Books By Request

My friend Stephanie requested that I do some book reviews of the ones I've recently read.  I usually do this at the end of the year, but since it was requested, I'll do one now and another at the end of the year with the books I've read between now and then.  I haven't read nearly as many books this year as I generally get around to, so I only have 6 for you right now.

1. Stop Acting Rich and Start Living Like a Real Millionaire - I liked this book, but it was highly repetitive.  He made his point in the first chapter, and then just went over stats for the rest of the book.  I would recommend finding a chair in a bookstore and reading the first chapter before you decide to read the rest.  You'll get the main message of the book by doing so.  That being said, it does give some really great advice.
2. The Lovely Bones - I read this book when it first came out and decided to re-read it before I saw the movie (which I still haven't seen).  I enjoyed the story, but was not completely satisfied with the ending.  There are a few parts that are a little bit hard to read because they are boring, and a few parts that are hard to read because they are very violent.
3. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - Once again, a re-read before the movie comes out.  I'm glad I did because I had forgotten a lot of it.  Most of you have probably read this one already, so I won't go into detail.
4. Storm Front: Dresden Files #1 - This book was a little bit hard to get into.  It took a while for it to get going, and you have to get over the crime that was committed (a little bit graphic) and the fact that it's about a wizard named Harry.  After the first 100 pages though, I did enjoy it - enough to read the second in the series.
5. 1776 - I've been meaning to read this book for some time, and I finally got around to it.  I'm glad that I did, because I certainly didn't know very much about the American revolution at all.  It did take me a while to get through, but I suspect that that has more to do with the fact that I'm not used to reading non-fiction than anything else.
6. Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers - This has been my favorite new book that I read this year so far.  I just finished it tonight.  It was very interesting, informative and , surprisingly, very funny.  I laughed out loud quite a bit and learned a ton.  I wouldn't recommend it to anyone who is extremely squeamish because she does go into some detail about what happens to bodies once they are dead, but I found it fascinating.  If you can handle crime shows on TV, you can handle this book.  And you should.

Noah Got His Mother's Eyesight

As you might have noticed from pictures I've posted up here, our sweet baby Noah has been cross eyed a little bit longer than is normal for a baby.  It usually goes away by the time they are 3 months old, but at Noah's 4 month appointment it wasn't even a little bit better.  Our doctor referred us to a pediatric optometrist who we went and saw last week.  It turns out that Noah is very farsighted and that his right eye is doing all of the work.  We have some glasses on special order for him (they should be here in a few days) and we'll see what they do to help correct the problem.  It sounds like, in all liklihood, he will have to have surgery to help relax his eye muscle in a couple of years.  He's happy as could be though, and taking this problem in stride.  We'll see if that keeps up once the glasses come.

Epic Camping Post, Part 2

The first time that I had a tin foil dinner was when I went camping with Brett.  I followed his instructions on how to put it together - ground beef, potatoes, carrots - and then I added a bunch of seasoning.  It tasted horrible.  I asked Brett if that was what they usually tasted like, and he said, "Yeah.  Just put a bunch of ketchup on it."  Great.  So now I was eating textured ketchup.  Not my idea of a camping meal.  So this time, I took it upon myself to create a tin foil dinner that actually tasted good.  I'm not one to eat things just for tradition - it needs to taste good too.  They turned out absolutely perfectly.

If you want the recipe (and trust me, you do) you can get it by clicking here.  Of course, we topped the dinner off with some Reese's smore's.  Brett is the master marshmallow roaster, and they were sticky gooey deliciousness.

Kennedy learned how to roast marshmallows (with Brett's help of course) and also how to skip rocks while we were there.  I discovered that I'm about as good at skipping rocks as Kennedy is.  But even though my rocks sank to the bottom of the river, I had fun eating smores with Kennedy all the same.

And she enjoyed her crackers, Reese's and marshamallows separately.  Once they were cooked and all together, she wasn't so sure about how she felt about the hot gooey marshmallow.  She didn't like how it stuck to her fingers.

