Derby

I went to my first Pinewood Derby on Saturday with the Scouts. 

Did I not tell you?

Remy and I are scout leaders.

I know, right?

We are the Bear Den leaders.  Those are the 9 year olds for all you non-scouting types.  It's been fun so far.  A little frustrating because there are hardly any boys so it's hard to plan activities.   But we're figuring it out.  We're definitely not naturals at it, but it's fun.

And when I say we hardly have any boys, I mean it. 

So our Pack consists of all the boys that live in the boundaries of the three wards that share our church building.  So that's a pretty large area.

There are 4 Bears.

And that's if they all show up.  So usually that means one or two come to Den meetings.

So we combine a lot with the Wolves because they hardly have any kids either. 

But back to the Derby.

I have to admit the Pinewood Derby is WAY more fun than I expected.  The track was intense with electronic sensor things and everything that gave exact finish times (we're talking NASCAR stuff here).  I was impressed.

And the boys did SUCH a great job.  It was so much fun to see all the work they (and their parents/relatives) put into them.

We were so proud of our Pack!  Each boy got to race their car 4 times (once in each lane, just to make it fair) and then the top 3 with the fastest times overall get a bigger trophy.  We had 2 of our Scouts in the top 3!  First and third place!

You Know You're Old When...

...your baby sister goes to Prom.

Prom.

I'm not sure how this happened.  Yesterday she was in first grade and now...

Prom.

And she was adorable, and giddy and it was hilarious.

She had a dance competition that day, so we had to hurry home after her last performance to get ready.  Heather and I did her hair, my mom did her makeup.  She was actually done and ready to go BEFORE her date came to pick her up.

I know, right.

Who does that?

I guess she practiced putting on the boutineer during the week.  She had our brother put on his church suit jacket and pinned it on him a few times.  :)  Well, she was so nervous when her date actually showed up she didn't want to do it, so I put the first pin in and she managed after that.

Anyhow, it was fun to help her get ready and to see how excited she was.  Next week, it's my brother's turn!! 

Seriously how did this happen?

Books vs. Movies: My Expert Review

Ever since I got my fancy-schmancy Kindle Fire for my birthday (thanks Remy!), I've actually been reading books.

Amazing, I know.

In just the first month I think I read more books than I have in the last 5 years combined.

Sad, I know.

I've read a few books that were made into movies.  The first one I read was Water for Elephants.  I saw the movie first when it came out and I enjoyed it.  When I read the book I was actually shocked at how closely the movie seemed to follow it. 

(Of course I have a terrible memory when it comes to movies, so it was entirely likely I forgot the whole movie anyway by the time I read the book.)

I really couldn't think of anything major that I remember missing in the movie.  I was impressed.  So the other night I re-watched the movie and yeah, it was pretty dang close.

(Of course I have a terrible memory when it comes to books, so it was entirely likely I forgot the whole book anyway by the time I re-watched the movie.)

The book of course has more detail, and I much prefer the book over the movie, but still, I was impressed it was as close to the book as it was.

Then I read The Help.  Awesome book.  I really enjoyed it.

Then I watched The Help.  Not that awesome of a movie.  I didn't really enjoy it.

If you haven't read the book, you need to!  Seriously.  Every few chapters it rotates through the perspectives of different characters.  There's Skeeter, Aibileen and Minny -it's pretty neat.  And the movie just can't capture their perspectives like the book.

I was really disappointed in the movie.  It had it's entertaining parts, and it can be fun to see how they portray certain characters.  But the movie just didn't capture, in my opintion, how deep Hilly's control of the group was, and Celia...oh Celia is so much more involved in the book.  So much of her character was cut out.  Though the parts they did include were actually really good I thought.  The amount of effort it took Skeeter to get Aibileen to talk initially...and then Minny...and then the others...the movie just didn't get into that enough for me. 

Oh and don't even get me started on the Stuart thing.  Holy crap they should have just left him out of the whole movie if that's all he was going to be in it!  They cut out a HUGE part of his character and the love story between him and Skeeter.

Same with Celia Foote's husband.  He wasn't a huge part in the book, but they didn't do the part he did have any justice.

And Skeeter's mom?  She wasn't dying from the beginning of the book!

And the whole thing with Skeeter and Ms. Stein?  Oh geez!  They didn't explain anything that led up to that first time you see Skeeter on the phone with her.  And then they're acting like they're BFF's or something.  It was just weird to me.

