My very first movie review

From my previous post, I mentioned that the Taylor women ditched the men and kids left the kids with the dads and had some female bonding time at the movies.  We had it narrowed down to New Moon (the Twilight vampire series sequel) and This Is It (a Michael Jackson "documentary"). We settled on the latter, and I was pleasantly surprised by this film.  Not having seen any advertising for the film (no newspaper subscriptions and our tv, when it is on, is usually on some kid's channel), I really didn't know what to expect from it.  I've had some Facebook friends say it was an AMAZING film, but not being a big Michael Jackson fan, I didn't have a huge desire to see it (but neither was I going to avoid seeing it, if the opportunity arose).  I was expecting it would just be an over-edited film showcasing MJ as the superstar (kind of like a long music video).  What I found was that it showed the professional side of him... the innovative entertainer who loved performing ... working through rehearsals with his dancers, musician and crew to create a show that the fans want to see.  And he did so with respect, humility and an attention to detail that the general public would not normally see.  After this film, I can honestly say that I have a deeper respect for the man and a sense of sadness for all the staff and crew that would never get to perform on stage with him after so much preparation.

Thanksgiving in Utah

A week ago we were in St George, Utah for a Thanksgiving reunion with the Taylor tribe.  We all had rooms in a hotel near Grandma & Grandpa Taylors home (Omi & Pocky) and spent our days at their home.  With a total of 24 in the house (grandparents, 4 sons, their wives and children), there just wasn't room for everyone there... and I'm sure the grandparents needed the quiet at night after all the bustle of the days.

Somehow I became the unofficial photographer of the trip, and ended up taking over 200 photos and a couple of handfuls of video clips.  Some were of the events around the house and some were random sunset/landscape shots from our travels down at back.

It was a total of 18.5 hours on the road each way for us (not including time for refueling, food and restroom breaks), and I was initially a little worried about road-tripping with a toddler.  Rather than make the full drive in one day, we decided to break it up over two days, since we needed to stop by the kids' home in Lehi to pick them up on the way. We wanted to leave the house around 9 in the morning on Tuesday, but didn't really get out the door until 10:30.  And then I got really nervous when, 90 minutes into the drive (we were in the Snoqualmie pass), Juliana let out with her first call of "POTTY!"  I was worried it would be a v-e-r-y long drive with frequent breaks, but luckily we only needed to make two more breaks between there and Twin Falls, Idaho, where we stopped for the night.

The sunset over northeast Oregon

The next day, Juliana was a little more reluctant to sit in the car and kept calling out for potty breaks a little more frequently (90 min to 2 hours versus the 3+ hour intervals from the day before) until we got to the Lehi area.  We had a good stretch of the legs there, as we made time to sit down for lunch with the boys and their mom.  (Due to our car only seating 5, we didn't have room for all of the older kids in the car, so arranged for Jessica to ride the Greyhound bus from Provo to St George that morning)

The remainder of the trip from Provo to St George was rather smooth, since we had the boys to entertain Juliana (besides the portable DVD player, which did a rather commendable job of entertaining her the day before).  The movie of choice this trip was Finding Nemo... in case you were wondering.  Oh! and some Backyardigans episodes we received from Netflix the day before we left.

We arrived in St George around 7pm, checked in the hotel and made a brief visit to the grandparents' home to say hello to everyone.

Mitch was swarmed by all the cousins and proclaimed "favorite cousin" by three of the little ones.

Thanksgiving morning, we slept in a little (7:30 am... that's sleeping in for Juliana), had a small breakfast and made our way over to the house.  All the grandkids (ranging from 22 months to 18 years) got along pretty well--- some of them meeting for the first time, since our last family get-together was at Derek's and my wedding five years ago.

Initially a little reserved, Juliana loved playing with all her cousins... it didn't matter how old they were.

Emmaline & Juliana

Tyson and Derek spent some time throwing the football with the kids during the day:

Dinner was served around 2pm.  Everyone chipped in to help prepare some food, although Shae (Perry's wife) spearheaded the coordination and prepared the turkey and dinner rolls (which the younger girls also helped with).

