If you have anyone in on your Christmas shopping list that you don’t know what to get them, a Cloud 9 Living gift certificate is the perfect gift.  This is like no gift certificate that you have ever have given or received.  Instead of getting something, your person gets to chose an experience, and there are over 1,700 experiences to choose from using their gift certificate.  You can choose everything from dinner cruises to cooking classes to racing Nextel Cup Style Stockcars to hot air balloon rides.  There is truly something for everyone.  You can buy certificates as low as $40 all the way up to $100,000.  80% of the experiences are under $500 and 50% of experiences are under $200.  Cloud 9 Living has partnered with companies like Land Rover, BMW, and ESPN Golf School to ensure that you have an excellent experience.  Some more experiences you can pick from include the CSI Experience (now, my birthday is in March if anyone would like to get me that), drive a stockcar, walking food tours, helicopter tours, bull riding lessons, segway tours, chef for a day, trapeze lessons, etc.  Some of the VIP experiences include star in your own film, formula one racing, golf with a PGA Pro, and flying a Russion MIG.

If you want to give a gift that noone will forget, Cloud 9 Living is the way to go.  Instead of “stuff”, you are able to give an experience of a lifetime.

Over the past week or so, I have been reading an awesome book called The Secret of Wellington’s Map.  Granted, this isn’t my normal reading genre (usually if I can get a few minutes away I pick up Stephen King or Dean R Koontz book), but you know what?  I enjoyed this book just as much as I do books by those authors (though I think this book would be considered in either the sci-fi or mystery genre).  I would say that The Secret of Wellington’s Map is probably geared towards the ten and up crowd.  However, as an adult, I truly enjoyed the book too.  I found the author’s style a joy to read, and she really caught the essence of teenage girls in this book.  I also enjoyed finding a book that girls are the heroines.  The other thing I liked is that even though the main characters are teenage girls, they weren’t boy crazy.  Granted, there were a few boy mentions, but their lives didn’t revolve around boys.  The author had the girls talking, acting, and dressing like teenage girls, so I found them very believable.  There is also a bit of real life history intertwined into the story.

The story centers around two girls, Jaime and Nicole, that had expected a carefree summer.  However, after they come across a magic map, they go on an adventure of a lifetime.  I hate to go into more of a synopsis of the book, because I don’t want to spoil any part of it for you.  I will tell you that the map is somewhat of a time space portal, and they do go through it and end up in 1885.  However, if you want to find out why and if they make it back, you have to go read the book!