Friday, June 12, 2015

It's Our 1 Year Blogoversary!


It's Our 1 Year Blogoversary!
Between Bookends is now one year old and that seems totally KRAZY! This blog has been so much fun for us, doing meme's, writing reviews, and keeping in touch with the book world from our small town in the Midwest. For our blogoversary we thought we'd talk about some of the awesome book-related stuff we have been able to do this year.



Camp NaNoWriMo
Last July, not long after we set up this blog, Christina had to run it by herself for a while because Sarah was trying her hand (for the third time) at writing 50,000 words in a month. The 50,000 words were accomplished with one day to spare through lots of encouragement and pushing from Christina plus the added bonus of chocolate chips after every thousand words.lol
One chocolate chip for every thousand words.lol




North Texas Teen Book Festival
This was the first book festival we have ever attended and we were so jazzed! We spent months reading the authors books and buying the ones that we wanted to get signed and completely fangirling.
We drove down the day before and spent the 7-8 hour drive introducing our parents to the Gallagher Girls by Ally Carter on audiobook. We were pretty nervous about the next day and Sarah woke up early with a massive headache which (thankfully) went away before we had to leave.
We weren't sure what to expect, but the amount of people there was a bit overwhelming. We quickly found our footing and made our way towards the freebie's and got some awesome stuff (including ARC's for The Heart of Betrayal and The Fixer. Christina's copy was the first copy of the Fixer that Jennifer Lynn Barnes signed which was so awesome!) Carrying close to 20 books each for most of the day was not overly fun but getting them signed was!

Christina's favorite part of the day was talking Beowulf and The Curiosities with author Tessa Gratton and Sarah's favorite part was telling Rosemary Clement-Moore how much she loved the goats in Texas Gothic (which she only read 5 days before). The panels were fun and were mostly filled with the same authors. Sadly, we missed the Book Boyfriend panel with one of our favorite authors, Ally Carter, but we got into our second choice which great as well. By the end of the day we were dead on our feet but already planning our return visit next year.



Lois Lowry Talk/Signing
Though we have a pretty great library system, and get a lot of great books, we are in the middle of nowhere thus we hardly get any well known YA/Children's authors though here... or at least ones that we know. Having Lois Lowry come through was so freaking amazing and the place where they had the talk was beyond packed! There were people standing along the walls and in front of the stage, and over a hundred people were left outside waiting in the signing line. We went with a friend and we were all were able to get our copies of the Giver signed. It was awesome!



Library Book Sales
This is only about a third of the room... or maybe a quarter...
Like I said, we have a great library system and they put on an amazing library book sale that lasts a whole week! Twice a year we attend the Preview Sale, Bag Day, and one or two other times during the week. This Spring we came out of the preview sale with around 40 books each! The library book sale is some of the only times we buy books so it feels very much like Christmas!



Book Clubs
For the past three years we have been arranging a book club for us and our friends. We just read The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society and our next book will be The Scorpio Races by Maggie Stiefvater. It is so fun to hang out with friends who read/like similar books and be able to fangirl over them.

We are also a part of our local library's book club that started last December. It's something new for us because it forces us to read outside our comfort zone (as well as making us read adult books.lol). In both book clubs there is only an average of 4 people which is kind of sad but it does makes it easier for everyone to get their opinions out.



Christina and Harry Potter
As the big Harry Potter fan in our house, Christina is always looking for ways to expand her collection of everything HP. Last winter she knitted a hat for each house and a friend of her's knitted her a Slytherin scarf (we are both proud Slytherins). She is also the proud owner of Harry Potter Clue, the Harry Potter poster book, and she crocheted her own Buckbeak! And all this was only what she got this year.


Favorite Blog Posts
We've done quit a few blog posts over the year and we just wanted to share some of our favorites with you. One of our favorites was one that was posted pretty early on and we called it A Sisterly Argument: Half-Bloods vs Wizards. Basically we transcribed an actual arguement we had over who would win in a fight: Rick Riordan's Half-Bloods or J.K. Rowling Wizards. (Neither of us have conceded our argument). Besides that, Sarah's favorite post was her Raging Star Review + Fancast. We don't fancast much but this was a fun one to do. And Christina's favorite was (of course) about Harry Potter, called Back to Hogwarts Week: The Series That Lives.

All in all, we've had a great book year and have met some awesome people on the blogs. We've won some great books and have read many amazing ones. We can't wait to see what the next year holds.

6 comments:

  1. Congrats on reaching such a milestone with your blog :D *throws confetti* *passes around cupcakes* You definitely seem to have had a memorable and exciting year^^ Here's to many more!! x

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  2. Aww Buckbeak!! SO cute! I wish I could crochet. Anyways, congrats guys! :) You've had an exciting bookish year, for sure! Here's to many more years of Nano, Book Festivals/Signings, and book club meetings :)

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    1. Crocheting isn't so bad, once you learn a couple of stitches. That being said, I had to take out and recrochet almost every piece of Buckbeak. I think I got better along the way.lol

      Thanks!

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  3. Happy blogoversary, guys! I've loved following along with your blog over the year - you two are such amazing people. And wow, those are some pretty cool events! My blogoversary is coming up next month but I haven't really done anything bookish outside of the internet (but hopefully that'll change in year 2)! Can't wait to spend many more years talking books with you two :)

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    1. Aw, thanks! We've really enjoyed talking book with you too!

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