More Than A Song

Last week I did a meme about movies, here. So the story that goes with it will probably only mean something to my kids & they won’t see this but here it is!
When all 4 kids started getting older, with longer legs, we switched from a minivan to a full size van…..big with an extended top so D could practically stand up in it, a seat on the back that folded down to a bed, long center aisle so D could lay down, and it had a tv/vcr in it so the kids could watch movies while we travelled. Are you getting a picture here that I did most of the driving!
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We saw this movie on Sunday and had been eagerly anticipating it. Stacy & Tim came up for the guys to play golf & we had hoped to see it after their game on Saturday but it was too late. Stacy had told me that some of her blogging buddies had seen it and said don’t go see it! But we did anyway and I must say, I think we were disappointed in it too! It seems to be hard for them to make a sequel that lives up to the original. There were things that were more gross in it than the first one and the story wasn’t all that great. I don’t think Don liked it at all and we were both frustrated at the end because it was really nothing more than a setup for the next one to come. I told him I thought most all sequels had trouble living up to the first movie but he disagreed and said Lord of the Rings wasn’t like that. But I think one reason LOTR is different is that they filmed all 3 movies at the same time, and they had a good story to start with! The Pirates movies are based on a Disney ride after all; hard to get a good story out of that, much less 3 times. Oh well, I guess it’ll be the blockbuster they were wanting and hoping for this summer, but I wish it had been a more satisfying movie.
Update: I talked to both David and Elizbeth about it and they both liked it a lot, although David said he had heard people say the same thing that we did about it being a set up for the last one. It probably is a movie to see on the big screen and I guess I’m still glad that we went. It would have helped me to have seen the first one again though before we went!

A very special spf this week, Kristine & Shaun over at random and odd are getting married tomorrow. Have a great wedding day! Can’t believe she had time to do this but here is what she asked for this week:
1. Your Love (show us some love)
2. Take us on a Honeymoon! (bring us somewhere with your pictures)
3. Something Blue (No sad faces before my wedding!)
Click below for my pictures:
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Thursday Thirteen #3
Thirteen Things We’ve Seen/Done on Family Vacations
in no particular order:

1. Grand Canyon…….hiked to the bottom, spent the night & hiked back out next day; with 4 kids! It was hot, 118 degrees and hard to do but so worth it.
2. Yellowstone National Park……hiked & camped, it was 28 degrees at night in August! It’s a great park.
3. New York City……..to see Broadway plays, shop & see the sights. I love it there!
4. Disneyworld…..been several times & with 4 kids you’ve got to go there, right!
5. Rented an RV and drove through California, Oregon and Washington; saw Yosemite, Sequoia, Redwood, & Crater Lake National parks among other things. With 4 kids & 2 parents in an RV, a fun time! It might be one of the kid’s most favorite things we did.
6. Snow skiing in Snowmass/Aspen, Colorado……we have skiied many places but this is probably our favorite.
7. Washington D.C. and all the usual tourist spots there; gotta love the nation’s capital!
8. Grand Teton National Park….white water rafted on the Snake River while there.
9. Smoky Mountains…….encountered a big black bear & 2 cubs while hiking a trail in the mountains.
10. Gettysburg Battlefield, Antietam Battlefield, Monticello & other historical sites in Pennsylvania, Maryland & Virginia……the youngest thought it was one long boring field trip, the rest of us loved it!
11. Niagara Falls….saw both American & Canadian sides; rode Maid of the Mist & did the walk called Journey Behind the Falls.
12. Glacier National Park….did an 8 mile hike to a glacier & drove the Going to the Sun road.
13. Destin, Florida…..typical beach vacation; we aren’t beach people so we don’t go very often!

Left some places out; it made me realize how blessed & lucky we’ve been to travel and take the kids to see so many things!

There is a farm in our area that’s been selling sweet corn for a couple of weeks and will have it for a few weeks more. I have heard from several people that it’s the best you will taste and I’ve been wanting some to put up in the freezer. Been told a few different ways to cook it and put it up so I’ve been anxious to try it but Don has been too busy to get it for me. A friend took pity on me I think and said they were going and did I want some! Of course I did! So I spent a few hours on Monday getting it ready to go in the freezer………cooked some for us Monday night and it was very good! Corn on the cob, yeah, summertime!
Here’s what it looked like when I got it:
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Happy July 4th! Hope that everyone has a good day. It looks cloudy and a little like rain here; we need it but I sure wish it wasn’t on Don’s one day off! We will hang around here most of the day, cook out with some friends later on and maybe play a game with them. No fireworks going on in our area and we didn’t get any since none of the kids are here! Kind of a quiet low key day around here.

10 Favorite Movies from Your Movie Collection

1. The Lord of the Rings Trilogy
2. The Sound of Music
3. The Matrix
4. Chariots of Fire
5. Phantom of the Opera
6. You’ve Got Mail
7. Spiderman 2
8. O Brother, Where Art Thou?
9. It’s A Wonderful Life
10. The Princess Bride
Bonus: Beauty & the Beast…….
There is a story with our Beauty & the Beast tape that I will write a separate post about one day soon!

