Next Book Craze, Where Are You?

So, I'll admit that I've read Twilight now three times and am willing to choke down 2-3 for a second time... while rolling my eyes at the spineless tramp named Bella...aaannnd while kicking myself for reading them. If you haven't heard my Twilight rant, you've just gotten the 2 second version. I like 1 and the second half of 4.
After that I'll be rereading Harry Potter starting at the beginning, then Lord of the Rings, and maybe even Eragon.
I'm a sucker for series and always have been. In fact, it seems like I'm magnetically drawn to them. It seems like every book I pick up, happens to be a series. Percy Jackson and the Lightening Thief, Lirael, Ender's Game, Stargirl, Anne Perry's books, and Ranger's Apprentice.
All great, great, books (half of which are favorites). The reason why I'm rereading these books is because I've nothing else to read!
The library is really far (esp. for a carless wonder) and books are expensive!
I will splurge on the next big book craze! But where is it? I was looking at amazon.com's recommendations for myself and wasn't interested in any of them! Boo. If you haven't wasted hours there looking at what they recommend for you, it's a couple of hours well wasted. Usually they have something good, but it all looks liked the same trollop this time around. So, I will reread the tried and true books until the next wave starts. But hurry up!

Tradition, you take a long time!

Well, to make a short story long, my mom made all the family, felt stockings for Christmas. So, now that I have a small family of my own, I thought, I really liked those stockings. If she can do it, I can do it. I am now finished with Colby's stocking and now it's onto Jackson's. While Jackson's been napping I've been embroidering and stitching and hunched over material and cursing knots in the thread. It has taken me all of the Lord of the Rings extended versions, Pride and Prejudice (the new one), the Mummy series, and a few other movies I can't remember to finish. I've recently started in on TV shows on hulu and am in the middle of Mr. Monk. When people considered this the only occupation for proper ladies, I can't help but think all proper ladies must have been hunchback, squinty-eyed, bloody fingered messes. I'm quickly on my way to that because I've still got Jackson's stocking to do. And I seriously think that this tradition may limit the number of children Colby and I have because I don't think I can do more than two, three at the most! I'm just kidding, but I FINISHED THE FIRST ONE! I need to take a break and regain my composure (literally) before I tackle Jackson's. Colby thought I was nuts to start Christmas stockings in August, but I'll be lucky to finish Jackson's by then. Plus Colby didn't broker any arguments when I told him how much loot Santa can fit in those stockings! Voila!

Jackson

We've got Jackson exploring the backyard and sorting through rocks and just sitting and thinking. He's also playing with bubbles, trying to escape and being tickled. He's also not tired in every picture but he closes his eyes on the flash a lot!

BYU wins!

Well, BYU finally played in a big game and won!! They've had a history of choking in the big games for the past couple years, but on Saturday the football team came through when they needed to and beat the #3 team (Oklahoma) in the nation in Texas (BYU is #20). BYU was picked to lose by 21 points, but we won 14-13. It was AWESOME!!!
My brother-in-law and sister were actually in Provo and I guess students took to the streets after the win and were blocking University traffic! Then at 2 a.m. a bunch of people went to the airport to welcome back the team. Don't believe the craziness, it's all on youtube. At the airport fans started cheering BYU and Bron-co! Kinda wish I was there!

John Williams is the man!

Normally we're not concert going people, however, when Colby saw that John Williams was coming to LA to play with the Philharmonic, we just couldn't resist! If you don't know who John Williams is, you'd certainly know the music. Here are some of his accolades: Jaws, Superman, Jurassic Park, Harry Potter 1-3 and 6, Home Alone, Hook, Star Wars, Memoirs of a Geisha, Far and Away, E.T., Indiana Jones, Close Encounters, Schindler's List, Fiddler on the Roof (score), and many, many others! It was AMAZING! We were on the right hand side and could just as easily watch the stage as a jumbotron screen. He opened with "Hedwig's Theme", "The Knight Bus", "Aunt Marge's Waltz," "Faulke's Flight" and "Harry's Wondrous World". This was all narrated by Lynn Redgrave. He also did pieces from Catch Me If You Can and had the original jazz trio that recorded the soundtrack come and play. He did a tribute to other composers playing a medley from Gone with the Wind, General Patton, The Magnificent Seven and a couple of others. He then closed with the Superman March. So cool!
The funniest and best part of the show was the encore. I was smiling the entire time. He came back for four encores! In the beginning there were people with light sabers that glowed vibrantly in the darkness. They relit briefly during the tribute to other composers because a Star Wars clip came on and then vanished. Well for the encores, he certainly didn't dissapoint. First he played Yoda's theme and all the light sabers came on. There were at least 50 different light sabers, like the ones that Jackson likes to play with. Then for the second encore he played E.T. Then for the third he played the main Star Wars theme (someone called out "Indiana Jones!"). Finally for the last he played the Imperial March (when Darth Vader comes on). All the lightsabers lit up and began waving as if helping John Williams conduct the orchestra. He left the stage but people still wanted more! He came back and bowed and then put his hands together and pretended to go to sleep, then left! Sooo cool.
The video below is an a capella tribute to John Williams music focused all around Star Wars and quotes from Star Wars. They do sing Jaws, E.T., Star Wars, Indiana Jones and others. We loved it! Colby was really hoping that he would play "Hook". It's his favorite!
I was thinking of Annelisa during the Star Wars segments. I'll post some more pictures when I find the camera. It's probably just buried in the car.
Here is a picture of all the lightsabers and actually, those were just one side of the stadium!