March Madness

So one of my favorite parts of my job was the bracket challenge during march madness.  Kind of a sad thought...there where other parts I liked too...I just remember that being an especially fun time of year.
I missed it the first year I was home with Luke.  So the next year we started our own at home and now we have a little family tradition of doing a family bracket challenge.   I totally recommend it.  We each have our own strategies for picking teams.

• Bryan: (he may not have disclosed his entire strategy to me, this is a competition after all) but as far as I know he uses the betting lines as the basis and feels it out from there.
• Emily: I write the ranking (like top 25) next to each team and then try to get just enough upsets.
• Luke:  Luke has the absolute best system.  We just read him the teams and he picks the name of the team he thinks sounds interesting or has a connection to.  For example this year Georgia (where he was born made it to the final four... now unfortunately for him they lost in the first round)  He also picked BYU ( a team we watch a lot ) and Duke (Luker Duke is a nickname he is often called)  to go far.  I think it is so fun to see who he picks, this year he would also say... "I don't care.

I think I cut off the part that says this, but this is Luke's Bracket

Road Trip...brought to you by the Library

Luke in a mini cave in Jenny's Canyon

Our picnic spot on an overlook.  You can't tell but we are right on the edge...Luke really wanted to be exploring and snacking, not picture taking. :)

They petrified dunes.  One of our favorites.  The sandstone was so grippy that we could just walk right up and down the little mountain dunes.  Luke was apprehensive at first, and then he went all out.  Trying to follow scouts up peaks.

So its February...Okay its March, but it feels like February.  Its keeps snowing and melting and it feels like winter will never end.  For our family this means....road trip.  This particular road trip was in large part brought to us by our local public library.  You probably knew that libraries have a whole load of DVD's to entertain your kids in the back seat during a long drive.  We picked out among others, Triego (Go Diego Go)  Luke's new favorite, the whole time we were hiking he would say I'm Triego, lets save animals.  So we found lots of lizards in trouble and even a squirrel or two.   I knew about the DVDs and that was awesome cause it was shows that were new to him (not that he cares) but I didn't have to hear the same thing over and over. 
But the cool thing I discovered is that the library rents out State Park passes just like they do books.  So we headed down to Snow Canyon, and had so much fun hiking to hidden ponds, petrified dunes, normal sand dunes to just sit and dig on, run up and down.   Luke is a little climber.  We all had so much fun and got some much needed vitamin C.

Havin a Snow Day

We had a fun morning playing in the snow in our yard.  I didn't get a picture of it, but Luke's favorite thing to do with the sled is just pull it around behind himself :)

We also built the world's smallest snowman.  Decked him out in a hat, scarf, baby carrot nose, and raisin did the trick for everything else. 

How do you sleep like this?

I went in to check on Luke during his nap and this is how I found him...sleeping soundly under his current favorite book :)

When he isn't sleeping tented under a book he loves the play I spy.  However, he is convinced that the game is, "I spy with my spiky eye"  So that's how we play it in our house.

How to find books to read.

I love reading.  I used to not want to list it as one of my hobbies, cause I thought it was lame, but ya know what it is, so deal with it.  I love the journey to another place, I love learning about other times, people, I have always loved reading.  Nerd alert ... in junior high I won medals for reading... I don't remember being crazy nerdy, but a reading award does seem like cold hard proof.

Anyway, I have always been really random in picking books I read.  Often I go to my Mom and she'll hand me stack (always great).  Other times I pick one off of the libraries shelf that they are advertising for the month (never gotten a horrible one, but never found a gem either).  I will get a random recommendation and then put it on my list at the library to request when I am ready (but then I can never remember who told me about it, or what it is about by the time I am ready to read it).  Classic book club, I really like this 'cause I get a good selection from people who like a variety of subjects, but I am looking for more.

Solution!   Perhaps this is not news to anyone, but I am thrilled about it Goodreads.  But not just Goodreads, I knew about that already, but I didn't find it super helpful, because unless I knew for sure that I had similar tastes or I could remember that a bunch of other people liked the book I never took the recommendations to heart.   Until I discovered a section called "Popular Books Among My Friends"  

Sorry I made great efforts to do a little picture from the website... but to no avail... I have no techy skills.

If you want to find it just go under the friends tab, and then the popular books tab.

I am excited to read some of the books I've found on this list.


P.S. if we aren't friends on goodreads let's be.  I'd love to get a more diverse list. :)