Putting Things On Hold For...Well...Life!

I know it has been a REALLY LONG time since I last blogged. I don't even know if anyone is still checking up on me through my blog. I don't know if anyone cares anymore. No big deal. Not really a concern of mine. Anyway, I thought I would finally put something up to explain what's been going on with me. I mean, I finally have a free moment.

I so wanted to complete my summer reading list of books and movies. As you can tell from my blogs, I didn't exactly accomplish that. I am still trying to get through it. It just may take a whole year to do it instead the 3 months I wanted. That's how busy I've been. Not that being busy is bad, it just means that in my life I can only take so much of "busy".

I have always been the type of person to make "to do" lists. I like to have things set-up, so I can follow an idea of what to get done and how to do it. But lately MY "to do" lists keep getting pushed aside. Maybe it's the fact that I'm getting older and I don't feel like following a plan anymore. Or maybe the age that my kids are at, is taking up my life. I don't know how many times I've said this, but I'll say it again. Being a Mom is tough. Being a stay-at-home Mom is the hardest! Now that school is back in session, so are all the activities that go along with that. Dance still for Ashley, and flag football and swimming for Anthony. At least now during the day, I can have some time to devote to me. Lately it's been doing house chores (yuk!) and catching up on movies I've wanted to see. So the blog has been put aside. I think maybe because it seemed like a chore to me.

I like blogging, but I think I put too much pressure on myself with it. So, I've decided to take that monkey off my back. I will continue to blog, but maybe just not as much as when I first started out. When I have time to blog, I will. If I really have something to say, I'll post it.

In the meantime, I have joined the PTO at Anthony's school, became president of the Booster Club at Ashley's dance studio and I'm still trying to be the Supermom at home. Not much going on with me at all...

Winding Down

There are only a few weeks left of our summer vacation. It has been good, but extremely busy for us especially this past month. I am looking forward to school starting, as I will get a little bit of a break while the kids are in school. I know they are not looking forward to it as much as I am. Oh well! (Life is so hard when you're young, right?) I'm mainly just looking forward to having my own time so I can get back in to my rhythm of blogging. I can't believe how little time I have to myself these days! It's been exhausting, but rewarding at the same time.

We have seen most of the summer movies from our list, but I still need to blog about them. I have read a few of the books from my list and watched a couple of the movies, (boy that was a large project I put on my plate this summer) but I'm waiting for some of those movies to come out on DVD. I still need to blog about one of the book and movie combos. I'll get to it eventually. I feel bad that I haven't blogged as much as I've liked to during the summer. It's partly because I've given myself too many challenges, but mainly because I've just been living and enjoying time with my family. So, sorry to all my followers. I'll get back to it eventually.

This last week, we had our final family camping trip of the year and it was the best one of the whole summer! (It helps when there are no problems too.) We went up to Gould, Colorado at Ranger Lakes. If you've never been up there, it's pretty cool. We always see some great moose. It was beautiful and peaceful and a perfect end to our summer! The fishing was actually decent on this trip, even though it was a little hot, and Ashley finally did get her fish fry! :) We got to have a campfire everynight which was great because it's just not camping unless you have a campfire! It did rain on us pretty hard one night, but I guess that's the interesting part of camping. Mother nature always has the last say. But it didn't ruin our trip. It was absolutely fun and of course we'll go up there again. It was so much fun spending time with friends and family. That's always the best part!

So now we are beginning to wind down the summer. We are completing the actvities we wanting to do, but haven't yet. And then we will be preparing for yet another school year. But first...a little relaxation is in order. The calm before the next storm...

A True Hoyt

As many of you know, Ashley has a different father than Anthony. I left him when Ashley was just over a year old. We not together very long when I got pregnant and we never got married. It was not a good relationship at all due to the constant arguing and control issues that he had with me. I knew that if I stayed with him, I would be a horrible Mom because I would be miserable being with him. When I had Ashley, I gave her his last name because...well I guess I thought we would get married at that time, for her sake. Thank goodness that never happened because then I would have been stuck in that relationship (I don't believe in divorce), and who knows how Ashley herself would have turned out being raised in that kind of environment.

