Sunday Post & Giveaways Galore – 7/24/16

Posted July 24, 2016 by Nicole @ Feed Your Fiction Addiction in Sunday Post / 27 Comments

The Sunday Post is a weekly meme hosted by Kimba @ Caffeinated Book Reviewer ~ It’s a chance to share news~ A post to recap the past week on my blog and share news about what’s coming up in the week ahead.

Last week on FYFA (and in my life):

We had another fun week with Carmen, the Spanish exchange student who’s staying with us. It feels like we’ve been having a staycation, since we’re doing so many fun activities with her. So far, we’ve gone to the Bristol Renaissance Faire, a fun spy restaurant in Milwaukee (the entrance is hidden in a back alley and you have to either know the password or act goofy on camera to get in – and then the restaurant is filled with spy activities!), a nearby lake where we rented peddle boats, ice skating, to a painting place, mini golfing, hiking at Starved Rock, to the Sears Tower (technically the Willis Tower now, but no one here calls it that) and shopping in Chicago.

We have now officially confirmed that Illinois is the most boring state when it comes to nature – Starved Rock is the ONLY place to hike in the state, and it was pretty much a huge letdown. First of all, this is the sign that you see when you walk into the visitor’s center:

Starved-Rock

Doesn’t that sound incredibly appealing? I mean, who doesn’t want to go see waterfalls created from chemical-filled farm field run-off? Yes, the only waterfalls in Illinois are basically poisoned. Oh, and the view is … um … not the best. After all, someone decided that they should build a huge dam right next to the only pretty bluff in all of Illinois. I mean, the dam is kind of cool, but couldn’t they have built it a little bit further away, so it wasn’t in every picture taken from Starved Rock? The hiking can’t really be called hiking, either – most of it is paved in some way. Sigh. This is why I wish I lived in Colorado.

Anyway, here’s what you may have missed on the blog (only a couple of posts!):

Next week on FYFA:

  • Children Shouldn’t Play With Dead Things and Dark Dreams and Dead Things by Martina McAtee – Review & Giveaway
  • How to Keep Rolling After a Fall by Karole Cozzo – Review & Giveaway
  • Supergirl at Super Hero High by Lisa Yee – Review
  • Let’s Discuss – something bookish! 🙂

Book Blogger Birthdays and Blogoversaries:

Birthday-150 Blogoversary-150x150

Only one birthday this week. I hope you’ll visit Jackie and congratulate her on her special day! Also, check out the calendar to see what you might have just missed or what’s coming up. (If you want to be added to the calendar, you can always fill out the birthday/blogoversary form!)

Book-Haul

For Review:

Splinter2

Great Discussions/Goings On Around the Blogosphere:

Here are some of my favorite discussions I’ve read this week:

Other Current Giveaways on FYFA: 

(Besides the ones listed above)

Pre-Order Deals:

Even More Awesome Giveaways on Other Sites:

There are tons of giveaways going on around the blogosphere!

Lots of good stuff! Have any giveaways or great discussions happening on your site right now? Feel free to share them in the comments!

Tags:


27 responses to “Sunday Post & Giveaways Galore – 7/24/16

  1. Yuck. Signs like that make me grateful I live in Colorado. There are a few places we can’t swim or fish because of E.coli and farm run-off, but for the most part, we’re allowed in the water. I did have to get the dogs vaccinated for leptospirosis, though. Drinking the creek water is a potentially deadly idea, but dogs don’t understand that.

    Aj @ Read All The Things! recently posted: The Sunday Post #57
    • I’m jealous – I want to live there too! We do vaccinate our dogs for lepto too, but there’s no vaccine for chemical crop run-off. While we were there I saw dogs drinking the water and kids playing in it, and all I could think of was that sign. I wanted to yell, “Back AWAY from the water, people!”

  2. Ooh ooh you’ve been to the Safe House? Love that place, although I haven’t been there in years. I heard they remodeled it or changed ownership recently. Used to go there when I was in Milwaukee once ina while.

    And Bristol as well-I’ve been wanting to get over there since I go to the Michigan festival but like to go to out of state ones too, when I can. Speaking of vacations, if you ever want to go somewhere different you could try northern Michigan- it’s beautiful in the summer,e specially the Traverse City and Sleeping Bear Dunes areas. It’s gorgeous there.

    Greg recently posted: Sunday Post #152
    • We were actually planning to go up to Northern Michigan this summer but then decided to host the exchange student and just stay home instead (we’d already done a vacation in Arizona for spring break, so we figured we weren’t giving up too much vacationing).

  3. I love how the park sign doesn’t even mention that run-off from farm fields contain manure…what a lovely place to visit. It sounds like you guys are going on an adventure every day with Carmen. So, how did y’all get into the spy restaurant? Did you know the password, or did you act like a bunch of goofs in a back alley?

  4. Man, I really wanna be a part of your family this week! You’re doing so much fun stuff that is totally the kind of stuff I love to do! Aside from the hiking. I know you love nature, but I do not lol. And that restaurant sounds like so much fun! But the chemical-filled water thing cracked me up. That is pretty terrible.

    I have the ebook of Children Shouldn’t Play with Dead Things and have been meaning to read it. But as usual, so many books, so little time. Have a great week!

    Kristen @ Metaphors and Moonlight recently posted: The Weekly Update: 7/24/16 + Kristen’s Theory of Electronics
    • It’s a shame, right? Unfortunately, I think all that chemical run-off must be going into the Illinois River too. It made me sick to think about it! (Plus, it was really dirty – people left tons of garbage like empty water bottles all over the place.)

  5. Yeah, that sign doesn’t really make me want to go any further. 🙂 I need to make sure that I get to the Renaissance Festival in my town again this year. I’m going to try to go with a different friend this year. I’ve got my Blogoversary coming up in a couple weeks as well! Can’t wait! You can check out my Sunday Post in the link below!

    Lisa Mandina (Lisa Loves Literature) recently posted: Sunday Post #65 and Stacking the Shelves July 24th, 2016
  6. I actually love being able to visit my own city, and it’s been a while since I did that! Maybe I’ll look into doing that when we get back home a couple of weeks before school starts 🙂
    I love hiking, and I’m so lucky that there are several trails both in my actual home-town, and in my away-from-home town as well. It’s freeing to go on brisk walks in beautiful nature.
    Have a wonderful week and happy reading, Nicole.

    Lexxie @ (un)Conventional Bookviews recently posted: Review: If You Only Knew – Kristan Higgins
  7. Ew. Well, I’m really glad they warned you ahead of time!! Still, gross. 🙁 Glad you’re having a great time with Carmen though! I bet she’ll go home with plenty of stories to tell.

  8. Jen

    The Sears Tower will always be the Sears Tower, I refuse to call buildings or places by their new names since our whole lives it’s been another. ? And that’s amazing how much you guys have gotten to do, what a fun summer!! But that’s a huge bummer about the hiking trails. When we use to live back there, we missed that aspect too. Have you ever been to Tahoe? There’s so many hiking trails here that I swear I’ll never be able to hike them all, but I’m going to try!?

Leave a Reply

(Enter your URL then click here to include a link to one of your blog posts.)

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.