Happy Birthday Peanut

Peanut turned 4 on the 23rd. Can't believe how fast the years are going by. Happy 4th Birthday Peanut - thanks for sharing your special day with us. Love you.

Happy Birthday Punkin

Today is my 3rd granddaughter's birthday. Happy Birthday Punkin. I can't believe she's one already. She's just adorable and has been walking for over 2 months already. Look out world.... here she comes.

What's Your Social Style

I found this interesting quiz over on my daughter's blog. I always get pulled into these.... very interesting.

You Are Charming

You've got tact and grace. You always know what to say and how to act. You are a smooth talker. You know how to light up a room with your wit and how to talk yourself out of sticky situations. You know how to diffuse an argument, and people often call on you to keep the peace. When other people humiliate themselves, you know how to smooth everything over. And it's rare that you say or do anything embarrassing.

What's Your Social Style?

Work is Hard. Time for Blogthings!

Mackinac Island 2011

Every year we like to go to the Straits State Park in St Ignace MI. From there we take the ferry over to Mackinac Island. We've also made a tradition of leaving this creature of comfort home and travel light with our little pup tent.



Crazy I know, but we like to rough it to be reminded of how good we have it. And believe me... we have it good. Our first challenge was finding our air mattress... the first year we did this with little rubber mats and that was a big mistake. Don't know who we loaned our nice air mattress to, but I hope they remember it's ours and return it lol. We had to take our old one and it loses air. It was fine for one night and then we pumped it up again for the second night. Yup, we had to pack our bikes in the car too. It was packed.



The campground is at the base of the bridge. That solid looking thing at the bottom right is tarps and stuff... they work on this bridge every year and it appears to be in great shape.


Can you see the size of this barge going under the bridge? And it fits under the bridge! The bridge is 5 miles long. Every year on Labor Day they close half the bridge to car traffic and open it to foot traffic. We've hiked it a couple of times. Nice tradition, but we kind of steer clear of crowds these days.

We woke up Saturday morning and took the ferry across. We get out of town pretty quick because it is packed with tourists. Once out of town the 8 mile path around the island is very easy to manuever. We stopped here at Mission Pointe to relax for a minute and enjoy the view. They were setting up a wedding at the gazebo and the men in their white formal wear were waiting around for quite a while.

If sitting watching sailboats isn't relaxing I don't know what is.


We spotted a lot on inukshuk around the island this year. We first learned what they were on our trip to Alaska. They are stone figures to signify someone was here before or you are on the right path. This one behind us was very tall.

The fort is still there lol. We like to rest on the lawn out front after our 8 mile trek around the island. You have to be ready when the cannon fires or it might wake you up :)



A cute little light house on our was back to St Ignace.

There were lot of wild flowers all around the island. Of course the formal gardens are always lovely, but I enjoy the beauty of nature when you find it unexpectedly.


Found this in my pictures. It's my new garden art. Our daughter in law brought over a bottle of this a while back and I liked the bottle. Didn't know what I was going to do with it, but I just kept it simple and stuck it in the ground. Beautiful peaceful blue and the message is perfect... RELAX. I'm thinking I need more garden art :) Yup, the deer ate our hostas again this year.. frustrating... relax!

Secrets of Eden by Chris Bohjalian

From the bestselling author of The Double Bind, Midwives, and Skeletons at the Feast comes a novel of shattered faith, intimate secrets, and the delicate nature of sacrifice.

"There," says Alice Hayward to Reverend Stephen Drew, just after her baptism, and just before going home to the husband who will kill her that evening and then shoot himself. Drew, tortured by the cryptic finality of that short utterance, feels his faith in God slipping away and is saved from despair only by a meeting with Heather Laurent, the author of wildly successful, inspirational books about . . . angels.

Heather survived a childhood that culminated in her own parents' murder-suicide, so she identifies deeply with Alice’s daughter, Katie, offering herself as a mentor to the girl and a shoulder for Stephen – who flees the pulpit to be with Heather and see if there is anything to be salvaged from the spiritual wreckage around him.
But then the State's Attorney begins to suspect that Alice's husband may not have killed himself. . .and finds out that Alice had secrets only her minister knew.

Secrets of Eden is both a haunting literary thriller and a deeply evocative testament to the inner complexities that mark all of our lives. Once again Chris Bohjalian has given us a riveting page-turner in which nothing is precisely what it seems. As one character remarks, “Believe no one. Trust no one. Assume all of our stories are suspect.”