When Ashley turned 2, Jason and I started dating. We had known each other 4 years prior, but never had a serious relationship with each other. When Ashley was 3, Jason and I got married. From the moment we were together, Jason accepted Ashley and treated her like his own. He knew she was the most important thing in my life, and was okay with being 2nd in my life. He was sad when she wasn't with us, as I agreed to a cordial arrangement with her father for joint custody. Jason was excited to have her with us, as we both wanted to share our lives with her completely! Jason absolutely loves Ashley. As an only child himself, he only wanted one child and was completely okay with Ashley being that child for him. It never mattered to him that she was not his biological daughter. Of course, we now have Anthony too. But Jason has never treated Ashley any different than before. He has always been loving and supportive to her.
Over the years, Ashley has chosen to live with us more and more. Ashley is now 13 and has been living with us permanently for over 9 months. There were some very serious and major issues that were happening at her father's house that needed immediate removal of her there. In the spring, Ashley asked me if she could have her last name changed. Not only did she want to have the same last name of me, Jason and Anthony (as she considers us her true family), but she finally wanted the name of where she belonged. She wanted the name of her Dad, Jason, because he has been her DAD. (Anyone can father a child, not everyone can be a Dad.)

We submitted all the paperwork to have her last name changed a couple of months ago, and even her biological father gave his consent. We got a call from our lawyer yesterday and it is official! Ashley is now a HOYT! The judge didn't even need us to be at a hearing. There was enough evidence for him to make a decision without us being there.

We are more than thrilled that legally Ashley is a Hoyt now! In our eyes, she always has been. In Jason's eyes, she's always been his daughter. Next up...Ashley has to do the thing that a true Hoyt does...hunting!

Fair Game

Reading this book was a real challenge for me. I know my summer reading list was all about challenges, but I was real serious about this one! I have never read someones memoir that was about politics before. Let's just say...I am not a fan of politics. I try to be informed about what is happening in our government, but sometimes it gets to a point that I get so angry, I just don't want to know anymore. However, when voting time comes around, I make it a point to educate myself on the elections. I will take part in that right as much as possible! So, it took a lot for me to read this book.

Another reason this book was challenging to read was because a large part of it had been censored by the CIA themselves. There were pages completed blacked out because they decided that information should not be public knowledge. Actually, it was at times very frustrating to start reading a sentence, see blacked out portions for several lines, and then see a new sentence start. What happened? I guess we can never really find out in her case. If you can get through the first six chapters, which are about her personal experiences while in the CIA, you can get through the whole book.

If you don't know about this story, I will give you a brief synopsis about it. Valerie Plame Wilson was a covert CIA officer in the Counterproliferation Department, which was devoted to obtaining intelligence on nuclear acquisition efforts of rogue nations. Her identity was leaked to the media (which, by-the-way, is a federal crime) in 2003 after her husband, former Ambassador Joseph C Wilson IV, wrote an article criticizing the Bush Administration for their reason for the Iraq War. This was a huge political scandal that not only jeopardized her family, her career and the lives of people who worked undercover with her. But it also rocked the integrity of politics as a whole, if there ever was such a thing. This story involves a lot of finger pointing, as most politics does, but it really makes you think and talk about what really goes on in our government.

As I was scanning this book and saw all the blacked out pages, my first thought was why would anyone even publish it? But as I kept reading I realized that she had to get her side of the story out. I mean, how many times do you hear something in the news and begin to take the side of the people telling the story? And if you watch CNN or FOX? Well, they are usually one way. This was her way of getting her story out, so we could hear the other side. Plus, since she was forced to retire early she had to make money somehow, and I'm sure a book and movie deal helped along the way. (Just so you know, I am not completely for or against Mrs. Wilson. I'm neutral.) There are other people that did contribute to this book as well, so you get other perspectives. There is an Afterword by Laura Rozen, a reporter on national security for Washington D.C., who can fill in some of the blanks and provides another context of the story. The book also includes exerps from congressional records.

Once I got to chapter 7, I really wanted to finish the book. I wanted to know what had happened and what the outcome was going to be. And I'll say it really was worth reading. So what were the words that started all this mess? During President George W. Bush's state of the union address in January 2003, he said "The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa." This was a false statement because it was not verified. There were plenty of people that thought this, but it had not been verified. President Bush went ahead with this statement anyway because he wanted to sell the war to the American public. Were weapons of mass destruction ever found in Iraq? I'll let you have your own opinions.

