Wedding Anniversary & Upcoming Review

Being that Wednesday, 8/5/09, was my 14th wedding anniversary... thought it would be fitting to write a review for a book with some romance. Yep, 14 years--married to the best husband--Jaime. Just to tell you a little bit about us...we met while we both worked at HEB (a very popular grocery store down here where I live) during our high school years. Hmm...sounds like a great topic for a YA romance novel! Well, we were very good friends before we ever went out on a date, and our first "official" date was on Valentine's Day 1993, a year after we both graduated from HS. So, we belong to the same eras and know about all the totally cool hair and clothing fashions created in the 80's and 90's! Go Class of '93! We even have a picture with both of us wearing our college cap and gowns from the Univerisity of Texas-Pan American . Go Broncs and Class of '96 &'97! We married while still in college and basically grew up together during the days when movies and going out became so out of the question because we were living on any left over college grant and loan money! We both became teachers, bought a house, and now have 3 kids! Now, that is life!

So, now about the book review...a few months ago, I was over at Readergirlz and discovered they were hosting a live chat with Laura Resau, author of Red Glass. The very next day, I walked over to our school library, checked out the 1 copy available, read it all day and night, and got ready for this chat. You can check out the chat summary an earlier post...just scroll down or check the May archive. And being that Red Glass has some romance and deals with Hispanic and border land culture, I'm thinking it's the perfect book to write about to go along with my wedding anniversary 'cus my husband and I have a love story that worked out, and we live just several miles away from the U.S./Mexican border. But, I don't want to take away from my anniversary post nor from the book review, so I will put the review in tomorrow. Come back and read it!

For now, read a brief excerpt of Red Glass:

...when no one was looking Angel would slip his hand into mine for a moment, or I would let my arm graze his, or he would touch me with the excuse of pointing out something and let his hand linger a few beats. The crowd was pushing us into each other and we let it happen. I loved the shade created just for a moment between his arm and mine, his face and my neck, my hair and his hand. And in this space, I could almost forget that he was leaving for good.

One more thing, and this has nothing to do with the book (just a little trip down my own memory lane)...one of the most memorable days in my 14 years of marriage--Disney in Orlando, 2006--the Thunder Mountain ride. It was the most awesome time I've ever had at a theme park. See, all our kids were finally tall enough for some of the bigger rides, so we all get on as a family, and as soon as we were buckled in...it began to pour! We were on a roller coaster in the rain! And the whole time, my youngest son was yelling all sorts of crazy things like "Yeah, baby, yeah!" I mean, we were drenched, but wow! I'll never forget that day. We didn't even need to find cover from the rain afterward!

One more last, last thing...there is a YA book out there about a Disney romance--Dream Factory by Brad Barkley and Heather Hepler--two teens working as Disney characters over the summer break fall in love while out on a scavenger hunt at the happiest place on earth! It will definitely get you in the mood for a little theme park romance! The best thing about the book? Alternating boy/ girl chapters.