Things I've been reading and learning about

First, I've been reading and skimming lots more middle grade to keep up with my voracious reader firstborn. The younger siblings are also voracious readers but I already filled their book lists to the brim thanks to their brother so their reading lives require far less upkeep on my part.

Berlin Wall- I have been listening to The Berlin Letters as an audiobook and realized this is a subject I have always been fascinated by (primarily thanks to a movie on the Wetzels in elementary school and later a great picture book about them) and yet have not read much about. Last year I enjoyed A Night Divided, which is on my son's book list for next year, so with this week's library holds I decided to get a few middle grade nonfiction offerings on the subject both for my own interests and for his when he reads A Night Divided.

Codes and ciphers- I read and approved the first Book Scavenger book and the first Mysterious Benedict Society book so now my son is obsessed with codes! I will be reading the second book in both of those series soon but in the meantime he asked me to borrow a whole bunch of nonfiction library books on the subject. Good luck trying to enter this house without first solving a code/cipher.

Conjoined twins- I read Gifted Hands a few years ago and really liked it. I do hope to watch the documentary at some point but right now I am reading Take the Risk in my morning reading. This has led me down a rabbit trail researching lots of articles about conjoined twin separations stories and I just got a nonfiction grown up book from the library about the conjoined twins from Siam (the ones for whom the term Siamese twins was coined) who traveled with the circus. If you have followed here for any great length of time you might recall that the circus is one of those random subjects I am always excited to read about so I'm really looking forward to this one.

Dogs- This is what my girls usually request right now. One girl loves bear picture books and another loves pig chapter books but all three ask about various dog books pretty regularly. I read a ton of fiction and nonfiction chapter books on the subject these days. 

Food scarcity- So many kids are hungry and when they do eat, it's nutrient-light junk. I'm so super passionate about this right now. 💙

Health- Always. This is so important for me, and for so many people my age (I swear it's more every year!). I recently read that the life expectancy for a female my age will be 84.9 years old and I thought, 'I just know I can beat that!' and then I swallowed a raw clove of garlic whole. I want to be able to take care of + support my family and community for as long as that is God's plan for me. I often hear that He has chosen our number of days in advance but what people don't think about is how we'll feel during those days. I want to feel vibrant and alert for as many of those days as possible! 

Homemaking- I feel so joyful, grateful, and passionate about this subject again. Sometimes it's just so normalized for me that I appreciate it but don't think about it a ton, the all the sudden I'll become wildly passionate about it again.

5 Things I've Been Loving

💐 Colorful flowers popping up all over the place- all around businesses, all over people's yards. 

🍎 Our emergency lunchbox... I now keep this full at all times- a filling bar, dried fruit, and nuts or crackers or something. If one of us has to leave the house unexpectedly we can grab it + whatever fruit is handy and boom, automatic snack plate lunch all set. 

💰 Prize money... I filled out the winter bingo card my library put out as an adult reading program and I won a $25 gift card! Reading does pay. Less than $1 a book, but still 😉 

👕 Crann Organics... My daughter got one of their sweatshirts for Christmas and my son just got a pair of their sweatpants. They both love their Crann items and I am now watching this company for coupon codes + sales! 

🎧 I've had great luck with podcasts lately and wanted to share Max Lucado on Read Aloud Revival 

Adventures in Boise- part 2

 

Day 4- We started this day with breakfast and a walk around the green belt behind our airbnb. 

We went to the Discovery Center with family and it was a big hit, the highlight of the trip for two of my kids. That month they had an impressionist art exhibit (Degas has always been one of my favorite artists so that was fun), fossils, simple physics, space, and a big LEGO area. 

We had a smoothie bowl lunch at Boise Juice Co (100% gluten free + vegan at some locations) where our whole party either chose the peanut butter bowl or the Chocolate Cherry Cashew bowl. Delicious! 

Then we headed downtown! 

 

Maybe it's my dad's construction background coming out but another thing I love on trips is admiring beautiful old architecture. My husband loves this now, too, which is so fun! We point out neat old buildings to each other as we drive/walk and marvel at the craftsmanship differences between then (arches, turrets, balustrades🏰⛪!) and now (tall rectangular skyscrapers 🏢🏬, fast, so we can move on to the next 🤑🤑🤑) 

Our main focus downtown was a set of sister bookstores. Rediscovered Books is a store full of new books and Once and Future Books is their used branch. We did leave the used bookstore with several children's books thanks to Nana. 

