Author: ekkarn

Broken Promise – Linwood Barclay

  By

Broken Promise – Linwood Barclay (Promise Falls #1)

 

In Broken Promise, the latest from Linwood Barclay, the author returns to the town of Promise Falls, New York and pens another terrific thriller. Promise Falls was the setting for two of Barclay’s previous books, Never Look Away and Too Close to Home. Many familiar character populate Broken Promise including: Police Detective Barry Duckworth, Landscaper Eddie Cutter and his son Derek and the main protagonist David Harwood. Harwood and his family wife Jan and son Ethan were the main characters in Never Look Away. Broken Promise picks up David’s life several years after Never Look Back,  David and Ethan have returned to Promise Falls where David has returned to his former job as a reporter for the town newspaper, only to have the newspaper shut down on his first day of work! His only option is to move back in with mom and dad! One day his mom asks David to look in on his cousin Marla. Marla is having a hard time after losing a baby about ten months prior.When David arrives at Marla’s he notices a spot of blood on the front door and Marla is caring for a ten-month old baby, that she says an “Angel” delivered to her door!

When the mother of the baby is found brutally murdered, Marla becomes the prime suspect! Soon David is asked to find out anything he can to help prove that Marla is innocent. But as David digs deeper, solving the crime may rip his family apart!!

Typically, in a Linwood Barclay’s book one ordinary person is put in an extraordinary situation and that happens in Broken Promise as David sets out to discover how Marla ended up with the baby and who really killed the baby’s mother.But along with the mystery surrounding Marla and the murder there are other extraordinary events happening in Promise Falls; including the slaughter of 23 squirrels, attacks on the local college campus and a message painted on mannequins placed on the ferris wheel of an abandoned amusement park. All these events seem to indicate that maybe Promise Falls is a broken town!

At Goodreads Broken Promise is labeled as (Promise Falls #1) and certainly there were enough questions to be answered at the  end of Broken Promise to provided a storyline for Promise Falls #2 Far From True, which will be released in March of 2016. I have enjoyed all of Barclay’s standalone books, but there is something special about a book series and I am certainly looking forward to spending more time with the residents of Promise Falls!! I have a pretty good idea of who may be responsible for several of the happenings, but as for the killer, I haven’t a clue!! I can’t wait until March!!

Bottom-Line: Broken Promise is a four and a half star book! I can certainly be enjoyed without reading the two other books mentioned, but each of those books were outstanding reads and certainly stand on their own!! So check them all out!!!!

Book 40 of 2015

The Shining Girls – Lauren Beukes

  By

The Shining Girls Didn’t Shine for me! (Book 39 for 2015)

So – have you ever zipped through a book, enjoyed it, and yet felt that you never really connected with the book? That may be the best way to describe how I feel about The Shining Girls by Lauren Beukes. It obviously wasn’t how Tana French felt about the book, on the cover of the book French’s quote reads…..

“Utterly original, beautifully written, and I  must say, it creeped the holy bejesus out of me. This is something special” 

I originally discovered this book in a post titled 10 Novels That Will Scare The Hell Out Of You written by Julie Buntin for The Huffington Post. When I found the book in the library I read the last quote on the back cover of the book…..

Imagine Poe and Steinbeck in a knife fight where Poe wins and writes Jack the Ripper’s version of :The Grapes of Wrath Lauren Beukes’s The Shining Girls is even scarier than that” Richard Kadrey author of Sandman Slim

Ok so I was prepared to be scared – I wasn’t.! The novel follows the exploits of the “time-traveling serial killer Harper Curtis, who discovers a depression-era house that opens to other times. Within the house are the names of the five “shining girls” that Harper knows he is supposed to kill. Harper jumps in and out of the lives of these girls until he discovers the right time to kill them. He is successful until the last shining girl Kirby Mazrachi survives Harper’s brutal attack! Teaming with Chicago Sun-Times reporter Dan Velasquez, Kirby sets out to find and stop Harper!!

