The Book Thief

I recently finished reading The Book Thief by Markus Zusak for the second time. I really like to read, but I rarely read a book more than once. If I do, I must really like the book.

I first read The Book Thief a couple of years ago and I loved it. The book was well written. I became attached to the characters. I cried. I laughed. I felt scared. I thought about the message of the book for a long time after finishing it. 

The movie came out in 2013 based on the book. I saw it and I thought they did a good job with it. I realized, though, as I watched the movie, I couldn't remember the details of the book and that I wanted to read it again.

I didn't pick it up again until a couple of weeks ago and, as I started reading it, I remembered why I liked it so much. The author does a good job with character development and keeping you interested in the story.

The book is from a different perspective. The narrator of the book is Death. I know some people might find that weird, but I feel like it works in this case. As odd as this may sound, Death becomes fascinated by a little girl named Leisl, who lives in Nazi Germany during World War II.

Leisl is surrounded by death and suffering at a young age, but continues strong and courageous in the face of it. Leisl and the people she is surrounded by, show Death that humans are worth it, that even with all these humans killing other humans that humans are beautiful creatures and that words are powerful whether to persuade for good or for bad.

I won't go into great details about it all, but I really just wanted to say that I love the book The Book Thief. It is sad. It is funny. It is thought provoking.

San Diego- La Jolla Beach, Trolley Tour, Coronado, Temple

Last post for my California trip...

I loved San Diego! We went there on our last full day before heading home. I heard from a friend that taking the trolley tour through San Diego is a fun way of seeing the city without having to worry about driving through the city and parking and figuring out where to go etc.

The trolley tour was awesome! They stop at a few of the most popular touristy places in the city and they come around every 30 minutes or so.

We got off the trolley at a couple of places, but I definitely think my favorite stop was Coronado! Coronado is a peninsula of San Diego.

The reason I loved Coronado, (besides the charming houses and architecture, where no two buildings or houses were exactly alike (so no cookie cutter houses here)), was because of the beach!

Apparently Coronado beach was rated the #1 beach in the U.S. last year. (Something we learned on our trolley tour). Since we had been to a few other beaches on this trip, we wondered how this beach was going to be different from the other ones we had been to.

The beach was different and it was awesome! How do I describe this beach?

Well, there were really tiny gold specks in the water that made it sparkle. (You can kind of see the gold in the picture above). The water was clear. The sand was so soft and light-colored. The water was shallow going pretty far out. The buildings near the beach were charming. The beach was just beautiful in general! (And they had lifeguards and decent restrooms.) I loved this beach!

Water had washed over the words (in the picture above) numerous times and yet the letters stayed.

Coronado!

Look at that sand! It felt so good on the feet.

Sisters at Coronado!

My adorable nieces, Madeline and Ellie, jumping for the camera. Aren't they so cute?!

Paparazzi shot!

The trolley tour was awesome! There were a couple of stops that we didn't get to explore at (like Balboa Park), that I definitely want to go to next time I visit Kristina and Tom.

We parked in Old Town San Diego near the Mormon Battalion Museum to catch the trolley and we decided, since the museum was open later than the trolley ran, that we would  go to the museum last. The church did an awesome job with the museum! It's a fun and interactive way to learn about the Mormon Battalion.

I know I started off with the end of the day but now I'm going back to the beginning. We began our day at La Jolla Beach. The water was so clear there and we saw some seals or sea lions (I am not sure which ones) swimming around.

La Jolla!

Just in case you didn't know from previous posts, I love the beach!

Isn't it beautiful?!

Kristina, Lara and I at La Jolla.

Our very last stop of the day before going home was the temple! It sure was beautiful! I love how it's right off the freeway (kind of like the D.C. temple) and it just kind of is suddenly there.

Sisters at the temple!

Well this post concludes my posts from my trip to California. Overall it was a wonderful, fun-filled, family-filled trip!

I'm Gonna Soak Up the Sun...

I've been feeling pretty down recently and it's been cloudy, cold, and snowy the past few days and really the whole last week. But today the sun was out and the temperature got up into the low 50s and I decided to take advantage of the lovely weather and go to Meadowlark Gardens. I don't think I've ever been there when there's so much snow and it was beautiful! I loved it.

They actually had the fountain on today.

The pond looked so cool all frozen over. This is my favorite view at the gardens.  I go to this spot every time I go.

 The snowy trail.

I loved the blue sky and clouds and the snow with no footprints.

I love Meadowlark Gardens!

I sat on this bench for awhile thinking about life and enjoying the view from the picture above. It was just what I needed, a walk around the gardens and time to soak up the sun.

Sisters!

I grew up in a family of 8 children (including myself). There are 4 girls and 4 boys. I am close to all of my siblings and try to talk to all of them on a somewhat regular basis. (Some I definitely talk to more than others, though.)

Once we bought the tickets to go out to California, I tried to convince my siblings, that live in the West, that they wanted to come and visit us while we were there. (Nate is in northern California and Heather and Tim are in Utah.) They all said they couldn't for one reason or another. But on Friday evening after our day trip to Los Angeles, we had a surprise waiting for us...


...Heather had flown in for the weekend. Lara nor I knew that she was coming and we were very excited to see her!

It was fun having all of us, sisters, together! It's hard for us all to get together because the whole living on opposites sides of the country thing and it costs a lot to fly and we all have busy schedules etc etc.

 Balboa Island Beach!

It was good having all of us together again, even if only for less than 48 hours!

