Fablehaven: Grip of the Shadow Plague

This book was better than its predecessor but not quite as good as Fablehaven.  I give it a 4 out of 5 for enjoyment.  It kept me very entertained.  It gets a 3 out of 5 for plot.  The plot was somewhat predictable but it did have some unexpected twists and turns.  The adventures that the characters went through made me feel for them and cheer them on as they battled that hardships that faced them.  The readability was good.  It doesn't use any hard vocabulary other than names.  It was well written and I didn't struggle as I read this book.  I gave it a 4 out of 5.  So overall it gets a 3.67 out of 5.

Books

So I looking for a good book list and couldn't find one so I decided to make my own.  I am going to review all the books that I read.  To start out I will start with Fablehaven and Fablehaven: Rise of the Evening Star.  I finished these books this week and am going to rate these books in three categories: readability, plot, and enjoyment.

Fablehaven. I give it 4 out of 5 on readability, 3.5 out of 5 on plot, and 4 out of 5 on enjoyment. Giving it an overall average of 3.83 out of 5.  The plot is good but a little predictable.  I really enjoyed this book and was excited to read the sequals. 

Fablehaven: Rise of the Evening Star.  I will give this book a 4 out of 5 for readability. It was very easy to get through.  2.5 out of 5 for plot.  It has a very slow start and was hard for me to get into even though I started it right after I finished Fablehaven. 3.5 out of 5 for enjoyment.  I liked this book once things got going in the story but it took a few chapters for it to pick up.  An overall score of 3.33 of of 5.

I am reading Fablehaven: Grip of the Shadow Plague now and will give a review on it when I am done. If there is a book any of you would like to suggest I am open to all types of books so just let me know.  Here are a few of the books I intend to tackle in the next little while.

Fablehaven: Secrets of the Dragon Sanctuary
Frozen Fire
The Four Feathers
Peter Pan
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz
The Scarlet Pimpernel
The Secret Garden
The Odyssey
The World and the Prophets
The Ghost King



There are so many others that I want to read also but this is a good list for me right now. Thanks I hope that you all enjoy the reviews :)

Life

To follow my wife's expamle I will post some letters:

Dear Body,
Stop getting sick. It is getting really old.

Dear Karen,
Your welcome. I'll clean the kitchen anytime you need me too.  I just wish I could do more for you.  It always seems like I am busy with work or homework and can't help you out. For that I am sorry.

Dear Finacial Aide,
Where is my fafsa grant? Or do I need to wait for another week?

Dear SUU,
I quit.

Dear Books,
Go away! Stop coming out! I have to much to do and don't have time to read all of you.

Dear Hero,
You have always been a good truck what has happened this last little while? Why are you dying?

Dear Jibson Family,
I am glad to be apart of your family. I am exicted for Christmas.

Dear Weather,
I hate you.  It is not time to be cold and snowy yet.

Dear Brothers,
I miss you guys.

Dinner

I wrote this and never posted it so I am posting it now even though it was like a month ago when I wrote it.

On Monday Karen made dinner for me and Alli. She made roasted chicken and bell peppers which was really good. So I told her that I would make dinner on Wednesday. So as Wednesday came I still had no idea of what to make for dinner. I had looked through the stack of cook books we have in our cupboard and still hadn't come up with anything. We I saw something that looked good I would then find out it was something Karen doesn't like. I finally found something when I went to my parents house before work Wednesday morning. I found a recipe for Mexican Chicken and Rice. It turned out really good. Karen and Alli liked it and I thought it was good too.

Pain...

So on the weekend I have been going up to Kolob to work. I have been working in a metal pipe that has a couple inches of concrete as lining. I have been working with my brother-in-law Scott and we have been grouting the inside joints of the pipe. The pipe is 30" diameter pipe. Just big enough that I can turn around in it. This last week we did 11 joints on the steepest part of the pipe line. I did not think it was going to be as tough as it turned out to be. My job is to take care of all the materials we need and to mix the grout. So I tied the box we had are stuff in to my waist so that I could keep it from going down the pipe. It was heavy enough that it was pulling me down the pipe and to stop that I had to try and wedge myself is suck a way that I wouldn't move and still be able to mix grout for Scott. After we got done I had a bruise and rash around my hips from the rope. and I did something to my knee, elbow and shoulder. My knee and elbow don't hurt too much anymore but my shoulder is killing me. I am not sure what I did to it but I really wish I hadn't done it.

