Entertaining the Watsons

It's been a slow, if busy and stressful, week and there's not much to report on. (Not that any of you should be waiting with baited breath by this point. It's not like this gets updated only once a month or anything.) But we thought we'd share a few of the things we're having fun with:

Books
Family book: Emma by Jane Austen. We read it to each other, taking turns by chapter. Mr. Elton has just left town and Emma had to tell Harriet that **PLOT SPOILER HERE**. We finished reading Anne's House of Dreams from the Anne of Green Gables series in Nov/Dec. For those who are wondering, Joy chose Anne and Derrill chose Emma.

Scripture: We're up to 2nd Nephi 16 today in our family reading. I'm studying the Book of Mormon topic by topic, going alphabetically through the Index. I'm up to "conversion," after reading about being "contrary" to the plan of happiness this week. Joy's up to page 145 in the Book of Mormon and Doctrine and Covenants (one page a day in each is her goal).

Baby prep: We have a pamphlet on delivery that we're reading 2 pages a day. We're around page 40 of 80 that we want to read before Hyrum comes. We feel that reading together not only is entertaining, but sparks conversation about our concerns and things that we're looking forward to. We also started reading Hyrum's biography, but got stuck in it. Whether we get unstuck depends on if the author can discover linear time or not.

Joy reading: I just finished Gerald Lund's Fire of the Covenant about the Willie and Martin handcart companies, and A Light to Come Home By by Shelly Johnson-Choong. Both were written by LDS authors with LDS themed stuff. I like clean romance books. Currently reading an Oz book, about number 12 in the series. I like reading the Oz books as an easy read. I don't have to pay too much attention but they're still enjoyable.

More Joy reading: I'm also trying to read a session of conference every week. This is my ... third week and I'm two talks behind. Which is pretty good :) And I am caught up in my reading for the Joseph Smith Relief Society manual. These are all things I haven't done so very well on in the past, so I'm really proud of myself. I am feeling the Spirit a lot more as I accomplish these goals and I'm hoping to continue them. I also try to read an article from the Friend sometimes to Hyrum.

Derrill reading: I have made no progress on my Islam or WWII readings. I did read a few chapters of Mark Twain's Adventures of Tom Sawyer this week, though. I've been getting through the important articles of The Economist and read several of the talks from the October 2007 General Conference. I've also been reading Pres. Hinckley's biography, and he's on his mission at the moment. I'm recording Alice in Wonderland for Joy to listen to during delivery, and that's a load of fun. I'm also taking a few peeks into the Dangerous Book for Boys, which has some fun stuff in it. I think I also skimmed my Handyman magazine, haven't made it very far in the BYU Magazine for the quarter, was able to skip most of the last couple economics journals I got in (not related to my research mostly), and have been reading a lot of articles related to research.

More Derrill reading: Then there's Fire in the Bones about William Tyndale's life. I haven't been doing much new religious reading since I've been preparing several Forum articles for the class I teach and they've taken a bit more time than usual, but I've read a few new poems in Masterpieces of Religious Verse. I guess I did restart working on Preach My Gospel this week, read another page or two and I'm caught up on Joseph Smith for this week.

J: Wow. We're really a reading family, aren't we?
D: Well, for a short blog this has gotten long much faster than I expected, so I'll spare you our silly movie watching and game playing antics.
J: For today. We'll share them some other day.
D: We sure do read a lot of different things, don't we?