Griffith's Observatory!

After the La Brea Tarpits we went to Griffith's Observatory, which is up on a hill overlooking L.A. We got there just in time to see the sunset, which was amazing! Since it had been raining earlier that day but had started to clear away, there were some awesome clouds and colors during the sunset.

I took a few pictures, but Lara and Kristina had nicer cameras so I let them take most of the pictures.

You can see the Hollywood sign from the Observatory.

Sisters!

I didn't take a ton of pictures but here's a few.

Look at those colors!

These pictures do not do it justice at all. Almost every second the colors and clouds were changing and it was hard to capture the beauty on the camera.

After watching the sunset until it was completely dark, we went inside the observatory and saw some cool exhibits about the stars and planets and the Tesla coil.

The man that was showing us the Tesla Coil (which they had a cool demonstration of) kept on saying we should be grateful for Nikola Tesla (the man the Tesla Coil was named after). Nikola Tesla made it possible for radio, x-ray, radar and basically the electrical power of the 20th century, to happen. He invented the first alternating current (AC) motor and developed AC generation and transmission technology.

If you want to read more about Nikola Tesla click here for the History Channel biography of him.

Griffith's Observatory was very cool! The exhibits, the sunset, the view of the city, and its free admission!

Just for me wanting to remember, after Griffith's Observatory we found a restaurant on Hollywood Blvd to eat at called Mother Dough. It was delicious! A little pricey but really good!

La Brea Tarpits!

I usually visit Kristina and her family about once a year. Normally when I go, my only requests while I'm there are to go to the beach a couple of times and to go on a long walk everyday. Other than that I just hang out with Kristina, Tom, Andrew and Madeline and go wherever they were already planning on going.

This trip was different though. Since Lara and her kiddos don't get to California nearly as often, Lara wanted to take advantage of being in the area and do as much as they could while there. Since I was there at the same time as they were, I did all of the things that they did.

Out of all of the times I've been to Kristina's house, I've never been to Los Angeles, but this trip I finally got to go to LA and it was interesting!

Our first stop in L.A. were the La Brea Tarpits. It was pretty cool! It was a little underwhelming. I think I was expecting more active, oozing asphalt coming out of the ground, but it was interesting nonetheless.

Basically, animals got caught in the asphalt and were never able to escape. They would eventually die but the asphalt would preserve their fossils. They have found some fossils dating back to 20,000 years ago.

There was a sign on the property telling of a modern day story of an animal getting caught in the asphalt. One day in the early 1900s (before there were fences or so many buildings around the area), some elephants escaped from a nearby circus or zoo and one of the elephants got stuck in the asphalt. When the circus or zoo keepers found the elephant, they were afraid they were not going to be able to get it out because it was so stuck. But thankfully (and I don't remember exactly how) but they were able to save the elephant from dying in the asphalt.

Some of the kinds of fossils they've found in the asphalt.

They have excavations going on continuously looking for new fossils.

There's an active oozing asphalt spot in the water.

It just looked like it needed to be hugged. 

It started raining while we were there, so our time was cut a little short. Although the tarpits (or asphalt pits as they technically should be called) were a little underwhelming to me, it was still interesting!

Stay tuned for more posts about my trip...

Disney California Adventure!

The day after we went to Disneyland we went to Disney California Adventure Park which is right next door to Disneyland. We probably would not have gone to California Adventure too, but since Kristina is a resident of southern California, she got us really discounted tickets for a 2 day, 1 park-a-day pass. I really liked California Adventure! I'm glad we got to go there too.

They had bigger rides than Disneyland. The park was more themed and they had awesome almost Broadway like shows. 

Look at the perspective in that background. It looks like you could keep on walking.

The first thing we did when we got there was go to the Frozen sing-along, which was really fun!

Look at the snack names while waiting in line for the Monsters Inc ride. :)

I loved Carsland in the park. They had a whole section of the park that looked like Radiator Springs from the movie Cars and it was awesome! Not to mention the rides in it were really fun!

Ellie and I in Radiator Springs!

They had Flo's Cafe from the movie. 

They had the bluffs and the firehouse. It seriously looked like Radiator Springs and it was fun! They even had a racetrack ride which was awesome!

Mater's Junkyard Jamboree was fun!

There's the fire engine from Cars. As you can tell from all the pictures I really liked Carsland! :)

Me, Cami, Ellie, Lara, Adam, and Emma at a Kodak picture spot. The roller coaster in the background of this picture was so fun!

We saw a shortened production of Aladdin on stage and it was awesome! The singing and dancing were so good! And the way they portrayed flying on the magic carpet was pretty magical.

Waiting for the Toy Story Midway Mania, which was an awesome 4-D ride where you try to hit at as many things as possible on the screens and of course you want to beat the score of the person sitting next to you!

We decided to end our day at Disney California Adventure with a trip to the Ghiradelli shop in the park and get a treat. My ice cream was delicious!

I just wanted to write down the rides we went on so that I would remember. We went on some of these multiple times and I might have missed some.

Frozen Sing-a-long
Monsters Inc, Mike and Sully to the Rescue
Disney's Aladdin- A Musical Spectacular
Mater's Junkyard Jamboree
Radiator Spring Racers
Bakery Tour
The Little Mermaid- Ariel's Undersea Adventure
Goofy's Sky School
Golden Zephyr
Jumpin' Jellyfish
Silly Symphony Swings
Mickey's Fun Wheel
California Screamin'
King Triton's Carousel
Toy Story Midway Mania