First things,first I read this book very quickly and enjoyed it, BUT I was never really scared! I also never figured out why Harper wanted to kill these women other than their names were written in his handwriting on the walls of “the house” In fact I never really connected with Harper i.e I didn’t like the character or sympathize with the character. For that matter I didn’t even sympathize with his victims. Throughout the book I kept waiting for something to happen that would connect all the killings, but that never happened!

I did kinda’ like the two other main characters in The Shining Girls Kirby and Dan. Kirby was a plucky survivor with her mind and heart set on finding and settling the score with Harper. While Dan has his heart and mind set on protecting Kirby!!

Bottomline:  I would give The Shining  Girls three stars- I found the book ok, but I certainly didn’t find it as compelling or scary as others have found the book. For me the book just lacked something – it may have been the depth of the characters – but for me The Shining Girls just didn’t shine!! Having said that I at some point try another book from Lauren Beukes like Moxyland or Zoo City

Ok so tell me why I should have loved this book!!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Matarese Countdown – Robert Ludlum

  By

The Matarese Countdown a Return to the Works of Robert Ludlum

 

Robert Ludlum - author of The Matarese CountdownI finished The Matarese Countdown (Book Number 37 for 2015) yesterday and it was another good read from one of the masters of the thriller genre Robert Ludlum. The book was one of the last books written by Ludlum, before his death in 2001. Through the 1990s my reading changed from reading political thrillers to mostly mystery series, but  during the 1980s Robert Ludlum’s novels were mainstays of my reading. They were always were thrilling reads, as typically, either one person or a small group of people was out to save the world. They were action packed with very well drawn plots and characters. Ludlum’s descriptive writing style really made it feel like you were part of the action, Ludlum wrote over 27 thrillers. The number of copies of his books in print is estimated between 290 million and 500 million. They have been published in 33 languages and 40 countries

After Ludlum’s death, several novels or novels based on his outlines were released. They were penned by authors like Eric Van Lustbader  who continued the tales of Jason Bourne and Gayle Lynds, Patrick Larkin and Kyle Mills who created a series called Covert-One based on the ideas of Robert Ludlum.

The following from Wikipedia is a description of the writings of Robert Ludlum…

Ludlum’s novels typically feature one heroic man, or a small group of crusading individuals, in a struggle against powerful adversaries whose intentions and motivations are evil and who are capable of using political and economic mechanisms in frightening ways. The world in his writings is one where global corporations, shadowy military forces and government organizations all conspire to preserve (if it is good) or undermine (if it is evil) the status quo.

Ludlum’s novels were often inspired by conspiracy theories, both historical and contemporary. He wrote that The Matarese Circle was inspired by rumors about the Trilateral Commission, and it was published only a few years after the commission was founded. His depictionsThe Matarese Countdown of terrorism in books such as The Holcroft Covenant and The Matarese Circle reflected the theory that terrorists, rather than being merely isolated bands of ideologically motivated extremists, are actually pawns of governments or private organizations who are using them to facilitate the establishment of authoritarian rule. Read More

The Matarese Countdown was published in 1997 eighteen years after the 1979 release of The Matarese Circle. I read The Matarese Circle sometime in the early 1980s before I started keeping a log of my reads, so it’s probably been a good thirty years since I read the book. But not remembering all of the details of the prior book, did not hamper my enjoyment of  The Matarese Countdown, The plot of The Matarese Countdown revolves around the re-establishment of The Matarese, a shadowy organization that is between on destroying the world’s economy to obtain global domination! One of the heroes of the book is Brandon Schofield, who along with his wife Antonia are called out of retirement to battle the Matarese. Scofield thought that he had destroyed The Matarese twenty years prior only to find that they are back stronger than ever! So Scofield aka Beowolf Agate teams with CIA case officer Cameron Pryce and Army Intelligence Officer Leslie Montrose in a race to destroy The Matarese before the Countdown reaches zero and the world economy crashes!!

I will say that it took me a while to finish this book. I started it several months ago and set it aside to finish several other books. I picked it up again earlier this week and yesterday I didn’t, or rather couldn’t, put it down until it was finished!! So check it out!! Obviously, since I didn’t remember much about The Matarese Circle, one book can be enjoyed without reading the other!!

