We're back!!! Where do I Begin!?!?

Hello there blog world!!! I'm baaaaaaack!! Wow it's been a busy summer and a busy vacation! I have so much to tell and so many pictures to post and explain! But before all that I must take a few more days to unpack, clean (yes my house is a wreck after 3 months of no cleaning) and try to get the kiddo her school stuff in order, because she starts first grade next week!!!! OMG!!! So I thank you in advance for your patients, but stay tuned there is much to tell and much to read about! :)

Book Review: The Marine Next Door By: Julie Miller

He saw that her safety was threatened...

Maggie Wheeler never stopped looking over her shoulder. It was a habit she'd learned from being a cop... and from a devastating event in her past. So when John Murdock moved in next door, Maggie didn't know what to make of the sexy Marine. But once her son formed a bond with the mysterious stranger, Maggie knew that past might not remain hidden much longer...

She saw him for the hero he truly was...

With his unwavering sense of duty, John would never let a call for help go unanswered. Especially from a beautiful wounded warrior who refused to give up her secrets. Although she likely knew more about who was after her than she'd ever let on, John vowed to protect those in need. Only then could he find peace, maybe even a door away...

John Murdock is a retired, highly decorated and honorable Marine who's last tour in Afghanistan left him shaken and roughed up a bit. Despite the damage a road side bomb left him, his honor and duty to always serve and protect is still intact. Maggie Wheeler is a tough cop and on her way to becoming a great detective with precinct four with Kansas City Police Department. The only thing stopping her is a nagging past and its close ties it forms to the case she is currently working on. In short... loved this book! It was well written, had a great storyline, and smoldering romance! I might be slightly bias, since I have a thing for men in uniform, but if you share that same interest than Julie Miller's thrilling and suspenseful romance novel will not disappoint you. I will also be picking up the next installment of this great new miniseries to see what happens next with precinct four and the efforts to nail the rose red rapist! This series and publisher left a good first impression for my first romance novel!

My hotness meter gives it...3 out of 4 enthusiastic chili peppers up!
That's Blazing in my book! :)

My hotness scale...
1= Spark, 2= Sizzling, 3= Blazing, 4= inferno

Book Review: Murder Buys a T-Shirt by Christy Fifield

Glory Martine has inherited her great uncles souvenir shop, Southern Treasures along with a super size headache. Nestled in Keyhole Bay, Florida, the shop is stuffed not only with collectibles and mementos of times gone by, but with a ghost who, like her customers, refuses to let go of the past... Glory always dismisses ghost stories-until she inherits her great uncle Louis's souvenir shop, where items seem to rearrange themselves and her pet parrot, Bluebeard, is suddenly uttering phrases he couldn't have picked up from the customers. If Glory told anyone her shop was haunted, they'd think the fresh sea air had gone to her head...

Then, at an end of the summer party, local football hero Kevin Stanley dies, and the story starts to go haywire. Glory finally shares her secret with her best friend, who takes it seriously and is convinced the ghost is trying to send a message. Kevin's death was no accident, ant it's linked to Glory's very own great uncle Louis. Now Glory must dig through the junk to find the truth, before someone leaves her with a deadly souvenir of her own...

It was a pretty good read for a first in a brand new series. I was excited to read it when I first started and it did have a good storyline, but in the end it kinda fell flat a little for me. I was happy in the end that Glory's new beau has joined her circle of friends and I'll be hopeful to read more about their prospective relationship in the next book. However I felt the actual climax of solving the mystery at the end was predicable and a little too short. I had a feeling the killer was exactly who I thought it was the whole time, it just seemed the obvious choice, given the clues about half way through the book.

I've come across first time books in a new series and then waved them off before and then I find the second and third books are much better, so I'm not going to be counting out Christy Fifield just yet! I do love the characters, the sleepy tourist town of Keyhole Bay is really quite charming and of course who could not love that crazy old parrot bluebeard!

MilSpouse Friday Fill-In (For July)

Wow is it that time again?! These weeks are kinda flying by and the months are sneaking up on me! And to think... I only have a few more weeks left in the sunshine state before I have to go back to the land of the bayou's and humidity... Oh how I long to live in Florida again! Don't get me wrong, there are things that I have loved about living in Mississippi's Gulf Coast but I am truly a Floridian! :)

1.) What's one thing in the past month you would have changed? I really can't think of anything I would change. Life has been good lately, other than I wish my hubby could be home with me and life could be normal in that aspect. :)
2.) What was your favorite thing that happened in June? Well... we did a lot of fun things with my parents and the kiddo got to spend a lot of time with her grandparents and her "cousins" they are more like 5th & 6th cousins twice removed or something but hey, I still consider them family, I've known them for most of my life now lol! Oh and we did go see Brave, that was pretty awesome! Oh and heck yes! I booked mine and hubby's cruise!!! That's gotta be the highlight! I seriously can't wait for him to come home!

3.) What did you do to celebrate Independence Day? We had a BBQ with our families friends and then we went downtown to the park I used to go to when I was a kid and watch fireworks. It was fun but it made me miss the hubby more than usual... holidays just don't feel right without him being here.

4.) When you PCS, what items do you take with you and not let the movers pack (and if you do a DITY, what do you take with you and not box up) I have learned that we prefer to do a DITY move... only because we have had things break, things stolen and things stink (packed up trash can with trash in it) from when the movers have moved our stuff. So In a DITY move, I usually pack everything except; our laptops, my jewelry, our important papers like birth certificates, marriage license, shot records, military documents etc. at least a weeks worth of clothing, our arsenal of guns and ammo and... and... and... oh yeah the dog LOL! :)

5.) What are you looking forward to in July? It's just one month closer to hubby's return (at least we are over the hump and can actually start counting down days now. Oh and we are going to North Carolina for vacation in t-minus 12 days! Hubby's family are having their family reunion and well I'm going to represent for him :) Ok ok, and maaaaybe do some white water rafting and gold/gem stone mining LOL! But its all for his sake I tell ya! :)

Plans for the Fourth & The Kiddo's Hair Cut

Happy Independence Day!!! And Happy 236th Birthday America!!!Hope you all are enjoying your 4th of July with fun, families, friends, food and fireworks!!!I know we sure are! The only thing that could possibly make our day better, is if my honey was home from deployment... oh how I wish! Today we are headed over to old family friends of ours and having a BBQ complete with hamburgers, hotdogs, ribs, steaks, potato salad, and baked beans... you just can't get more American than that right?! LOL! Later we will head down to the river front in my hometown (Ft. Myers) and check out the firework display at Centennial Park. I hope to post pics of the fireworks later. :)

In other news... little miss got her hair cut professionally for the first time yesterday! She cut off almost 9 inches of hair!!! She had told me (in between great sobs) as I was trying to rip through the knots untangle the knots in the back of her hair that she finally wanted her hair cut, she just couldn't stand the coconuts anymore (what she calls knots or tangles) and to be honest, her hair is EXTREMELY fine and thin... cutting it made it alot easier to work with and alot more full as well. She chose the length, which was to her shoulders, despite the fact that she wanted it shorter than that but I had said no lol. I think if I let her have it her way, she would have had the lady nearly shave it off LOL! Anyway, I think it makes her even more adorable (just when I thought that was just about impossible) and alot more grown up too. She also very lovingly decided since she had enough, that she wanted to donate the hair that was cut off to "locks of love" I couldn't be more proud :)