KerryAndGabe.com

I have had this video ready to post for almost a month now. I have been overwhelmed with managing videos of the kids. I get behind on photos every now and again, but then I can look at hundreds of them by browsing thumbnails and sort through them in a fairly efficient manner. Video is just so time consuming. I often have long clips with very little usable material. So, I was excited about having video and a way to edit it on my iPhone.

The following embedded video (click through to the post to see it) is my first movie shot and edited entirely on the iPhone. This was also my first HD movie upload, so be patient while it loads… And did I mention that I’m a really bad videographer?? I cannot seem to hold the camera still. It doesn’t help that my subject is moving all over the place.

It is nice to be able to put together a polished video anywhere anytime, but I don’t think that I would use iMovie very often for that purpose. It’s more likely that I would use it to make a very short video clip for sending to grandparents. I did this just before going to the beach with Gabe’s mom. I made a very short clip of Maddie telling Grandma that she loves her and is looking forward to going to the beach. It was nice to be able to splice together a few clips right there on the phone.

iMovie on the iPhone is very, very basic. I expected it to have a few more features, though it’s possible that some features exist and I just haven’t been able to find them. The biggest feature that I would like to see is the ability to split a clip for titling purposes. I was able to achieve multiple captions on a single take of video by importing the clip multiple times and splicing them together seamlessly. That was a bit of a pain.

I thought that the built in “titles” were a bit chunky for the way that I like to use them. I like to put little explanatory captions on the clips to say what the kids are doing or saying, like I did in the video I’ve included. The titles I used were the only ones that weren’t too big (thereby blocking too much of my cute daughter). As always, more themes to choose from would be nice. I feel the same way about iMovie on the Mac.

iMovie on the iPhone allows for importing of videos, photos, and music. Transitions can be added, and there is minimal control over this and all of the various features. Very simple captioning is allowed, but it was a bit of a pain to do what I did (adding multiple captions for one clip). Apparently captions are not possible for images.

I think that I will probably most likely use iMovie on the iPhone for trimming videos for emailing to Gabe or grandparents. I’m not sure how often that I will want to use it for creating a polished video, though that could be useful on vacations. It might be nice to have the videos already put together and polished so that I don’t have to take the time later to filter through all the clips.

iMovie for iPhone is a good start, but it needs more features. The ability to split clips and add simpler titles would be great. More themes (preferably ones that do not take up so much real estate) would be nice. The way that you do video clipping is nice, but it is a big of a pain when you know you want to clip out a large chunk. There might have been a shortcut to doing that, but it was not immediately obvious to me. It would be nice to be able to not just drag the ends of the movie clip but also to specify a start or end time as a shortcut.

Overall, I’m glad that I downloaded the app and look forward to future upgrades.

Audrey and I went on our annual Christmas date, this year to see Cirque Dreams: Holidaze at Raleigh Memorial after a brunch at Poole’s Diner. Our date was at the beginning of December. On the day after Christmas, I went with Geannine and her daughter Allie and a few of their friends to see Carolina Ballet’s production of The Nutcracker. I enjoyed both holiday shows! Below is a quick review of each, including Poole’s diner. Photos from the events have been posted here.

Poole’s Diner: Audrey and I started our date at Poole’s Diner in downtown Raleigh which was within walking distance of Raleigh Memorial. Parking across the street was convenient and free on Sunday afternoon. We were also able to leave our cars there during the show - another plus. The outside of the building is pretty ugly and easy to miss. In fact, Audrey got out of her car, glanced at the building, and thought for sure that wasn’t the restaurant and headed in the opposite direction. The inside of the restaurant was nicer. They didn’t have individual menus but rather a series of chalkboards around the restaurant. We found that to be fairly inconvenient, but it wasn’t a big deal once we settled on what we wanted to order. I’m guessing that their menus change frequently. The place is definitely not kid friendly - they even state as much on their website. Poole’s Diner is small, and it seems that almost half of the seating is at the bars. So how about the food? I can only speak for brunch, and I enjoyed it. I ordered some type of big biscuit smothered with a very savory sauce. It wasn’t the southern version of biscuits and gravy but something a bit different. The sauce was tomato based, and the biscuit contained egg, cheese, and meat (I think - since it’s been over a month now, I’m having trouble remembering the details). I also had a HUGE scone which was tasty. I don’t think that the menu was what I had necessarily expected for brunch, but it was very good. I would go there again.

