Good afternoon from the hazy islands. It is a hot one today. It was so good to crawl into my own bed last night, with the feather bed topper. It was like snuggling into a cloud after sleeping on a hard hotel bed for the last 3 nights. At least the hotel bed wasn't like in China - I made the mistake of jumping onto the bed once and I went "thunk" - OUCH!! I don't think the hotels over there knew about mattresses. We seemed to be sleeping on the box spring part of the bed.

And this morning I wallowed in reading in bed with Sophie for a little bit. She was in second heaven. It was so cute - she had her paws wrapped around my hand so I would continue to scratch her neck. She sprawled across my lap so I had to hold the book to the side to read. There is no doubt my baby missed me. :-) That is after she gave me a good talking to when I walked in the door last night! Her tail was going and so was her mouth - I heard all about what she thought of me being gone for over three days.

Harry Potter move over! I just started reading a translated Dutch fantasy novel called The Dream Merchant by Isabel Hoving. It is 630 pages long so I think I will be at it for a bit. Josh loves gadgets of any kind and he also has the gift for falling asleep most any where. That is why he is recruited by Gippart to dream travel. People have become bored with buying their gadgets in this world so they are going to train Josh and his friend Baz to dream travel to other worlds so they can sell their gadgets there. But, this kind of travel is very dangerous. Just ask the girl with the huge scar on her chest - her heart almost burst in an attempt to do what Gippards is sure Josh can. So far, and I am only 36 pages into it, I am fascinated. Looks like another great fantasy read for MS.

I just received the shrink wrapped copy of the Twentieth Anniversary Edition of Van Allsburg's The Polar Express, with the Caldecott blazing in gold on the slipcover front. What a wonderful Christmas gift for any child, or adult, who doesn't have a copy of this book. Such magic inside these pages. I have not seen the movie and I am not sure I want to. I am not a big Tom Hanks fan so I think he may ruin the experience for me, but I am sure we will see it come out on at least the cable stations this Holiday Season. I had a friend say her little one got scared by it - something about the animated eyes, kind of creepy.

All for now, need a bit of a break before my class chats with Lara Zeises. Lara is such a cool person and a fantastic YA author.