In 2007, Dick Cheney's Chief of Staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, was found guilty of obstruction of justice, perjury, and making false statements. For what you may ask? He may have been the "fall guy", but the Bush Administration went to great lengths to discredit Mr. Wilson on the claim that they were wrong about Saddam Hussein trying to buy materials to make WMDs. Not only did this show great desperation, but it was a smear campaign to take attention off of the reason we were even going to war. Was Saddam Hussein a threat? Absolutely! But we, the American public, had a right to know the truth of why we were sending our loved ones across the world. As an American, I am outraged that our leader at the time had to lie to us to finish his Dad's war. And he did it the wrong way.

It is so scary to know the "power" of the President. Why does one person have so much power? I'm not saying our government is the worst.  But it's not the best either. Reading this book did make me angry that we having people running our country that are so manipulative and deceitful, and it's become the "norm" for us. Why are we not surprised when we hear about politicians making headline news for inappropriate behavior?

I will say that watching the movie did give more insight into what Mrs. Wilson "might" have done during her covert operations in other countries. But the movie pretty much followed the book (starting with chapter 7). Even with all the blacked out pages, I enjoyed the book more. I do like Naomi Watts, but Sean Penn is a little out there too much for me. This was probably the perfect role for him where he could step up on his soapbox and preach. If you ever saw Flags of Our Fathers or Lions for Lambs and you were upset by those movies because of the actions of (or lack of) our government, you might be just as upset with this movie. However, it was still worth watching because of the real-life issue.

And, for all of you who are oh-so-curious, my political affiliation is                                               

Family Camping...Take 2

Another camping trip, another adventure. It wasn't exactly the ideal trip for us, but then again when is it? We decided to take an extended weekend trip for the 4th of July up to Eleven Mile Campground, which is in Lake George, Colorado. We've never camped there before, and now we have and we probably won't ever camp there again.

The worst thing about camping in Colorado...having to plan 6 months in advance! We've done the tent camping. We've done the pop-up trailer camping. Now I only want to do the RV/trailer camping. I don't care if other people say, "That's not really camping!" It is to me. I just like to have certain amenities that go along with it.

Sure, you can go camping where there's no campground, no reservations needed, but I would rather be in a campground with the kids. I would rather have electric hook-ups so I can run my microwave! Of course, that's also nice to charge electronics too. I would rather have peace-of-mind that wherever we drive to has a spot waiting for us, with no one else in it. But the downside is you will rarely find a spot with all that on short notice.

We tried to be spontaneous and plan this trip to Eleven Mile. We reserved our spots online 2 weeks prior. We had to settle for spots with no electricity. Okay fine. We can survive 3 days without that, right? But once we got up there, we questioned that.

How spoiled are we? How many luxuries do we really need to "rough it"? I tell you, sometimes life is difficult without all the goods.

It pretty much is desert land there. Not much else but dirt. No trees, no grass, not very pretty. We were right by the reservoir there, which actually was the best part. But fishing still sucked. The boys were able to go to Spinney Reservoir, which is really close to Eleven Mile and has much better fishing. We still haven't had a fish fry though and Ashley's patience is running out on that! But the kids had a great time playing by the water, looking for all sorts of treasures throughout the campground. It wasn't all bad! There was a fire ban in effect there, so we couldn't even have a campfire. Not that we really wanted to because it was so dang hot there in the 80's. I could have stayed home for that! And the bugs were a bit of a nuisance. You couldn't stand in one place for too long either before the fire ants attacked you. All of a sudden you would have 20 ants crawling up your legs and biting. Not much fun! This really would have been the ideal place to have electricity. Turn on the A/C and plug in the DVD player for the kids.

So...what do we do now? We've had 2 camping trips that fizzled a bit. Well, the only thing we can do is plan another one. We did find a new campground to go to. It's in the trees, with electricity, next to lakes that will hopefully have good fishing. Let's hope for the best!

Note to self...next year plan ALL camping trips well in advance.

Kung Fu All The Way

Well if you haven't seen this movie yet, you need to. As a parent, I have always dreaded having to take my kids to see movies that I really don't want to see myself. This was one of the movies that I actually wanted to take Ashley and Anthony to. I loved the first one, and so did they. And this movie doesn't disappoint with humor, action, a great story line, and all those phrases we can live by. I just love the morals in these stories!

All the "Furious Five" Kung Fu characters and Master Shifu are back from the first film, and of course there are some new characters to challenge the Dragon Warrior. The best word to describe this movie comes from Po (Jack Black) himself..."Awesomeness"!

