So Much to Say...

The past 10 days or so have been crazy. First, packing up the family for a big trip to Ohio to visit family over Labor Day weekend. Then, recovering from said trip.

And, unfortunately, I wasn't not feeling very photographery, - if that's a word. I did give the camera to my kids a time or two to get some random shots. I'd share them, but am missing my camera-to-computer cord at the moment. When I find it, I'll post some pictures. It was a good time with Glen's extended family - we spent some time with Grandpa Jake and Grandma Marce, and Great-Grandpa and Great-Grandma Cotterman - both sets of Glen's grandparents. And the kids played with a plethora of second cousins.

We were on a trip, which meant I read. And read. And read. So, I have a short stack of books I want to write about. I was planning on doing that this week, but apparently I'm getting old and having a harder time recovering from trips - family or otherwise. So, by the time I felt better, my wireless card went out on my computer, which meant I had a harder time working on my computer (had to go plug it into our home network).

Yesterday, Nathaniel, Anna, Lydia and I spent the day in Gurnee at our local Bible Bee competition. The kids had a great time and decided they wanted to go again next year. Anna made a new friend and they exchanged phone numbers to keep in touch.

All of which explains why I've not written much.

But back to the trip. The big controversy in our car is that a majority of us (read: the children and me) enjoy listening to audio books while driving. One of us does not (read: Glen). Before we left, we went to the library and picked up some audio books - both on CD and on Play-Away.

Oh, you don't know what a Play-Away is? It's a portable, digital book. You can plug it into the auxiliary plug-in on your stereo (car or home) or you can listen to it on earphones. My kids love these. Glen loves these because it means he doesn't have to listen to his music over the Adventures in Odessy tapes playing in the back seat. We always get three or four before a trip and the kids share them between each other.

But this time, the kids really, really wanted to listen to the books on CD. We had checked out (via my favorite interlibrary loan) the original Nancy Drew books, #4 & #5 (I think they were The Bungalow Mystery and The Mystery at Lilac Inn - Anna could tell you for sure) and an Andrew Clements book called A Week in the Woods.

Glen was nice enough to let us listen to all of them on our trip! We all (probably not Glen so much) enjoyed the Nancy Drew books. All of us, except Isaac, really enjoyed A Week in the Woods by Andrew Clements.

If you've never read an Andrew Clements' book, you need to. They're written for older elementary school or junior high school students, so they're appropriate for children too. I love the way Clements writes. I'd recommend you start with Frindle - it's a classic. We listened to it when we were in Upper Michigan in July - Glen and I laughed out loud at several points. A Week in the Woods is quite enjoyable too.

I'm off to find my camera-to-computer cord. And yes, that's the technical term.