Remembering Grandpa Nick

One year ago, we lost Chris' father. Nick died unexpectedly in his sleep on Good Friday last year. We decided to do a few things on the one year anniversary to celebrate him.


If you knew Nick, you knew he LOVED to feed the squirrels around his house. His squirrels weren't just fat, they were obese! Definitely the fattest squirrels in Indy! So we decided that we would set something up to feed our squirrels.

Home Depot didn't carry regular feed corn on the cob, so we found this instead.

Chris & Hannah installed in along the fence in the back yard.

We haven't caught any nibblers in action, but there have been visitors.

Chris recalled his father LOVED chicken & dumplings. It wasn't something they ate when Chris was a child, but he remembered it as being one of his Dad's favorite meals. So in honor of his dad, we made homemade chicken & dumplings for dinner. It was a first for us. We made it with vegetable broth and before we put the chicken in it, we separated some for vegetarian Hannah.

Then for dessert, we ate ice cream. Nick loved eating a bowl of ice cream after dinner. Who doesn't?

Here's a picture that was taken during our last visit with him in December 2012.

It's hard to believe that it has been a year already. We miss you, Nick!

What am I Reading? February 2014

It's so nice to finally be able to read again!

The French for Love by Fiona Valpy was so cute! It's about a woman who loses her job & her boyfriend & inherits a French cottage from a beloved aunt all around the same time. She decides to fix up the cottage & live there for the time being. I so wanted to go move to France when I finished the book!

Tall, Dark, & Kilted by Lizzie Lamb was a fun read. It got off to a rough start, in my opinion, but once the story moved to Scotland, things picked up. It's about a woman who gets invited by some young, posh socialites to help their mother set up a "spa" type resort at their family home in Scotland.

Nothing Stays in Vegas was not what I had hoped for. It was okay - I was entertained, but I felt the characters were a bit weak. A married woman who is technically separated has a fling with her soul mate in Vegas. Many years pass and they meet again in Vegas.

I absolutely LOVED Facebook Jeanie! It was about a woman who spent all her free time stalking an old boyfriend from college on Facebook. Then one day, she meets Jeanie who installs a new Facebook App on her phone. The app is a "restart" button which allows her to go back to the night where she broke up with her college boyfriend & change things. One of the descriptions that I read about this book was "Bridget Jones meets Ground Hogs Day". I really enjoyed this one.

Rent A Husband is about a woman who needs a date for a big fundraiser ball. Her gay, best friend arranges for her to "hire" a handsome acquaintance to be her date. This theme has been done several times before in movies & books. This one was alright, but not as good as some of the others.

The Bourne Identity was our Book Club book. I am so excited that I completed it before our book club met! I enjoyed the book, but because I had seen the movie first, I harbored some anger. The book is good & the movie is good. But the movie only loosely follows the book. So while I was reading it, I kept trying to refer to my memories of the movie which didn't help at all. I really wished I hadn't seen the movie before reading this.

I have been a long time fan of Sophie Kinsella since her Shopaholic days. Though some of her more recent titles haven't been as enjoyable. I thought this one was more like her older ones. It was about a woman who thinks her long term boyfriend is going to propose. When he doesn't and has no plans to anytime soon, she breaks up with him. Right after the break up, she meets an old boyfriend who reminds her of a pact they had that if neither of them was married by the time they turned 30, they would get married to each other. Very quick read.

So that's what I read this month. Happy  Reading!!