Big Momma's a Momma!

So yesterday morning, right after Lisa and Shawn left, we went out to check on Big Momma (the pig), who has finally been showing some serious signs of being pregnant, and she was being all distressed. We watched her for a minute, then we all went back inside. We were just kinda being lazy, then right as Momma and I started thinking about tackling the kitchen, Daddy opens the door with a piglet in his hand and yells for hot water. Well five hours later she was done, six pretty piglets (she actually had 11, but two came out butt-first and died in the birth canal and a few others just didn't ever quite get the breathing thing figured out). Four gilts and two boars, all of them rambunctious and pretty. I'll get some pictures on here in the next couple days. That was a nice happy birthday for Mike, don't you think?

Why I watch movies alone

Has anyone ever seen a movie that was maybe not Oscar-worthy but a very enjoyable flick that you liked immensely and then tried to show it to someone else? Maybe I'm just weird but it always turns into a very nerve-wracking experience for me. Every flaw and weak point in the film becomes glaringly apparent to me, and I fidget and squirm through the whole thing, wondering why I decided to show them this movie in the first place. Then, even though I can see all the flaws in the production, if the person I'm showing it to voices any disapproval at any part of the film, I feel I have to defend myself and my film and my judgment. Why is that? Why do I care? I mean I don't get riled up about hardly anything, but if you insult a movie I like I will jump down your throat. Then I'm in a bad mood because I feel like an idiot for reacting that strongly about a movie that I am perfectly aware is not the most amazing film ever, I just enjoyed it. So I guess that's why I used to go to the theatre all the time by myself. It was so I could enjoy a movie without having to make excuses to anyone else for liking it.

Big Read Books

The Big Read reckons that the average adult has only read 6 of the top 100 books they’ve printed.

1) Look at the list and bold those you have read.
2) Italicize those you intend to read.
3) Place an asterisk (*) by those you’ve not read, but have seen a movie or stage performance of.
4) 2 dashes (--) means you have started it but never finished it for whatever reason
5) a ?? means you have never heard of it before

1. The Lord of the Rings, JRR Tolkien*
2. Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen*
3. His Dark Materials, Philip Pullman *
4. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams--*
5. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, JK Rowling*
6. To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee*
7. Winnie the Pooh, AA Milne
8. Nineteen Eighty-Four, George Orwell--
9. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, CS Lewis*
10. Jane Eyre, Charlotte Brontë*
11. Catch-22, Joseph Heller --
12. Wuthering Heights, Emily Brontë
13. Birdsong, Sebastian Faulks ??
14. Rebecca, Daphne du Maurier*
15. The Catcher in the Rye, JD Salinger--
16. The Wind in the Willows, Kenneth Grahame*
17. Great Expectations, Charles Dickens
18. Little Women, Louisa May Alcott *
19. Captain Corelli’s Mandolin, Louis de Bernieres ??
20. War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy
21. Gone with the Wind, Margaret Mitchell *
22. Harry Potter And The Philosopher’s Stone, JK Rowling*
23. Harry Potter And The Chamber Of Secrets, JK Rowling*
24. Harry Potter And The Prisoner Of Azkaban, JK Rowling*
25. The Hobbit, JRR Tolkien
26. Tess Of The D’Urbervilles, Thomas Hardy
27. Middlemarch, George Eliot*
28. A Prayer For Owen Meany, John Irving ??
29. The Grapes Of Wrath, John Steinbeck
30. Alice’s Adventures In Wonderland, Lewis Carroll*
31. The Story Of Tracy Beaker, Jacqueline Wilson ??
32. One Hundred Years Of Solitude, Gabriel García Márquez ??
33. The Pillars Of The Earth, Ken Follett ??
34. David Copperfield, Charles Dickens
35. Charlie And The Chocolate Factory, Roald Dahl*
36. Treasure Island, Robert Louis Stevenson
37. A Town Like Alice, Nevil Shute ??
38. Persuasion, Jane Austen*
39. Dune, Frank Herbert
40. Emma, Jane Austen *
41. Anne Of Green Gables, LM Montgomery*
42. Watership Down, Richard Adams
43. The Great Gatsby, F Scott Fitzgerald
44. The Count Of Monte Cristo, Alexandre Dumas*
45. Brideshead Revisited, Evelyn Waugh ??
46. Animal Farm, George Orwell
47. A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens*
48. Far From The Madding Crowd, Thomas Hardy ??
49. Goodnight Mister Tom, Michelle Magorian ??
50. The Shell Seekers, Rosamunde Pilcher ??
51. The Secret Garden, Frances Hodgson Burnett*
52. of Mice And Men, John Steinbeck
53. The Stand, Stephen King ??
54. Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy
55. A Suitable Boy, Vikram Seth ??
56. The BFG, Roald Dahl
57. Swallows And Amazons, Arthur Ransome ??
58. Black Beauty, Anna Sewell
59. Artemis Fowl, Eoin Colfer--
60. Crime And Punishment, Fyodor Dostoyevsky
61. Noughts And Crosses, Malorie Blackman ??
62. Memoirs Of A Geisha, Arthur Golden
63. A Tale Of Two Cities, Charles Dickens
64. The Thorn Birds, Colleen McCollough ??
65. Mort, Terry Pratchett ??
66. The Magic Faraway Tree, Enid Blyton ??
67. The Magus, John Fowles ??
68. Good Omens, Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman ??
69. Guards! Guards!, Terry Pratchett ??
70. Lord Of The Flies, William Golding
71. Perfume, Patrick Süskind ??
72. The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists, Robert Tressell ??
73. Night Watch, Terry Pratchett ??
74. Matilda, Roald Dahl*
75. Bridget Jones’s Diary, Helen Fielding
76. The Secret History, Donna Tartt ??
77. The Woman In White, Wilkie Collins ??
78. Ulysses, James Joyce ??
79. Bleak House, Charles Dickens
80. Double Act, Jacqueline Wilson ??
81. The Twits, Roald Dahl??
82. I Capture The Castle, Dodie Smith ??
83. Holes, Louis Sachar*
84. Gormenghast, Mervyn Peake ??
85. The God Of Small Things, Arundhati Roy ??
86. Vicky Angel, Jacqueline Wilson ??
87. Brave New World, Aldous Huxley
88. Cold Comfort Farm, Stella Gibbons*
89. Magician, Raymond E Feist ??
90. On The Road, Jack Kerouac ??
91. The Godfather, Mario Puzo
92. The Clan Of The Cave Bear, Jean M Auel??
93. The Colour Of Magic, Terry Pratchett ??
94. The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho ??
95. Katherine, Anya Seton ??
96. Kane And Abel, Jeffrey Archer ??
97. Love In The Time Of Cholera, Gabriel García Márquez ??
98. Girls In Love, Jacqueline Wilson ??
99. The Princess Diaries, Meg Cabot *
100. Midnight’s Children, Salman Rushdie ??
I've read 28,
Intend to read 6,
Seen 28 in movie form,
Started 5 that I never finished,
and I'm afraid I've never heard of 42 of them.
So I guess I'm tied with Stef and I'm way behind Lisa. Why have I never heard of these books?
Is there a category for books you read but didn't enjoy? Because that would be 4

