Review: The Phantom Tollbooth

The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


I was going to write a fantastic review, (because that's what I do-write fantastic reviews, haha), but then I saw the back cover and it summed it all up. It reads,

"For Milo, everything's a bore. When a tollbooth mysteriously appears in his room, he drives through only because he's got nothing better to do. But on the other side, things seem different. Milo visits the island of Conclusions (you get there by jumping), learns about time from a ticking watchdog named Tock, and even embarks on a quest to rescue Rhyme and Reason! Somewhere along the way, Milo realizes something astonishing. Life is far from dull. In fact, it's exciting beyond his wildest dreams!"

My children really enjoyed this book as I read it too them. There are clever lessons to learn, silly people to met and many play on words. If your family enjoys fairy tales this might be an enjoyable book for your family.

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Love, Imagination

Imagination, age 10, loves to write stories and "express" himself.  Here is a sampling of two things he recently wrote.

Dear Mom,

I am fantastically glad that you are my mom.  You make me feel happy all the time.  I am also happy that you do the dishes for us.*

God choose you to be our mother to prepare us for the final days.

I love you.

Love, "Imagination"

This was the Father's Day poem he wrote today in primary,

As life gets rough,

and you get gruff,

Remember Jesus and what he had to do.

And when they say boo.

Just remember Jesus

A whole lifetime through.

*My children do not like to wash the dishes.  They will all do anything but the dishes.  So I do the dishes (they clear, put things away, and empty the dish drainer though), and they do everything else in the house.  I enjoy the dishes so it works out.  No laundry.  No bathrooms.  No trash. No dusting.  ..... Every body's happy.

It's Circus Time

Liberty beat me to the punch on posting about this already. Here's my very short and sweet version:

Last night we enjoyed the circus as a family along with Mr. Patriot's father, brother, sister and brother-in-law.  We thought it was fun.  Of course there were things I didn't like, but all in all it was a good experience.  We ate a lot of really bad for you food like carmel apples, peanuts, cotton candy, snow cones and popcorn and it was really good. : )

Imagination and Leader were able to ride an elephant and they thought that was great.  Imagination said it felt like riding a really big draft horse.

Meet Hank

We have the world's greatest dog!  I'm sure many of you have one of them too!  His name is Hank and he is a pure bred lab.  No code name for him.  We have owned him since he was around six months old.  He is now six years old.  We name all of our creatures after famous people. (One dog was name Porter Rockwell). Since Hank was already named when we got him (long story) we had to improvise.  His "full" name is Henry Knox.  Ring any bells to those who study Revolutionary War History?   Let's see who can be the first to tell us what Henry Knox did for our great country.  If I had stuff lying around I could give someone a "free-give away."  Haha.  You can just know that you are smart and not get a prize. : )

Hank is wonderful with kids.  Kids love Hank!  They can pull his ears and sit on him and he just lies there.  (Please stay away from our cat though!)

Hank has chronic ear infections because he loves swimming in the water so much.  He loves to fetch sticks out of the water.

Hank stays with the kids when they play outside and keeps an eye on them.  I'm not sure how really.  Sometimes he gets in has much trouble as the kids!  At the end of the day he comes home as tired as they are.  Playing is hard work!

Hank has a bad habit we will mention.  He loves rolling in manure.  Not so good.

We love Hank and we are glad he is a part of our family.  We hope every one who likes pets has a pet as wonderful as Hank.

Camping

 We enjoyed our first camp out of the year.  Mr. Patriot was determined to go!

Liberty enjoys working with the fire.  I think she has a little pyro in her.  She keep saying, "If only we had brought the diesel."

The boys enjoyed hiking around camp.  We were the only ones out.  I guess everyone was worn out from Memorial Weekend.  Hank, our trusty dog, enjoyed going with them.

We enjoyed yummy campfire food.  Grandma and Grandpa showed up for a quick visit.  It was fun to see them.

We stayed warm and had fun.  I'm sure we will be going out again soon!

It's Garden Time

It's that time of year....We planted a little later than we normally do. We have had a lot of rain and wind. It is still freezing at night also. We did finally get it done this week though. It was a snap! This year we planted: Corn, potatoes, squash, zucchini, carrots, onions, cilantro, lettuce, radishes, green peppers and tomatoes. Liberty has big plans to make loads of salsa; one of her favorite foods. I just hope the tomatoes survive the wind, cold and the transplanting. Now we just need to weed consistently throughout the year...hmmmm.....