Cirque Dreams: Holidaze: I have seen most of the Cirque du Soleil shows in Vegas, and I knew that this wasn’t the same type of thing exactly. I wasn’t sure what to expect. Cirque Dreams is very different. Cirque Dreams had some of the acrobatics that you see in Cirque du Soleil shows, but most of the acts stayed close to the ground. Each piece had music and a primary focus on a performer (or group of performers) who had a specialty, usually involving some sort of prop. I found myself very impressed by most of the acts (and occasionally worried about the safety of the performers!). Many of these performers have been training in gymnastics and circus performance nearly their entire lives. It’s amazing what the human body can do with years and years of practice and training! Each scene was very dreamlike with crazy characters and props happening in the background and to the side of the main focus. Both Cirque du Soleil and Cirque Dreams have a talent for coming up with some truly bizarre ideas! Overall, I thought the show was great and a good kickoff for the Christmas season. It was different, and I’m glad it was our Christmas date for 2009!

The Nutcracker: I have seen the Carolina Ballet’s production of The Nutcracker at least twice before, so it did not carry many surprises for me. I did pay more attention to families with small children (as well as the small children who were in our party). I knew Maddie wouldn’t be ready for the show this year, but I was thinking that she might enjoy it next year. I think I might hold off for at least one more year after that (or two). It’s always fun to see the little girls dressed up in their finest Christmas dresses. The kids around 8-years old seem to really enjoy the whole experience. I look forward to taking Maddie (and hopefully her brother, too). The music is beautiful, and I love the costumes (for the most part - I could do without the male costumes that leave nothing to the imagination!). We had excellent seats. I’m glad that I revisited The Nutcracker this year and look forward to experiencing it with Maddie in a few years!

Last year, I copied Cindy and wrote my Best of 2008. I had intended to do more summary posts from 2008, but I don’t think I got around to it. So, here is my attempt at the Best of 2009!

Best Restaurant: Once again, we didn’t really eat out very much. We had an anniversary dinner at Second Empire, which was new to both of us. I ate at Poole’s Diner for brunch before my Christmas date with Audrey. Those were the two notable restaurants. Both were very good, but I think I’m actually going to make an odd choice here and not go for “tastiest” or overall great experience but make the choice based on the frequency and convenience of Ruckus Pizza. We find it easy to take Maddie and have found it to be a good place to go with family and friends. We like the pizza and garlic knots.

Best Book: This is always a difficult category for me. I don’t get the opportunity to read as often as I did before having Maddie, but I still read enough to make it a challenge to pick the “best.” Once again, I’m going to limit this to books that I read for the first time this year (My Sister’s Keeper and To Kill a Mockingbird are disqualified). I choose The Help by Kathryn Stockett. This is a book club pick for March, so I’m a little ahead in reading it. Of course, I haven’t yet read the books for January or February, so I’m not that ahead.

Best Vacation: We actually managed to take several significant trips this year that did not involve visiting family at their homes. We went to Bermuda, Cincinnati, and New England/Canada. All were wonderful trips! I’d have to pick the New England/Canada cruise as the best of the year.

Best Movie: We didn’t get to watch too many movies this year. We saw even less in 2009 as we did in 2008. One of these days, we’ll get to the theatre more often, though I have a feeling we’ll be seeing even more kids’ movies. I’d have to say the best movie that we saw this year was Pixar/Disney’s Up.

Best Reunion: While this isn’t a reunion exactly for me, it was great to finally meet Gabe’s dad, sister, and niece on our trip to Cincinnati.

Best Album: I just don’t listen to new music all that much these days. Gabe got a bunch of new albums for Christmas, but I haven’t had a chance to give them all a listen. I guess I’ll have to pick Here Comes Science by They Might Be Giants (another children’s album). I haven’t had a chance to listen to it too much, but I’m hoping Maddie will like it, too!