My least favorite part of camping has always been the sleeping part.  Ugh.  I'm almost always so uncomfortable and I can hear the wildlife which usually freaks me out.  This time was no different, but there were some additions to the misery.  Kennedy decided not to sleep in the bed we brought her in favor of sleeping on the air mattress with us.  Or more specifically, on me on the air mattress.  And I was essentially sleeping on Brett because Kennedy kept squishing us over.  We were all sleeping on one half of the bed.  And to make matters worse, the campers next to us (they were actually quite a ways away, but it sure didn't sound like it) decided to have a dance party right when we wanted to go to sleep.  In the middle of the night I woke up to the Backstreet Boys.  And it continued for the next hour or so.  All Backstreet Boys.  But, in the morning we had a delicious breakfast and two happy kids, so all in all, it was a successful trip.

Epic Camping Post, Part 1

We discovered last Friday that you should actually be prepared when you go camping.  I was in the kitchen putting together our tin foil dinners, and we were pretty much all packed up, when Brett told me that all the campgrounds around here were full.  What?  So we had to wing it and find a campground on our own.  Luckily we found a good one not too far from where we had originally wanted to go.

When we got there however, we found that once again, we weren't prepared.  It cost $10 to stay the night at this place.  No cards.  No checks.  And we had $9.21 in cash.  We also couldn't find a pen to fill out the envelope with.  So we improvised.

We sincerely hope that the state of Oregon won't begrudge us that 79 cents.  We went ahead and set up camp anyway.  Brett, of course, being the master camper, did most of the setting up.

While he was doing that, I got to hold this cute little guy.

We also had to sit in our trunk because we don't actually own any camping chairs, and there were ants everywhere near the fire.  It worked out alright though.  We just know to be more prepared for next time.

Before we had dinner, Kennedy got hold of a bag of nacho cheese Doritos that we had brought with us and made complete mincemeat out of it.  And her clothes.  And her face.

She loved every minute of camping.  She really loved watching Brett build the fire, and he really showed off his boy scout skills!  He built the fire and it went out until it was only smoke.  So he started blowing on it.  I thought, seriously?  But here were the results.  Before:

And after:

Wow.  And next time I will show you what delicious foods we made on that awesome fire.  And the recipes will be forthcoming on my recipe blog as well.

Pink Pie

As you probably know, Kennedy has been potty training for the last few weeks.  When she has a big success or several in a row, we have been giving her treats - usually just a very small candy or toy.  The other day she asked if she could have a treat after going potty, so I asked her if she wanted some raspberry cream pie.  She said no.  I was sure that that was not what she really meant, so I changed tactics.  I got the pie out of the freezer and asked, "Do you want some pink pie?"  The reaction was immediate.  "Yes!"

In fact, her reaction was so strong that we fought with her for about 20 minutes to get her to take two more bites of corn chowder so that she could have a piece of this pink pie.  Literally.  20 minutes.  And a couple of trips to time out due to severe demands and tantrums.  She tried to convince us that the pink pie was the corn chowder.  Nice try.  Once she finally got her pie though, she was in heaven.  This is what the pie looked like before:

And this is what it looked like once Kennedy started digging in:

As you can see, she was a very big fan of the crust.  I'm sure that it was because it was made of Oreos.  I don't blame her - the pie was absolutely divine (incidentally, if you want the recipe, click over to my food blog on the side bar).  I even caught a yum face.

She devoured this thing!  And the next day I let her have another small piece and she did the exact same thing.  The mess she made was worth the clean up to see her loving this pie so much.  It was adorable.

So pink pie it was.  It became a mess of crumbs and stickiness on Kennedy's face, and I wouldn't have missed it for the world.

Convinced that you want some?  You can make a trip up to Brookings and we will gladly have some waiting for you, or you can just click here for the recipe.

Kitty Love

The other night I was laying in bed and Lucy was laying on my windowsill, doing what cats do, and looking at the outside world.  I called her name.

There was a slight pause, and then the whole room was filled with purring.

I don't think there's any better way to know that a kitty loves you.