Book Review: The Colonel's Lady, by Laura frantz

Roxanna Rowen left all things comfortable and familiar in her Virginia home to join her father on the edge of civilization on the Kentucke frontier. On her way, she encountered hardship and danger, but nothing was more of a blow than reaching her destination, only to learn of her Father's death.

With not a penny to her name and with nowhere to turn, Roxanna makes a temporary home for herself at the fort where her Father served. As she works to find a way off the frontier, Roxanna spends much time with the leader of the Fort, Colonel Cassius McLinn, and soon finds that there may be at least one good reason to stay. But Cass has a very dark secret that may damage the relationship forever, and there may be a dangerous foe at work at the fort!

I really enjoyed this story from a time period that I don't think I have read a fiction from before.  Besides the ugly hairdo's on the men (ugh long ponytails!), I loved reading about this time of hardship and war and the joy that love can bring to a harsh situation. I also enjoyed the bit of mystery that Frantz wove through the story - it added another layer of depth to a sweet romance.

Available August 2011 at your favorite bookseller from Revell, a division of Baker Publishing Group.

Thank you to Revell Publishers for a free copy of this book to review.

Molly's Story

We are so happy that almost two weeks ago, Molly Hope Harrison joined our family. It has been so fun to have our sweet little girl with us. She is pretty mild tempered so far and smiles more than any newborn I have ever seen - obviously not on purpose yet, but lots of practice ones :-)

In case you haven't heard it yet, here is the story of how Molly was born:

It started out a disappointing week, as I was supposed to be induced on Tuesday morning, but the nurse called me on Monday to tell me she had made a mistake and I would have to wait until Thursday. After a morning of crying and feeling disappointed, I finally decided to get over it, after all, as Eóin told me "Molly is not going to come until her birthday"

Wednesday evening, we took the boys to see Cars 2 and then to Chick-Fil-A before dropping them off and Aunty Tina's to spend the night. Then I went home to finish packing my suitcase - I know - you would think being 3 days overdue I would have done it already, but I really hate packing :-)

Thursday morning, we arrived at the hospital a little before 7, only to wait in the waiting room for about 45 minutes while they got our room ready (I was getting a little nervous that they were going to send us home!). Finally we got into our room and filled out paperwork while the nurse tried in vain to find my veins - he he. Finally she got the IV started around 8:30, my doc broke my water, and they started pitocin at 9:00. For the next hour and half I just chilled, watching tv, checking facebook and such. Then I started to feel some uncomfortable contractions so I thought I should probably at least let the nurse know they were getting stronger and to let the anesthesia people know I would want to see them soon.

I am soooo glad I called when I did because they were just about to go into a C-section and once in there, they would not have been able to come for an hour or so. About ten minutes after I told her that, the contractions got strong REALLY FAST! Soon they were about two minutes apart and really painful. Then the anesthesia nurse came in (and she looked like she was 15!), and gave the run down of all the terrible things that could go wrong and signed the paper saying I don't care just give me DRUGS! By this point I was uncontrollably shaking from the pain.

A few minutes after she got everything in, she thought something may have gone wrong, part of me was numb, but every time I had a contraction, Molly pushed off my ribs and I felt like they were cracking - worst pain ever! 15 year old nurse kept shooting more drugs down my back and doing tests on me - I was ready to strangle her! Then the nurse in charge of my care said she had a hunch and she would check me. When she did, she said I was at a nine so she called my doc and they got everything ready to me to push (me still lin pain, with teen/doc still testing and shooting drugs). They said "I don't think the drugs are going to catch up - she is coming." At this point I am begging God to let the drugs work! Well, my doc checks me and apparently the baby moved and I was back to a 7. We all sat there waiting to see if it would change and for a while nothing did so they put everything back together to wait again. I think God must have moved Molly for me because soon after my drugs kicked in and about 30 minutes later, I was a ten and Molly was ready to come :-)

All of this happened in 4 very short hours! It was definitely my most dramatic birth :-) Molly came into the world at 12:26, weighing in at 7lbs 1oz and measuring 19 1/4 inches and we just love her to pieces!

Cousins

We got to babysit little Madison while Aunty Tina and Uncle Eric went out for their anniversary. The boys were so excited! They were very sweet and gentle with her. We had to keep an eye on Aidan who wanted to share all his toys with her, but they really did a great job.

Madison loved having the boys near. She watched Eóin everywhere he went. He sat by her and read to her and played cars while explaining what he was doing. He told me "I will teach to play cars gently, and not to be afraid of the crocodiles at the zoo." Not sure where the crocodile thing came from :)

I think they will be very good big brothers to their new sister when she gets here.

Trip to WI

We took a short trip to visit Grandma and Grandpa at the beginning of this month. The kid's were so excited since they had been asking to go for so long. They did really well in the car and really learned that we meant it when we said it was far away. Last week in River City (our church's kid's program) we were talking about Grandparents and Aidan said "Grandma lives faaaaaar away" :-)

We didn't much except relax and read which was just what we needed. Grandma got some great deals on some Thomas toys at a garage sale and the kids played with those every chance they could! We did brave the heat and go to the parade on the 4th of July and light off some fireworks in the backyard. It was a nice to see some old friends at Calvary and Brookside too.

Here are a few pics from the weekend. I let Eóin use my camera to take some pictures and made a little slideshow of his first photo shoot :)

 Driving far away. Reading the magazines they got with their Wendy's meal (such a load of rubbish!)

Culvers with Grandma

Picnic at Brookside 

Playing some carnival games at Brookside's picnic

Aidan's turn for a game :)

Watertown 4th of July Parade :)

Catching Up: Aidan's Birthday

Since we plan on being a little more busy in the weeks to come with the arrival of a new baby, I wanted to be sure and make sure that we were caught up on all the events of the past few months.

On June 2nd, Aidan turned two. We had a small family party here at the house and the kids really enjoyed it. Really - they enjoy anything with pizza and cake :-) Eóin and Aidan helped grandma make the birthday cake which turned out sooo cute! I'm glad grandma was here to do that because I would be headed to the nearest store to buy one - cakes are so not my thing!

I posted the pics on facebook already here but here is a short video of blowing out the candles that never made it anywhere past my desktop. (He had a little help from big brother :-)