Hum, let’s see there are other Ludlum books on my TBR shelves The Bourne Supremacy, The Bourne Ultimatum, and The Janson Directive and I need to read some more from my shelves to meet my TBR Pile Challenge! Could another Ludlum be in my future?

 

Edward’s’s Favorite Books of the 70s!

  By Uncategorized

An AARP Post leads to a list of My Favorite Books from the 1970s!

 

This morning my wife said “you’re old. please join AARP so we can at least derive some benefits from you ancientness!” Actually, she didn’t say that, but she did ask me to join AARP so that we can hopefully get a discount on our Ancestry.com renewal! While I was on the site registering and paying the whole $16.00 a year membership this post Readers’ Picks: 10 Books Boomers Love caught my attention.These are the books that the readers picked:

10 The World According to Garp – John Irving
9. The Joy of Sex – Edited by Alex Comfort
8. The Color Purple – Alice Walker
7. Slaughterhouse Five – Kurt Vonnegut
6. Fahrenheit 451 – Ray Bradbury
5 Lord of the Flies – William Golding
4. In Cold Blood – Truman Capote
3 Roots – Alex Haley
2. Catch-22 – Joseph Heller
1 Catcher in the Rye – J.D Salinger

While the above list is a terrific list, it is not my reading list! I have only read two of the books on the list – Catch-22 and Slaughterhouse Five. So I thought that I put together a list of my favorite books that were published and read mostly during my high school and college years.

Renaissance Granddad’s Favorite Reads from the 1970s – as best he can remember!

 

[espro-slider id=31152]

 

Several of the authors among those shown could have had two or more books on the list. John Fowles’  The Collector and The French Lieutenant’s Woman, Alexander Solzhenitsyn‘s The First Circle., Tom Tryon’s The Other and Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse 5, could have all been on the list!

The late high school years along with the college’s year set the tone for the life that follows. Is there a better music than the music of your generation, at least there isn’t for the music of mine! And the books you read lay a foundation for future reading as well help guide you along  your life’s path.

The works of Herman Hesse helped me discover and accept the duality of nature,

Catch-22 and August 1914 taught me about the absurdities and the horrors of war,

Stephen King and Tom Tryon taught me to be afraid of the dark – very afraid!

The Day of the Jackal and The Eye of the Needle ignited a love of political thrillers,

Watership Down and All Creatures Great and Small enhanced my love of animals.

 

Then there is Death at an Early Age, Reading the story of Jonathan Kozol‘s first year as a teacher in a very poor Boston school, was upsetting. When I read the book and I felt so sorry for those poor children, the saddest thing may be that in many schools throughout America things haven’t changed all that much, especially in the inner city schools.

Anyway reading Death at an Early Age led me to an Education degree from the University of Georgia. Unfortunately, the twists and turns of my life resulted in that degree going unused! But I hope that my love of learning and reading has been passed on to my children and they will in turn pass it on to their children.

And maybe my daughter Elizabeth, who is in her final year of her Masters program in Educational Psychology at the University of Delaware, will do what I didn’t and help some of those in need children!

So there is the list of some of my favorite books of the 1970s. It was a fun exercise and I think many of those books should be visited again!  How many of my books have you other boomers read??

What were some of your favorites from that era??

Badlands (Highway Quartet #3) – C.J. Box

  By
c Badlands - C.J.Box

 Originally Posted September 2015 Updated and Revised May 2026

Badlands – (Highway Quartet #3)

After finishing Windigo Island, I read Badlands from C.J,Box. Box is the author of the Joe Pickett series, another of my favorite series.During his career Box has written several outstanding standalone thrillers A while back The Highway one of the standalones features Detectives Cody Hoyt and Cassie Dewell. and a terrific villain the Lizard King, A long-distance trucker who preys on the women who service long distance truckers a rest stops along the nation’s highway. The women are known as “lot lizards”. Badlands is book two in the Cassie Dewell series and while I wished that there was more about the Lizard King in the storyline, the rest of the storyline made up for it.

The Story

Grimstad, North Dakota – a place people used to be from, but were never headed to – has struck oil. As pipelines snake across the prairie, oil flows out and men and money flow in. And with them, comes crime. North Dakota’s new oil capital has a serious law and order problem and newly qualified detective Cassie Dewell has just been assigned as its deputy sheriff…..