To me the whole movie felt rushed.  I understand you can't put every part of a book in a movie, but still.  I've been trying to separate it from the book and think if I would feel any differently about it, but that's hard.  I think that even if I hadn't read the book some of the scenes would make me say "wait a minute, where did that come from?" or "why is that even in here?"  I don't even feel like it should be nominated for best picture.  The movie was fine, but people...it could have been SO much better!  I'm curious to see deleted scenes.  I wonder if any of them had any of the little details I felt like were missing.

Anyhow, that's just my take on the whole thing.  Sorry if you loved the movie.  And if you did love the movie I'm curious to know if you've read the book as well.

So I've read The Hunger Games trilogy and as excited as I am to see the movies, I'm scared they're going to turn out like The Help, or dare I say...Twilight.  I don't want the movies to ruin the whole thing! 

To be fair I know there are a lot of die hard Harry Potter fans out there who probably felt the same way about those movies vs. books.  However, due to my aforementioned memory retainment issues, I couldn't remember the details of the books that were left out.  Or major events for that matter (and throw the fact that it's a whole SERIES of books in there, you just nailed the last nail in the memory coffin).  My point being that those movies were still really good and you could follow them even if you had never read the books.  The Help left me confused.  And I don't want the Hunger Games to make me feel the same way.

Any other movies out there that are from books I should read?

Where's Malcom Wednesday

It's time for a Where's Malcom Wednesday.

Flashback version!

Malcom loves things that blow heat.  And he has since his little life began.   He loves sitting on the heater vents and also the fan on my laptop.  When he was just a little kitten he would cuddle up next to the fan when I would sit on the bed working (What?  Watching Grey's Anatomy IS work).

He was small.  He was not inhibiting my online viewing experience.   It was cute.

See Figure A:

 FIGURE A



Malcom still loves the hot air...but he's....well...

He is not small.  He prevents me from using the laptop altogether.

See Figure B:

FIGURE B

A New Arrival...

Today this will be delivered to my house:

And I'm SUPER excited! It's SOOOO comfortable and really deep.  As in if I sit all the way back, my ankles barely hit the end of the couch.  I feel really fancy that it's from Crate and Barrel.

Now here's the story.  Sometime in November Remy and I went to the mall to check out the new Crate and Barrel.  We found this couch.  We sat on this couch.  We loved this couch.  We slept on this couch.

Okay maybe not that last one.

But really, we LOVED it!  We'd been couch shopping off and on, always checking them out at stores, but hadn't ever found anything we loved enough to commit to.  Plus we didn't NEED one, ours just isn't that comfy.  Even though we wanted to take this one home with us, the price tag was NOT as loveable.

Then after Christmas we went back to the mall for some reason and I suggested we go sit on our couch and see if we really loved it as much as we remembered. 

We did.

We also noticed there was a sale on this couch!  Yay!  But it was still a bit more than we really wanted to spend.  We started discussing colors, etc.  The floor sample was in the color of the pic above, which is fine, but there were some others we both preferred.  Remy happened to ask me what I would think if we had to have the color of the store sample.  I said if the price was right I'd take it.

Well right then a sales person came over to see if we had any questions.  Remy asked about the color options, and she let us know that the sale was on this color only because they were discontinuing that specific fabric. 

Okay then, good to know.

We went back and forth debating on whether or not the price was right.  It HAD been marked down twice....but still, we just got back from vacation and weren't planning on dropping large amounts of money on a couch any time soon.

Remy then asked if we could have the floor model and if it would be discounted further.  She said we could only have it if it was the last one left.  She also said they'd been going really fast once they went on sale, so she checked to see how many were left.

Well I figure this couch was meant to be ours.  Because wouldn't you know it, the warehouse was clean out -meaning we could take the floor model.  She originally said it would be an additional 10% off, but then after confirming with the manager we could even take it, turned out it was another 20% off.  This brought the couch to nearly 50% off the original price!!!

That offer was just too good to turn down.  So we bought ourselves a couch!

The lame thing was they couldn't deliver until January 10th at the soonest because they weren't getting the new display couch until then and didn't want a big empty spot on their floor.  So that meant there were 10 extra days that random people could be sitting on my couch! 

Our living room is going to be pretty tan though...tan walls, tan carpet, and we even got these new tan curtains for Christmas (also from Crate and Barrel) not expecting to then buy a TAN couch!

Oh well, walls can be painted!  I just can't wait to snuggle up on this new couch tonight!