April, May & June’s Cheep Trills

Chirped by Cass (and Tina)

This month’s favorites are a compilation from April, May and June since “life” got away from us and we are behind on posting our monthly highlights.  So let’s begin.

Favorite Books of the Months

June-booksThe Dry by Jan Harper is a compelling murder mystery set in a fictional, drought-plagued, small Australian town that I read in a day and kept Tina busy on the flights to and from the Galapagos.  She finished it just in time for the “you may now unbuckle your seat belts” ding, and had the flight attendant grilling her about who dunnit?!

Painted Hands by Jennifer Zobair describes the friendship of some young Muslim American career women and all the different ways that cultural traditions, stereotypes, political climate and well-meaning aunties shape their decisions and Continue reading

Galapagos Getaway

Chirped by Tina

6-3-Red-footed-Booby

Red-Footed Booby

The Galapagos Islands of Ecuador… site of Charles Darwin’s inspiration for his treatise On the Origin of Species. If you’ve been toying with the idea of adding them to your “World Travels Bucket List,” allow me to sing their praises and convince you that it might be worth prying a good-sized chip off your nest egg to make it happen! We decided to splurge on this amazing trip with our two boys while they still have some flexibility in their summer schedules. Soon enough they’ll be getting “real jobs” with little or no vacation time, and a wildlife-focused destination was something the whole family could get behind. We were not disappointed. Maybe you weren’t sure whether a bunch of finches with different beak shapes and Continue reading