Also while up at the mountian my truck decided to crap out. It started shuttering. It seemed like it was either missfiring or the transmission was kicking in and out of gear. So I went down the hurricane way just in case it died completely. I left it at my parents house and took my mom's car back to cedar. Then my mom took it to a mechanic and they finally called me back today. It seems I have a water leak somewhere and it is leaking in such a way that it is causing the injector coils and sparkplugs to short out. It is a $500 dollar fix. That is way expensive. Right now Karen and I don't have enough money to pay for that. We are still trying to pay for school. I don't know what to do. The mechanic cleaned out the area and then tried to seal the coils and plugs but it is just a temperary fix and who knows how long it will work. In the last two months I have had my truck in the shop 3 times now. It seems to have started to fall apart. :(

New Stuff :)

So we are almost done going through everything we got at the wedding and it is nice to have new stuff. We got lots of things we really needed... and some stuff we didn't. We are now in the try to return everything we got more than one of or just don't need. It is a pain because lots of stuff we need to return doesn't have gift receipts so we will be lugging everything around to all the main stores like walmart and target in effort to find out were it came from and hope that it can be returned.


We registered for some poka-doted dishes that Karen loved and we ended getting some and we used them for the first time yesterday at a birthday dinner for one of our friends. For this dinner we made enchalad's and Karen used another gift to make cake. We got a Kitchen Aid.

Karen loves her new Kitchen Aid so much.

We are having lot of fun since getting married. Yet there has been so much to do. We are working on insurance and getting everything taken care of with Karen changing her name. We have had to start school and so now we have all are school work to do along with work so we are pretty busy right now and at times I feel like I have way too much to do. Things are starting to fall into a routine so that is good. :)

It's about time!

I have been a slacker and not written anything in so long. I have been really busy with the wedding and work. Now that Karen and I are married and school started this last Monday things will hopefully get in to some sort of routine. I am working in the mornings and will be leaving the house at 6:00am so I can get to work. I am taking Heat Transfer, Probability & Statistics, Structural Analysis, Electronics, and Senior Design. It is 18 credits so it is going to be a tough semester. Also I am wanting to take the FE exam this October as well but i may wait 'til April. So school is busy.

Karen and I are trying to go through all of the gifts we got and decide what we want and what to return. We got through most of it last night. On Saturday we will be going around everywhere to return everything. That will be lots of fun...

Right now I am sitting in my electronics class waiting for class to start and all i can think is I wish I had studied harder and passed this class last year :( but it looks like it is going to be a typical engineering class and only have about 10-15 people. I am the only person retaking it and that makes me feel really stupid...

Books....

So I have lots of books. And there are a lot of new books that I want. My birthday is coming up and Karen asked what books I wanted and gave her a list. Later we were talking about my books and I happened to tell her that that I hadn't read some of them. She then told me I couldn't get any new books until I had read all of the books I own. So I counted all of the books in the bookshelf in our living room and got 19 books. And then there are a bunch in our boxes that I haven't read yet also so I have lots of reading to do. I agree I should read the books that I already own but new books come out all the time which I always want to read. I am now reading some of them. I am starting the Cleric Quintet By R. A. Salvatore. Then I will be starting the Olympians series so that will get about 10 books finished. Do love reading and am happy to be reading. It gives me something to do while I am away from Karen during the week. So in a while if you know of any good books I may be needed some to read. :)

Nightmares

So this morning around 5:30 am Karen calls me and I was way confused because I couldn't figure out why my phone was going off. I finally woke up enough to realize that she was calling I answered my phone to find out that she had had a bad dream. She was scared and alone so she called me. I felt so bad for her because I know that whenever I have a bad dream you just want some human interaction. I tried to help her calm down so that maybe she could go back to sleep. I don't know what her dream had been about but I know that nightmares are awful. I usually don't remember any of my dreams but I have had a few nightmares and they are not pleasant. They usually involve me being alone and raptors chasing me in the dark or atleast my mind tells me that they are raptors I never really what is chasing me but I am getting chased by something and it is always raptors I'm sure of it. I am pretty sure that everyone has had a nightmare or two before and it nothing to be ashamed over because there is nothing we can do when we are sleeping. So what are some of your nightmares?

Work...

So I have started working full time again and it is nice to be earning money again. I was working at Lake Mead and doing draft/design work in the evenings and on the weekends for a couple of weeks. I am working on an irrigation system design for Temple Bar Marina. At Lake Mead I was operating a loader at Callville Bay Marina. We are dredging out some areas around the marina and working on extending the boat ramp. Because it is two hours away we stay down there all week and come home on the weekends and that was pretty tough to be away from Karen all week. We did call and talk to each other every day but it still was really hard. We lucked out and she didn’t have to work at all on a Friday so we planned on hanging out and doing some stuff in St. George that we have needed to get done and then go up to the mountain with some of our friends and stay at the cabin.

