I've seen this on the internet and thought I'd give it a try.
It's called the 50 Book Challenge, and it's simply a personal challenge to myself to read 50 books during the year. I started at the beginning of January and now, at the end of February, I'm a little embarrased to say I've only read 2 books. yup, that trend will only see me reading a book a month if I continue at that rate, but the year is still early so we won't make any predictions just yet.

So far I've read:

1. Eragon by Christopher Paolini
This is a book written for a young adult audience but it certainly has an appeal for the masses. It's in the fantasy genre with magic and dragons and this is Book One of what's called the Inheritance trilogy. This is an excellent book of introduction to the trilogy and introduces a diverse and highly described world along the same vein as Lord of the Rings. The amount of detail in the history and setting and characters is stunning with the author also creating different languages for the elves, dwarves and other creatures in the story. It is certainly an easier read than LotR because the story does not get bogged down by so much description as I've heard many people complain about with Tolkien's work.
What makes this an even more interesting read is that the author started writing this work at the age of 15. He published when he was only 19. It's awe-inspiring the depth of talent this kid has. Read it and feel free to let me know what you think.

2. Eldest by Christopher Paolini
Book two of the Inheritance trilogy. I received both for Christmas and moved on to the second book as soon as I finished the first. Again, a brilliant story unfolding here. I found a little bit that the pace of the story-telling was slower in this book than the first but with just cause because of the nature of the events that occur. I was a bit annoyed with the author's use of cutting the story to show what was going on with the different characters but I see now that it was necessary to move the story along so it didn't get too slow.
The end of this book was certainly worth the wait with action and twists (which I'm proud to say I actually saw coming! -that never happens-). I like too that there was definite closure at the end of this book. It would have been painful if there was a huge cliffhanger at which you'd have to wait for the resolution until the next book was released. As it stands there is more to be done in the last book to look forward to but I don't have to stress myself about waiting for Book Three to come out.

Book three is Artemis Fowl: The Opal Deception.
It's another of my Christmas books that I wanted to read before moving on to the other books on my list. Also written for the younger audience but I've read the first three and highly enjoyed them. Also of the fantasy genre, Harry Potter-ish to give you an idea. Will let you know my review once completed...

Honestly I wish I was better at updating here because then you readers could get a better idea of what was going on with us.
But here I am today to make a new start... well it's a start anyway. we'll see how long it takes before I forget to post again.

well the last time I posted was mid-december and I think it would be too much to update on everything's that's gone on since then.

let me break it down a bit though:

- had Christmas, was fairly uneventful but enjoyable nonetheless. didn't take very many pictures at all. Scrapbook for Christmas '06 will be rather sparse.

- New Year's was also relatively uneventful but again enjoyable nonetheless. had a kid-free couple of days, was highly de-stressing and we did pretty much nothing with ourselves!

- oh major news: my sister is preggers! due in July '06, right on schedule. found out over Christmas

- baby girl had her third birthday end of January. Was a week-long celebration with gifts coming in from family, and a couple of festivities on the day of and on the weekend for her tea party. Everyone got dressed up to celebrate the tea party. It was a small affair but it was fun.

- baby boy has a new tooth that's grown in behind his baby teeth, on the bottom, right in the middle. We went to the dentist to make sure this was ok and if we had to take any ortho steps (already!) but he assured us that it was normal and showed us that the two front teeth are actually loose already. Once they come out the adult teeth will simply be pushed out by themselves with the tongue during the normal course of eating and talking. *phew* no ortho worries just yet...

and that takes us to the end of February pretty much.
not too much going on here really but as I blog more often you'll get a taste for what we're up to day-to-day.

Talk to you all soon!