Grandma played some "Mensch Aergere Dich Nicht" with the grandkids at night (it's similar to Sorry!):

The next day we decided to take advantage of the whole group being together and take some family pictures.  Scott thought it would be a neat idea to film the whole proceedings, so I set up our video camera to catch the action.  We used a little tabletop tripod and set it on the retaining wall of the vegetable garden.  What we got was about 70% filming of the group, 10% filming of Nikki sniffing at and standing in front of the camera and 20% filming of someone's backside... usually Shae's.  Here's what happened when we hooked the camera up to the TV afterwards to preview it:

"You're going to edit this out... right?  RIGHT???"

I managed to get a candid shot of Jessica smiling as she models a new scarf and hat made for her by grandma:

That afternoon, the Taylor women (Grandma, the four daughters-in-law and Jessica) had some bonding time without the men or children.  We left them all at the house and caught an afternoon showing of Michael Jackson's "This Is It".  (See my next post for my opinion of the film, if you're interested.)

After the movie, we all went to Denny's for dinner and then met back at the house before going out separate ways.  While at the house, Mike and Michelle King stopped by.  Mike was the man responsible for getting the Taylor boys dancing in high school, and had recently moved to St George with his family.  There was quite a bit of catching up, since it has been so many years since they've seen each other.

The next morning we all made our ways home. (Some started out the night before)  Derek and Jonah dropped Jessica off at the bus station and came back to pick up the rest of us at the hotel.  On the way back to Lehi, we stopped briefly in Provo and said hello to Derek's (favorite) cousin Dara.  She's about 7 months younger than Derek, and they used to see each other a lot over the summers growing up.  I've talked with Dara a bit over Facebook for the past year, but it was so nice to finally meet in person.  She is so personable and has a grace about herself that makes her so easy to talk to.  And yet she has a goofy, fun-loving side that she doesn't hesitate to let out ---  as evidenced when I asked her and Derek to recreate a picture taken when they were little:

After our short visit, we drove a short distance north and dropped the boys off at their mother's and continued our drive home.  We made it as far as Nampa, Idaho before settling in for the night, leaving about 8 hours worth of driving before we would be home. 

The last day of driving was the hardest.  Juliana had reached her limit and was continually asking for potty breaks (I think she realized it was more effective than just asking to be let out of her chair) and we were stopping what felt like every 20 minutes. Luckily, after lunch, Juliana fell asleep (she didn't nap at all on the drive down) and Derek got in a couple of good hours of uninterrupted driving.  Once we got over the pass, we stopped by Sahm-Yi's home, had some dinner and picked up the cats (she was kind enough to watch them for us).   Even with all the stops, we managed to get home around 6:45 in the evening).

Whew!  We're so glad to be home again (or at least not in a car for hours on end).


I've only posted a few of the photos here, but if you want to see more, you can visit my Facebook photo album using this link: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2042037&id=1418475777&l=835293f6b6

It shouldn't ask you to register or anything like that, so if you have your own reasons for not joining Facebook or MySpace, I'm not forcing you to join.  My sister (an avid avoider of the social networking sites) tested the link and says it works fine.

Halloween 2009

So this year was a bit more interactive with Juliana, since she had a better idea of what was going on... and the fact that she's developing quite the sweet tooth.

Since this is probably the last year that I'll get to pick her costume, I decided to go all out nerd-style. That's right... I gave in to the geek side. Given her propensity for saying "Bobba-doo" (Bibbity-bobbity-boo in toddler speak) and waving anything and everything like a wand, I'm sure there will be many opportunities for her to dress up as a princess or a magical faerie.