Best Board Game: I’m not sure why I didn’t think of this category last year. We were exposed to several new games this year as we had the opportunity to play more this year. My favorite by far has to be Dominion (and associated expansions). It has great replayability, is fairly easily accessible for less serious gamers, and plays awesome with two players.

Best Video Game: This is another new category for 2009. I have to admit that I barely played any video games, but I wanted to include the category so I could plug our newly acquired New Super Mario Bros for the Wii. Fun! Maddie shows some interest in “playing the Mario,” and we hope to turn her into a mini video gamer sometime in 2010!

Best TV show: I’m not sure why I didn’t think of this one last year either. Let’s see, looking over my Fall Television Update, I think I’d have to pick either LOST, Chuck, Gossip Girl, or Dollhouse. Tough choice! Since LOST and Chuck haven’t started yet for this season, I think I’ll have to pick Dollhouse. Too bad the series only has a few more episodes. It seems like we often like shows that get canceled. Boo.

Favorite toy: Ok, this is random, but I’m trying to pick MY favorite toy of Maddie’s (not necessarily her favorite). I think I’d have to go with her new Melissa & Doug Sandwich Making Set from Christmas. The wooden pieces are cool, and I love how they stick together with velcro and are quite satisfying to cut with the “knife.” Fun toy!

I should have written this months ago, but I never did get around to it. We cruised on Royal Caribbean’s Grandeur of the Seas back in May on a 5-day cruise to Bermuda. I think that the 5-day cruises lack a little bit of the amenities and extras that you will find on the 7-day cruises, but it was a great way to get our feet wet (well, except not literally!) with vacationing and cruising with a toddler.

Our first cruise was on Vision of the Seas. Grandeur of the Seas is in the same ship class and has almost the same deck plan. We felt like we already knew our way around the ship within the first day. It took at least a couple of days to find our way around on the Vision. The Grandeur felt very familiar. Vision is newer with its first sailing in 1998. Grandeur’s first voyage was in 1996. One of our overall impressions was that Grandeur was starting to show its age. It was effectively 4 years older than our last experience (since our experience with Vision was 2 years ago and it is 2 years newer). It just didn’t seem as shiny and new as I’m sure it once was, and we encountered several things that were broken or in need of maintenance. Most of these things did not get in the way of us having a wonderful cruise, but it did make us eager to try some newer ships.

Our overall experience was favorable. The ship is not huge (when compared to some of the newer ones), but it is a nice size. We found that we could almost always find a quiet spot to ourselves. This is pretty amazing considering that several thousand passengers (not to mention the huge staff) are roaming around the ship. We didn’t use the pools (non-potty trained kids are not allowed, which is a common rule for cruise ships). I can’t really comment on them.

It’s hard for me to write an adequate review considering that my only other experience has been with a sister ship. We enjoyed the dining experience (after we were switched to a regular table). I know some of the newer ships have more dining options. We made use of the dining room each night and also ate at the WIndjammer for the first day for lunch and the dining room for most other lunches and dinners. We did try the room service at least one morning, but we weren’t hugely impressed by the selection or quality. We had breakfast in the dining room whenever possible - it’s definitely my preferred place for breakfast! We had some snacks at the Solarium cafe.

Some of our favorite places on the ship included the Viking Crown Lounge (very quiet after dinner before the dance club starts in the late evening). We took Maddie up there in the sling several times and enjoyed each other’s company and a relaxing drink. We spent a lot of time on decks 5 and 10 letting Maddie explore and run around. She loved it.

We had fun in the casino and were pleasantly surprised to find a Texas hold’em table running a $1-2 no limit game (perfect for us!). I wrote a separate post about the poker. The rest of the casino was similar to what we found on Vision. It’s about what you would expect from a cruise ship, in my opinion. We’ll have to see how different it is on Jewel.

I believe the staff rotates between several ships, but we did find them to be very polite and helpful. The dining room staff was accommodating to our picky toddler, and she always had many members of the staff coming by to say hello. By the end of the cruise, it seemed like most of them knew her name and they would just come by to say hi, even ones that were not serving us. They went above and beyond and even offered to wash her sippy cup and utensils after each dinner.