Aunt Kate

So I was staying with Marisa this past weekend, and her sister Melinda was there as well with her two boys, Samuel and Tyler. Samuel pretty much ignored me until we were walking on BYU campus and he was getting tired. I offered to give him a piggy-back, but he was too shy, so he asked his Aunt Marisa instead. She carried him for a minute, then said he was too heavy and put him back down and started trying to convince him to ride on Aunt Kate's shoulders, since "Aunt Kate is SO MUCH taller than Aunt Marisa, you'll be SO HIGH!!" He finally agreed, and we spent the rest of the walk steering into any tree we could find so he could grab leaves and crow about how tall he was. So hilarious!
So this morning I got this message from his mom:

I thought you guys should know. The past couple of days when Samuel has been praying he'll go through the list: "Thank you for Mommy and Tyler and Daddy and Grandma and Grandpa and Aunt Marisa and Kate." Very cute!

So I guess I have a new nephew!

Sister Hanson's Home!

Sister Hanson--I mean Janelle

Well guess who's home! It's Janelle, my dear sweet first child. I mean greenie. Strange that I trained her and she's home two months after me, isn't it? Oh well. For those of you who don't know who I'm talking about, she's the one--

who poured hot oil through our plastic strainer
that the branch ADORED in Uherske Hradiste
and who was with me when Mary was baptized.

So I went to her homecoming talk with Marisa (Sister Lee), said hi to a couple other returned missionaries from our mission (yes I did hug the guys) and generally had a great time. Janelle and I have agreed to disagree on all things pertaining to clothing, as our tastes could not be more different. It's funny the friends you gain on your mission that you love to death, but sometimes can't imagine anyone being more different from you. Welcome back Janelle!

California

So since I hadn't seen Lisa since I got back from the CR, we decided that when Sadie was born I would go down with the family and then just stay until the family returned for the blessing and sealing. We thought that would be about a month-long stay, but as we all know Sadie decided to take her time. So I ended up staying about two and a half weeks, it was a lot of fun. I took the roles of cook and baby-sitter to help Lisa out, and when she was gone I worked on my tan line and watched Lost. Okay so I watched Lost a lot even when she was there. I caught up on seasons 3 and 4, and I have to say my favorite people were Desmond

who DID survive, no doubt thanks to me shaking my finger at the screen every few minutes and growling, You are NOT ALLOWED to kill Desmond! And Sun who laid a
major smack-down on her evil father. I was so proud.
I also held my adorable niece, Sadie, as much as I could, meaning whenever I could get her away from her parents, which wasn't all that often. The best part of the trip was when we got to go the LA temple and see Shawn and Lisa sealed to Sadie and Dudie. I had never been to a sealing before, it was fantastic. See Lisa's blog for pictures.

My thing about Blogs

Okay since people are starting to bug me about updating this thing, I will now dedicate some time and do it. But here's my question. What exactly is a blog for? Is it to keep other people updated, or is it a kind of on-line journal? Do I have to post pictures or can I just describe something without any pictorial evidence? Because I am the worst person in the world when it comes to getting pictures at opportune moments. Oh well.