Lately I have just been working in Hurricane at the office just doing the drafting. I am basically finished with the Irrigation design. I have been working on it mostly for the last two weeks but I also helped do so take-offs for some bids we had going out. I really enjoy doing the take-offs. They don’t get mundane like the long projects get.

With being in Hurricane it has made it so I get to see Karen more often. I drive up there in the evenings when she isn’t working and spend some time with her. We went to Transformers yesterday and I really enjoyed it but Karen didn’t like it as much. The only thing I really didn’t like was that it seemed to be more focused on the people than the Transformers and I would have liked to see more character development of the transformers and actually get to meet the new Transformers.

It also has been nice to be able to hang out with my friends after work. I played with Brandon, Marie, and Skyler the other day and that was a lot of fun. We stayed out to late since we all had work in the morning. I hadn’t seen Skyler since school got out over a month ago.

I will try to be a better blogger but I make no promises.

Disneyland

For Easter weekend I ended up taking Karen to Disneyland with some of our friends. It was so much fun. I was going to pick up Karen's ring on Friday but we decided leave on Thursday. I really wanted to have her ring when I proposed to her so I went in to Kay Jewelers on Wednesday and asked if it would be here on Thursday and they said it would. I Then had Brandon pick it up for me and made up some excuse to stop at his house on our way out of town. I didn't tell Karen that I had the ring and it was really hard for me to keep that secret. So on Friday we went to California Adventure and spent all day there. Then on Saturday we spent the whole day in Disneyland!! It was so much fun. We were able to ride most of the rides before it got really busy so that was great. In the late afternoon after we had just got out of the Tiki Room we walked over in front of the castle on our way to the other side of the park and that is when I proposed.



It was really weird to have everyone stop and form a semi-circle around us and then start clapping. But it was great to surprise Karen with her ring and to be able to propose somewhere fun. Disneyland was so great but it was even better to be there with Karen. Here are some pictures from the trip.

The Happy News!!

So it is official, Karen and I are getting married!! I am so excited. I have given her my mom's old wedding ring that my parents gave me when my dad got my mom a new one. She is just wearing that one until I pick up her ring. She has one picked out and we are going this afternoon to get it. It has been a very exciting week for me. I have asked Brandon Staples, Mike DeMille, and Brandon Maxfield to be my groomsmen. Also I called the Denver Temple and set up our appointment and that really made me excited. We have the Temple at 10:00 am on Saturday August 15th.

We are really excited and very happy. Yesterday we also signed the lease to an apartment that we will be staying at. We rented it for May so Karen can live there during the summer. We are very happy about it. There will be more info as it happens.

Spring Break Tour

So this last week was my spring break and I spent all of it touring with the ballroom dance company. We had some fun times and there was some not so fun times. I enjoyed performing and getting spend time with my friends on team but the driving was tough and I didn't like how some team members would not help with loading and unloading the trailer. But I guess there sometimes just isn't enough stuff to do for everyone to be working. It just seemed like the same people did all the work. The worst part of the whole trip was the drive back from Page, AZ. After the show was done we had to pack up before we could leave. I think we left at around 11:45 pm Utah time and got home around 2:30 am. It was a really long drive. I drove the entire time but my truck was pulling the trailer and I don't know if anyone else has had much experience pulling a trailer so I really didn't have a relief driver.

I really like being able to spend time with Karen, she was in my truck the whole time, even if she slept most of the time. We had some good times with everyone that was in my truck. I really tried to make the best of taking my truck since I really wasn't planning on taking it and just kind of ended up driving because we didn't have anything else that could pull the trailer. I am happy to be home and glad that I will be able to get some well needed sleep.

Las Vegas Showdown

So this last weekend I went to Las Vegas and Pahrump for a mini ballroom tour. We did two shows at the high school in Pahrump. It was a lot of fun. It had its frustrating parts as well but overall I think it was fun. In Vegas Karen and I competed in three events: Samba, Cha Cha, and Tango. We made the call backs for all three dances but only made the final in the Samba. We ended up getting third place in the Samba which was exciting. I didn't like having to drive the whole time and when everyone in my car was sleeping it got boring but I probably wouldn't have slept anyway if I wasn't driving so I guess it was better that I was driving so the others could sleep. It was a fun trip but I was glad to be back so I could rest.

