Since Jennifer just finished reading all the Harry Potter books, we’ve been watching all the movies. Tonight we watched the second of the Harry Potter movies, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. I haven’t really been enjoying the movies. Both the first and second moves don’t seem to have very good plots. Just a bunch of Harry Potter wandering around not knowing what is going on and slowly figuring it out while I’m falling asleep on the couch.
Abby, Emily, and I went to see the new Pixar movie, Cars, at the theater. The movie is about a car, Lightning McQueen, who gets stuck in a forgotten town on Route 66. The new interstate bypasses the once happening town and Lightning damages the road and is sentenced to fix the road. He has to hurry to Los Angeles for a race in order to win the Piston Cup. It was a pretty cute movie and both Abby and Emily enjoyed it. Abby’s favorite part was the race at the end and the way Lightning always said “Ka-chow!”
Jennifer and I escaped and went and saw The Da Vinci Code. It was pretty good. It was true to the book, but glossed over a few sections. At it’s heart, it’s a good mystery, it just has a controversial subject surrounding it. I still think Angels & Demons was a better book and it would be great if they made that one into a movie as well.
Tonight we watched the movie Radio. Cuba Gooding Jr. portrays a retarded man who is befriended by the head football coach (Ed Harris) of a small South Carolina town in the 70’s. I didn’t like the movie all that much. I thought it was a little too cute and there wasn’t much conflict to it. I kept waiting for the big “the retarded guy screws up and the whole town is mad at him scene”, but was disappointed when it never did happen. I just didn’t think there was much substance to the movie.
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We were awaken early this morning to Abby’s exclamations that the Easter Bunny had arrived. They opened up their Easter baskets which were full of candy and presents. They each got a video: Emily received a Dora the Explorer video and Abby received Shark Tale. Once their baskets were open they ran around the house collecting eggs which the Easter Bunny had hidden. Emily was more interested in opening up and watching the Dora video than looking for eggs.
Afterwards, we went to church and I snapped today’s picture once we got home of the girls in their Easter dresses. After lunch Emily and Jennifer took a nap while Abby and I watched Shark Tale. It was better than Robots, but I still don’t think it’s up to Shrek quality.
For dinner we had a big meal with ham, mashed potatoes, and an apple pie for desert. We ate at our new dining room table for the first time in order to break it in. Hope everyone out there had a nice and safe Easter Sunday.
One last milestone today. This marks around a year since I created Frenchville.net. Previously it was called the French Family Web site and didn’t have it’s own domain. It was this time that I started doing regular blog entries. Here’s to many more years of blogging about the happenings of our family.
Today we went to breakfast at Peach Valley Cafe, which is usually our Saturday breakfast spot, but we decided to get out this morning since we are going to an Easter egg hunt tomorrow. Afterwards he headed to the park to let the girls play around for a while. Today’s picture is from a couple of days ago when we visited the park.
This afternoon I went in for a dentist appointment to get a few fillings patched up. If you haven’t noticed, we tried to get a lot of our appointments out of the way this week since I’m was off from work. An Easter present arrived for the girls from Nana and Poppy. They sent some clothes and the Disney movie Bambi. The girls spent the rest of the afternoon watching their new DVD.
Yesterday we went back for our second ultrasound appointment and they still couldn’t tell if the new baby is a boy or a girl. However, they are still leaning towards girl. Jennifer doesn’t know if we are going to have any more ultrasound appointments, so it might just have to be a surprise when the baby’s birth day rolls around. We are currently going under the assumption that it’s a girl so that if it’s a boy we will be all surprised and happy, but if it’s a girl, we will not be disappointed because that’s what we were expecting.
After the appointment we drove down to South Orlando in order to go to a huge McDonald’s which is down near Universal Studios. This McDonald’s has a few unique features in that it has want it calls McBistro. It serves sandwiches, pasta, and pizzas that looked to be at a higher quality than the usual McDonald’s selection. The main reason we were there was because it has an arcade and a gigantic play gym. The girls ran wild for about a half an hour, which was great, and fun was had by all.
Today Abby and I went to see Robots at the movie theater. Abby liked it and said her favorite part was where the robots were fighting at the end of the movie. I on the other hand didn’t think it was all that great. The story was pretty simple and I really didn’t think it was all that funny. Maybe I’m spoiled by Shrek. But, hey, Abby liked it and that’s all that really matters.
Today Jennifer and I once again escaped from the kids and went to see the movie National Treasure. Nicolas Cage plays a character who’s family holds the secret to a treasure which was hidden back when the United States was founded. It was a pretty good movie, very exciting. Jennifer and I both recommend it.
Tonight we “celebrated” by roasting marshmallows on an open fire. We were making s’mores, but the girls didn’t want to try them. Abby said “no thank you” and they ate each of the ingredients separately.
The last few days have been a whirl wind. While we were in Natchitoches, Poppy took Abby to see The Incredibles. Her review was that “the baby was a monster”. I’m not sure if that means the movies was good or not.
My sister arrived in Shreveport on Thursday and we went ahead and opened packages. Abby asked Nana, “Can we open presents?” She then marched into the den and announced that we were opening the presents because Nana said so. We figured “why not” since the girls would get to play with their toys a day longer before we left Shreveport.
On Christmas Eve we just hung around the house and watched the kids as they played with their toys from the day before. We watched the now Christmas classic, Dodgeball. It was a pretty good movie. Silly, but it had some pretty funny moments.
In the morning, the girls woke up and called me into their room. Abby said that Santa didn’t come. I asked her how she knew that. She said, “I didn’t hear his jingle bells.” I thought this was pretty funny and I told her that she needed to go check. She exclaimed that she could check to see if he ate the cookies and ran off into the den with Emily hot on her tail. When they arrived in the den, they were all excited to see new toys under the Christmas tree.
After the girls played with their new toys from Santa for a while, we headed off to Lindale, Texas, where my grandparents live. We met by my Aunt Marci, Uncle Chuck, my cousin Kevin, and his wife Christie. We opened presents and visited for a while. It was nice to see everyone again. It had been two years since we had been back to Texas to see everyone.
This morning, we packed up the Sequoia and headed to Houston, Texas to Jennifer’s parents’ house. The drive was pleasant and it was finally starting to warm up from being so cold for the past few days. We are starting to plan our week now and I will keep everyone up to date here on Frenchville.
Yesterday, Jennifer and I headed off to Natchitoches to stay at a bed and breakfast. The laptop was left at my parents’ house, so no entry in Frenchville until now. Unfortunately, a cold front came through and it rained all day and the temperature dropped to around freezing. We checked into the B&B and then went shopping along the “main” street. There were a ton of antique and gift shops that we wandered through. Each shop we regretting leaving because that meant we had to go back outside into the rain and the cold. There seemed to be two themes that were present in every shop: The Red Hat Society and Steel Magnolias. The Red Hat Society seems to be some club for older women who wear red hats, which I have no chance of understanding. Steel Magnolias was filmed exclusively in Natchitoches, so you might say that it’s their “claim to fame”. After shopping we went and had a steak dinner at The Landing, a restaurant recommended by my dad.
We had a good time getting away from the girls. We just wish it was a little bit warmer outside so that we could have enjoyed the town a little bit more.
Frenchville 