Calling our name...

The beach is calling our name.

I think I also hear a case of beer and a big bottle of wine calling too...

We are heading out on our family holiday to the lake.
- drinks... check
- food... check
- snacks... check
- books... check
- nice weather... check
- kids... check
- dog... check
- husband... check

okay ready to go!

See you all in 2 weeks.

A Picture of Me

Jackie drew a picture of me at dayhome the other day.

What do you think? Can you tell it is me?

On My NIghtstand - In the Woods

In the Woods by Tana French

On the back cover:
You’re twelve years old. It’s the summer holiday. You’re playing in the woods with your two best friends. Something happens. Something terrible. And the other two are never seen again.

Twenty years on, Rob Ryan – the child who came back – is a detective in the Dublin police force. He’s changed his name. No one knows about his past. Even he has no memory of what happened that day.

Then a little girl’s body is found at the site of the old tragedy and Rob is drawn back into the mystery. For him and his DI partner, Cassie, every lead comes with its own sinister undercurrents. The victim’s apparently normal family is hiding layers of secrets. Rob’s own private enquiries are taking a toll on his mind. And every trail leads inexorably back… into the woods.

My take so far:
I choose this book because it was highly recommended by a woman that writes a book blog I like to read.
And I love a good murder mystery / thriller novel now and again.
I was hooked on the first page, this is going to be a hard book to put down but I have a lot going on this week and we are heading on vacation this weekend.
I doubt I will be able to finish it before we leave, but I am going to try.

If you are like me and love a good thriller novel – then I would recommend Tana French’s books (so far she has written 3 – they are all linked but I have been told you can read on and not feel the need to read the one prior).

Coming back from the Lake...

Coming back from the lake this weekend we drove into a pretty wicked storm. We got a lot of rain and quite a bit of hail.

Thankfully by the time we reached this - the hail had stopped.

There was tons of traffic on the road, and then an accident (thankfull not serious) but it sure delayed us.

The funniest part was when we saw the snow plow coming to clean up the roads.

Only in Alberta!

On My Nightstand - The Help

The Help - by Kathryn Stockett

On the back cover:
Three ordinary women are about to take one extraordinary step…

Twenty-two year old Skeeter had just returned home from graduating from Ole Miss. She may have a degree, but it is 1962, Mississippi, and her mother will not be happy till Skeeter has a ring on her finger. Skeeter would normally find solace with her beloved maid Constantine, the woman who raised her, but Constantine has disappeared and no one will tell Skeeter where she has gone.

Aibileen is a black maid, a wise, regal woman raising her seventeenth white child. Something has shifted inside her after the loss of her own son, who died while his bosses looked the other way. She is devoted to the little girl she looks after, though she knows both their hearts may be broken.

Minny, Aibileen’s best friend, is short, fat, and perhaps the sassiest woman in Mississippi. She can cook like nobody’s business, but she can’t mind her tongue, so she’s lost yet another job. Minny finally finds a position working for someone too new to town to know her reputation. But her new boss has secrets of her own.

Seemingly as different from one another as can be, these women will nonetheless come together for a clandestine project that will put them all at risk. And why? Because they are suffocating within the lines that define their town and times. And sometimes lines are made to be crossed.

My take so far:
I just started reading this today at lunch, so nothing really to report, but this book comes highly recommended (also a book club choice), and I know after reading the first chapter this one is going to be hard to put down. Not very many books I can say that about after only 1 chapter.

On My Nightstand - What the Dead Know

What the Dead Know - by Laura Lippman

On the back cover:
Thirty years ago, the two Bethany sisters, ages 11 and 15 disappeared from a Baltimore shopping mall. They never returned, their bodies were never found, and only painful questions remain.

How do you kidnap two girls from a busy mall on a Saturday afternoon without leaving behind a single clue of witness?

Now, decades later, in the aftermath of a rush-house hit and run accident, a clearly disoriented woman is claiming to be Heather, the younger Bethany sister. Not a shred of evidence supports her story, and every lead she reluctantly offers takes the police to another dead end – a dying, incoherent man; a razed house; a missing grave.