….With the temperature dropping to 30 below and a gang war heating up, Cassie fears she might be in over her head but the key to it all will come in the most unlikely form: an undersized boy on a bike who keeps showing up where he doesn’t belong. Read More


My Thoughts

I enjoy C.J.Box’s books because of his ability to create believable characters that you want to root for. like Joe Pickett, and his family and Nate Romanowski. Of course there are also some you want to root against like Joe’s Mother-in-law Missy. In Cassie Dewell Box has created another one to root for, a war widow with a young son, who does her job with grit, and determination and some empathy for the people she serves.

And You Should

Since Box’s last Joe Pickett novel Endangered just came out in March of this year, I guess we have a little while to wait for Joe’s next adventure so it would be a good time to pick up Open Season the first of the 16  Joe Pickett books.  Or maybe just Back of Beyond the first Cody Hoyt book or a standalone like Three Weeks to Say Goodbye. I guarantee you won’t be disappointed!!

iAuthor’s Website
Facebook
Twitter
Goodreads
Goodreads:Joe Pickett Series

C J Box author of Storm Watch

About C J Box

Charles James Box Jr. is an American author of more than thirty novels. Box is the author of the Joe Pickett series, as well as several standalone novels, and a collection of short stories.

Visit the Author Page

And You Should Pick Up One of these…

You won’t be sorry…….

Open Season Joe Pickett #1
Back of Beyond Cody Hoyt #1
Tjhree Weeks to Say Goodbye
Three Weeks to Say Goodbye

Open Season – Joe Pickett #1 – The one that started it all, introducing a game warden who values the truth over his own safety.

Back of Beyond — Cody Hoyt #1 – A raw, high-stakes introduction to a detective battling his own demons while hunting a killer in the wilderness.

Three Weeks to Say Goodbye — A standalone nail-biter that proves just how far a parent will go when their family is threatened by a powerful enem

2026 Update – The latest from C J Box The Crossroads was released in early 2026. It sits waiting on my TBR shelves…..

Windigo Island – William Kent Krueger

  By

Windigo Island-  William Kent Krueger – (Cork O’Connor # 14)

 

William Kent Krueger - Windigo Island authorI started reading the Cork O’Connor series from William Kent Krueger back in 2003 when I picked up Purgatory Ridge, Book #3 in the series, at the library. After finishing the book I quickly sought out the first two books in the series and have not missed a book since!! Cork O’ Connor is the former sheriff of Tamarack County, Minnesota, he is part Ojibwe and Irish. He is also the father of Jennie, Annie and Stephen O’Connor and is constantly battling evil in the County and beyond. Cork uses all the forces that he can gather to fight the evil, that includes the powers of his spiritual mentor Henry Meloux. In Windigo Island Cork and Henry battle a Windigo both the mythical and the rel versions! From Goodreads.com….

Cork O’Connor battles vicious villains, both mythical and modern, to rescue a young girl in the latest nail-biting mystery from New York Times bestselling author William Kent Krueger.

When the body of a teenage Ojibwe girl washes up on the shore of an island in Lake Superior, the residents of the nearby Bad Bluff reservation whisper that it was the work of a mythical beast, the Windigo, or a vengeful spirit called Michi Peshu. Such stories have been told by the Ojibwe people for generations, but they don’t solve the mystery of how the girl and her friend, Mariah Arceneaux, disappeared a year ago. At the request of the Arceneaux family, Cork O’Connor, former sheriff turned private investigator, is soon on the case…..Read More

What I love about reading this series or other series for that matter is the development of the characters over the life of the series. The O’Connor family has been through some tough times over the course of the series. Annie has left home to become a nun after a harrowing experience (Red Knife) and Stephen has been shoot and left paralyzed (Tamarack County) and Jennie has become an adoptive mother after rescuing a baby.(Northwest Angle) not to mention the biggest family tragedy of all the happened in Heaven’s Keep – and I won’t but don’t read this book first!! Now as Cork unravels the mystery of what happened to Mariah Arceneaux he is trying to make up for all his past failures to rescue or keep from harm the ones he loves. In Windigo Island Cork is aided in his quest not only by Henry but also by daughter Jennie, whose eyes are opened to the lives of her Ojibwe brothers and sisters and to her own heritage!