Our stateroom attendant was quite friendly and was available when we needed her. She often caught us in the hall and was very pleasant. Our experiences with the stateroom attendant on our last cruise was odd - his appearances always seemed a bit contrived, and it came off as a little creepy. This stateroom attendant seemed very natural in her approach, and we enjoyed the service (and towel animals!) each day. All of our personal staff received a bonus tip from us.

All in all, we had a very favorable experience yet again with Royal Caribbean. We are looking forward to seeing what Jewel of the Seas has to offer!

We saw Ponyo on the theatre on my birthday. Both of us thought we were going to see the latest Disney animated feature (oops, that’s The Princess and the Frog). Instead, we saw a Japanese animated film which has been adapted for the US. It has received a bunch of accolades and awards, but it was NOT what we were expecting to see!

WARNING: SPOILERS BELOW

It’s based on the Hans Christian Anderson story, The Little Mermaid, and is about a fish/girl who lives in the sea and wants to become human. Her father doesn’t want her to leave the sea and abhors the humans who pollute and wreck the earth. The fish/girl finds her way to the shore where a little boy puts her in a bucket, names her Ponyo, and shows her to his friends. He’s heartbroken when the creepy sea-father sends his wave minions to retrieve his daughter. His daughter has magic powers and ends up willing herself into human form and escapes with her hordes of tiny sisters (in fish form) to find the boy, Sosuke. She disrupts the balance of nature and causes typhoons and mayhem in the process. Somehow Sosuke realizes that this little girl is his fish, Ponyo. The little boy and his mother accept this fact, which was hilarious to us. “Oh right, ok, this little girl is that fish that you had in a bucket a few days ago. Makes sense. Well, let’s have dinner!”

Sosuke and Ponyo are left alone when the mother goes to rescue the seniors since she works as a nursemaid at the home. Considering how crazy the mother drives throughout the movie, they are probably safer left alone (mind you, they are 5 year olds). The storm and imbalance that Ponyo has created has resulted in chaos for Sosuke’s town. Sosuke and Ponyo wake in the morning to find that they are still alone and set out to rescue Sosuke’s mother. Ponyo turns a toy boat into a larger boat that they can use, and they set out on their adventure.

Long story short, the creepy father and Ponyo’s goddess mother decide that Ponyo can remain human forever if Sosuke’s love is true. Sosuke, the 5-year old. Of course, his love is true and Ponyo is turned into a human (and loses her magic skills) and the kids live happily ever after.

I’m not used to watching Japanese animation, so perhaps all of the genre is a tad strange. This movie certainly was. In the first 5 minutes, we wondered what we had gotten ourselves into. The whole thing was quite weird! I didn’t feel upset that we had seen it, though I’m not sure it was the best choice for us considering we’re fairly limited on the movies we can see in the theatre these days! I definitely liked it well enough. It had some cute parts and some funny parts (though I don’t know if all the “funny” parts were intentional). I’m glad that I saw it, but I’m not going to be running out to get the DVD!

Our book club selected Picking Cotton: Our Memoir of Injustice and Redemption by Jennifer Thompson-Cannino and Ronald Cotton as our July reading. I was a bit apprehensive about this selection and I was worried it would be slow reading as a non-fiction (though I guess memoirs are typically “light” non-fiction). I thought it might take me a while to get through it. I wasn’t sure if I was going to like it. I was wrong on both accounts, zipping through the book in two or three days. Considering the amount of time I generally get to read these days, that is pretty impressive. The book was an interesting look at our justice system and some of its flaws. It gave me a different perspective on such cases. I’ll save the spoilers for below, but I will say that I recommend the book to others. If you were in North Carolina in the 80s and early to mid-90s, you may remember seeing some of this case on the news. You may not, so I’ll keep the details of the case below.

WARNING: POSSIBLE SPOILERS BELOW

The first chapter was enough to make me interested to find out how we got from point A to point B. Jennifer and Ronald, the authors of the memoir, are at a kids’ sporting event and appear to be friends. I don’t have the book since I returned it to the library a while ago, and my memory may be fuzzy on some details. It is then revealed that 20 years ago or so, Jennifer wrongfully accused Ronald of a horrible rape which sent him to prison for over 11 years. I was eager to find out how these two individuals became unlikely friends.

