
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D'Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespear
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveler's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
34 Emma - Jane Austen
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli's Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52 Dune - Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones's Diary - Helen Fielding
69 Midnight's Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce
76 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession - AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte's Web - EB White
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

Aidan and eyes

Just FYI, Aidan goes in tomorrow (Wednesday) for his MRI and EEG. We would appreciate prayers that they will be able to find the problem (or find NO problem). I will let you know how things go a few days after when I talk with the doctors about results.

Other news, I go in for eye surgery on Thursday. Yippee. I would also appreciate prayers that there are no complications....

Thanks wonderful family. I am so glad we have you all!

Happy Birthday Val!

Happy birthday to Valentina, I hope it was great!