Joshua Turns 10

Joshua turned 10 yesterday. He got what he wanted for his birthday: a DSLite and Pokemon Diamond. His party is tonight. He invited three friends over for burgers, an evening at PrimeTime and a movie. It will be fun.

My Latest ARN Video - Counting Bird

Here is my latest video.

http://reporternews.com/videos/detail/counting-abilenes-birds/

The Final Hurrah!

Before heading back to school for the Winter/Spring semester, we told the boys they could invite a friend over. By the time we got started, it involved eight boys, seven of which stayed the night in the house. Let's just say, it was intense.

In an attempt to run the energy out of them so they might actually sleep a little, I took them up to ACU to run around the track and play at Jacob's Dream. What they discovered was that the light on the ACU football practice field were on. At some point in their 2.5 hour football game, I stopped them long enough to get this picture.

Well, did my evil plan work? ARE YOU KIDDING!?!?! At 1:00 I had to get pretty loud so I could get their attention and at least have them get out their sleeping bags and lay down and try to be quite. From all reports, the last of them fell sleep around 2:30 in the morning.

Let's just say, it will be a long time before we do that again.

Movie with Jason

Twice a year, once in the summer and once at Christmas, we take the boys to bonafide movie at the theater. This year, we took all the boys to see "Bedtime Stories" with Adam Sandler. The good side of this movie is that for once it wasn't full of the usual Adam Sandler crudeness and sexual overtones. It was actually a good, clean movie that kids can watch. But, Jason is getting a little older and wanting to see more mature movies so he and I went to see Valkyrie, as evidence by the picture. I think Jason enjoyed being out with his dad, or maybe it was being out without his brothers. Either way, I had to capture the moment on my iPhone.



As for Valkyrie, it was a good movie but not a great movie. What made it less than great? In my opinion, the actors like Tom Cruise and others, made no attempt at sounding or acting German. I lived in Germany and Italy for ten years of my life. I know how they sound and interact. These actors didn't even make the attempt. I was also surprised to hear the "F" word in the movie ... quite prominently, I might add. In my opinion, a PG-13 movie should not have such language. Jason is only 11 but this is not even appropriate language for a 13-year old. I guess it goes to show that the rating folks in Hollywood really don't care what our children see and hear as long as they sell another ticket. The movie should have been an R rating. Shame on you, Hollywood.

After Christmas Skateboarding

We were blessed this Christmas season. Jonathan received a much-wanted skateboard for Christmas and spent the first four days skating every chance he got. Abilene has a nice skate park where other skateboarders ride their boards and use words like "Raw" and "Rad." Jon did really well and even went down a small hill or two on his skateboard.