The Californians

Can you believe it? I'm writing another post already!

So I was looking at my previous posts and I realised that I have done posts on some of my favourite series, but I haven't written about a series that I have read about 4 times!

So I read the first book and really loved it. I didn't know that there was a second book and so I ended up reading the first book again. Within a month of reading it the first time!
After that I found out that there was a second, third and fourth book!
Imagine my glee! :D

It's by Lori Wick and the series is called: 'The Californians.'

If you read this, beware, there are major spoilers!

The first book is called: 'Whatever Tomorrow Brings.'

It's about the eldest girl of three children, they live in Hawaii with there missionary parents. On her twentieth birthday Kaitlin's parents tell her they are all going to California to visit their aunt.

When they get there however they find out that visiting their aunt is not the main reason for this visit.

Heart break befalls them and after some discussion they decide to stay in California, however their father must first go back to Hawaii, to gather the rest of their things and let the missionaries there know that they won't be back.

They were to stay with there aunt, but something happens and they end up in Santa Rosa.

Kaitlin gets a job as a teacher, as she was one back in Hawaii. Her 14 year old brother Sean has to stay with the man who runs the general store in town, as there is not enough room in the small house rent. Sean ends up getting a job there, leading to Kaitlin and their little sister Marcail spending more time around the general store manager Rigg.

In the midst of difficulties and family turmoil, Kaitlin and Rigg manage to fall in love.

The Second book is: 'As Time Goes By.'

This one is about Rigg's half brother, 'Jeff.'

Jeff once hurt a girl from his school so deeply that she left town.

For FIVE YEARS!!!

When she comes back she ends up work with Jeff at his father's shipping depot.

They become good friends, but as she is considering a marriage proposal, it is nothing more than friendship. After Bobbie, (the girl he hurt) rejects the marriage proposal she was considering, things take a turn toward the romantic, but after an unplanned kiss, Jeff must work fast if he wants to keep the girl of his dreams.

The third book is: 'Sean Donovan.'

This story is about the second eldest Donovan child, Sean, (pronounced the same as Shaun).

Sean becomes bitter with the continued absence his father in Hawaii. He falls in with some bad friends and starts drinking. At age seventeen he takes his money and runs away from small town Santa Rosa and his family.

He tries some different jobs, but his last is as a bodyguard to a bank robber, he ends up assisting with a robbery and is caught. He is trialed and sentenced to be hung. But due to the sheriff's belief that inside he is a good man, an old law is found. That law leads to his marriage to Charlotte (Charlie) Cooper. She only marries him for his strength, given that she owns a livery and needs a new blacksmith. After a rocky start they get along well together and Sean who cam back to his faith in the jail cell, leads her to faith as well. In the end they start a new life with love and laughter and God.

The last book in the series is called: 'Donovan's Daughter.'

It's about the youngest in the Donovan family. She is very small and petite, and being the youngest she is treated like a child. She wants to make her mark on the world and become a teacher like her mother and sister. She becomes the teacher of a small town, pretty much run by a bitter old lady.

  Due to a traumatic experience, muddied by time, Marcial has a terrible fear of doctors. So when a snow storm forces her to the doctor's home one dark night she is understandably frightened. But when the town learns that she spent the night at the doctor's home, pressure and a lack of students, force her to marry the town Dr.: Alex Montgomery. They have a strained relationship, with Marcial avoiding him at all turns, and Alex trying to make it work. After a time they become close, but Marcial still doesn't open up completely. Spending some time with both their families, it's Marcial's brother in-law that finally helps them talk to each other and make the marriage a love match.   

I highly recommend them, they are all Christian romances, and they are very hard to put down!

Thanks for reading and sorry about the spoilers! :D

Dance

Hey everybody,
I know I haven't done a blog post in ages, but I decided I really need to do one, so I decided that I should do one on one of my favourite things: Dance.

I love dancing and singing, but I'm mainly going to be talking about dance in this post.

I started dancing three and a half years ago, age twelve. When I started out I hadn't done any dance before that. I had done some gymnastics for about two years, I think.
I believe that the gymnastics helped with my flexibility, but I still has a lot to learn.

So I started with ballet. Now as you probably know, ballet is a French dance, so all the positions have French names, now I have never studied French, so I had absolutely no idea what anything meant. So I pretty much just followed the other girls and tried to memorise the steps and names of things so that after a time, I knew what exercise my dance instructor was talking about and could do it almost independently.

The dance school I go to has a concert every year around Christmas time, and all the different ages get to do a dance and all the different styles, so over all, the concert goes for about 2 to 2 and a half hours and with all the younger children and having to be there hours early for hair and makeup and setting up, you can imagine that it's quite an experience, now my first year, I was so nervous I was so worried I was going to screw some thing up, I had trouble breathing sometimes to be honest.