But there is something she knows about the terrible day… and about a family that disintegrated long ago, torn apart by an unthinkable tragedy and the fissures it revealed in a seemingly perfect household.

My take:
I just finished this book last night so here is my review:
In the category of mystery / suspense thriller – this is a very slow moving book. Yes it is a mystery and I really did want to know then end, but it did not grab me like I thought it would after hearing about it and reading the back cover.
There are some predictable parts, a few twists, but there are also a few hard to believe parts.

My rating: 2 out of 5 stars.

Adam's Birthday

Happy Birthday to my wonderful hubby!

I love how excited Jackie gets even when it is not her birthday. She was thrilled, her and I went shopping for a present for Daddy – and she kept it a secret!
We made a cake, decorated a cake – you can’t get much better than that.

The cake turned out great! Better than great – I had never made it before and looking for something a little bit different I decided on a Coconut Cake – everyone loved it.

In the Kitchen with 2 Sous-Chefs

I started including Jacqueline in my baking quite some time ago and now that Anderson is getting bigger, he wants in as well.

So this weekend we baked a birthday cake for Adam and I had my two helpers with me.

Since I had both kids I had to limit what they were allowed to help with. If I only have Jackie, she is allowed to stir the dry ingredients together, sometimes scoop the flour and sugar, and I now let her crack open the eggs.

Anderson – well let’s just say he is not quite ready for that yet, so we stuck to taking turns turning on and off the stand mixer and watching.

We made a Coconut Cake - see recipe below.

Creamy Coconut Cake

Creamy Coconut Cake

Source: Dinner with Julie

2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

2 tsp. baking powder

1/4 tsp. salt

1/3 cup butter, softened

1 1/2 cups sugar

2 Tbsp. canola oil

3 large eggs

2 tsp. coconut extract

1 1/4 cups milk

Preheat the oven to 350°F. Spray two 8” or 9” round cake pans or one 9”x 13” pan with nonstick spray.

In a medium bowl, stir together the flour, baking powder, and salt. In a larger bowl, beat the butter with an electric mixer for about half a minute, until it’s pale and creamy. Pour in the sugar and continue to beat for 3-4 minutes, until the mixture is light and fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each, and adding the coconut extract somewhere along the way. Scrape down the sides of the bowl whenever it needs it.

Add about one-third of the flour mixture to the butter mixture and stir it in by hand or with the electric mixer on low speed, just until it’s combined. Add about half the milk in the same manner, then another third of the flour, the rest of the milk, and the rest of the flour, mixing just until the batter is blended.

Divide the batter between the greased cake pans and tap the bottoms a few times on the countertop to remove any air bubbles. To prevent a domed top, spread the top of the batter with a spatula, creating a slight dent in the middle and a raised edge. This compensates for the way a cake tends to rise higher in the middle.

Bake for 30-35 minutes for round layers or 40-45 minutes for a 9-x 13-inch cake, until golden, the edges are pulling away from the sides of the pan, and the tops are springy to the touch. Let them cool for about 10 minutes before running a knife around the edge of the pans and inverting them onto a wire rack. Cool completely before you frost them.

Coconut Frosting:

1 cup butter, softened

2 tsp. coconut extract

6 cups icing sugar

½ - 2/3 cup milk, as needed to achieve a spreadable consistency

In a medium bowl, beat the butter and extract with an electric mixer until creamy. Add about a third each of the icing sugar and milk; beat and continue to add each until you have a spreadable frosting.

Strawberry Rhubarb Crisp

I was given some rhubarb from a co-worker about a week ago, and with great plans to make a pie, but no time, then great plans to make a crisp, but a hubby who is eating very healthy now and there is no way I could eat it all myself, I decided I would make it for my co-workers.

Since I work in an appliances store and we have a live kitchen, I decided to make it all the night before, but bake it the next day at work.

Having never tried this specific recipe before I was not sure how it would turn out – but WOW!

This is a definite keeper – people were begging for more and many were disappointment they missed out.

There is no picture – there was no time – I was scraping the bottom of the dish in literally 5 minutes.

