Excellent movie! Made me want to rush out and buy Julia Child’s “Mastering the Art of French Cooking” book! A simple movie but fun to watch and very well done, flashbacks are done well and the acting is quite entertaining. It has to be somewhat hard to make a movie essentially about cooking, but Nora Ephron pulled it off splendidly, and I adore both Meryl Streep and Amy Adams. Meryl Streep has impressed me ever since I first saw “Sophie’s Choice” and Amy Adams, she’s just so cute and fun to watch who wouldn’t like her? I first noticed her in “Enchanted” which remains to this day to be one of my favorite movies to watch with Anya. Speaking of who, Anya watched “Anastasia” for the first time today and she really liked it. I think she was most impressed with the fact that her name was in the movie too.
Arwen’s new favorite thing to watch is the Baby Einstein DVD called Baby’s First Sounds. I’m continually impressed with the educational value of most of the Baby Einstein DVDs. Although I don’t agree with the concept of Baby’s First Signs, so I won’t be purchasing that one.
Travis and I are going to watch Bruce Willis in “Surrogates” tonight and it looks interesting.
As far as reading goes, I don’t really recommend Dan Brown’s latest book “The Lost Symbol”. In one word, boring. I love the Robert Langdon character but this book was simply a replay of “Angels and Demons” and “The DaVinci Code” both of which were far superior to “The Lost Symbol”. I was very disappointed because the book which revolves around the Masons and the “secret” Masonic code intrigued me as I am the granddaughter of a Mason. However, I could hardly get through the first five chapters, I kept putting it off until I just had to force myself to finish it. Again, not impressed. So, I have reverted back to one of Dean Koontz’s old books “Sole Survivor” so far its much better!
I really recommend for everyone to watch “Julie and Julia” though, it was really entertaining!

Here are some new photos…also included photos of the new Gorilla at the Birmingham Zoo. His name is Hasani and he moved here back in December from the Bronx Zoo. And Arwen loves the white tiger! Yes, she is quite the spitfire, she gets into the toilet paper and fridge regularly!

Anya had a class at the Zoo today and she painted a black and orange tiger. The picture will be displayed at the BJCC on the weekend of January 30th at the Cat Show. Yes, its just like a Dog Show, but this one is all cats! I’m hoping we won’t come home with a kitten! Anya’s really been wanting a cat, but Chance wouldn’t like that very much I don’t think!
I’m excited to see her picture displayed though and I know she’ll be excited too!
Arwen took 2 steps today between the sofa and her jumperoo, but they were steps so they count, so I’m sure she’ll be turning loose and walking all over the place before we know it!
Stay tuned for some new photos in a day or two!

I read a lot of books in 2009, 23 to be accurate. I discovered the best time to read is while I get a bath, so every night I had a little 30 minute escape to get my bath and read. I’m hoping I’ll get to read 25 books this year. I finished my first one last night…Dean Koontz’s “Your Heart Belongs To Me”. Not my favorite, I wouldn’t recommend this one. I read a lot of Dean Koontz books though and the ones I would recommend include “The Husband”, “Odd Thomas”, “The Darkest Evening of the Year”, and my favorite one “Watchers”.
I want to read “Breathless” but after that I may take a break from Koontz for a while. Other ones I read that I would recommend include “The Lucky One” by Nicholas Sparks and “The Time Travelers Wife” by Audrey Niffeneggar.
My next one is “The Lost Symbol” by Dan Brown. Travis just finished it. He reads much faster than me and he likes Sci Fi books. I’m not sure if I have a genre I really like yet, but I do enjoy mysteries it seems.
In other Almand Family news…Arwen’s still not quite walking yet by herself, but she’s talking a lot more now. Her vocabulary include dog, ya-ya (for Anya), bye bye, ma ma, hi, and her favorite…Da da!
Anya is going back to gymnastics this week and I’m going to have to push her to work on the bars more. She’s still not wanting to do skin the cat, which is a basic flip on the bars, so she’s been banned from having lollipops until she starts! I didn’t want to go those measures but I also want her to be able to conquer her fears. So, until she does an actual skin the cat by herself, no more lollipops. She gets to go to see 101 Dalmatians the Musical tomorrow night with her buddy Acacia and Acacia’s Mommy and me. It should be fun.
And Travis and I are counting the days to our 10 year Anniversary!