The Choice

So I just finished reading “The Choice” by Nicholas Sparks.  It was a great book.  I love all of his books.  Here is an excerpt… you should definitely check it out.   I just wished the book would have kept going and going. 

Travis Parker has everything a man could want: a good job, loyal friends, even a waterfront home in small-town North Carolina. In full pursuit of the good life — boating, swimming, and regular barbecues with his good-natured buddies — he holds the vague conviction that a serious relationship with a woman would only cramp his style. That is, until Gabby Holland moves in next door. Despite his attempts to be neighborly, the appealing redhead seems to have a chip on her shoulder about him…and the presence of her longtime boyfriend doesn’t help. Despite himself, Travis can’t stop trying to ingratiate himself with his new neighbor, and his persistent efforts lead them both to the doorstep of a journey that neither could have foreseen. Spanning the eventful years of young love, marriage and family, The Choice ultimately confronts us with the most heartwrenching question of all: how far would you go to keep the hope of love alive?

Whew….

Busy weekend!  Oh no, it’s not Monday again already?!  Seriously… our weekend’s fly by, way too quick.  Friday night we cleaned out our garage.  Exciting right?  Anyway the people who lived in our house before us left all of the paint in the garage… which was great in case we needed to touch something up but there is so much of it.  So much that it was starting to weigh down the shelves and I was afraid that it was all going to fall and land on my car… so we went through it all and cleaned it out.  It took forever.  My in-laws came over and took Ella to get ice cream.  Anyway while she was gone I went through some old boxes and found my roller skates aka “speed skates” that my Nannie bought me back in the day so I started skating in the garage.  It was so much fun!  I love, love, love to skate… I need to get some friends together and see if they want to go sometime soon.   Jeff doesn’t like it and won’t go with me ….

Anyway, Saturday I took Ella to dance and the parents got to go into the studio and watch the kids practice for the recital.  I can’t wait to see Ella up on stage!  I will post plenty of pictures.   Saturday afternoon my mom came over and picked up Ella.  She spent the night with her and had fun going swimming and going out to dinner at the Macaroni Grill.  After that Shannon picked me up and we had to run a few errands before going to Bunco.  We ate at Moe’s and then we were on our way.  This bunco night was different from what we normally do.  We were open to the public and the proceeds went to the charity, Wings of Eagles Ranch.  We had an okay turn out.  We were hoping to get 100 people but we only had about 30 or so people.  Debby (mother in law) and Amanda (Sister in law) came.  Hopefully they had fun.  None of us won any money but Amanda did win a nice gift basket.  After that was over Shannon and I went to TGIFridays.  We wanted to get a drink… you know what is so annoying about drink menus?  They never have any prices listed!  That gets on my nerves…so anyway we both ordered margaritas, they were huge and $7.50 to boot, we got some food and had a really nice chat!  She is great to be around and I always have fun with her. 

Sunday we went over to Debby and Byrds house.  We had dinner with Amanda and her family  because they are heading back to Oklahoma today.  We didn’t get to see them that much.. so hopefully next time we will get to hang out with them a little bit more.  After that we went back to the house and cleaned and cleaned some more.  This is awful but we still had Christmas stuff sitting in one of our spare bedrooms.  We never got around to putting it all back up in the attic so yesterday of course when it is 130 degrees up there, we decided to do it.  Actually we really had no choice because (Yay) Gerry (Father in law) is coming into town and he will have to sleep in that room.  He is coming to town next week.  He is staying in Raleigh a couple of days and then will head down to Concord for the rest of the week.  Ella is going to be thrilled.