So for my first concert, because I was only doing ballet, I was only in one dance, but that dance was the opening pantomime, it went for about 45 minutes. And it included all the ballet classes, the older and younger children combined, in a pantomime of Frozen, the movie.

I enjoyed myself immensely.

I returned to dance the next year, adding on 'jazz' and 'tap' as additional dances.
For the concert that year we did The Cat and The Hat from the movie.
So, as well as doing the ballet pantomime, I also did a jazz and tap dance with my age group.

I had a blast.




I did dance again the next year, (which was last year). this time instead of doing a pantomime, my dance school changed it to every age group doing their own ballet performance.

So that year I did: ballet, jazz and tap, again.

This year I'm doing 'jazz', 'tap' and 'musical theatre' but due to a limited budget I'm unable to do ballet. :(
Musical theatre has just been added this year and I'm having sooo much fun! Like I said at the beginning of this post I love to sing and dance, what I didn't say was that I also act. So 'musical theatre' being all three is like a dream come true.
I also think I've noticed, that with musical theatre, I have a bit more confidence and I think I'm more out going, I think it helps me be more talkative to the other girls, because although I've been dancing there for three years now, I only see the girls there at dance and when we're dancing we don't talk, so I think with musical theatre we just talk a little more and I think it also brings out the confidence in us, because we're acting.

I just wanted to add, while I'm on the subject of acting, I have been in three plays, two of which were homeschooling plays, meaning that they were organised by the home schooling group of the town where, I live, and acted out by home schooled kids.
One was kind of about 'The Little Gingerbread Man' and was called; 'The Little Gingerbread Girl'.

The other was 'Shakespeare's' play, 'A Midsummer night's Dream'. It was a bit more professional.

The one that I did that was not a homeschooling play, was done by the town's theatre, and was a comedy of 'Eurovision'  called ' Eurobeat'. It was great fun. 

So that's the end of my post, I hope you enjoyed it as much as I enjoy dancing. :D

The Lunar Chronicles

I read 'The Lunar Chronicles by Marissa Meyer' awhile ago, but I was reminded of them when Mum saw them on the internet and said they had great reviews, I told her I had already read them but that I had enjoyed them. So she asked me about them and I thought that I should do a post.
So I'm going to try and write this without too many spoilers, I'll probable just write things that are on the back covers.

So the first one's called Cinder and you probably guessed that its a takeoff of 'Cinderella'. Its set in Japan and it's about a cyborg mechanic who stepmother and step sister are mean to her, one day the prince walks up to her spare parts stall and asks for help with his broken robot, she of course agrees and they form a friendship. A lot of other things happen in the book but I don't want to give anything away, so I suggest you read it for yourself.

The second book is called Scarlet and its a takeoff of 'little red riding
hood'. That is if little red riding hood carried a gun. So I really quite enjoyed this one as well, I can't give much away, but I will say this: Scarlet's grandmother goes mysteriously missing so she sets out to find her, she takes along with her a mysterious street fighter called 'Wolf''.










The third one is a Rapunzel retelling and is called Cress in this one a girl has been trapped in a satellite since she was about seven, her evil mistress uses her to hack into things and find out information about things down on earth. She manages to get a message out and help is on it's way. But everything doesn't go according to plan.

The fourth book is a retake on 'Snow White' and is called Winter this one is about a princess named Winter who lives on the moon and has magical abilities, but she doesn't want to use those powers because she doesn't wish to hurt anyone. So she keeps them bottled up inside and that makes her go a little crazy. She gets help from her friend and guard and he helps her not to lose it all together.






There are also extra books about certain characters in the series but I didn't read them. I only knew about the one and it was a bio of the evil queen, making her sound more human, but I didn't want to give myself any reason to feel sorry for her so I didn't read it.

Its number 3.5 and I'm just going to copy the back cover to tell you about it.

Who is the fairest of them all?

Fans of the Lunar Chronicles know Queen Levana as a ruler who uses her "glamour" to gain power. But long before she crossed paths with Cinder, Scarlet, and Cress, Levana lived a very different story—a story that has never been told . . . until now.

Marissa Meyer spins yet another unforgettable tale about love and war, deceit and death. This extraordinary book includes full-color art and an excerpt from winter, the next book in the Lunar Chronicles series.

Then there are some other shorts telling about other characters and their beginnings, I have never read any of these and I didn't know they existed so I'm not going to put any reviews on these, partly because I haven't read them and partly because and reviews that I could copy would give things away. So I'm just going to put the names here.

The Little Android
Glitches
The Queen’s Army
Carswell’s Guide to Being Lucky
The Keeper
After Sunshine Passes By
The Princess and the Guard
The Mechanic
Something Old, Something New

I strongly suggest The Lunar Chronicles to those who love fairy tales, sci-fi and romance. As every one of these books are romance. I really enjoyed them and I think you will too.