What I chose appalled Juliana's Sahm-Yi, since I decided to dress her up as a Star Fleet officer. Yes, as in Star Trek. And after a week of sewing little bits here and there each day, I finished a dress that would fit her for all of 15 minutes. Good thing Halloween was only two days away at that point. I should have planned to make it a little oversized if I wanted to get more life out of it, but the material was rather lightweight for any real use in the cold, wet autumns of the northwest. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

So, anyhow, I based the design off of Uhura's uniform from this year's reboot of the original series. It's a redesign of the original series' miniskirt uniform, but still exhibiting some of that 1960's style. For those of you who haven't seen the new movie yet, and don't know what I'm talking about, you can do a web search for any/all of the following keywords: 2009 Star Trek Uhura dress Zoe Saldana. There's a lot of costume shop knock-offs, but I thought they didn't look enough like the movie costume, so I decided to make my own pattern.

The biggest thing was that all the ship uniforms on the movie were made with a custom printed spandex (where there were tons of tiny Enterprise emblems all over the material). Yep... no way was I getting a hold of that. And from looking at the ones posted on the web that were made from Spandex, I thought they looked a little too shiny/reflective. On top of that, I found a nice red fabric that had a fine tone on tone lattice texture... and that worked well enough for me. (It's not like she'll fit in this for years and years)

Here's how it turned out.

This was taken at Derek's office Halloween party. It was a rather small affair, especially compared to last year's festivities.. and particularly so when compared to the other office shindig we took her to that day.

Hey look! Alien life forms!

And, yes, I forgot to iron her dress. I couldn't do it while she was running around during the day, and kept forgetting in the evenings after she went to bed. Hey, I'm just being honest with you. I could have photoshopped it out, and you would have never known, but I'm trying to let go of some of my perfectionist tendencies. (Ba HA HA HA HA!..... whew! that was a good one!)

I just love these boots on her.

Rather than fake the insignia on the uniform, I shaped one out of some layered balsa wood (alternating grain directions for strength), spray painted it silver, painted the detail on with ink and coated the whole thing with a clear glaze. And then I mounted it on a magnet, so that it couldn't poke my child or tear the dress. I used another magnet on the inside of her dress to hold it in place. It's now a fridge magnet.

After the visit to Daddy's office, Pau-Pau and I took Juliana to visit Sahm-Yi's work place. It's just a small office complex in Redmond. Apparently last year they had five thousand visitors (not sure if they were only counting children, or including the adult visitors, too) and were expecting over nine thousand this year. That's right.... thousands.

Here's a clue as to where we went:

Wait.. who has the employee badge and who is trick-or-treating?

We lucked out in that we got there at 3pm on the nose, so had no line to wait in and found a parking spot near the front of the building.

The first thing we saw when we got there was a short performance of some of the employees, dancing in unison with the Thriller video playing on the television and screens behind them:

Hey! Is that Gene Simmons in the background? I don't remember him being in the Thriller video...

They performed this at the top of every hour, I think. We only stayed until 4:30, so only knew of one other performance while we were there.

After this, we went and toured the hallways, which they decorated with various themes. They even had an internal competition for best room (I'll tell you which one won later) There was one done up in tribute to the Rocky Horror Picture Show. Another was Studio 54 (complete with disco ball and a television screen playing the dancing scenes from Saturday Night Fever). We stuck to the family-friendly halls, since Juliana was with us, but there were some halls marked "Mature" for more frightening themes/people jumping out at you/etc. One of those halls was one with a Pirates of the Caribbean/ghost theme.

One of the halls was modeled after the movie A Night at the Museum:

There were even some people dressed up as Teddy Roosevelt, cavemen and more roaming the hall.

The cowboys and indian area:

A closer look at one of the displays:

Owen Wilson.. are you in there? *tap tap*

The cavemen area

I wonder if they had to sit there for the full time.

*Insert your own mummy/mommy related comment here*

This was (I thought) a rather well-done section. It was a foam mock-up of an Easter Island Moai with a booming speaker set up to talk with the kids. His name was Dum-Dum... and he liked to be fed (what else) Dum-Dum suckers (seen scattered on the floor around him).

If you tossed some in his mouth, he would "chew" them up and then...

blow up "bubbles" and release them to fly/deflate around the area.

Next up was the Under the Sea hallway.

Don't be scared, Sahm-Yi... we're not really going underwater!