The story flips back and forth between Jennifer’s view point and Ronald’s. Hers starts with horrifying details of her attack and rape in her own home, and his starts with a misunderstanding where he is going down to the police station to clear up the mistake. I have sometimes seen on the news how someone was released from prison because they proved that they had convicted the wrong person, including a vague memory of this exact case.

I have never truly thought about how it must have been for that person to be in jail all these many years. Thoughts about how scary it is that you could be thrown in jail for crimes that you didn’t do have been in my head, but the situation seems unlikely for most people. The news stories made me think for a few seconds, but until I read this book it didn’t really sink in that these are real people with real lives and real feelings and experiences who have been dealt a really crappy hand.

The glimpses into the faults of our justice system and how one eye witness’s false memory and testimony can send someone to prison for life is a bit scary. Jennifer was presented with a stack of photographs of possible perpetrators which did not include the actual rapist. She identified the one that most closely matched her memory of his image (which she very consciously constructed at the time of the rape, knowing that she would have to identify him). This new image, Ronald, had now become superimposed in her memories. She was very confident beyond a shadow of a doubt that Ronald was her rapist. It is not her fault that she pointed the finger at him - the brain and its memory works in interesting ways. When later shown a line up that included Ronald but again not her rapist, she was quite sure that he was the man. A few years later, Ronald’s case went back to trial where she actually saw the man who was the real perpetrator, and she did not recognize him as such. Her memory had already been tainted by the process. The victim wants and believes that the police have presented them with a lineup that must include the guy who did it. The brain makes things fit. And when you look at the composite sketches, they do match well enough. I found all of this to be very intriguing and worrisome.

Ronald’s story was amazing. It really showed you the person behind the statistic. It showed you the rapist’s other victim in a real light. Even after reading his account, I cannot fully imagine what it must have been like for him. And I’m very impressed by his character and his perseverance and his ability to forgive Jennifer for her very large life altering mistake. He was in his early 20s with his whole life ahead of him and then had to throw away over a decade of his formative years. He left prison with no money, no job, no education, and no real marketable skills. His compensation for the justice system’s big oops? At the time, it was $5,000. TOTAL. He was eventually awarded around $110,000 - about $10,000 per year that he was wrongfully incarcerated. He had started to fight and advocate for increased compensation for himself and others who found themselves in similar shoes. Still a ridiculously small sum considering the loss of potential, both in wages, experience, and education.

All in all, I thought it was a great pick for book club, and I’m looking forward to discussing it at the end of the month!

On the first night on our cruise, we decided that we would split the night and each of us would attend something by ourselves. I was going to go to the Finish the Lyrics game show and Gabe was going to attend the comedy show. We were each going to spend a little time in the casino playing video poker.

So the first part of the evening was mine. Gabe was trying to get Maddie to sleep in the pack-n-play, and I headed to the casino. Almost immediately, they made an announcement that the poker table has open seating and the game was $1-2 no limit! I did what either of us would do when hearing the announcement and headed directly to the poker table. I was excited, and I knew Gabe was going to be excited when I came back and told him that instead of going to the comedy show he’ll probably want to play poker!

Our Alaskan cruise was never able to get together a poker game. The demographics were a bit different with less potential for a Hold’em crowd. This cruise had *just enough* players to keep a game going in the evening hours past 8 or 9pm. Aside from the interchangeable Gabe and me, the table consisted of pretty much the same 5 people plus one or two strangers at any given moment.

We had not planned on bringing a poker bankroll on this trip. Our random gambling budget is a bit different than a poker budget. One needs money to make money when it comes to poker. Fortunately, everyone, with the exception of one or two young hotshot players, was buying in for the minimum of $100. I don’t mind playing a shorter stack (when everyone else is short-stacked). I tend to do better this way than I do with a large stack, and the lower risk suits me when I am on a tight budget.

