New Year, New Goals

I meant to recap my 2011 annual goals and how I fared about a week ago.  But time got away from me.  So better late than never right?

So in 2011 I vowed to run 475 miles... I actually ran 524.75!  I could've done better but I really slacked through the month of December.  So I decided to challenge myself this year.  I am going to run 600 miles!!  I'm off to a slow start thanks to some sinus drama, but I have my first race of the year at the end of the month.  And it's a 1/2 marathon at that (13.1 miles)... through Disneyland. :)

I needed to get some new tools to help me get across the finish line and before the New Year I picked up a newer model of the shoes I bought last year.  I got them 1 full size bigger than I normally wear because the dreaded black toe never went away.  Runners understand this common ailment.

In addition to my mileage goal, I started doing a 20-30 minute walk every workday.  I actually leave my desk and take a quick stroll through the area.  It's a nice mental break and a good reason to get an extra work out in.

Another goal I set for myself, to read 40 books through the year since I received my Nook last Christmas.  Not only did I read 40, but another 10 for extra credit.  Yep 50 books!

Here's the list and my personal rating system for what I thought... maybe you can find something interesting to read.

1.) My Antonia (+)
2.) Cutting for Stone (-)
3.) The Story of Edgar Sawtelle (-)
4.) Hotel on the Corner of Bitter & Sweet (++)
5.) The Missing by Tim Gautreaux (+)
6.) Major Pettigrew's Last Stand (+) Slow start, good ending
7.) 9th Judgment (+)
8.) Girl Who Kicked the Hornets Nest (++)
9.) Water for Elephants (+++)
10.) Dark Places - Gilllian Flynn (+, dark.. slow start)
11.) Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter (-)
12.) The Book Thief (+)
13.) The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie (-)
14.) A Reliable Wife (+)
15.) The charlamagne Pursuit (+)
16.) The Lacuna (+/-)
17.) The Big Bad Wolf (+)
18.) The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks (++)
19.) Hell at the Breech (-)
20.) Blood of the Prodigal (+)
21.) The Art of Racing in the Rain (++)
22.) Room (+++)
23.) Snow Flower and the Secret Fan (+)
24.) The Shadow in the  Wind (++)
25.) Broken English (+)
26.) The Wednesday Sisters (+)
27.) The Paris Vendetta (+)
28.) A Stolen Life (++)
29.) London Bridges (+)
30.) Still Alice (++)
31.) The Wednesday Letters (+++)
32.) Girl in Translation (+)
33.) Unbroken (++)
34.) Molokai (+)
35.) The Tiger's Wife (-)
36.) The Paris Wife (+)
37.) Eat Pray Love (+)
38.) Heaven is For Real (+++)
39.) Before I Go to Sleep (++)
40.) In the Garden of Beasts (+)
41.) What Alice Forgot (++)
42.) Emperors Tomb (+)
43.) Sister (+)
44.) The Language of Flowers (++)
45.) When Darkness Falls (+)
46.) The Memory Keepers Daughter (+)
47.) Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children (+/-)
48.) Caleb's Crossing (+)
49.) The Kitchen House (+++)
50.) 10th Anniversary (+)

This year's goal?  Another 50 books.  I don't plan to do as much traveling for business or pleasure this year, so I'm not planning on finding as much time.  I'm still working on my first book of the year....

It's kind of fun to set some interesting goals and track them throughout the year.  I hope you stick to your own resolutions!

Hot Fun in the Summertime

I shared with you the other day the adventures we had at Dodger Stadium, but baseball wasn't our original intention for going to Los Angeles last weekend - it was to see Tata and Abuela, Dave's parents!

Friday night, Tata and Abuela came to the hotel with dinner and some adult beverages so they could spend some quality time with Drew.  The next morning Drew read Abuela a story - you know to show off a bit.

That day we went to the Dodger game, and afterward headed over to Tata and Abuela's house to watch another game... football - Soccer that is.  US vs. Mexico.  Guess who this group was cheering on?

It was a divided group as we watched the game from the front yard - about half rooted for the US the other half for Mexico - who ended up winning.

Drew only napped for about 30 minutes from Dodger Stadium to their house, so he was a little feisty to say the least.  In trying to take a picture of he and Tata he would only make weird faces.

And a bit later on he was beyond ticked that I wouldn't let him ply outside the fence.  You couldn't tell that he was mad or anything by looking at him...

He did however pose with his cousins, Jasmine and Henry as we were leaving for the night.

The next day we met up with Tata and Abuela at Jonathan and Claudia's house - Drew's Aunt and Uncle and enjoyed their pool!  It was definitely warm in the sun!

