2015 In Review

I was thinking about the whole It's a Wonderful Life thing and how I didn't feel like I was really impacting people's lives.  While I may be no George Bailey there are things that happen in my life that wouldn't if I wasn't around.

For instance, credit card companies wouldn't get so much of my hard earned cash...

Ok, seriously though.  When I went back and looked at my year in review, there were a couple things that stood out that wouldn't have happened if I wasn't here to instigate them.

Vines & Spines Book Club
This book club would never have been created had I not invited a bunch of my favorite girls out to dinner. And had we not started discussing books we liked. This year we read some great books, some crap book, and some books I didn't read at all.

1. How to  Build a Girl, Caitlan Moran****
2. The Night Circus, Erin Morgenstern *****
3. All the Light We Cannot See, Anthony Doer**
4. Big Little Lies, Liane Moriarty*****
5. A Long Way Gone, Ishmael Beah - hated it.
6. The Husband's Secret, Liane Moriarty****
7. The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry, Gabrielle Zevin*****
8. The Girl on the Train, Paula Hawkins *****
9. The Weight of Water, Anita Shreve
10. Killing Lincoln , Bill Reily *****
11. The Pilot's Wife, Anita Shreve
12. Glass Castle, Jeannette Walls ****

There were two I didn't read: The Weight of Water and the Pilot's Wife. Not because it was the same author, just because it was bad timing for me to actually do any reading.

My favorite of the year? Oh gosh. Probably The Night Circus and Killing Lincoln.

The one I hated was A Long Way Gone. Couldn't even get past the first hundred pages. Blech!

Side note: I read 52 books last year. This year, including privacy books, I've ready 28. Ugh.

 The other activity that wouldn't happen if I wasn't here is Dinner club. The Landlord, Blueberry and I find a new restaurant every month and try it out. The "rule" has been that you have not been there before.  We had some hits, and some misses this year. I love doing this though. Getting an opportunity to try new places seems like it's always what we want to do, but never do.

January -Sear Grill
February -Prime Steak House
March -Volterra
April -Indigo Grill
May -Best Wok in Bellevue
June -Amaro
July -Big fish Grill
August -Chanterelle
September -Hugo's
October -No dinner club...too much work
November -Bottle and Bull
December - Some Thai restaurant in Lynnwood. I missed this one too due to work.

So what else happened in 2015?

Well, I know I didn't blog as much as I wanted to. A total of 51, well 52 after this one, blogs were written. I didn't even cover big events that happened this year. Life got too busy I guess.

Travel
Whoa! It was another year of fantastic travel.

• Spain and the Canary Islands - The big trip was the cruise around the Canary Islands. SIL and I spent 5 days in Barcelona, then hopped on the ship to cruise. I need to go back to Barcelona. Such a beautiful place. 
• Philadelphia in October - Went to Philly for the 3 Day and spent a couple days before checking out the city. LOVED it! 
• La Conner and those damn Snow Geese - SIL and I took TWO trips to see those damn snow geese. We saw nothing. What we saw weren't geese, but swans. Maybe this year I'll give it another shot.
• Road Trip with the Niece - Deception Pass, Mt. Vernon area, other areas up there checking out the back roads. 
• Tucson - Like every year. Tucson for Christmas

Sunday Dinners
Still doing these darn things. Chose to not have one in November, then ended up having an impromptu Rib Saturday Gathering. The biggest Sunday Dinner was in December. 15 people here. I had originally had 17 coming and was sure I wouldn't fit them all in the place, but alas, 15 were all we had. Two were at other folks places. Maybe this next year we'll do more traveling Ssunday dinners.

Other things:

• Went to see Pompeii at the Pacific Science Center. LOVED it. 
• The Niece graduated from Vet Tech School - she ultimately passed the exams too and became an official Vet Tech. So proud of her.
• 3 day - of course

And that's pretty much it!