The Lovely Bones

Gow told me I needed to see The Lovely Bones, so while Cyndie was out, I did a viewing ...

The Lovely Bones (4.2/5)

This was the story, told from her perspective, of a 14 year old girl who is abducted and murdered. It was a serious movie, but not quite as creepy as that previous sentence may sound.

I think one of the reasons I liked the movie as much as I did is the whole expectations thing. I wasn't expecting much, and so when what I got far exceeded my expectations, it made for a very enjoyable viewing experience. It was directed (and written I believe) by Peter Jackson, the man behind the Lord of the Rings trilogy and King Kong. It was very different than those movies, and definitely a very nice surprise.

I think much of what I liked about this movie is that it took a hold of you and kept you emotionally involved through the ending, which I thought was excellent. It was very atypical, which I like. And it was satisfying. The bad guy got what was coming to him, but not in a way you'd expect. The protagonists all found their peace, but not in a typical "Hollywood" way.

In summary, I'd call this a very interesting couple of hours. I liked it because it was a) well made, b) different from the Hollywood norm, c) satisfying.

Movies I've seen recently:
Juno - 4.8/5
Slumdog Millionaire - 4.6/5
Iron Man - 4.2/5
Lovely Bones - 4.2/5
Lars and the Real Girl - 4.1/5
The Book of Eli - 4.0/5
Wall-E - 4.0/5
Traitor - 4.0/5
The Dark Knight - 3.9/5
Star Trek - 3.9/5
TransSiberian - 3.9/5
Iron Man 2 - 3.8/5
Wolverine - 3.8/5
Hurt Locker - 3.8/5
Nick and Nora's Infinite Playlist - 3.7/5
Definitely, Maybe - 3.7/5
Up - 3.7/5
The Blind Side - 3.7/5
Kung Fu Panda - 3.5/5
How to Train a Dragon - 3.5/5
The Passion - 3.5/5
Valkyrie - 3.5/5
Appoloosa - 3.5/5
Sherlock Holmes - 3.5/5
The Incredible Hulk - 3.4/5
Stealth - 3.4/5
New in Town - 3.2/5
Alvin and the Chipmunks, the Squeakquel - 3.2/5
He's Just Not That Into You - 3.1/5

The Backup Plan - 3.1/5
Horton Hears a Who - 3.0/5
Inglorious Bastards - 2.9/5
Push - 2.8/5
Jonah, a VeggieTales Movie - 2.4/5
Meet Bill - 2.1/5
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull - 1.9/5
Burn After Reading - 1.5/5

The start ... officially

The kids finished off their 2010 school year yesterday with some Christmas parties. That means today is officially their first day of vacation. I'm working, but with all the people gone already from work, it's pretty lonely! So I'm trying to help out a bit with the packing that's going on. Since tomorrow is Christmas Eve, and the day after Christmas (duh), we're trying to get much of our packing for the Iowa trip (for which we'll leave late morning on Sunday) done today.

Last night Laura and Gow (and the girls) and our friends Nils and Erica (and their two boys Timmy's age) were over for dinner. Nils and Erica are missionaries in Mexico, so we don't get to see them too often. Anyway, that was a lot of fun. We spent a decent amount of time outside sledding and ice skating. Big thanks to Papa Lee for clearing out so much brush on our new sledding hill. It makes for some awesome sledding. Timmy is fearless ... he's the only kid that's into going down the big chute (12 extra linear feet of hill, and 6 extra feet in height). I went down the chute a couple of times and I could easily have gone another 200 - 300 feet on level ground if there weren't bushes and a road in the way ... oh well! It's fun!! We ended up putting some "reverse" ramps up against some of the bushes at the end of the run to keep Timmy from crashing into the bushes to hard.

So that's about it. It's almost Christmas. Merry Christmas all!

Today's a strange one!

Yes, today is strange, and for a number of reasons. First, the more mundane. It's December 20th, a Monday. It really feels like Christmas break already. Almost all the normal people I deal with at work are already on vacation for the rest of the year. So it's kind of like a pretend work day. I actually am being productive though!

The real reason that today is feeling most strange is that Timmy has a full day of kindergarten today. It's a one-off thing ... the kindergartners are staying all day so that they can practice the Christmas program in the afternoon. However, this is the first time ever that we will have sent the kids off to school at 8 in the morning and won't see either of them until 3:20! Cyndie and I are going to go get a light lunch or some coffee or something to both celebrate and mourn the passing of an era. I guess this is a little preview of next fall!

I don't think there's really anything else to report today. The kids Sunday school class sang yesterday in church, so that was fun. I'm busy this week with several music practices for the Christmas Eve service. Tomorrow night is the Christmas concert at Woods School.

So there you have it!

The season is ramping up!

Wow, apparently I'm getting really bad about posting on the blog! I guess I better remedy that.