I really like the way Bohjalian (wish I knew how to pronounce that name :)) unfolds a story. He really goes into each characters thoughts and feelings, giving each persons take on every situation. So, basically you're seeing the same story from several points of view and wondering all along who's telling the truth. And, once again the truth is in the final sentence. So no reading the end first, it would ruin everything.

Trace by Patricia Cornwell

"Kate Scarpetta, a former Chief medical examiner in Virginia, Richmond, now resides in South Florida. She, along with her good friend, Marino, also formerly of Virginia, are summoned to her former workplace by the new chief medical examiner, Dr. Joel Marcus. Scarpetta and Marino are asked to investigate the murder of a 14 year old girl named Gilly Paulsson. While trying to pry the details of the murder from Gilly's game-playing, supposedly grief-stricken mother, Scarpetta and Marino must deal with Dr. Marcus' political machinations in his attempt to destroy Scarpetta's unassailable reputation and cover up his own incompetence. Then, Marino gets seduced into playing a game with Suz, Gilly's mother and is wrongly accused of rape. An added twist occurs when a construction worker is run over by a tractor and killed on site of her old building. Somehow, the same trace evidence found on the worker's body is also found in Gilly Paulsson's mouth.

Meanwhile, Benton Wesley, Scarpetta's lover, and Lucy, Scarpetta's niece, are investigating a seemingly unrelated case of attempted murder of Henri, Lucy's employee and friend. Lucy runs The Last Precinct, which is an undercover organization which investigates FBI-calibre cases in confidence.

As Kay Scarpetta and Marino sift through the rubble that is left of her former place of employment, Scarpetta finds that not only is the building falling apart, so are the capabilities of the new chief medical examiner and the morale of her former staff. One former staff member, in particular, seeks revenge against Dr. Scarpetta and her feisty niece Lucy for causing his disability, a lung condition which makes it difficult to breathe. While Scarpetta and Marino attempt to circumvent Suz's games, and Benton and Lucy get closer to the truth about Henri's attacker, the killer methodically sets up his final revenge. "


Another good read by Cornwell. Coincidence... small world... just weird... some of my thoughts while reading this. Who would think in this small world of ours that so many lives will cross and for what weird reasons. Great read.

Unnatural Exposure by Patricia Cornwell

Always packed with unrelieved tension and constant surprises, a new novel from Patricia Cornwell is cause for celebration. Virginia's chief medical examiner, Kay Scarpetta, is called in to examine the remains of a woman found in a landfill, her body dismembered in the same expert way she'd seen before. And while Scarpetta is investigating, the bold killer contacts her through the Internet, inviting her to download the police photos, and signs off with the chilling name, deadoc. When Scarpetta and her niece discover that the victim was exposed to a rare smallpox-like virus before she died, she realizes that they re up against a killer with access to an incredible arsenal of deadly force -- and now it's directed at her!

This novel was real scary for me. The thought that someone could destroy a whole city or country through disease is just too real a possiblity to look the other way. Lots of details and again another serial killer - or is it? Copy cats are always a possibility. Great Read

Worse Case by James Patterson & Michael Ledwidge

Alex Cross has Washington, DC. The Women's Murder Club has San Francisco. Detective Michael Bennett has all of New York City—chaos capital of the world.

Best case: Survival
The son of one of New York's wealthiest families is snatched off the street and held hostage. His parents can't save him, because this kidnapper isn't demanding money. Instead, he quizzes his prisoner on the price others pay for his life of luxury. In this exam, wrong answers are fatal.

Worst case: Death
Detective Michael Bennett leads the investigation. With ten kids of his own, he can't begin to understand what could lead someone to target anyone's children. As another student disappears, another powerful family uses their leverage and connections to turn up the heat on the mayor, the press—anyone who will listen—to stop this killer. Their reach extends all the way to the FBI, which sends its top Abduction Specialist, Agent Emily Parker. Bennett's life—and love life—suddenly get even more complicated.

This case: Detective Michael Bennett is on it
Before Bennett has a chance to protest the FBI's intrusion on his case, the mastermind changes his routine. His plan leads up to the most devastating demonstration yet—one that could bring cataclysmic ruin to every inch of New York City. From the shocking first page to the last exhilarating scene, Worst Case is a nonstop thriller from "America's #1 storyteller" (Forbes).

Liked the book. The serial killer is trying to bring social awareness to the forefront by exploiting wealthy family's children. He is really bitter about the rich and all that they have which he thinks they received on the backs of the poor. Great 'pageturner'.