Monthly Archives: June 2022

Our Trip to Colorado

4,000+ Miles to Colorado

We’ve had a great start to our summer. We started out June by driving over 4,000 miles across country to Colorado. We left Pennyslvania and drove to Illinois where we stayed with my younger sister and her husband overnight. Somehow, I didn’t get any pictures of us all together. Not sure how I did that! I did manage to capture a picture of Culver’s, though. What can I say?

Culver’s

Estes Park, Colorado

After an amazing time there, we traveled the rest of the way to Colorado where we stayed with my parents. We had such an amazing time out there visiting family, relaxing, exploring, and more. We got to go to Estes Park, our favorite place to visit and had breakfast at our favorite restaurant up there, The Egg and I. Acting like tourists, we walked around and looked at all the shops, and the kids bought hats and t-shirts. We bought some taffy, the best snickers caramel apple, and dipped our feet in the freezing mountain creek water.

view in Colorado
view in Colorado

Family

We got to visit my parent’s church, and we got to spend time with my grandma and my dad’s side of the family while in Colorado. We always have a great time with them. On Saturday morning, we did our annual breakfast. My uncle brings his outdoor griddle and cooks up a feast—pancakes, eggs, bacon, hash browns, and so much more. We have so much fun sitting around the table and talking. It’s always one of the highlights of our trip.

Our family with my Grandma
Our kiddos with my parents

Amazing Food

Matt and I discovered a new restaurant that was amazing! It’s called Oreganos and serves Italian food with a Southwest twist. They had the best gluten free food, which is nearly impossible to find at an Italian place. We had the best gluten free pizza I’ve ever had and an amazing bowl of what they call Alfredo the Dark. It’s Alfredo pasta, but they put a spin on it by mixing in poblanos and a blend of Southwest cheeses and top it with diced tomatoes, cotija cheese, and a jalapeño. It was to die for!

This is actually us at Nordy’s- a bbq place that we all went to as a family
Our food at Oreganos

Beauty of Colorado

We had an amazing time. Of course the scenery everywhere in Colorado is simply amazing. No matter where you look, there is something beautiful to see. Add in the low humidity, and it’s pretty much perfect!

view in Colorado
view in Colorado
view in Colorado

Our Time in Kentucky

After our time in Colorado, we began the long trip home. We stopped in Kentucky to see my older sister and her family. We haven’t gotten to see them since before Covid, so we were super happy to see them. Our kids were so excited to see their cousins.

Our kids plus my niece Meya and my nephew Nate
My sister and I
My sister and my nephew Jace (and Milo)

They took us to this place called Rec Bar. It was a restaurant that had three rooms of arcade games. So after you ordered your food, you could go play arcade games. It was perfect for the kids. They had so much fun! I had the best meal there. It was totchos. it’s basically nachos, but they use tater tots for the base. Then they added amazing bbq pork on top and all sorts of other amazing toppings. It was soo good!

My totchos

We had an amazing two weeks! We’re so thankful for God’s safety and for family.

Other News

In other news, we recently released our newest devotional, You Are Not Alone: Promises from Psalms. I have a book coming out on Tuesday. It’s book one of my next series. Bound by Protection pre-order is available on Amazon.

I also created a summer reading guide if you’re interested and a fantasy/romance reading guide as well.

All in all, I’d say summer is off to a great start! Happy Summer!

Summer Reading Guide, 2022

It’s summer time, and that means it’s time for some extra reading and the summer reading guide.

Summer Break

I love summer break; it’s a chance for me to take a break from homeschooling. It’s also a time for trips to the beach, sitting by the pool, going on vacation, and just relaxing. If you’re like me, each one of those activities entails reading. Sometimes though, it’s hard to come up with books to read. I like having a list of good books to pull from when I’m ready to read. Book recommendations are so nice to have! So I pulled together twenty books that I’ve read and enjoyed to make a reading guide for this year.

Summer Reading Guide

Some of the books on the reading guide are books I read years ago, and some are books I read just this year. I had a hard time narrowing down the list to twenty books, but I finally did it. I can say that all of these books are worth the read!

All of the books on this guide are non-fiction. If you’re into fiction books, be sure to sign up to be on my email list for A. J. Manney Books. I’m sending out an email to my readers with a fiction reading guide.

Check out my Summer Reading Guide for 2022.

summer reading guide
  1. You Are the Girl for the Job by Jess Connelly 
  1. Kind is the New Classy by Candice Cameron Bure 
  1. Having a Martha Home the Mary Way by Sarah Mae 
  1. The Circle Maker by Mark Batterson 
  1. When Women Pray by T. D. Jakes 
  1. Bread and Wine by Shauna Niequist 
summer reading guide
  1. The Miracle Morning by Hal Elrod 
  1. The Super Mom Myth by Becky Kopitzke 
  1. Am I Messing Up My Kids? by Lisa TerKuerst 
  1. We’ll Laugh About This Someday by Anna Lind Thomas 
  1. The Turquoise Table by Kristin Schell 
  1. Love Does by Bob Goff 
summer reading guide
  1. A Million Little Ways by Emily Freeman
  1. Get Out of that Pit by Beth Moore
  1. Money Making Mom by Crystal Paine
  1. Rhythms of Renewal by Rebekah Lyons
  1. Find Your People by Jennie Allen
  1. The Power of a Women’s Words by Sharon Jaynes
summer reading guide
  1. Unstuffed: Decluttering Your Home, Mind, and Soul by Ruth Soukup
  1. Kisses from Katie by Katie Davis Majors

Hopefully that gives you some ideas for books to read this summer!

Finding Deals on Books

Some of the cheapest places to find these books that I have found are Christianbook.com and Hobby Lobby. Also, don’t discount your local library. You can request books from other libraries in your district. So even though your library may not carry the book, another library nearby just might. I get so many of the books I read by doing this. If all else fails, Barnes and Noble and Amazon should carry any of the books on this list.

Past Reading Guides

I guess I didn’t make reading guides during Covid, but here’s the list for 2019 and the list for 2018.

If you read any books from this list, let me know what you thought of them!

Happy Reading!