We helped E move out of her apartment on Friday; she is going to grad school in a few weeks and needed to be out of this apartment by the end of June. So most of her stuff is now in a storage locker but we did bring some things home with us. Now I have to figure out where to put her stuff for a month! I should have taken some pictures I guess, but we were so busy that no one had time to think about it. Maybe she has some to remember her first apartment by. She commented toward the end of the day, “My whole life fits in a
10 x 10, it’s sad!” Don and David, with both trucks, got the biggest part of the furniture and boxes moved and then Don went to meet Tim to play golf; David had other plans too I suppose! That left the remainder for me to help E with and Chris loaded the rest of it when he got off work. It was a long day. Don & Tim wanted to eat when they got done, which was almost 9 at night! So we met Stacy at Chili’s and they ate supper; that’s too late at night for me to eat! We were about midnight getting home.
Don had to be up very early Saturday morning to look at a crashed pivot and then get to the office to work all day. We went with friends to see Superman Returns Saturday night……good movie, but I think I missed or don’t remember some things that must have happened in one of the previous movies! Short synopsis:
The Man of Steel is back after a mysterious absence of several years and once back at work as Clark Kent, finds that Lois Lane has moved on without him. And his old enemy Lex Luthor still wants to render him powerless forever. Action, romance, adventure, redemption; a summer movie!
There were things I was disappointed in, and afterwards our friend commented that Don would surely be able to get quite a few Sunday School lessons out of this one! I meant to tell Don that if his class is starting to see that, then he’s done a good job!
Sundays are always a busy day for us as well with church……I have started a new bible study, the newest Beth Moore study on Daniel, and it’s going to be really good. We had a short patriotic service last night, very casual, with watermelon and indoor fireworks!
Now on with another week.

This week SPF is Shaun style…..Kristine is getting ready for her wedding! The assignment is:
1. Something with a story behind it. Photograph something that has a story behind it. And yes, you might have to actually write a little bit on this one. Good, sad, funny. Be creative.
2. A Random and Odd photo. Pick anything. For this picture, the reader on your blog needs to write a story or caption for your picture, so get something unique.
3. In keeping with the recurring wedding theme, a photo of something borrowed.
Here are my photos this week:
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1. 100 years……….Five For Fighting
2. Wasted……….. Carrie Underwood
3. You Are My All in All………Rocketown Worship Collection
4. I’ve Got the World on a String…….Frank Sinatra
5. For Once in My Life……….Harry Connick, Jr.
6. The Music of the Night……….Phantom of the Opera Soundtrack
7. Remember When it Rained………..Josh Groban
8. Black Horse & the Cherry Tree………KT Tunstall
9. Breakaway………Kelly Clarkson
10. The Best……..Tina Turner
11. One Day More………Les Miserables Soundtrack
12. When You Say Nothing at All………Notting Hill Soundtrack
13. Home………..Michael Buble

Misty watercolor memories…………
A few days ago, the guys were playing golf again (surprise, surprise) and Stacy & I went shopping again for a little while….another huge surprise! But we also drove around some and took a few photos, some of things out of our past. I got a couple of the jr high/high school I attended and we got some of the old house that we lived in during that time. It looks sorta the same but did have some changes to it and it looks more run down than before.
Click below for the shots:
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Eyes, and well everywhere really. Just saw this on a news story online:

WASHINGTON – Separate smoking sections don’t cut it: Only smoke-free buildings and public places truly protect nonsmokers from the hazards of breathing in other people’s tobacco smoke, says a long-awaited surgeon general’s report. Some 126 million nonsmokers are exposed to secondhand smoke, what U.S. Surgeon General Richard Carmona repeatedly calls “involuntary smoking” that puts people at increased risk of death from lung cancer, heart disease and other illnesses.

We don’t really have smoke free places/restaurants/buildings in my area like some places do but hopefully it will get there over time. Even if I am in the non-smoking section of a restaurant, the smoke bothers me a lot so it would be nice if places could be truly smoke-free. Here’s hoping! Maybe the surgeon general saying secondhand smoke can kill you will do some good.

10 Fun Games to Play at a Party

1. Charades
2. Scene It
3. Pictionary
4. Mad Gab
5. Trivial Pursuit
6. Scattegories
7. Taboo
8. Balderdash
9. Guesstures
10. Apples to Apples (although when we played this, about half our group didn’t like it) so one of my favorites is Scrabble, good for a smaller group maybe.

We had wanted to see End of the Spear when it was on in the theaters, but not sure it ever really came on for long in our area. So recently we rented it and actually watched it in Madison with Stacy & Tim. It is based on the true story of 5 men & their families that were missionaries in Equador in the 1950’s, trying to reach the Aucas, now known as the Waodani tribe. Mincayani is part of this tribe, one of the most violent societies ever to exist, and when the 5 men are speared to death by the Waodani, the men’s wives and children move in with the tribe to teach them about God. This movie is more about Mincayani and Nate & Steve Saint and from their perspective than about Jim Elliot, who I was more familiar with. It is an amazing story of what happens between the families and the Waodani after the men are killed by the tribe.
An interesting tidbit I read about the movie/project: before making the movie, a team travelled to Equador to get permission from the tribe to make the film and the Waodani said no. Steve Saint related to them the story of Columbine high school and the killing that went on there for no reason & this had an effect on the tribe. They agreed that if their story could help other people stop killing then they would agree to the film.

Since I did a post & picture the other day of the sunrise, as we were driving home from Madison, I thought I’d do another one of the sunset! Yes we went to Clinton & Madison again today, for more golf……….lessons for Don and then the guys went and played the course at Live Oaks this time. The girls shopped but really didn’t buy much this time and after eating dinner, we drove back home. Got to the Delta and the sun was going down and I almost didn’t think to snap any pictures until it was almost too late. It was this huge red ball again, but this time in the west, and just as pretty, but I don’t think my pictures do it justice at all:
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