Lost Books

So this weekend I was helping move some furniture at my parents house and while I was out in our garage I found two boxes of my books. It was really nice because I found two books that I had thought that I had lost. I had looked all over for one of them because Alli wanted to borrow it and I knew I owned it but I didn't know where I had put it. I had totally forgot that I had put some books out in the garage. Mostly they were school books and church books but there was some novels as well. I was so happy I found my books! :D

Dragons... (just for you Karen :P)

On Monday I had a bad day at work so I went to walmart because walmart always seems to have something that makes me happy. As I was there I was walking around and saw this new animated movie. Now I am addicted to movies and animated are the worst. Also I love dragons and everything to do with them. I own so many dragon books and and Karen is always making fun of me for it. But this movie was called Dragon Hunters so i just had to get it. Now Karen really made fun of me and just called me a nerd but what can I say I am addicted to all things dragon. I watched this movie and it was not the greatest but I still liked it.

I really may have a problem because right now I am reading a novel about dragons in an Asian like society. I also have a whole series on dragons that I have yet to start but I bought just because it was about dragon. I have more dragon books than any other type of books in my library. I don't know what it is about dragons that is appealing to me. I know that they are not real but I have always dreamed of having a pet dragon that could fly me around everywhere. I also don't usually like it when they make dragons a just a mindless beast or when dragons are all bad. I like to think of them as intelligent and having the ability to chose between good and evil.

I know I am a nerd, and yes Karen I am expecting you to tell me as much. maybe someday I'll grow out of my fascination with dragon but as for right now I am a dragon nerd but it makes me happy.

Group Projects

For my Junior Design class we are doing a group project in effort to teach us how to work in a group on a design project. We are designing a cabin which I was excited about but I am learning that sometimes people get ideas in there head and just don't listen to others. Now I am sure that I do this too but it has been way frustrating so now I am just sticking to my assigned area and will just let the others worry about their areas. I was trying to help give advice since we just built a cabin but they just didn't really listen to me so I'll just keep my comments to myself until they ask or they are just doing something that I know wont work.

I am in charge of the site work and soils. It is not to hard I just got a survey area up on Kolob close to where my families cabin is located. It is an area that interstate is building a subdivision at so it was all surveyed out. I am now trying to find soil properties so I can figure out what we would have to do if we really were going to actually build there. I know a lot from when we built our cabin so that is good. Once they get the structure designed I am going to have to try and figure out how best to place it on the lot that we have chosen and then figure out the run-off water plan and how to handle it around the cabin. I already kind of know how I am going to to do that but the small detials are what I have to wait on until I get the building design. So I have come to realize that sometimes when working in a group that you will have to just wait for others to get something done first before you can do what you need to do.

We also have to create a 15 minute power point presentation every two weeks and so show what are group is getting done. I am suppose to show what I have done but I haven't done anything really because I have been waiting for others to get there work done so I really don't know what to do for my part of the presentation. I will probably just make something up and just BS my way through it for this week and next time actually put the real data in.

Valentine's Day

This weekend for Valentine's Day the ballroom dance company held a Valentine's Gala. We had to perform at it, help set up and take down. We could take a date if we wanted to actually go to the Gala or we could just show up for the performance. They needed my truck to take some stuff over to were the Gala was being held so I ended up helping most of the afternoon. I went with Karen which was wonderful. I had lots of fun. We had dinner and got pictures which was kind of awkward by the way because our director was taking the pictures and he told us how to pose for the pictures. Then we performed. I danced in Opener, Singing in the Rain, and Quickstep. I was pretty nervous because it was my first time dancing Singing in the Rain and Quickstep. They are both feature pieces so Mark was really getting after me to get the dances down really well. I felt like I did well on both of them so that is good. After we performed they just had dancing and which was fun. The only problem was that I had to help take stuff back after the Gala was over and I didn't want to be there all night so I started cleaning things up at 10 pm. I felt bad because I basically just left Karen while I cleaned up. So I got frustrated with a lot of other ballroom people because after the Gala they just left and didn't help. I was trying to clean up costumes but people had left them all over the place and wouldn't clean them up. I had some one go get Toni's car so Karen could go home while I finished cleaning up. I finally got down around midnight. It really sucked. But afterward a group of people came over to my house and we watched a movie, or at least turned one on while we took a nap. Overall it was a good day for me. It was really nice to be able to spend the evening with Karen and just enjoy her company. It was probably the best Valentine's I have ever had.