I truly love Master Shifu...so wise yet so sarcastic. In this second movie he is trying to help Po find inner peace, something we all struggle with from time to time.  Yet the story here is that when we have inner peace, anything is possible. I guess that could be true because we've always been told "Anything you put your mind to, you can achieve." I have been proof this last year that the power of positive thinking is...well...POWERFUL.

Po is probably everyone's favorite, right? Who doesn't love a giant panda, who is the most unlikely to be chosen for greatness? But my favorite thing that he says in this movie is that "Scars fade, wounds heal." Such powerful words for a kid-friendly movie. But oh, so true. I just felt this movie speaking directly to me! And really, these are things we should be teaching our kids. They can learn a thing or two.

The best message that I think this story sends is when the Soothsayer, the elder, is talking to Po and she says, "Your story may not have such a happy beginning but that doesn't make you who you are, it is the rest of your story, who you choose to be." And then Po tries to help Lord Shen, the villian in this movie, and says, "You got to let go of the stuff from past, because it just doesn't matter. The only thing that matters is what you choose to be now." Isn't that the truth for all of us. There may be times in our lives that we have to take control of our own destiny. It's not about what happens to us, it's about what we make of what happens to us. Words to live by!

Profound messages, but nonetheless, meaningful!

Never Let Me Go

I have finally finished the first book and movie off my summer list. I chose this book at my library mainly because it was one of the few available at that time. I have requested several from my list that our library needs to get. We have a pretty small library, but I love that I can request a book, and they usually get it for me. I've done that with many books for Anthony.

I really am not sure how I want to approach blogging about this "project" of mine. I don't want to ruin anything for anyone who want to either read these books or watch the movies. But if I'm writing a "review" of them, I suppose there will have to be some sort of spoiler alert. So, here's your only warning.

When I saw previews for this movie, I knew it was about 3 friends who reminisce their childhood of being in a boarding school, but I didn't know much else about the story. After reading the first half of the book, I was still a little confused about what the real story was. That's how long it took in the book to finally get answers about what was going on with these 3 people. I'm not sure if I like books like that. I like suspense, mystery and thriller books but I wouldn't really categorize this book that way. It is categorized as a sci-fi book, but that didn't seem appropriate to me either. It just didn't have that sci-fi feeling to me. It was more just fictional.

Basically, the book skipped around way to much for my likes, even though it is divided in three parts. There seemed to be a lot of back-tracking of memories, when all I want to read was what happened going forward. And it did so in a way that never explained much until the latter part of the book. It is also told in a reminiscing way, with the memories of one person. For me, I would rather it be in a story-type mode. Instead, there are parts of the book that read like the story teller isn't really sure of some of her memories. And so you're kind of confused on what is true or not to her.
Anyway, in the end I did like the story that the author was trying to convey. It is about a type of boarding school where children are brought up with one goal in mind. As they grow up they find out they are meant to exist for one thing...to become organ donors. They basically are clones of others. I just wished the story had a little more conflict it in. It's about friendship and love, but where's the part when the people make a run for it? If I found out that's what I was in existence for, I don't think I'd be a-okay with it. I'm pretty sure I'd fight it. But that's me.
The movie followed the story of the book very well. But I think this is one of a few times I will say I liked the movie better than the book. It flowed so much better. The movie didn't keep jumping back in memories. It started when they were young and moved up until they were adults. You understood what the story was about within 20 minutes of the movie, and so your focus was on the characters the rest of the movie, not trying to figure out what the plot was until the movie was almost over.
I thought the actors did a great job. I absolutely love Carey Mulligan. She received praise for her role in An Education and was also in Wall Street:Money Never Sleeps. I'm glad she had the lead role over Keira Knightley (even though I enjoy her acting as well) who of course has been in two of the Pirates of the Caribbean movies, Atonement and she also received praise for her role in Pride and Prejudice. And Andrew Garfield seems to be one of the next up-and-coming actors, and I thought he also did a great job in this film. He had a part in Lions for Lambs and received praise for his role in the Social Network.

Carey Mulligan always seems so easy-going, so playing this part seemed perfect for her as Cathy, the main character, just seems to accept things and moves on. Tommy, played by Andrew Garfield, is more of a fighter and tries to figure out ways to "defer" his ultimate destiny. And Ruth, played by Keira Knightley, is the outgoing character. She definitely adds some drama to the story.

The author is Kazuo Ishiguro, who also wrote The Remains of the Day which received the Booker Prize. I will read another one of his books at some point to compare his writing styles and see if he's an author I will continue to read.