Things seem to be flying along around here. Days are going quickly, and soon it will be Christmas! We've been doing a lot of sledding around here lately. The brush that Papa Lee cleared when he was here last summer was hiding a really nice sledding hill! So now, we have a very good place to sled. The kids are both enjoying school and enjoying their Spanish classes (that meet before school). Timmy is excited because next Monday he gets to go to school all day (they will practice their Christmas program in the afternoon). Cyndie and I looked at each other when we heard that news and wondered what having an empty house for 7 or 8 hours would be like. It's crazy that that is what next year will be like all the time! Those darn kids are growing up!

So, that's about it around here. There's not a whole lot to report, other than days flying by.

The Reader

Just had to drop this out there ... this afternoon Timmy read and entire 90+ page book by himself. It was not a complicated book, but neither was it a total picture book. My mom pulled it out from our stash of books and suggested that he read her a chapter, and he proceeded to spend the rest of the afternoon reading it to Grandma while she worked on sewing a big black backdrop for Cyndie's photo shoots and Grandpa while they sat on the couch together.

Great job Timmer!

Friday ... finally!

Actually, I can't really say "finally" Friday, because this week has, in reality, seemed to go by rather quickly. This morning we had fun at breakfast trying to convince Timmy that it really was Friday.

Tim: What day is this?
Me: Friday ... you have Spanish (before school) today.
Tim: No, it's Wednesday.
Me: I'm pretty sure it's Friday. Tomorrow's the weekend and the Christmas Party (for our Coffee Shop small group at church).
Tim: No, because yesterday was Tuesday.
Me: Okay, it can be Wednesday, but Mommy is still going to drop you off at school for Spanish this morning.

So, there you have it. Maybe we should refer to today as Frinesday. Although there's not much of a ring to that.

Wednesday night (the actual Wednesday, not Frinesday) was family night, so we pulled out White Christmas and watched it for the first time this year. I anticipate we'll get at least one more viewing in over the winter ... perhaps at the DeVries Family Christmas Retreat*.

*I don't believe there is an official name for this joyous event, but this year, rather than trying to cram 17 of us into one of our houses, we're going to go to the camp we all lived at in the 80s in Iowa, and have 4 or so days of family fun. Hopefully we'll be able to toboggan, play volleyball and do the rock climbing wall. We'll definitely play a large game of (adults included) hide and seek. Anyway, it should be a good time.

Last night at the last minute, we decided to go watch a basketball game at Woods. We got there in time for the B team game (I think B team is the 7th graders and A team is the 8th graders). Woods won 32 - 14 (or there abouts). It was rather hilarious. The first stringers were, on average, around 5 - 8 inches taller than their counterparts on the other team (Traver, another K - 8 school on the south side of the lake). They were also a lot better that Traver. If the first stringers would have played the whole game, it would have been more like 50 - 6. Anyway, it was hilarious to watch them. Being in the tiny gym at Woods and watching junior highers made me reminisce about playing basketball in junior high at Pomeroy when we lived in Iowa ... though I think we were quite a bit better than the Woods team (although my memory may just be a bit foggy). Good times.

Let's see, what's going on with the kids these days? Emma is really enjoying reading a lot. We are letting her read for a little bit after we tuck her into bed, so I left her reading last night, and when Cyndie went to get her up this morning, she was reading too. Note, that she did not read through the night. When we checked on her when we went to bed, she was asleep! Timmy is also enjoying reading. Right now we read with him and help him sound out stuff as he needs it. He decided to make a Christmas list the other day (for Santa) and one of the things he put on it were books that he can read all by himself. That's pretty fun!

So there you have it! It's nearly the weekend and we're supposed to get 3 - 5 inches of snow today and overnight. It's certainly cold enough, so we'll see where we get!

Winter Wonderland

It's not quite all the way to "Winter Wonderland" status, but there are some really fun flakes falling as I type this. They are big ones that are just kind of taking it easy as they slowly float to the ground, with small, intermittent swirls thrown in for effect. The driveway is covered, and I really can't see too much of the grass either. Is it really winter? A quick check of the 10 day forecast on weather.com shows that it could be ... there don't appear to be many days that exceed 34 or 35 degrees in temperature. I guess winter is here to stay, and on the first of December too!

There's not a whole lot to report today. We had a fun Thanksgiving weekend ... spending time with family and friends. We're at a nice, leisurely spot with the kids in that they are not really committed to much right now, so we're not running around like crazy trying to get them somewhere. They have really enjoyed getting the Christmas stuff up and are enjoying the Christmas season in general. A couple of weeks ago they pooled their money and made lists of what they wanted to get Cyndie and I for Christmas. The kids and I went shopping for Cyndie the other day and they did a great job of staying in their budget, but also getting some stuff that I think Cyndie will really enjoy.

On the house front, we are looking at a problem with our mound system. It appears to be failing, so we may have a rather large bill with that. Our neighbor, who knows about these things, was over last night to take a look. We're going to have a pro take a look in the next day or two. I guess we'll know more then.

Have a great Wednesday all!