Just one of those days

Today has just been a bad day for me. Really this week has been a struggle but today has been the worst. It was snowing this morning when I went to practice at 6:00 am and has been snowing on and off all day. With not having a working heater in my truck it makes it so I'm always cold and I hate being cold. So it just adds to all the problems and stresses of late. This week things at work have been stressful because they need me to get the stuff I am doing done as soon as possible and it is taking longer than it should because the computers are so slow. So that is really stressing me out. Then Karen has been having a hard week and I did not know how to help her out which was stressful. I was going to drive her home after our Valentine's performance but because of the weather we can't do that now. It has just been a tough week with school as well. My classes are not very tough but they are just time consuming and I just don't have a lot of time. Also today I have a migraine. Now I wish I could have just stayed home today and slept it off but I didn't have that option so I just have had to deal with it. Since I get migraines pretty often I have learned to deal with the pain but I still have a hard time concentrating on things so in technique today I was really struggling with dancing. I really wish that I didn't get migraines. They are awful. They make it so everyone thinks I am in a bad mood. I probably am though because I don't want to really be talking to anyone. Now I am at practice and really don't want to be but I can't do anything to change that. I just don't know what to do anymore. I am just frustrated, stressed, and at my wits end. I just need a break from everyone.

The greatest place on earth... Kolob

So this weekend a group of us went up to my cabin on Kolob mountain. I had invited my brothers but most of them couldn't go so I ended up inviting my sister Heather and her family since I wasn't going to be using all 6 of the snowmobiles. So there was Heather and her family, Mike and Alisha, Brandon and Marie, Skyler, Karen and me. We were late getting out and ended up driving the snowmobiles up in the dark which made for a fun ride. On the way up I was pulling the sled with some of the food on it and lost one of the bags with the junk food in it because I couldn't see because it was dark. Other than that it was an uneventful drive up. We made dinner and then just played games and watched a movie Friday night. It was nice having my sister and her family there. Keegan was so fun to have around. He is such a cute kid. So we played a game of settlers of catan because my family is obsessed with it and then we watched "Wanted." It was a good movie, not the best I've seen lately but it was good. In keeping there with character Mike and Karen both fell asleep before the movie ended, in fact if I remember right the were both alseep before we even started the movie.

Saturday we had breakfast and then went out to play in the snow for awhile. We kept up with a tradition of snowmoboarding. Which is snowboarding while getting pulled by the snowmobile so it is like wake boarding just on snow.

Now Karen had to work so I had to take her down early but before we headed down she surprised me and while I was off snowmoboarding she drove the snowmobile all by herself. She had told me that I should not expect her to drive again so it was a shocker. After I took Karen down to cedar I drove back up and spent the last of the afternoon on the mountian. It was fun but I am very sore and tired. Here are a few pictures from the weekend.

Mike Tackling Me

Scott & Keegan

Shaylee

Sage

Karen

Scott & Keegan

The art of work

For me there is an art I have had to learn to my job. During the school year I work part time for Interstate Rock doing odds and ends in the engineering department. Lately I have been doing asbuild drawing for a project down at Lake Mead. Normally it is pretty easy and it doesn't take very long for me to get my stuff done so I work myself out of a job and I usually only get a few hours a week. But lately I have been working on a site that has a really big file and the computers at work struggle to run Autocad anyway but this file is so big and uses so much memory that I do something and then have to let it think. If I get impatient and try to do too much then the program crashes and then I have to start over. I have had to learned to save after everything little thing I do. Today I have felt like I have spent more time redoing things because I didn't save before I had another crash. The art of working for me today has been do something, wait, save, and repeat. It has been a really frustrating day for me. When I am at work I want to be working, I really hate just sitting around doing nothing. So in a day that has lots of sitting around I have been going crazy. Also it has been really crazy at work. There is a really BIG job being bid later this week and everyone is running around doing everything that needs to be done and I have just been sitting here. Granted I have done everything that they wanted me to do for that job a couple of weeks ago but it just adds to the frustration since I am not really doing anything and everyone else is working there butts off.

Snow...

Snow. I have such mixed feeling about it. I love it and I hate it. Like Yesterday, it was snowing and it was horrible but this weekend I will be going snowmobiling and I will love it. I guess it all just depends on what I want to be doing. I hate driving in snow because there are so many people that just don't know how to drive in it. Now I am not the best driver in snowy conditions. I sometimes think that I don't have to worry about it because I have a truck. My truck has problems because it has no weight in the back so it has no traction so I have to drive around in 4-wheel drive. But at least I can drive like that.
I also went and played in the snow with my brothers and that was fun but we were being really stupid. We were pulling someone behind a Jimmy while they were on skis or a snowboard. It was a lot of fun. We drove around a church parking lot and then went and found a unploughed street and pulled each other around on it for a while.
Overall I think it comes down to this: I like the snow to go play in it but I hate living in it. I enjoy going to the snow but want to come home to no snow.