Juliana insisted on holding both Pau-Pau's and Sahm-Yi's hands, which left me juggling the camera, her trick-or-treating container (a plastic pumpkin) and her day bag. No one ever tells you this, but once you have kids, from the time they are born until they get to intermediate grade levels, you are their pack animal. Because even after they are out of diapers, you still need to carry around snacks, water, an emergency change of clothes and some toys.

But I digress... where were we? Oh yes, Under the Sea...

One of the more innovative things we came across was Halo's Master Chief spear fishing. I bet you didn't know he did this in his spare time.

And there was pirate booty to be had:

Next up was one of two hallways dedicated to Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. We're talking the original Willy Wonka with Gene Wilder, not the Tim Burton remake. This first part was based around the beginning of the story where they announce that Willy Wonka is opening up his factory to a few select people lucky enough to obtain a Golden Ticket.

This room we were about to enter won the Best Room award for the festivities..

Every kid I know would've loved to hang out in this room.

Here's a closer look at the bar area to explain why:

Sugar overload!

Hey, buddy! Where's MY golden ticket???

The other side of the room:

Once you left the Candy Shoppe, you find yourself on the "street" with offices made up to look like other storefronts.

I wonder what they are trying to say here:

Before we got to the next Willy Wonka area, we walked past the entry area for the Pirates hallway (remember, it was rated Mature, so we didn't bring Juliana through, and I didn't have time to go through it solo):

Hey! What are you Oompa-Loompas doing outside the Chocolate Factory?
Get back to work!

Speaking of the Chocolate Factory, that was our next stop:

There were some people dressed up as various characters from the story... the VP was Willy Wonka and one lady was a plumped up, blue Violet Beauregarde. I would've taken her picture, but we were rushed past and she was sitting in a rather dimly lit area.

Juliana enjoyed this feature, never having experienced Scratch-n-Sniff before:

The shrinking room:

Look! We're on TV!

On to the Great Glass Elevator:

I don't remember a Free Candy dispenser being in the elevator in the story...

This was the view below when we finished touring all the family-friendly halls:

The line went out the door and a good 20 yards further (if not more) around the time we left. And it only got longer... The event was scheduled to run from 3pm to 7:30 pm, but ran to almost midnight. There were so many people still in line just waiting to get in when 7pm rolled around and they didn't want to send people away.

What a day!

Animal sounds, vocabulary lessons & the need for enunciation

Today we're going to be doing something a little different. Instead of plastering photos with tons of descriptions, we'll be having fun with video clips and you'll get to see/hear some things for yourself.

So now onto the nitty-gritty stuff.


When then boys were here this summer, they had a lot of fun working with Juliana on her animal sounds:

Juliana and her animal noises from Life & Other Plans on Vimeo.

And while they were here, they all watched Kung Fu Panda (more than a few times). Now, understand, that Juliana has seen real pandas, but that was down in California back in January. We've never taught her panda noises, so this is what she has determined:

Panda Says from Life & Other Plans on Vimeo.

Complete with kick action (which I unsuccessfully caught on film). Cracks me up. I told this to her Kou-Fu and his response was "Great. She's imitating Jack Black"

A few weeks ago, I was taking Juliana out to her gym class (where she runs, does some tumbling and just plays on/around gymnastics equipment) when I noticed the fog in the valley below us. The temperatures have been dropping rapidly the couple of weeks, that there is frost on the grass in the mornings when we wake up. "Juliana, look at the fog down there!" She looked around and said "Fog" while I expounded on the density and composition of fog. (Though she is a smart one, I'm not sure she quite understood me. She's only two after all.)

Now why the shift in topics from noises to fog? You'll see. (and some of you will figure it out much faster than I did... with or without the knowledge of the previous paragraphs.)

Two weeks ago, Juliana and I were on our way out again... I don't remember if it was to the gym again, or a doctor's appointment, but that's neither here nor there. As we were coming down the hill again, I'm listening to the radio for traffic and weather reports when Juliana pipes up:

Juliana: Fog!