I can’t say enough about this series it is one of my favorites and William Kent Krueger just keeps getting better and better! You can probably start anywhere in the series and enjoy the book (except Heaven’s Keep #9)  but you may just as well start at the being with Iron Lake and enjoy the full story of Cork O’Connor and his family!!

Book 34 of 2015

Oliver Visits the Sheep Farm Again!!

  By ,

Babysitting Oliver Tomorrow – Is it Back to the Sheep Farm Again?

 

So tomorrow it’s back to babysitting Oliver solo, well at least for the morning, Through July and August both my wife and I have been babysitting Oliver on Wednesdays, with the reserves Elizabeth and Nick coming in the afternoon. But my wife started back to work today and Elizabeth started working at her new school job (her last year in her Masters program working a year in a school) last week, so all that’s left is me in the morning and Nick and I in the afternoon. I am sure everything will go fine, a lot of times he is better when there are fewer people around, i.e. there is less to get him stimulated when it’s just DA!

As I thought about this tonight I remembered that I hadn’t written about last weeks babysitting the highlight of which was another trip to the Stratton Hall Herd Sheep Farm. Oliver loves his baas and was excited when we told him we were going to visit them again. When we got there though someone forgot to tell the sheep that we were coming!! They were not in the portion of the pasture where we could see them or feed them, rather they were way on the far side of the field. The owner was at the main gate though and asked me if there was anything we needed, i.e eggs or such. I told him no – we had just brought our grandson to see the sheep. He said ok and that he would go and get them. So he went over to the pear trees and then off to the sheep and soon the Pied Piper of Stratton Hall farm was coming across the pasture throwing pears and with a herd of sheep behind him!!

Pied Piper of the Sheep Herd

 

As we watched the sheep come across the field towards us I saw that one sheep was coming along the outside of the fence alone and soon was at the main gate and staying in the driveway – baaing at us!!

lone sheep

We were concerned that she was out, but the owner said that her name was Helen and she was really bossy so they didn’t keep her with the other sheep. (Well everything about that is true except the Helen part – Helen was my mother’s and her nickname in high school was Impossible and well nothing much changed through the years-enough said!) He also said that she wouldn’t leave the farm. Anyway Oliver got a kick out of seeing her!!

The Farm has three main breeds of sheep: the Dorset Horn sheep, the Leicester and the Jacob Sheep. The sheep in the driveway must be a Leicester sheep Here is a Dorset Horn sheep….

Dorset Horn

 

and here’s a Jacob Sheep that we first thought was a goat!!

Jacob Sheep

Here’s a little about the Jacob sheep from Wikipedia:

The Jacob sheep is a rare breed of small, piebald (colored with white spots), polycerate (multi-horned) sheep. Jacobs may have from two to six horns, but most commonly have four. The most common color is black and white. Jacobs are usually raised for their wool, meat, and hides. They are also kept as pets and ornamental animals, and have been used as guard animals to protect farm property from theft or vandalism and defend other livestock against predators

Generally referred to as an unimproved or heirloom breed (one that has survived with little human selection), the Jacob is descended from an ancient Old World breed of sheep, although its exact origins remain unclear. Spotted polycerate sheep were documented in England by the mid–17th century, and were widespread a century later. Unlike most other old world breeds, the Jacobs of North America have not undergone extensive cross-breeding and selective breeding; their body habitus resembles that of a goat. Relative to their American counterparts, British Jacobs tend to be larger and heavier, and have lost many of their original characteristics Read More

I told my wife the other day I think that the unicorn came from the Jacob Sheep. What do you think?Unisheep

All in all it was a fun short trip to the farm and the more I think about it the more I think we may take another trip there tomorrow!!! Who could resist a grandchild look like this!

Oliver watching Sheep

Kori Linae Carothers’ Music and a four mile run ….