We made dinner in the Airbnb and it was a learning experience. The plan was to do Boise Juice Co for lunches and to alternate rice bowl dinners with our hashbrown taco dinner but then we saw a new, clean ingredient veggie burger and everyone wanted to try that instead. It was good (our new favorite, definitely recommend) but it was a lot more work / more time intensive to make those + fries and next time we'll stick to the plan. 

Hubs and I ended our night with two episodes of A Thousand Tomorrows. 

Day 5- We slept in, ate breakfast in the Airbnb, and all went to a park with a great playground. My husband and I enjoyed a Lime scooter date- so incredibly fun! I do recommend these, but I recommend a helmet. You can get going a lot faster than you might think. 

We again had lunch at Boise Juice Co. I opted for the Popeye smoothie but I found it to be so bad it was undrinkable! I'm a green smoothie girl and I add far more spinach and kale than most people but I still found it to be bitter, bitter, bitter. Fortunately they'd accidentally made an extra smoothie bowl so I just had that. Again we all had the peanut butter or chocolate cherry cashew bowl. 

We checked out VIP Games and then got several items from our lists at Half Price Books, a store we enjoyed in Texas. 

This night's airbnb dinner was another I find to be so simple + easy for feeding a crowd- hashbrown tacos! I dumped hashbrowns, salsa, canned beans (drained + rinsed), canned sliced olives (drained + rinsed), and leftover sauteed mushrooms + onions into a casserole dish, mixed, and baked at 350 until nice and warm. In the meantime I steamed broccoli, sliced avocado, and added a thin layer of cashew cream to all the tortillas. That's it! Warm hashbrown mixture plopped into tortillas, avocado slices for those who want them, steamed broccoli on the side. You could easily add meat + cheese for those who want it. 

Uno and Sorry were played and then we said our goodbyes, packed up the Airbnb, and finished A Thousand Tomorrows (loved the show!)

Day 6- Time to head hoooooome! 

We checked out of Airbnb and grabbed smoothies + bars to-go at Boise Juice (three of us had The Original and three had the DragonFLY, both were hits) and began the trek home! 

Idaho books we have loved...

Adults: Before I Called You Mine (Christian) // Beyond (Christian... I feel like this is more of a middle grade/YA book though) // I'll be Seeing You (Christian) // A Promise Kept (Christian)

Middle Grade: Running with Wolves (secular)

Picture books: Beauty and the Beak (secular) // Goodnight Idaho (secular, board book) // The Skydiving Beavers (secular)

Recent reads

📖 Catching the Wind (Christian, historical fiction, time slip)... I should be tired of WWII - journalist stories by now but I'm not! Melanie Dobson is one of my favorite WWII authors, too. 

📖 Long Way Home (Christian, historical fiction)... I'll start with the warning that there was a major focus on WWII tragedies + a character's depression, PTSD, and suicide attempt. This WWII story was a difficult read as a result but so good and well-done! 

📖 Searching for the Ark of the Covenant (Christian, nonfiction, history [kinda])... I loved this fascinating nonfiction and I am excited to learn even more about the ark of the covenant. I have so many thoughts and ideas about it! 

📖 An Unexplained Death (secular, nonfiction, true crime)... I got very curious about this true crime story and have read + listened to many interviews about it. This book was heavily focused on suicide. It's hard to say a true crime novel was good, given the subject matter, and I come to a different conclusion than the author because of other interviews paired with what's in the book, but overall I'd call it generally good. 

📖 When We Were Young (Christian, contemporary fiction)... This was my favorite "Baxter" book yet! I loved the influencer angle because it's something I think about so often! It's primarily about an unrelated couple who happens to know some of the Baxters and works very well as a true stand-alone for those who have never read the Baxter books. 

Weekend!

This has been a super busy season for us so I was determined to make this weekend a nice combination of productive + fun + relaxing in spite of a couple obligations. 

Highlights: Finding an outfit I like even though cozy sweater season is ending // Pizza-movie-night with Sgt. Stubby // The best weather for sitting outside in the shade during a phone call with extended family // making a decent dent in my big book labeling project while Hubby and I watched a movie // listening to a good audio book during my big cleaning time // got a restaurant in a bigger town to make us some delicious custom breakfast wraps (mushrooms, onions, bell peppers, potatoes, avocado, salsa, greens) // a beautiful walk down by the water // lasagna soup for dinner being a hit for the whole family // tea and a good book!