Little Henry - who is about a year younger than Drew - was too small to join everyone in the pool, so he had his own pool.  And loved splashing everyone in the big one!  They of course returned the favor (you can see Drew's orange water wings in the big pool).

L-R: Dave, Drew from behind, friend of Drew's cousin Johanna, Henry & Tata

But alas we had to make the long drive home - so we needed to say our goodbyes.  I love this shot of Drew and Abuela.  We were hoping to make a few pit stops on our way home and visit a few friends who live along the way, but Drew had enough and was quite the beast (until he finally fell asleep - thankfully for 2 hours).   

We decided to take the 99 all the way home - we usually take I5 - but with some road construction on the 5 it seemed to make the most sense.  On the way to LA - the road construction detour allowed us to have a potty break at our friend's Mel and Chris' house outside of Bakersfield.

So Sweet, For A Minute

So sweet for a minute. Reading his books and then in a flash it changes.

And then he gets in a little bathroom reading.





Thankfully the book was covering his - shall we say, exposed areas.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

VIDEO: Our Bookworm

The other night I was all set to read a story to Drew - it turned into Drew reading to me instead.  I have to say this was the first time we'd opened this book up and he was reading it to me...



And then this one really got him excited.. of course he knew that word....

My 2 Year Old Read to Me!

I've mentioned before that our Day Care Provider - Ms. Stephanie has been working with Drew on his sight words.  He knows more than 60 words by sight alone - he can spell a good about a third of them too.

Last weekend at the garage sale, my parents were getting rid of an old/extra copy of a Dr. Seuss classic.

Drew was busy for the entire garage sale playing with items he never touches at home or at Grammy's.  So in his "digging" he spotted this book and recognized some of the words on the cover from his flashcards and various movies.

As a little experiment, I had him read me this story.  We opened the first page (which repeats the title), and he spotted a few words right off the bat - "red" and "blue".  Then I had him follow my finger as he actually read the words in the right order.

He read about 6 or 7 pages before he started to get antsy and hit a few harder words.  So off he went to dig into more stuff we were trying to get pawn off on other people.

My Mom is my witness - he was literally reading this book.  Is it too soon to send our applications to Ivy League Schools?

Beginning to Read

It's no secret, Drew loves his flashcards.  In fact we were busy impressing the man who sat next to us on the airplane on the way out to Kansas City Drew's ability to name all the MLB Teams.

Yesterday Ms. Stephanie called me at work to have Drew read some words to me.  Of course I was one proud Mama to hear that.

She's using some "Sight Word" flashcards that were for her 4-year old. 

Drew's been watching some Preschool videos with her boys and apparently he's picking a few things up. Here's a list of some of the words he was reading on his own (list Ms. Stephanie made for us):

• Up
• White
• Word
• are
• one
• no
• a
• my
• myes
• box
• red
• yellow
• at
• it
• in
• I
• go
• brown
• blue
• big
• be

She made a note that he gets confused with similar looking words like "no" and "on" or "pig" and "big". 

To test this out, I pulled out some sight words we have, and then wrote a few things on his dry erase easel - he definitely recognizes when we write all the colors including "gold" and "silver".  We're quite proud of our little guy.

Reading into Independence

It was awfully quiet Saturday afternoon in the house while I was trying to clean up and get ready for a birthday party. Dave was out running errands, and I knew Drew was floating around somewhere. After a few moments, this is what I found:

Yes he was in his room (on his new big boy twin sized mattress - frame is yet to arrive) reading to himself. This particular story of choice - "Green Eggs & Ham". I tried not to interrupt too much, but he was doing quite well reading "I am Sam, Sam I am" and other topics on the pages.

I'm sure it's because Dave's read him the story a TON, not to mention we bought the movie - and it's now one of his favorites.

Periodically I could hear him reading "Llama Llama Red Pajama" and "Hop on Pop". Hey he was reading and behaving! Who was I to complain?

Every Man Needs Reading Material

We pause your regularly scheduled blogging with this brief announcement.... Drew is like every other man who sits on the pot...


Some people may read the Sports Section of the newspaper, others the Funnies. My son, Mickey and Minnie books. Unfortunately this time there were no "results" in the potty, but he's more interested in spending time in there - you know like his Daddy.

For the record we've had three instances of Drew "making water". And yes, that's what he still calls it.

2 Yr Old Storytime

Who says you need to always be the one to read to a two year old?



That's right, Drew was reading to me last night!

OK before you think he's some sort of boy genius, we've read this story to him a million times, and he pretty much has it memorized. But shhhhhh, don't tell anyone.