Cheesecake Factory!

I went out with some friends last night to the Cheesecake Factory and had a great time! We took a picture right before we attacked our desserts.

I got the Lemoncello Cream Torte. It was really good but probably not better than the Lemon Raspberry Cream Cheesecake I had last time.

Happy Back to Work Day!

We miss you already!

Westside Market

We've had specific plans to go to the Westside Market for about two weeks now and we finally made it today. It's not a far drive at all and I love it there so I really hope I can convince Pat that we need to go more often (i.e. every Saturday). We ended up with a loaf of sourdough bread, dried fruit, blueberries, two mini shepherd pies (for dinner tonight) and an apple fritter that we took outside to eat while we listened to a band play.

Pat and Owen inside the Market


Sitting outside listening to music with the Westside Market in the background.

All-Star

Owen and I haven't been able to make it to any of Pat's softball games yet but apparently we've been missing out on some good games. Go check out Pat's stats--you have to scroll down a bit, he's in the Deloitte and Touche league.

Book Reviews

The Gardner Heist--The true story of the world's largest unsolved art crime. How did I not know about this? Apparently, in 1990, some people broke into the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston and stole a whole bunch of stuff. The details make it sound like it was quite an easy job. Now I wish we had gotten around to going when we were in Boston! It's still unsolved and the museum has all the frames that the paintings (and whatnot) were in still hanging since Isabella Stewart Gardner stipulated that nothing in the museum should ever change. Hence the picture on the cover of the book.

A Shortcut in Time--A man accidentally discovers time travel that results from certain conditions but doesn't have much control over it. Then a girl from 1908 shows up and needs to get back. I liked that there weren't so many rules to follow in this book. It seemed that anyone could time travel under the right conditions and everyone was honest about it. A lot of times in these books only one person has the ability and they try to pretend they aren't doing it.

I've become a bit obsessed with the subject of time travel now and I'm on the lookout for more. I think it stems from thinking I needed to reread The Time Traveler's Wife (Have you read this? You need to.) before the movie came out. When I got it out I was perusing the reviews written by other authors and that's where I came across a few new authors to try.

Father's Day!

We had a great Father's Day yesterday! Pat and Owen got haircuts. Look how short it is! Aah! The hairdresser suggested a setting of 8 on the clippers for Owen and Pat said "how about a 4?" And down it all went! Later we went on our annual picnic where I took this picture.


And finally! Finally! Two summers ago I made it my goal to get ice cream from the ice cream truck. I didn't think it would be that hard to accomplish that goal but yesterday was the first time I've seen the truck in our neighborhood. I sprinted to the truck where I got a few strange looks since I was so excited and paid for an overpriced ice cream sandwich for us all to share.

Book Reviews

I'm really behind on my book reviews! I'm also really behind on returning books to the library since I was able to take a picture of the last three books I've read all at once.

Do-Over--Nonfiction book about a man who, at the age of 48, decided to redo some of the key moments in his life (kindergarten, time abroad, prom etc.) that he thinks could have been better. This book had me chuckling out loud for the first half but it didn't hold up until the end. Reading about him interacting with the kids was probably the best part. By the time he was redoing stuff during his teenage years I just wasn't interested.

How to Buy a Love of Reading--Fiction book about a girl whose wealthy parents decide to get a young wannabe author to write a book specifically to their daughter's interests with the hope that it will encourage her to enjoy reading and other academic pursuits. It's actually about a lot more than that but it's about too much to explain here. It was good and nice to read a book about a teenager that wasn't written for teenagers. There was a lot of story within a story within a story type things going on and so by the time I finished it I was pretty sure I had missed something...

The Memorist--Fiction book mainly about a girl plagued by memories of a past life and how they are revealed to her. I think the idea of past lives is really interesting so I enjoyed the story. The other characters frustrated me at times because I just wanted to read the main story and not hear about the other people. This book was actually a follow-up to a book called The Reincarnationist although not an actual sequel so now I have to go read that book too.

Go Tribe!

Pat was given some Indian's tickets from a coworker so we headed over to Progressive Field (I still call it Jacob's Field in my head) last night. It started off a bit rainy and the game was delayed for about 30 minutes but then it cleared up and the weather was great. We had an amazing time. They were Club seats (which I didn't even know existed) so we were under a nice awning, had a great view of the field and got as much free food as we wanted! I'm totally convinced this is the best way to see a game. Owen was great and really enjoyed cheering and looking out for these giant hot dogs that were walking around hugging people.

It's Official!

Pat officially has a new job! Woo hoo! Now we can spend all of our time together just relaxing and enjoying each other and his time off.

Handsome Boy!

We traveled to Indiana for the weekend to attend a memorial service for Pat's Aunt Anne. It was great to see everybody but I was so enamored with Owen in this outfit that I didn't really manage to get any good pictures of anybody else. We also rode a carousel and a mini train, played mini golf twice, and visited numerous playgrounds. I'm pretty sure that's Owen's definition of fun.

Persistance

Legos!!!

Are you impressed with my lego skills?! I can't wait until Owen is old enough to have the smaller ones. Imagine the possibilities!

Squashed Potatoes

The picture of these potatoes do not do it justice. I loved these. You basically boil some small potatoes until they're tender, throw them on a pan and flatten them. Drizzle with a little olive oil and whatever seasoning you want and put them in the oven. It made the texture fantastic. And the skin, which I usually ignore, was just as good! The only downside is that since the whole thing takes an hour (30 minutes of boiling, 30 minutes in the oven) it requires a bit of planning. Also, you don't really need to put olive oil on your baking sheets if you have a silpat or I'm guessing parchment paper would work too. Recipe here.

Getting Messy

Owen helped us make doughnuts. Or more accurately...Owen helped himself while we made doughnuts.