2013 in review

At the end of every year I always look forward to reading articles written about the "Best of" movies, TV shows, books, music for that given year.  I tried listing my favorite movies of 2013, and I had a hard time remembering what I saw ("Skyfall", "Undefeated", "Silver Linings Playbook" - no, those were in 2012). When I finally came up with a list of 7 movies I did see last year, they were hardly memorable enough to a make a "Best of" list, although I enjoyed seeing these movies with my family as my girls really liked these movies:
- Parental Guidance
- Despicable Me 2
- Frozen
And the movies I saw with Cindy:
- The Way Way Back
- Gravity
- Captain Phillips
And, I saw one other movie (solo) - Metallica Through the Never

This morning I was on Goodreads and discovered that I actually read 12 books in 2013:
 Books I read in 2013 

I've never really been an avid reader but in the past couple of years I've grown to enjoy reading in my daily quiet time.  Of these books, I'd say Randy Alcorn's "Heaven" and "Praying Circles Around Your Children" ("quick-read" version of Mark Batterson's "The Circle Maker") were the most memorable.  The most disappointing was "Baseball as a Road to God" (didn't even finish), and most educational were: "Parenting Beyond Your Capacity", and "The Five Love Languages of Children".



Here are my other "Best of 2013":

TV Shows:
- The Blacklist (NBC)
- The Americans (FX)
- Homeland (Showtime - although Season 3 was a letdown from the first 2 seasons)

Concerts:
- Rush (had to drive to Nashville; first time seeing Rush live since seeing them in TX in '97; their last show in Memphis was in '92!)
- Shinedown at Mud Island
- Third Day, Josh Wilson, Colton Dixon at Hope Church (the girl's first concert!)
- Steven Curtis Chapman, Laura Story, Jason Gray at Hope Church

Sporting events attended:
- The Grizzlies playoff run was most memorable.  I went to one game in each of the 3 playoff series:
Sat 4/27/13:  Game 4 of the Clippers series - won and tied the series at 2-2
Sat 5/11/13:  Game 3 of the Thunder series - won to take a 2-1 series lead
Mon 5/27/13: Game 4 of the Spurs/Western Conference finals - lost the game and series, but it was awesome to be there and be a part of the standing ovation for best season in franchise history.
- On the night before we returned home from our Mission Trip to Mexico, we stayed in downtown San Diego across from Petco Park so I was able to attend the Padres-D'Backs game on 6/14/13.  Love this ballpark and it was a great night for baseball.
- Astros-A's series over Memorial Day wknd (5/25-27/13).  I returned to Houston for 3 games at Minute Maid Park; it was my first time back in this park in 6 years.  I've been fortunate enough to take a  baseball trip each year (with the exception of 2011) for the past 10 or so years and I look forward to these each summer!