I was ecstatic to be playing “casino poker,” even if it wasn’t an ideal game. All of the players were more or less like us. They seemed to know what they were doing and had spent a decent amount of time playing live casino poker whether it was in Vegas, Atlantic City, or Connecticut. Almost everyone at the table knew more than most of the dealers since this cruise was the first time that they had offered hold’em. They made a few mistakes, but the table was quick to correct them. I cut them some slack, knowing that they did not have much experience dealing.

While Gabe and I collectively came out ahead, it was not a good money making table. On my first night, I cashed out $26 richer. Gabe played the second night, and he lost $26. So we were even on the first two nights. On the third night, the casino was closed since we were in port in Bermuda.

The fourth night was mine, and it was awesome. One of the young hotshot players was a few spots to my right, and he was bullying the table. I was annoyed that he kept raising my blinds, but I waited for the right moment. I limped in with pocket 8s under the gun, and he made a small raise from the button. I called as did several others.

The flop came 88J. Holy crap. I tried to keep my composure. I checked. Bully bet, and I smooth called. I think everyone else folded, though we may have had one caller on the flop. Turn comes, and I check and he bets again. I just called. I knew he was going to stab at it every time. Same thing on the river, except this time I obviously went for the check-raise. He bet $25, and I decided that $50 (total of $75) was a good raise. It was. He declared, “I don’t believe you” and called. Mission. Accomplished. I loved the reaction from the table when I turned over my quad 8s.

The funniest part is that a few hands later, he almost was caught in a similar situation. I had AK, and he was again in the hand. He was still bullying and raised preflop. I just called. Flop comes AAQ. He bets, I call. Turn comes and it creates a flush draw, so I bet out and he thought about it and folded. I still took down a decent pot from the preflop and flop action. I didn’t let him know what I had, of course, but I laughed on the inside. I have been in this situation many times before, and it’s rare for the right cards to come out to take advantage of this type of bully. You really have to pick your moments (or hope you can bully him at the right time). This time I waited for strong cards, and I can’t believe I got them!

I cashed out that session $230 richer. I forgot how much I love playing this game (of course, quad 8s never hurts and getting paid for them is fabulous).

We were walking around with Maddie on the last night, trying to get her to sleep in the sling. Gabe urged me to play for an hour while he gets her to sleep, and then he played for the rest of the night (he could stay out much later than me since he didn’t need to be in the room when Maddie woke up to join us).

This night didn’t go so well. I ended up in a hand against the type of player that I hate to play against. I don’t get intimidated often, but some players I do dread getting into a hand with. I raised preflop with a decent hand but completely missed the flop. I threw out a few continuation bets and then gave up on the hand. Lost about half of my stack on that mistake. I ended up losing around $60 or $70 and wished either I hadn’t played or that I had more time to redeem myself! Gabe didn’t have much better luck when he picked up where I left off. He ended up “cashing out the easy way” by losing his buy-in. Oh well. Overall, we were still slightly profitable! And we both had a great time playing poker after not being able to do it for so long.

We knew better than to play in the tournament on the cruise, and I’m glad that we avoided it. First of all, I hate that the tournament is structured as a shoot-out. Theoretically, they have 7 tables of 7 people each. Each table can play at a different time as every table plays down to exactly one player. Then all of the champs from each table play at the final table. Considering that a heads up match is such a crapshoot, I prefer to not need to do that more than once in a tournament! It’s just not my type of tournament. Plus, we had heard from players on the other cruise that the payouts are horrible. They were again on this cruise. Only 14 people played, so I think they may not have played shootout style. They only paid the top 2, despite the fliers saying they would pay at least the top 3. At least 25% of the prize pool went directly to the house, maybe more.

The guy who got 3rd place made his fair share of rants about the tournament. He ranted quite a bit on the last night, so both Gabe and I got an earful. He was angry about the tournament payouts. He was angry about the dealers in the cash game. He was angry about Royal Caribbean in general and swore to never cruise with them again. He claimed that he inquired about the poker on the cruise before booking, and they mislead him. He had a lot of complaints.

My thoughts are that you do NOT book a Royal Caribbean cruise if your goal is to play poker! First of all, you’re not going up against that many people who are just playing poker to gamble. You’re going up against people like us who are at least semi-serious about it and know what they are doing. The house takes a staggering 10% rake. The game is played on a modified blackjack table with a maximum of 7 people. There are so many reasons that poker is not optimal for poker players on this cruise. I doubt that it varies that much on the standard cruises, though maybe you’d have better luck on a larger ship.

