So I've been slacking lately on one of my New Year's goals, which of course, is to report to you about my Movie Club! Well earlier last year, I watched Jane Eyre for the first time. I quickly became obsessed with it. Aimee had told me several times that I should read the book because it was her favorite. I actually tried to start it once, but the language was difficult for me to read and I couldn't get into it. Once I watched the Masterpiece Theatre version, however, I read it and had a much easier time reading it.

There is a new Jane Eyre movie coming to theaters soon and I am looking forward to seeing it. So in preparation for that, we decided to watch the version below again. I'm pretty sure it was even better the second time. If you haven't seen it or read it, check it out!!

Downton Abbey

I think this is BBC's newest mini-series. It is set in the years 1912-1914 and is the story of a rich man whose estate is entailed to a related male heir. He has only daughters and so you see where the drama lies. This is a little more "racy" than any Jane Austen book or movie, but no worries, it is still pretty wholesome. At least it has good morals, I think. It took us two weeks to finish the 6-hour series and to my shock and horror...it's not over. It is to be continued in who knows how long. They are currently in production right now. So I guess I'll have to try and be patient. Hopefully it won't be too long. I want to know how it all pans out!

We're trying to get creative with our pictures, but there is only so much to do. Lis is an English teacher and as you might guess, very well read. She has hundreds of books, so we all chose our favorites (or at least something that looked good). I'm holding Jane Eyre. I finally read it last year and it was so great!!

More Snowshoeing

So snowshoeing has become my new winter pasttime. We have gone every Saturday for the last month. It started out with Meghan, Mel and I, but our group has grown. This last time we had some of Meghan's friends from hockey...Kate and Shelby as well as Shelby's mom, Lori.

The best part about snowshoeing are the "butt slides." It is hard work hiking to the top of the mountains, but sliding down is so much fun. We have found some really great runs where we pick up some serious speed!

This week we hiked up past Lake Mary, up Big Cottonwood Canyon. What a beautiful sight!

North and South

Another great movie! I am currently listening to the book on tape and it obviously goes in to much greater detail than the movie, but this movie is amazing! If you want to read about it click here. It is a little long, so you will need to a good block of time to watch it because once you start it's pretty hard to stop!! Love, LOve, LOVE it!

Thirty, Flirty and Thriving?

I turned 30 on Thursday! To be perfectly honest, I haven't really been looking forward to it. (I don't know how I got this old.) Despite that, my birthday was a great day. I walked in to work and the secretary at my school started singing Happy Birthday to me. Everyone at work was so nice. My students were very sweet and it made me feel loved!

I took half the day off to prepare for an interview that I had that evening at BYU for graduate school admissions. I am hoping to get accepted into the LPP Program to become a school administrator. So, as you can imagine, I was very nervous. I hadn't slept well for a few days and had a pit in my stomach as well. But once I got there, my nerves calmed and I feel like the interview went really well. It was a very positive experience and I should find out whether or not I am accepted by the beginning of February!!

After my interview, I came home to friends and cake and ice cream. My friend Andrea insisted that we had to do something on my actual birthday (even though we would be going out Friday night), so she put something together and it was a lot of fun!!

Friday night, my friends were planning to take me to dinner for my birthday. I didn't know where we were going, the only thing I was told was that I needed to dress up. So when we left my apartment, we walked down to see an Escalade Limo in the parking lot. I was shocked. I had never been in a limo before, how awesome!!

Meghan, Tasha, Erin and Sue
Sara and Lis

So at this point, I'm thinking that we are going to dinner in an awesome limo!! Cool!! But we didn't go straight to dinner. Instead, we pulled up to the State Capitol Building. I had no idea what we would be doing here, but as we walked in I saw Brian Shelby standing, dressed in a suit holding a rose. He gave me the rose, told me happy birthday and kissed my hand. I was then told that I had 45 minutes to walk around the Capitol Building to find 30 men waiting to give me a rose and kiss me on my birthday! Sweet, right?! I was so touched by the thoughtfullness of my friends and also the willingness of all these guys to come and make my birthday special! It was pretty fun!!

Some of the guys

The girls

After dinner, we got back in our amazing limo and were taken to the Gateway to eat at Z Tejas. What a great restaurant! It was super yummy!!

Ben, Andrea, Brian, Scott, Brett

Gary, Brittany x2, and Marcus

Erin, Sue and Lis

Doug, Tasha, and Erin

After dinner, we were headed to one more place. I was so surprised and a little confused when we pulled up to the Hotel Monaco downtown. We were there to stay!

This picture is quite dark, but I wanted to add it because it is in front of the hotel in front of our limo. :)

The Hotel Monaco is a very nice hotel. We even got a complimentary goldfish who we named Francis Frederick Fish. Only four of us stayed, but a few friends came to hang out for a little while. The icing on the cake was Tony Capone. I love this guy! I'm glad he got to come too.

So, this was by far my most exciting birthday party! Thank you to everyone who was involved and took the time to make me feel special on my birthday!! What a wonderful day!!

Persuasion

I love this movie!! The first time I watched it was several years ago. I was living in Provo and I really didn't care for it. But then, we watched it again a few months ago and I really liked it. Meghan and I watched it again after Christmas and that time I loved it.

We watched this version last Sunday. And while I prefer the previous version, I fell in love with the Captain in this movie. Do not be deceived by the look on his face in this picture. He is perfect and beautiful!

I can't remember what we were doing in this picture, but I'm sure it has something to do with acting proper. If you look closely, you can see that I am about to burst. I love this group. We have so much fun!!

Wives and Daughters

If you haven't seen it, you should! It is based off of the book by Elizabeth Gaskell. I've never read the book, but I've heard it is great! Here is a little bit of trivia for you that I learned tonight from the actual readers of this book. (Lis and Sara have read most of the books that we watch the movies of. The rest of us have read some, but mostly just enjoy the movies.) Apparently, Elizabeth Gaskell was writing the book and got to the point that is almost the end of the movie and died. Before she died, however, she had written a letter to someone with an outline of more of the story. So the writers of the movie ad libbed the ending to the movie based on her outline. I guess we will never know if that would have been the true ending she would have chosen.

Almost the whole group. Lis, we missed you last night! Glad you could come tonight to finish the last hour with us!