Book Review - Anna Boleyn and The King's Great Secret

I love to read.  I mean I REALLY love to read.  I read constantly...sometimes 2-3 books at a time. So imagine my delight when I learned there was a way I could get FREE books from a publisher as long as I agreed to talk about them. 

I heard about it while reading a book review on Amazon and followed a link to this page . I couldn't sign up fast enough, believe me. 

For my first book I chose "Anna Boleyn and The King's Great Secret" by Julia L.A. Kelly. Mainly because I am a Tudor-phile. I've read many books - both fictional and biographical - regarding Henry VIII and his many wives and mistresses.  

NBA: Jazz @ Kings 2/28/12 ~~ Matchmaker, Matchmaker...

...make me a match!

Find me a find!

Catch me a catch!

I know you're asking what the hell this song has to do with the Kings game... Sit back, sonny, because I'm about to enlighten you.

Patrick Marleau is a Screamer. Who knew? Capitals at Sharks 1/7/12

"Dan made a great play to see me and Patty just gave a little scream so I knew where he was." Thornton said.  "Patty just talking made that all happen."

All Adrienne wanted for Christmas was tickets to this game...and after the aborted Tampa Bay game, I made sure it happened. I ended up buying tickets off of Craig's List, which always makes me super nervous.  Consequently, I paid more than I would have liked and the seats were the highest we have ever sat in the Tank.  But it's all good.  We were there and got to see a stellar effort from the Sharks. 

And of course some fun in warmups...

Day 4 of the Quick Road Trip of Epic-Nous 3/25/11

Our last day in L.A.  So very sad!  Our little mini vacay was a little too mini!  But we wanted to cram a lot into our last day so we got up bright and early to organize, grab a smoothie, and head over to Kings pracky.

Needless to say, practice was an extremely light-hearted and fun affair since the Kings had beat the Sharks the previous night.

Here is Handzus' gloriously curly hair. He doesn't have it this year...in more ways than one...

Day 3 of the "Quick Road Trip of Epic-nous" 3/24/11

So a funny thing happened on the way to the forum...  Not really, but I'm having an Alzheimer-y moment of my own and can't remember exactly what happened a year ago.  Sad...very, very sad.  

Usually I rely on my photos to help along my memories when I blog belatedly. Today, that is adding to the confusion.  Reason being that I only have hockey photos edited and saved for "day 3" of our vacay last year.  But...but...but... We HAD to do more than that on day 3.  I really thought we went to Disneyland all three days (having a 3-day pass and all).  But surely, knowing myself, I would have had some photos...

...Oooohhhhhh.  ::lightbulb:: I realize what happened.  Some of the pictures that I credited as being on our first day at Disneyland were actually on the second day.  Now I'm trying to decide if I want to go back and edit or if I want to just leave it as is...hmmmm....this kinda sucks.  And because I'm sick and feeling fairly terrible, I'm having trouble filtering my thoughts which is why you get to hear my whole process.  lol  Sorry. 

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Okay, decision made.  I see what I did and I'm not going to undo it. lol  Not really that important....the memories are still there; it doesn't really matter that I combined the first two days. Everything that I posted happened, just a bit out of sequence in a few spots.

We'll just devote this post to the hockey portion of the day.

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And on with the story:  After spending the morning and early afternoon at Disneyland, we headed  back to the hotel to get ready for the Sharks vs. L.A. Kings. We had bought tickets online as well as a parking pass.  I've been to Staples before, but only for X-Games.  And that hasn't been for a few years unfortunately.  So of course that equaled to us getting lost trying to find the parking lot we were assigned.

It took us several turns around the building to find it and it was several blocks away which was not what we were hoping for with the intermittent showers.  But find it we did and we hustled our asses through the busy streets to try to make it for warm-ups.  

Saw a lot of Sharks fans - a welcome sight since you never know how you're going to be received in an away arena. We made it inside and found our seats.  

Day 2 of the "Quick Road Trip of Epic-nous" 3/23/11

After a rough night's sleep because of the coldness of our accomodations, we woke up pretty (well, 8:30ish) early since we had a pretty full day planned. 


First on the agenda:  King's Practice!  By design, our hotel was right around the corner from the Toyota Center where the Kings practice and have pre-game skates.  According to Stan, it's also the home of the Lakers!  A thrill of excitement ran though me at the news! Unfortunately, we were to discover that the Lakers are a whole 'nother breed of animal and their practices are super-secret and closed to the public.  Darn. 


The Kings facility is really, really nice.  BUT!  It's not really conducive to taking good pictures with a crappy camera.  The weird angle from the bleachers combined with the rails and glass made it really difficult to get good photos.

So not many to post for the first day.  Don't worry, there'll be plenty of hockey photos forthcoming.  haha 


After pracky was over, we hightailed it straight to Disneyland.  The day was a little bit gray.  However, this being Southern California, it wasn't really cold so we weren't too worried about it. 

Day 1 of the "Quick Road Trip of Epic-nous" 3/22/11

So...quick note:  I typed this on 3/27/11 and never published it.  I guess because I didn't have photos for the rest of the trip finished and wanted to post them all together.  lol  


Finally found/edited the pics, came to post and saw this so here ya go.  Easiest post ever!


Finally the time has come!  
A much, much needed vacation for me and my "kid", Adrienne. 

She has not really taken a vacation since she started working full-time, which was approximately 6 1/2 years ago.  Rarely misses work or school. So very unlike me at her age.  Good for her! 

We'd been planning this for several months which is the only way that we could make this work.  Leading up to the trip was actually very stressful!  I had to interview home health agencies to stay with my mom; it's really nervewracking to think of leaving your elder, cats, and house in the care of a stranger!  Plus the weather has been such shit that I was so worried about the drive.

But after much stress, the day finally arrived.

Adie & I both had school/work from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. so we were planning on rushing to get ready and leave when the caregiver arrived between 5:30 and 6 p.m.  Of course, I was still printing tickets and needed to pack when she arrived at 6:00.  lol  But we finally got out the door about 6:40.

The drive was great!  We were both awake and enjoying each other's company, music blaring to equal our excitement for the coming few days.  We made great time and switched drivers at 10: 25 pm. after 264 miles.  We hit the Grapevine around 11:45ish...don't remember exactly.  There was actual snow on the ground!  This is the first time in all my years that I've ever seen snow on the Grapevine.  I knew it had been snowing a few days previously and my greatest fear was that it would snow while we were driving it...so this was the most epic of both worlds.  lol  Obviously, I did not take this photo of the snowy Grapevine since there is daylight, but it serves to illustrate my purpose.

We got to Marriot Courtyard El Segundo at about 1:30 a.m. after a crazy detour because the 405 was closed for construction.  Stan the night clerk was awesome.  We had a somewhat rocky start...  Stan checked us in and gave us our keycards and directions to our room.  We pulled the car around and unloaded our luggage.