  By ,

….Perfect Together

The Morning Run……

So if there ever was a morning that had a good excuse for not running, today was it! We babysat Oliver last night and didn’t get home until 1:30 this morning!! While I knew it would be hard to get up at 7 to run this morning, I thought well maybe 7:30 would work. When the alarm went off this morning I thought “Do I really want to do this?” The answer was less than a resounding yes!  But at least it was a yes! The more  I thought about it I thought well I will be running tomorrow – that will be ok!  No – I said today was to be your long day – it doesn’t matter how fast you go, you just have to make it happen – so just do it!! My pre-run routine was the same as Friday, except for the head smack because today was not a Kundalini/Weights day, so doing the Meditation Preparation Routine was fine!!

Next came the music, I decided that a nice slow album would be great for the run. I had briefly listened Fire in the Rainstorm from Kori Linae Carothers a New Age album that is number 2 on the latest (July 2015) Music Zone Reporter’s Top 100 Radio Play Chart. The album is solo piano and I thought that was perfect for a lazy Sunday run!!

My goal was to just run comfortably and if that was at 11:20 or 11:30’/ mile pace that was ok. The goal was to run for distance, i.e. the four planned miles, and not for time.  One of the tricks that I use to keep my pace an easy one is to make sure that I could talk to someone who was running with me. As a result, I sometimes talk out loud on my runs just to make sure I’m slowing down a little! It also keeps people away from the crazy man!! Anyway I made the four miles and the total time was 44:25 at an average pace of 11:03/mile. Over the first mile the pace was 10:59, mile 2 was 10:45 /mile, mile 3 10:59 and mile four 11:25! Over the first three miles my pace was under 11 minutes per mile which was faster than I figured and the good thing was that I wasn’t really pushing it!!

Kori Linae Carothers

The Soundtrack: Fire in the Rainstorm – Kori Linae Carothers

Kori Linae Carothers hails from Cedar City Utah and grew up listening to the music of Led Zeppelin, The Beatles, Carly Simon, Seals and Croft, James Taylor, But the John Williams’ soundtrack to Star Wars, really caught her ear! She says that

. “…the group that made me want to be a musician and compose music was the Beatles. I absolutely loved their earlier material.” –

But her musical journey had a rocky start, at the age of 5 years old it was discovered that she was deaf in her left ear!

From her website….

….. Her young peers found out and the teasing began. In addition, throughout elementary and high school, Kori was constantly told she would never become a musician. Undeterred, she kept learning and practicing, never surrendering her dream. Despite these discouragements, Carothers was passionate about her calling and now, 45 years later, she is an acclaimed pianist and keyboard player with four albums to her credit. Clearly, she is an example of a person following her muse with courage, humor, and determination. – Read More

I really like this beautiful album of solo piano tunes. All of the tracks were composed by Kori who started taking piano lessons at the age of eight and composing her own tunes at 14!! Will Ackerman of Windham Hill Records who co-produced the album with Tom Eaton and Kori says this about Kori…..

Kori Carothers is, without question a brilliant pianist and composer. What sets her apart, however, is the broad range of styles she utilizes so gracefully. Kori moves between the worlds of achingly beautiful acoustic piano composition and lavish keyboard production with remarkable ease. –Read more

So check out Fire in the Rainstorm and the music of Kori Linae Carothers . As for me there are four other albums from Ms. Carothers that may be the soundtracks of future runs!!!

Links to Further Explorations of the Music of Kori Linae Carothers…

Website
Facebook
Twitter
Bandcamp
YouTube

Here’s Kori Linae Carothers performing “Time Passages” from Fire in the Rainstorm

 

Two Fun Afternoons With Miss Zoe

  By ,

Babysitting Miss Zoe while Father Pete Went Off to the Doctors

 

This week my son Peter had two doctor’s appointments for his recent bouts with pain in his upper abdomen. The pains sent him to the hospital and left the doctors scratching their heads. All of his major organs look fine i.e.gall bladder, kidneys and liver. The initial diagnosis was pancreatitis. On Tuesday, he had an endoscopy and Thursday he had an appointment with a urologist. Since his wife Melissa went with him, we were happy to step in and watch Miss Zoe.

