Books Read in 2011

This was a fun year of reading. I didn't get to read as many books as I had hoped last year, but I did spend almost 2,000 pages with Alexandre Dumas, which will be 2011's reading achievement. Here's the list:

Books Read in 2011

Babyhood - Paul Reiser ^
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button - F. Scott Fitzgerald ^
The Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
A Wrinkle in Time - Madeleine L'Engle
Outliers - Malcolm Gladwell
A Wind in the Door - Madeleine L'Engle
Three Cups of Deceit - Jon Krakauer
Theodore Boone: The Abduction - John Grisham
Peter Pan - J.M. Barrie ^
A Swiftly Tilting Planet - Madeleine L'Engle
Many Waters - Madeleine L'Engle
An Acceptable Time - Madeleine L'Engle
The Chosen - Chaim Potok
Bossypants - Tina Fey ^
A Separate Peace - John Knowles
The Litigators - John Grisham
EntreLeadership - Dave Ramsey
The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas

^ Listened to the audio book

Time Off

I was able to take a few days off of work over Christmas and when combined with work holidays, I ended up being home for 12 days. It was wonderful and so refreshing after a really busy November/December at work.

We were able to spend Christmas at Jamie's parents house and her brother and Danielle even made it up from New Orleans for the night. It was so fun to all be together and have fun with Jillian opening her presents and playing with all of her new toys. She loves her Gram and Pops!

We headed from there to Birmingham to celebrate with my family, while my sister and Jesse were still in town with them. She opened more fun toys and was completely overwhelmed with all the choices! Mary Lynn, Mark, Amy and my grandmother all joined us for 24 hours and we loved hanging out with them and playing ping-pong, cornhole and ladder ball.

One of the best things about being home for so long was getting to spend so much time with Jamie and Jillian. I do feel like I miss so much being at work every day. Skype has helped that, but it is not the same as being home. Jillian's big accomplishment over the week was that she started walking! She has been walking with her walking toy for months, and almost even running, but she didn't have the confidence to step out on her own. It was really fun to watch her try things out and then to celebrate when she'd walk across the room back and forth between Jamie and I. She is all over the place now, being her adorable toddler self.  We did get a video of her walking over to her new kitchen that Jamie and I got her for Christmas. She loves it!