After being away for a month and not able to up date this blog, we are home, safe, sound and happy. We are looking forward to this roast tomorrow when the crowd comes to welcome us back from the beach. It was glorious this year in the sun while snow pounded Columbus. Sorry about that.
Note: Sam's has the best prime rib as you can see from this picture. I always ask for a big section cut for either two roasts or three. They will do it for you as you shop and I have never been disappointed. This roast would serve ten people comfortably, we had only eight with left overs, for $60. I am getting another for Easter this year which comes early...April 5th, the day after our 56th wedding anniversary.
Nate the wanderer is back with lovely pictures and a new out look on life. His trip, alone, was inspiring and life changing. He had the most wonderful time and strangely has asked me to join him on a trip next winter. I will share some of his pictures from his trip to Italy, Greece, and Turkey. Turkey, I think, was his favorite. He enjoyed and respected the kind people of that area and made many new and interesting friends. He was brave to have planned, paid for, and executed it all on his own. He's a new man.
Florida was wonderful this year, as usual. The sun was present most every day and we are tanned and rested and happy. We plan to go next year as well. It is exciting to go and bliss to come home. Nate discovered this as well, though I have long known this. He has a new appreciation for family and home which is what everyone finds out when they travel at length.
I want to say that Southwest is my new favorite way to travel. Beth and Mike flew down for the last week and Mike drove the cast home while Beth and I flew. It was a straight shot home and one of the easiest and cheapest flights I have ever taken and believe me I have taken many.
I did a lot of cooking at the beach again this year and strangely the cold penne salad was the all time favorite, but not with me. I've shown it to you before and the only thing different about it is the pasta is cooked to almost done and then the Italian dressing or dressing of your choice is put on while the pasta is hot so that it soaks up the goodness--I use lemon, olive oil, fresh herbs or dried, a bit of sugar, a touch of mustard, salt and pepper--a home made vinaigrette or a bottled one, it is your choice. Then I start looking for things in the frig that need using: any vegetable, squares of salami, cheese, olives....anything goes. Load it up, it can take it. It lasts for days. If you cook the pasta too much, forget it and use it for something else.
Before we left for the trip, Alyssa told me of a trilogy by a new author Michelle Hodkin. This series is going to be a big hit like Twilight or the Hunger Games. I could not put down these books. Each book, around 450 pages, was easily read in a day and a half if you had nothing else to do and on vacation, why not indulge yourself? I told Alex about them when she came and then she was rapt as well. Written, as were the other two series for adolescents, this is nonetheless unforgettable. I can't wait to see what she comes up with next. The first book is The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer.