New Series

I have just finished a series by Melanie Dickerson. I really enjoyed these books, as they were fairy tale retellings and I love fairy tales.

                                        

                               

                                              

Stories By A Princess

This one was an interesting and fun one. But I won't tell you what the challenge was until after you read it. NO SKIPPING TO THE END!!!

On my way to grandpa Pepper's place I wondered what he was going to give me, well I assumed he was going to give me something, as it was my birthday and he always gave me something on my birthday. Now today I was turning 13 and honestly I'm pretty excited, like it's not everyday you make it to your teenage years, right?
When I got to grandpa's house I was considerably interested as to what the present might be. Grandpa imminently set my mind to rest, for upon arrival he showed me to a large box and told me to open it, it was easy to see that he was excited, so I went up to it and pulled the card off, I opened the card and read it; it said: My dearest Katy, (I know I usually start my cards by calling you a young whippersnapper, but since you are turning 13, I decided I would show you the proper respect) Happy Birthday! Now I just wanted to caution you to be careful and not to take any risks, but you probably want to know what's inside the box, so I'll let you open it, enjoy!
Love you forever, Grandpa. XOXO 
" Thanks Grandpa" I said and gave him a hug, then I turned and opened the box. Inside was a beautiful ten speed bike! The latest model, "oh Grandpa," I said, " its beautiful!" "Thought you'd like it." he said smiling, "I do, I do, its the most beautiful bike I've ever seen!" I gave him another hug and then turned back to my bike, "can I take it for a ride?" I asked, "nothing would make me happier." he answered, and so quick as I could, I had the bike out the door down the steps and onto the pavement, I climbed onto it almost reverently, but once on, I was speeding up and down the street; laughing with glee. I could tell Grandpa was pleased that I liked it so much.
When I went home I was still smiling, I had always wanted a bike like this.
I was not one of those girly girls, who wanted makeup for their birthdays and believed in faerie land, no I was more of a Tomboy, into books about the arising of evil and of spies with guts, who got chloroformed when they found out to much. So you can imagine that I was very happy with my new bike.
I showed Mum my new bike and she looked very impressed, but then she shook her head and said "he should have gotten me to buy it, he knows I get a personal discount at the store." "Pooh" I said "you know he never would have agreed, he's to proud" "I guess your right" she said.

Good right?
So the challenge was that I had to open random pages of the dictionary and drop my finger on 10 random words. The words I picked are:

• Arisings 
• Box 
• Chloroform
• Discount
• Personal
• Whippersnapper
• Guts
• Faerie
• Nothing
• Pooh

Try find them in the story.

Stories By a Princess

For this one I opened the phone book to a random page, closed my eyes and dropped my finger down. I then wrote a story about that person. Not that I knew the person but I wrote a story using the name and occupation of that person.

Funniest thing happened today: I was with my good friend Dr. Peter Brannan, just chatting about the weather and such things, when his phone rang, (not an unusual occurrence, after all he was the only doctor in a small town) It was Mrs. Hoffenfafer, who lived on the outskirts of town, anyhow she was frantic and screaming about someone falling from a tree and breaking all their bones (or something like that) So Dr. Brannan grabbed his bag and rushed out the door, I decided to go along in case he needed help. On the way, I asked him who had fallen, he said he didn't know, but going off the fact that Mrs. Hoffenfafer had seven high spirited kids, he wasn't surprised that one of them had injured themselves.

When we arrived, we hurried to a frantic looking Mrs. Hoffenfafer, when she saw the Dr. she gave a cry of relief, "thank goodness your here Dr. he's worked himself into quite a state." 

We followed her into a messy backyard where she led us over to a dog lying on the ground yelping in pain. "here he is" she said "he fell out of that tree, from a very high branch and I fear he's broken something." "Mrs. Hoffenfafer, we do have a perfectly capable vet in town, why didn't you ring him?" asked Dr Brannan, "why, because your the family Dr." said Mrs. Hoffenfafer,as if it was so obvious, she was surprised we hadn't figured it out.

So Dr. Brannan fixed up the dog and told Mrs Hoffenfafer she really should call the vet, just to make sure that the dog was alright, we then left. And to this day I still don't know how the dog got in the tree.  

Stories By A Princess

With this one I just had so much happiness flowing through me as I wrote. : D

It Feels Good...

1. To jump into a cool clear pool on a sweltering hot day.
2. To swing high on a swing with the wind blowing in your face.
3. To jump high on the trampoline, come down and go right back up.
4. To laugh so hard you sides ache.
5. To finish a good book.
6. To clean a messy room and see the difference.
7. To be thanked for a job well done.
8. To get to Friday an have all your school work finished. 
9. To try and try and finally get it right. 
10. To wake up, look out your window and see a beautiful day.