March of Dimes

On Saturday we participated in the Dallas March of Dimes March for Babies walk. The walk was a five mile loop by White Rock Lake. My company was one of the sponsors for the walk so I signed up to participate. We thought it would be fun and a good warm up for our Europe trip next week since we will be doing a lot of walking while we are there.

We showed up at the park and ride facility to be bussed into the walk and it was a bit of a fiasco. There were tons of people all waiting for the shuttle buses. When we finally arrived at the walk there were thousands of people. I wanted to wait and go walking with the people from my company but we were standing at the starting line and as I looked back I couldn’t see the end of the line. So we went ahead and knew we would have fun on our own. It was inspiring to us how many people were willing to give up a Saturday morning to raise awareness and money for research to help premature babies.

As we started walking we quickly noticed that there were too many people for the roads and it was crazy crowded. Addie just wanted to get out and walk around, but would have been trampled, so she was fussy. There were a few times when we wanted to just turn around and head back home but we stayed with it. We took breaks, let Addie run around, gave her snacks, and walked really fast so we could speed up the process. At the end we felt good for staying to the task and getting it all done. Here are some photos from our day.

Ready to Walk

Starting to Meltdown

Addie and Daddy

Finally out of the stroller

Look how big my shirt is

We went to see fireworks on the 3rd at Andy Brown park, and kept Adelyn up way past her bedtime so she could see them too. She was amazed by them! I thought she would be scared by the booming, but she didn’t even flinch. We had a BBQ on the 4th of July, and made such yummy food! Bleu cheese burgers (courtesy of chef Zac), real Italian pasta salad from TJ, and dessert burgers and fries (courtesy of Bakerella’s recipe). We also had to take Adelyn swimming to try out her new sunglasses. We thought we should get some for our Hawaii trip. They are so cute!

Lastly, Adelyn started crawling this weekend! Originally she would only crawl for food, but now she will crawl for toys, for the movies in the entertainment stand, or for mommy, etc. It is so fun to see her crawl across the room to get something, and sit up and look at me and smile so big. She is so proud of herself! She flails her arms and giggles. It’s so funny.

It is that time of year again when everyone is trying to send out a Christmas card as a year in review. It is a difficult job to find a good photo of the whole family. This year, Andrea took on the job of making my families Christmas card. She touched up all the photos, and made us all look better. Take a look and let us know what you think about Andrea’s first Photoshop Christmas Card.

Christmas treats (thanks for the recipe email, Lisa:)

Library cards (books for free always make me happy)

Warm Clothes (it has been snowing on and off for the last week)

Thoughtful people who inspire me to be thoughtful myself

Christmas Music (I am hooked, I love it)

Displays of the Nativity scene to remind me that it’s Jesus’ birthday

Finding the perfect present idea, and anticipating the look on their face when they open it

First we went to August Rush. This is a movie about a young man who is raised by the state of New York. He is constantly teased by the other boys in the orphanage because he says he can hear his parents in the world around him. He eventually runs away and ends up in New York City. The rest of the movie focuses on his amazing musical talent and how that brings him back to his parents. Some may argue, and rightly so, that the movie is predictable, and too sweet, but I thought the movie was wonderful. I enjoy going to movies that make you feel good. They invite you to lose yourself in the film and take you on a two hour journey. In my opinion this was exactly what August Rush did. The movie is entertaining and the music is great. This is one of the best movies of the year.

The other movie that we saw this weekend was Dan in Real Life. This was another good film about a widowed father and his struggles to raise his 3 daughters and take care of his own life. After returning to his boyhood home with all of his siblings and their children, Dan finds himself in a series of peculiar situations. The movie is fun and entertaining. One thing that amazed me is Steve Carrell is totally believable in his character and is totally different from his character Michael in The Office. Also all of the casting for the movie was done well. I can see myself in a few of Dan’s situations later in life and that scares me a little, but oh well we will just have to see. The moral of the story is nice and is really applicable to real life.

It was a great weekend and they were both excellent movies. Although the rest of the year has had some major box office disappointments, these were the exceptions to the norm. Go out and see both of these movies. Then leave a comment with your own reviews!