Book Club Night

I know there are a bunch of you out there who are avid readers. A few months ago, I joined a book club with my neighbour lady. I thought it would be interesting to meet new people and read books that I wouldn't ordinarily read. I thought I would share our selections with you each month and perhaps we could get some online discussions happening.

We just finished reading "The Memory Keeper's Daughter". I read this one while on vacation. I really enjoyed it. Here is a synopsis....

In 1964, when a blizzard forces Dr. David Henry to deliver his own twins, he immediately recognizes that one of them has Down Syndrome and makes a split-second decision that will haunt all their lives forever. He asks his nurse to take the baby away to an institution and to keep her birth a secret. Instead, she disappears into another city to raise the child as her own. Compulsively readable and deeply moving, "The Memory Keeper''s Daughter" is an astonishing tale of redemptive love.



Our new selection for this month is "Tsotsi". It looks very interesting and is being made in to a feature film. I have included the synopsis for this book as well.



Set amid the sprawling Johannesburg township of Soweto, where survival is the primary objective, Tsotsi traces six days in the life of a ruthless young gang leader.When we meet Tsotsi, he is a man without a name (tsotsi is Afrikaans for "hoodlum") who has repressed his past and now exists only to stage and execute vicious crimes. When he inadvertently kidnaps a baby, Tsotsi is confronted with memories of his own painful childhood, and this angry young man begins to rediscover his own humanity, dignity, and capacity to love.



Hopefully, I've inspired some of you to pick up a book you may not have found on your own and maybe even enjoy it! Keep me posted...

Dinner at the Guys

Last night, we had dinner at friends'...the Guys. Just before dinner, the sun came out and we caught this rainbow.

We knew today would be a beautiful day because of the sunset.

Rob and Tamara recently shared 1/2 a cow with some friends, and this is the steak they made for us...two steaks took up half the BBQ and fed 4 adults and 4 teenagers! Delish!

Trip to Ikea

It's a rainy Saturday morning...what to do? We decided to go to Ikea. We had a few furniture items we had been wanting to get, specifically for Kenton's room. My favourite part is looking at the gadgets, but the husband's interest in that...not so much. We did walk away with a few things "for me" though.

Shopping is definitely not Kenton's thing...like father, like son.

This dresser matches Kenton's mate's bed almost perfectly.

Of course, you've got to have the matching desk.

And this is for me...a nice faux leather computer chair.

My Favourites

This will be my last vacation post, so I thought, before I put away all my memories until the next trip, I would share some of my favourite things. I would say the best part was the beauty of God's creation...walking down to the stretch of quiet beach near our hotel and just resting and relaxing on the beach.

The small tree you see in the background was "our tree". We sat here several times during the week.

Another great thing about the trip is that we spent it in such great company!

A Day at the Beach!

This was one of my favourite days in the Dominican. In the morning, we went down to a part of the beach where there were no hotels, and not as many people. We had brought our own snorkeling gear and thought this looked like the perfect spot. We were not disappointed! We saw many starfish and conch shells, schools of pretty fish and even a sting ray type creature.
These pics were taken with the water camera.


In the afternoon, the four of us decided to rent a hobie cat, which is a small catamaran. It was pretty apparent within seconds that we had never been on one, so after the dominicans had a good laugh at us on the shore, one took pity on us and gave us a quick lesson. It was smooth sailing after that!



One of the biggest stories we had to tell was of our kayaking accident at the reef. You'll notice in this picture that Sonya is the only one who decided to wear a life jacket. Smart girl. The guys decided it would be really fun to take the kayaks out to the reef and find a big wave to ride back. Well, we found it, but unfortunately Chris and I took a tumble. I lost my sunglasses and Chris lost the water camera, while the waves smashed us into the reef. At the end of the day, it was a great story to tell!

Men on Vacation

This post is dedicated to the men we shared our vacation with. They were a constant source of entertainment for us gals, so I thought they deserved the spotlight for once.

On this particular day, the guys decided to windsurf. How hard could it be? You just stand on the board, pick up the sail and let the wind do the rest, right? A lesson? Lesson-schmesson!! After all, Gary did it once when he was about 19. ;) I must say, though, the guys were doing great by the end of the week.

Now, what man doesn't love a plate full of meat at the steakhouse? As Sonya and Gary learned on this trip, Chris is a major meat eater...beef, pork, seafood...he loves it all, (although all of it doesn't love him). ;)

I must admit...this was a great restaurant, especially the pina colodas and the pecan pie for dessert.

Where are we?

After dinner at the Steakhouse, we decided to check out one of the neighbouring hotels, the Casino. We discovered our free vouchers were pretty much a rip off, so we left and decided to have a little night cap. Sonya and I grabbed a seat on a couple of wicker couches while the guys went up to order drinks. Now the real show was about to begin!
They decided to grab a seat while waiting and were abruptly asked to move over by two middle-aged women. The gals started chatting with the guys....the usual "where are you from" fare...and then the guys' drinks came. They stood up and walked over to where we were waiting. As soon as they sat down with us, the two gals got up and left. Sonya and I started laughing hysterically, as we realized that our guys had just been hit on by two cougars! And the funniest part was watching their faces as they realized what had just happened.
Ahhh....what a guys!

Our First Day

On our first day, Sonya and I pretty much relaxed on the beach, while the guys took the kayaks out.





We also checked out our hotel a bit more today. This is the view from our hotel room.




I really loved how we were so close to everything. One path took you to the buffet and pool and the other one took you down to the beach. Our beach was great...it was nice and clean and had lots of beautiful trees for shade.

In the evening we went to the Tropicalissimo show, but unfortunately we were not allowed to take photos. :( Before the show started, Chris and I had stopped for a cappuccino. We sat under a beautiful grass hut, while the rain poured down around us. How romantic! It rained quite a few of the nights there, always later in the evening and just shortly. We all found it quite refreshing actually and it never put a damper on our fun.

On Our Way!

Tonight, it will have been a week ago that we rose at 2 o'clock in the morning to get ready to leave for the Dominican. I must say...I love the whole experience of travelling...the anticipation while driving to the airport, having a Tim Horton's coffee at 4 o'clock in the morning, boarding the plane, taking off...all of it! Chris probably doesn't share my view, since he's usually knocked out from all the Ativan and Gravol he ingests, but I've grown to love it.

The flight there seemed to fly by...pardon the pun. The movies weren't very interesting, but the lady who kept passing out made things a little less boring. The greatest part was landing, just as the sun was about to set, and seeing the big grass roofs of the airport.

Once we got our luggage and finally found the bus we were supposed to be on, we were on our way! We were pleased to discover as we checked in that Gary and Sonya were only a few doors down from our hotel room. We had booked separately online a month earlier, so we weren't sure where our rooms would be.

After we dropped our stuff off and enjoyed the yummy Ron Punch they had given us when we arrived, we did a little exploring of our resort and the beach. It was dark by now, so the rest would have to wait until the next day!

New Beginnings!

When I first started this blog, not quite a year ago, I had great visions of how witty and poignant I would be while sharing stories of my life and lessons learned along the way. Unfortunately, life got in the way.
First, it was simple stuff....like how do you find time to work full-time, keep the house clean, drive the kids here and there and still have some time to do something good for yourself?
In the last few weeks, we've also been dealing with some changes to our family. My cousin's daughter no longer lives with us, long story short.
Our vacation couldn't have come at a better time. We were originally going to leave a week earlier, but God's timing was perfect, as it always is.
The two years that Heidi lived with us were definitely the biggest growing years of my life. Now that we're home, refreshed from vacation, my life is like a new beginning, and I can't wait to see what lies ahead in the coming years!