The tournaments are pretty crappy and they were horrible about giving information about payouts and structure. We learned this on our last cruise, and that’s one of the reasons we declined to play. They lacked information beforehand. They either know it is a horrible deal and are intentionally withholding information from the players in the hopes that they will play or they don’t realize that most of their customers are people who actually play poker. This isn’t a slot tournament where everyone is just playing to gamble. Poker is a different beast. I think that the issue is that they just don’t realize this fact, though it may also be a lack of organization as well.

I’m happy we played. My expectations were exceeded in that I didn’t even expect any hold’em tables to be running during our cruise. I knew not to expect any more than that from a cruise ship!

Bottom line: If you want to play poker, go to a real casino. If you want to get a little poker fix, sit down and lower your expectations.

Gabe and I managed to convince Aunt Kristin to babysit for a few hours, and we headed to see Up. We opted to see the non-3D version as neither of us are extremely impressed with 3D effects. I mean, it’s cool and all, but wearing the glasses for an entire movie is a bit of a pain and literally gives me a headache. Just wearing the glasses and looking for the effects makes me far too aware that I’m watching a movie. It’s more difficult to immerse myself into the fantasy this way. So while I didn’t see this movie specifically in 3D, I will claim that I prefer the plain old-fashioned movie viewing.

I knew I had to see this one. I haven’t missed a single Pixar film in the theatre. We have missed some movies that we really wanted to see, but I made this one a priority. Shockingly, we saw it during opening weekend. This was just a coincidence as it was one of the only times we could arrange to have Kristin come over and babysit.

The short before the movie was Partly Cloudy about storks delivering various types of babies created by the clouds. It was cute and quite amusing in places. It didn’t skyrocket to the top of my favorite shorts, but it was still pretty good. Cute.

I’m amazed at Pixar’s ability to put out quality films every single time. I keep waiting for the movies to disappoint, but they never do. Up did not disappoint, though my expectations about an old man who ties a bunch of balloons to his house and flies away were a little low. I wasn’t sure how I was going to like it, but I loved it.

I didn’t know very much about the movie going into it, and I was delighted to find the talking dogs. The dogs were equipped with a collar that translated their thoughts into speech. The movie has some very funny bits with the dogs!! Something tells me that the DVD will have at least one bonus short featuring the dogs.

The movie took me through an array of emotions. It has parts to make you sad, parts to make you happy, parts to make you laugh, and parts to make you angry. I enjoyed the roller coaster of emotions.

I am definitely putting this movie on my Christmas list! I thought it was great!

We had heard about Royal Caribbean’s partnership with Fisher Price and Crayola and were excited to try out the Royal Babies and Royal Tots programs on our cruise in May. Maddie fit into the Royal Babies age group which contained babies 6-18 months old. I’m not sure that the two groups vary that much in activity as we accidentally attended one of the Royal Tots (18-36 months) sessions. I think that she may have liked it even better, but I don’t know if it varied at all from that day’s Royal Babies session.

Royal Caribbean makes the program sound more organized and educational than it really is, but we expected that going into the trip. The ship provided 3 activities for these age groups each day. In the morning, they had an hour long playgroup. They had a stroller walk late morning. In the late afternoon, they did a combined art session (Crayola Beginnings) followed by a story time.

Other Babies on the Cruise
Five other babies were in Maddie’s age range and five babies were in the Royal Tots age range. I believe that we saw many more younger children on this cruise than we did on our Alaskan cruise, which is not surprising. I was excited to meet the other babies through the Royal Caribbean organized programs.

Playgroups
We attended two of the playgroups - the ones that were offered on the “at sea” days. I think that the playgroups were offered each day, but we didn’t have time on port days to attend. These sessions consisted of the Adventure Ocean counselor providing toys which seemed to fit into the same theme.