Me/Mommy: Hmm?.. Oh, yes! Fog. There IS fog down there.

*I see Juliana smiling and nodding in the rear view mirror*
J: Fog *smile*

M: yes, fo--

J: Reebee reebee

M: --g... what???

J: Fog. Reebee reebee

M: Honey... fog doesn't make a sound. It's like a cloud that is down on the ground instead of up in the sky.

J: Fog. Cwowd.

*pause*

J: Reebee reebee

M: ?!? .... (*then something clicks in my head*) OHHH!!!! I think you're confusing fog with FRog! A frog is a little green animal and a fog is like a cloud. (yes, i know it's an amphibian, but trying to concentrate to merge onto I-5 and explain something to a toddler without visual aids, I had to try to use concepts she'd grasp faster). Frog... Ribbit ribbit. Fog... cloud

J: Fog (fwog?) cwowd..... reebee reebee

By this time, the only that kept me from slamming my forehead into my hands was the fact that I was on a major thoroughfare and needed to keep both hands on the wheel and my eyes on the road.

We're still working on the differences, and I think she's understanding. We'll know for sure the next time we go out in the early morning when the fog layer has moved in.

And just so you can comprehend how difficult it is to understand a toddler who doesn't always enunciate clearly. (We filmed this last week. Although i will admit she has gotten better with her T's this last week):

Frog Says from Life & Other Plans on Vimeo.

(Please pretend that little poke at her nose didn't happen. Thank you)

Say "Click!"

So here are some photos from the last month and a half (!)…

The week before Pau-Pau arrived (just after the boys left), Juliana and I made a trek to Kirkland and meet up with Uncle Wes and Sahm-Yi for lunch and hang out on the waterfront.

It was a bright sunny day and not too hot.

If Pau-Pau were already in town when this picture was taken, one of her first thoughts would be “Someone needs a haircut.” Good thing we had a hair appointment scheduled a few days later!

But in the meantime, we enjoyed some time in the sun:

On another day, Juliana had a heart-to-heart conversation with her Sahm-Yi.

I think they were whispering secrets about life, the universe and everything…. or maybe it was about shoes … or absolutely nothing at all.

After Pau-Pau arrived in town, three of her four college buddies arrived over the next three days. Rather than doing the standard touristy things around Seattle, we took them to Leavenworth, a German-themed town just on the other side of the mountains.

I was the designated driver, so ordered a lemonade to drink, which Juliana immediately commandeered:

We took a short walk along the riverfront path in Leavenworth:

That weekend, we went to the Salish Lodge for dinner (sorry- I didn’t take any group photos that night, although many others did).

Then Jessica’s birthday rolled around and we sent her new cell phone. Her previous one has been dead/dying for the month and a half prior. First, the receiver went out --- she could answer phone calls and talk, but could not hear anything that the other party was saying. Then it would only text for a bit before it died completely. This is the phone we got her:

The Samsung Rugby. It’s built to military spec, so can handle dust, shock, rain, etc… basically anything and everything a typical teenager can and will throw at it. Within the first week of receiving it, Jessica had dropped it twice and gotten it splashed with water and it continued to work with no issues (much to the amazement and awe of Jessica and her friends). On top of that, it has one of the lowest emissions of any cell phone. Given that Jessica will sometimes fall asleep with the phone by her head or chest and carries it on her body more than 90% of the time, we are comforted by the fact that we’ve done our part to stave off cell-phone-induced cancer by another year or so. :P

For Juliana’s 2nd birthday, Pau-Pau purchased a cake and they did the scripting while we waited. I was busy keeping Juliana entertained and didn’t realize the writing wasn’t checked before we left. After we got home, I had to fix it.

Can you spot the difference?

Blowing out the candles… sort of. Juliana, it would work better if you aim for the candles and not Daddy with the camera.

Om nom nom nom!

Psst! Hey, Ga-ga (Jessica)! I want to show you something!

My very first attempt at putting on makeup! Mom sure was surprised!

Ok, bye bye!