Strawberry Rhubarb Crisp
Source: Epicurious with a few little changes

Topping
½ cup old-fashioned oats
½ cup all purpose flour
½ cup (packed) brown sugar
1/3 cup slivered almonds
¼ tsp ground nutmeg
¼ tsp salt
6 tbsp chilled butter, cut into ½ inch cubes

Filling
5 cups ½ inch-thick slices fresh rhubarb (about 2 pounds)
2 cups chopped strawberries
¾ cup sugar
½ cup orange juice
2 tbsp all purpose flour
1 tbsp grated orange peel
½ tsp ground cardamom
¼ tsp ground nutmeg

For topping:
Mix first 6 ingredients in mediums bowl. Add butter; rub in with fingertip until moise clumbs form.

For filling:
Preheat oven to 375°F. Combine all ingredients in large bowl; stir to blend. Let stand until juices form, about 15 minutes.
Put into 8x8 casserole dish and sprinkle topping evenly over mixture. Bake until topping is golden brown and crisp and filling is bubbling thickly around edges, about 45 minutes. Serve warm with ice cream.

On My Nightstand - Little Bee

Little Bee by Chris Cleave

On the back cover:
We don’t want to tell you what happens in this book.

It is a truly special story and we don’t want to spoil it.

Nevertheless, you need to know enough to buy it, so we will just say this:

This is the story of two women. Their lives collide one fateful day, and one of them has to make a terrible choice, the kind of choice we hope we never have to face. Two years later, they meet again – the story starts there…
Once you have read it, you’ll want to tell your friends about it. When you do, please don’t tell them what happens. The magic is in how the story unfolds.

My take so far:
I started reading this book on Saturday night and I am over half way through it. It is not a long book (only 266 pages) but so far it is good.
This is a book club choice, so I am not sure if I would have read it otherwise, but after reading some reviews (all very good), I thought it might be a book I need to own, and I am glad I made that decision. (I like to own the books I really love, I enjoy telling someone else about them and loaning them out, and I also enjoy re-reading them a few years later.)

I don’t want to say anymore than what is written above about the story, but let’s just say it is so far a great book and I still have a little under half to go.

I would put this one in the “you should definitely read category”

July Long Weekend

This July long weekend found us out at the lake as usual. The weather was crummy, but we had Adam’s sister Kristi and her fiancé Marko join us for a few days, so the company was great.

They brought this toy for the kids. They loved it, Adam liked it, but I am not a fan.

You see to be the definition of a great toy is one where the kids can play unattended or with minimal supervision.

This toy as you can imagine requires constant attention and adult interaction to prevent injury.

But the kids love it – and if Adam is willing to supervise – we will let them enjoy it.

Marko barbcueing.

The one problem with camping, Mommy stayed up too late one night and might have had one too many glasses of wine.

The kids however did not seem to understand.

On My Nightstand - The Castaways

The Castaways by Elin Hilderbrand

I missed last week because I was still reading my previous book (Last Night in Twisted River). But I managed to finished that one on Tuesday and Wednesday I started this book.

On the back cover:
With rumors of infidelity straining Greg and Tess MacAvoy’s marriage, the couple head out on their sailboat one early summer day to celebrate their wedding anniversary, hoping the roughest waters are behind them. But in an accident off Nantucket, they mysteriously drown, leaving behind two small children as well as the three couples who have long been their closest friends. Tragedy brings to the surface long simmering conflicts and emotions, and the MacAvoy’s six grieving friends find themselves unprepared for the revelation of secret upon secret as they struggle to answer the question: What happened to Greg and Tess?
The Castaways probes the boundaries of friendship and forgiveness as it tells a page-turning story of passion, betrayal, and suspense.

My take:
The first thing I would do for this book is change the cover – the cover was very misleading along with the title. I thought this would be a book about a couple who everyone thought died, but in fact they were castaways.
The title however describes the group 8 friends (4 couples), the couple really does die. Had I known this before I think I would have enjoyed the book a bit more.

It was okay – not great, but a good beach read. Light, easy to read, although the subject matter is a bit heavy (a couple dying, leaving behind not only 2 kids but a whole group of friends) the way it is written it does not seem as heavy.

I would rate this book a 3 out of 5