The first session’s theme was animals which had toys that I felt were still good for Maddie though more suitable for younger kids. This makes sense since the starting age range is 6 months. Four total babies attended this session, and Maddie seemed a bit overwhelmed. She mostly sat in my lap and watched the other kids. The counselor would try to get the kids involved by showing them a toy and telling the kids about that toy. She did a pretty good job with that (and apparently they are required to have degrees in childhood education or similar). Maddie was the oldest in this age range and the only child walking.

The second session that we attended was in the Royal Tots slot, and she had a bunch of Little People in a sort of travel theme with airplanes and campers and such. None of the Royal Tots showed up for the session, but one of the other Royal Babies showed up. Maddie played a lot more this time and seemed to have fun with the familiar Little People toys.

Stroller Walk
This session is clearly intended to be a workout. Gabe and I were thinking more along the lines of a social visit with other parents. Only one other family attended the one session that we tried, and the same counselor had us “race” on the track on the 10th deck. Needless to say, we didn’t mind that the other “team” won. The race was only one lap, which I think is a quarter mile, but we all opted to go a second lap. I guess it’s fair to say that this wasn’t what we expected and it was a little disappointing. We didn’t get a chance to really chat much with the other parents, which is what would have been more interesting to me.

Crayola Beginnings
We attended both sessions on the at sea days. On the first day, Maddie was the only one who attended. She seemed to have fun playing with the Crayola Beginnings stamps and the crayons. They had butterflies for the kids to decorate. We had to help her do most of it as the stamps are a bit difficult for a one year old to press onto the paper. Lots of kids attended the last session! Some of the older kids were in attendance as well. This time they had some other shape (I think a ship) for the kids to decorate. I guess they also had some sort of postcard type thing with places that the kids could color in the lines. They had a few other art supplies this time, including these paintbrushes that had paint in the “stick.” Pretty neat, but much more suitable for older kids! The babies kept trying to eat the paint or got it all over their hands. The stuff is washable, but only to a certain extent (and I’ve seen firsthand that washable markers do not come out of clothing). I was irritated that it seemed like Maddie had another marker or paintbrush in her hand every time I turned around. I even snapped at Gabe and said, “don’t let her have the marker!! Geez, how hard is it to keep it from her!” Poor Gabe. Turns out that the counselor had given it to Maddie. I felt a little embarrassed later when Gabe told me what had happened, but I also felt like the counselor should know that markers and one year olds do not mix!

Story time
After the Crayola Beginnings session, the counselor would read one “bedtime” story. I can’t remember the first book, but the second one was I love you, Stinky Face. It was cute. The only problem is that the counselor had an accent, so even I had trouble understanding her sometimes! It didn’t really matter - the kids paid attention as best as one year olds can.

Since joining the library, I have been checking out a bunch of books. I had been intending to read the Shopaholic series and had bought the first book a few months ago. Considering how quickly I anticipated that I would read this series (and that Gabe most certainly will NOT read these), I decided that they would be perfect to get from the library. The Shopaholic series had a little waiting list, so I signed up for a few more of Sophie Kinsella’s books while I waited. I’ve been in the mood to read some fluff!

I enjoyed Remember Me?, though I can’t say that I will remember much about it over time. It was exactly the sort of thing that I was looking to read - easy beach reading (well, without the beach). Much of the story is difficult to believe, but that’s not really the point is it?

POSSIBLE SPOILERS BELOW

Lexi Smart’s life is far from perfect. She’s struggling in her budding career, her boyfriend is called “Loser Dave” by all of his friends, and everyone calls her “Snaggletooth.” She wakes up in the hospital after a crazy night out with her friends and suddenly she’s a successful businesswoman, has expensive clothes and accessories, shiny new hair and teeth, a well toned body, and a handsome husband with quite a bit of success and money himself. She has no idea how any of this happened. She doesn’t remember anything that has happened in the past 3 years. And apparently, almost everything about her life has changed.

Of course, the book is fairly predictable. You have an idea that it will end happily and that everything will get sorted out, but it is fun (and mindless) to piece together what the heck happened in the 3 years that she cannot remember. I thought that the book was good - nothing special or incredibly memorable, but it was exactly what I was in the mood to read! I would recommend it to others looking for a fluffy piece of chick lit.