Happy Father's Day!!

Happy Father's Day to the two dad's in my life . . .

My father; aka Papa, Daddy, Kikki, Kip, Kippy . . .

And the father of my children; aka Mark, Dad, Daddy, Marky and Marky-Mark . . .

Both great examples to the five future fathers we are raising!

Awards Ceremony

Prior to graduation, Conor had his eighth grade awards ceremony.  Just a few pictures from that day . . .

Like father,  like son

Award number one:

The big one . . . .

Way to go Conor!!

Graduation

Conor graduated from eighth grade a couple of weekends ago.  He promptly started up with conditioning for his high school soccer team the next day.  No rest for the weary!  He is now embroiled in his pre-latin readiness class.  Poor baby is up and out of the house around 6:35 am most days.  I love tired children!!

Book Review: Here, Home, Hope

Here, Home, Hope is a good, mindless beach read.  I hate to label it chick lit, but probably more "beach book"; one that gets left behind at the rental property.

I really wanted to like this book.  The setting is close to my home town.  I loved identifying with popular places, restaurants and stores. And for that reason, I found it fun.

Unfortunately, the book is best characterized as being trite.  I really didn't like and couldn't identify or sympathize with any of the characters.  I felt that the author attempted to hit on a lot of controversial topics (eating disorders, rape, underage drinking, midlife crisis, infidelity, divorce, suburban pettiness, to name a few) without really delving into any one of them deeply enough.  Everything was dealt with in a very superficial fashion.  Ultimately, all ends well and is wrapped up with a bow at the end.  All of it.  Ugh!

The author is a very accomplished person in her own right.  It appears as if "write a novel" was on her bucket list.  Done.

I received this novel as a PDF version of an advanced readers copy through my involvement with One2One Network.  I received no compensation for this review and all opinions expressed are completely my own.

Manuel Labor

(Yes, I know that manual is spelled incorrectly . . . say it out loud!)

Patrick joined the work force today.  He is working construction with a friend of ours who had done our addition several years ago, also named Patrick.  He guaranteed Patrick that he would be the home-run king by the end of the summer, after he gets through with him.  Patrick said that it was the toughest thing he had ever done . . . worse than any workout for football!

It will make mowing our lawn seem like a piece of cake!!