On Tuesday, she was shy at first and was clinging to Grammie, but after a while she was fine and we had a great time. She really is an amazing child, so calm, nothing seems to bother her. She is  quietly interested in everything, and really studies all that she encounters. My wife always says that she reminds her of Elizabeth in the way she is always quietly analyzing everything!. If she turns out to be like Elizabeth, that bodes well for Peter and Melissa!!

On Thursday when we arrived, Zoe was almost asleep, lying on her Aunt Dolly. She wasn’t ready to give in, and soon got up and was ready to go! You would never have known, unless you were told, that she had only napped for twenty minutes instead of her normal hour and a half! After a while, I got down and started playing with her on the floor. First we were playing with blocks, which she stacks really well. Of course, she also knocks them down and tosses them very well! When she did throw them I said “there’s no clapping for that!” Her response was a hysterical (I’m really tired) giggle!! One of the first that I have ever gotten from her! I added to the giggling by putting on of her stacking rings on her foot!! The result was more giggling and when the ring came off – the foot went up to put the ring back on!! The best thing about her giggling was that the  crash and hysterical crying that usually comes shortly after this type of laughing never came!!

Here’s a picture of Zoe with the ring…

 

Zoe with a ring on her foot

Here she is with two of the little balls from another toy….

Zoe with balls2

hum. I forget what was going on here, but I see the block box in the picture……

zoe with balls

Of course we played peek-a-boo……

Zoe Peek a boo

 

the other game we like to play with Zoe is the “Oh No!

11802641_10153674237228273_7587303355102520830_o

All in all, we spent two fun afternoons with Miss Zoe. Oh, and the endoscopy found that Peter has a hiatal hernia, at least now we know that it is something that is treatable!!

A Special 40th Anniversary Night!!

  By ,

The featured picture at the top of this post was taken from the rear of the Beverly Presbyterian Church on August 23, 1975 the night Kathleen Anne Clarke and I were married!

It is hard to believe that 40 years have passed since that night! They always say that time flies when you’re having fun and for the most part we’ve had fun, oh we’ve had our share of sorrows, the deaths of our parents, particularly Kathy’s mother who died at the age of 48 from breast cancer, losses of favorite Aunts and Uncles, but those sorrows have been more than made up for by our four children, although much of the fun was at the expense of Dad, now that fun comes from our grandchildren Zoe and Oliver.

Yesterday was a pretty nice 40th anniversary day. I started the day with a pretty good run although it was slightly messed up when I accidentally turned off my GPS tracking app when I turned off the music

. But I did get through a solid three miles at an overall pace of just around 11:00/mile. After the run I went to Target where I did listen to the album that was to be the soundtrack for the run the latest from Royal Hunt. The album did become the soundtrack of today’s run so I will write about it tonight or tomorrow!

When I came back from Target, I suggested to Kathy that we call the kids and see if they could all maybe meet us somewhere for dessert. Kathy suggested The Pop Shop in Collingswood. So we tested them and all could come except for Elizabeth.

We decided that we would go at about 6:00 hoping that it would not be as crowded on a Sunday, particularly close to the closing time of 8 o’clock. It was fairly crowded when we arrived and we had to wait about 15 minutes, which wasn’t all that bad. Well for everyone except Andrew who had a squirming Oliver on his shoulders!! Finally, we were seated and ordered our food some folks got dinner and some just dessert. The piggy me got a very LARGE banana split called The Lost Weekend and it was great! For the most part the kids were good both young and old!

We ended the day by watching an episode of Who do you think You Are?? For me the answer is a VERY LUCKY Man!!

Here are some snapshots from our visit…..

You know I have called Oliver and Zoe Yin and Yang because they are somewhat different i.e Zoe is calm…

Zoe

 

Zoe2

Oliver not so much…….

Oliver Strraw

speaking of bringing us laughter, yes he does!

Zoe Oliver Andrew

Andrew whispers to Zoe: Yes, he is your cousin…..Oliver: I can’t hear you!!!!

All in all it was a VERY nice 40th Anniversary Day! The day was made extra special by our children and grandchildren!!