One Bookmobile and a Side Order of Lots of Time, Please.

Stephanie and I like to read books together. We have been reading Clive Cussler books together for the last 4 or 5 years and are currently reading Pacific Vortex. We have decided to start back as far as we could go to when Cussler first started writing. I find it quite interesting to see how authors grow and change with experience and time.
Together, that is what we read. Individually, it is a totally different story. Since I am still in school, I am always reading a lot of textbooks. Yes, I even read them for fun and quite often I buy books for classes that are not even part of my degree in Web Development. I am always reading books on something educational. One interesting book right now is titled "e: The Story of a Number" by Eli Maor. It is about how the number e came to be and some of its great uses. Other books mostly involve web development and getting to know all of our Adobe programs much better.
Stephanie, on the other hand, is more into novels and things with actual storylines. (Don't get me wrong, I love storylines a lot too which is why we read Cussler books together, but while I'm in school I leave less time for myself to get into such books.) She has to have about five books checked out right now from the library. If you've checked out your...er, I mean, her...blog lately and have seen her Shelfari collection then you know what I mean. (I put that in there since you, Stephanie, are the only one to actually read my blog so I might as well put all pronouns in a tense referring directly to you ayway. Ha ha!)
It is great that we all like to read, though. This includes Katie as well and Aubrey will probably be the same. Katie loves books and, like me, seems happier in a bookstore than in a candy store! Although she can't read words much yet, she is doing a great job at forming sentences from the pictures that she sees. I love hearing how she interprets things and seeing her creative mind at work.

New Header Images

Every so often I am going to change my header image to show some of the places from my mission in Switzerland and France. At first they will probably be scans of postcards that I bought while there, but I will mix in some pictures that I took myself. Both countries are absolutely beautiful and I am happy to show off just how great it is there.
This first one is of a park in Lyon, France. The name is literally, "Park of the Golden Head." I don't recall why it's called that, but it's a beautiful park. On one p-day, a group of us rented rollerblades and skated over to this park and all throughout it. Inside, there are a lot of animals that just roam around with you. (I bet Katie would love to see the flamingos that they have there!) It is very large and beautiful. Check out some more here.

DVRs Strengthen Relationships

In the myriad of news feeds and articles that I go through, I came across one about how DVRs help strengthen relationships. The article is here. It's very short and mostly covers its desirability in the home more than it does actually covering why or how it strengthens relationships, but the title itself made me think for a minute.
Although it hints at specifically referring to marriage relationships, it never actually states that. Of all the things that do strengthen our relationships with each other, the DVR (we have a TiVo, of course) wasn't one that I had ever thought of. We all have programs that we like and with different schedules it would be difficult to sit down and watch the same thing together were it not for DVRs. For example, I have watched the Tonight Show's segment on Headlines pretty much since the first time they had it. Often, Stephanie is asleep when it comes on. So, we can TiVo it and watch it together later and laugh and talk about it. Another one is the recent RNC. We were able to sit down together and discuss the things that were said instead of having only one of us here and the other not knowing what was said. There are many other things that we watch as well, but the point I'm making is that being able to record something and then watch it together allows you to: 1. spend time with others, 2. learn what others like to watch, and 3. have more common things to talk about...amongst other reasons as well, I'm sure.
Granted, there are alternative ways to this as well, such as watching programs and clips online together where it does not involve a DVR, but that's that the point here.