Phoebe finished A Cat Called Penguin in near record time, and now she is reading From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler. It took her a bit to get into it--she wanted to give up at one point--but I persuaded her to keep going, and now she says she enjoys it.
We are still plugging along with Harry, but we are getting closer to the end! As with all HP books, the scare factor is ramping up a bit as we get closer to the climax, and Phoebe isn't thrilled with that, as the scares get a little more intense as we move through the series. But I saw bits of this movie on TV once, so I keep reassuring her that all will be OK. We may have to take a break before Book 4 though--after all, the intended readers are the same age as the characters, which is thirteen for this book. That means more mature content!
Last week for lunch, Phoebe took Vegetable Pie. The recipe was actually for mini, handheld pies, but she let me make one big one instead. This week, she asked for Cheesy Breadsticks, so we have those. The cheesy flavor comes from nutritional yeast, and she takes marinara sauce to dip them in. The recipe made a lot, so she and David got to sample some last Sunday during football with some polenta fries and hotdogs. I had some leftover coconut milk from some Satay Sauce I made, so I whipped up a batch of G-F Coco-Manda Muffins (coconut and mandarin orange). They were quite tasty!
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| Vegetable Pie |
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| Cheesy Breadsticks |
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| Coco-Manda Muffins |
Monday we went to the Wolf Conservation Center in South Salem, NY--down in Westchester County. It was freezing cold, but fun. The program we attended was geared specifically for kids, so there were a lot of them! However, we still got to meet Atka, the Center's traveling wolf ambassador, and Alawa and Zephyr, nine-month-old puppies who will also live as ambassador wolves at the center--they will never be let loose. They were on the other side of a fence, but it was still fun getting pretty close to them. They, unlike all the two-legs, did not mind the cold at all!
The center's primary mission, besides education, is to raise endangered Red and Mexican wolves for reintroduction. We were lucky enough to catch a glimpse of one of each--these wolves are not acclimated to people, so they don't come looking for treats. Maybe we will have to plan another visit for spring, when we can sit and watch them a bit. There were also quite a few black and turkey vultures circling when we first got there--hoping to snatch a bit from the wolves' breakfast. David has those photos, so I will post some once he sends them to me! In the meantime, there are some great pics of the wolves on their website.
After our visit, we were looking for a lunch stop. As luck would have it, the first place we stopped was a vegan cafe connected to a yoga studio. How serendipitous! Phoebe had a burrito, David got a veggie panini, and I had a sweet potato and millet "burger"--yummy!
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