Annual Beach Trip

Another lovely summer vacation in California with the Madonna family! This year it was perfect weather and I was excited to see what Bryony thought of the beach (her sister at this age cried through the whole event). She loved it - she did her best to keep up with Abigail and Morgan running and playing, and showed yet again that she can really hold her own, ha ha. We had cousin-sleep-overs, Bocalli's pizza (of course), some back-to-school shopping, a barbeque with our friends' the Roney's, plenty of time at the beach, and even a wonderful date night for Jake and I. We didn't want to leave!

my own moment of peaceful bliss - the beach. the sky, the fresh air, and Bryony snuggling me under that towel

Grandma, Aunty Jeanne and Grandma Carmen

Bryony having as much fun in the motorhome as Abigail and Morgan did at this age

Abigail & Morgan - who have become the closest of cousins this year :)

with Tayten, not sure where Morgan was for this moment

enjoying Uncle Lance's smores around the fire

big hit Uncle Lance!

Random End-of-Summer Photos

Summer Swimming

building a beach

Aurora, Colorado

I am still stunned with this: the fact that the next night after I posted "We Need To Talk About Kevin", the very same topic materialises in a tragic and sadly all too real news story. My thoughts skipped immediately to the book - actually I'm not sure my thoughts had left this book yet. Which is what I mean by stunned, it was just so uncanny and eerie. Both my emotional and intellectual response to the tragedy (by that I mean my heart and my head) are clouded in the story. I will give the author more praise than I did the other night - turns out she knows what she's talking about I think. And I will wish that the real event was only a story, and had not really happened. My heart goes out to anyone touched by the Aurora shootings.

We Need To Talk About Kevin

Just finished this book by Lionel Shriver. Another good one! I also joined goodreads.com so that I can read other's reviews and add my own. It's like being in a book club I guess - check it out and join (mum!). Anyway, this book gets a rating of 4 out of 5 from over 24,000 readers, including me. I liked this a lot (despite getting annoyed with the appalling amount of missing question marks that I seem to find in all books these days - that's just the grammatical perfectionist in me I suppose). It's another novel that's been turned into a movie and I am curious to see if the film can convey everything that the book so expertly did. Great read - on the edge of disturbing but, as one reviewer said, "so normal that perhaps we ALL need to talk about Kevin". Highly recommend!

Euro 2012

They never show football on regular TV here so we were excited to watch England in the Euro 2012 semi-final. Well, I say 'we' were excited - that would be Jake and I. Abigail and Bryony were excited for the first few minutes but were not happy when it dragged on to be 90 minutes with no goals, another 30 mins of extra time with no goals, and THEN penalties - only to see England after all that, LOSE. I will never get them to sit and try it again. Never mind.

Abigail had boiled egg & soldiers to round out the English experience

Bryony in full England kit

Fourth of July

Abigail, Bryony, Matteo, Joey, turkey-spinach burgers, cupcake-decorating, fireworks, fun.