Batman @ the IMAX

Jeremy and I loved the first Batman movie and we've been anticipating this 2nd Batman movie since we saw the first trailers several months ago. We were out of town on opening night so we had to wait to see it. Matt and Aimee saw it first at the IMAX and said it was awesome. Then of course we had to follow suit and do the same. Today, Kari and Robb met us for a quick lunch and then the movie, The Dark Night.


Christian Bale was at his best as always. He is such an intense actor. We were both disappointed that Katie Holmes did not return as Rachel, but were happy with Maggie Gyllenhall's performance. Heath Ledger, who passed away earlier this year at a tragic young age, played the Joker. Maybe that's why his role felt as creepy as it did. In any case, he really did a great job.

The action shots were very cool - the picture on the IMAX screen actually expanded to show wider/taller shots. It felt like we were in the helicopter as it circled over the city's big buildings. Watching Batman free fall or hang glide/fly down the sides of the skyscrapers was equally intense on the 7 story screen.

Jeremy and I both get a kick out of Batman's cool toys and weapons. We also especially like when he does his death defying stunts and non-realistic action moves. We elbow each other when something is too cool to be real. (Watch for the motorcycle that flips around using only the wall - it's SOOOO cool.)

Obviously we enjoyed the show and recommend it to all you adult aged movie-goers. We give it 5 sonar cell phones out of 5.

Boggs Camping Trip 2008

The trip began Friday afternoon. We packed lots of fun things into a short amount of time and went home Tuesday feeling like we didn't stay long enough.

It seems like we do the same things every year:

-play on the beach by the pier,

-rent boogie boards and wet suits

-eat Splash Cafe,

-hang around camp,

-visit the tide pools at Montana de Oro,

-go to church,

-campfire with delicious treats - Thomas and Amy even brought fondue! It was AWESOME!,

-do the Avila beach and fruit stand,

-fishing off the pier,

-and end the trip with the famous Pismo Beach cinnamon rolls.

We did exactly all those things. Was half that list just about the food? Ummmm. I think it was.

There were a couple of extra activities we did that were out of the norm. While we were there my cousin, Timmy, competed in the San Luis Obispo cycling competition. He sure loves to ride his bike. He had a great cheering section at this race. He finished middle of the pack and ended up winning some cash prizes. Good job, Timmy. Good job.

We also got to spend some time with Kelly, Julio and baby Lucy. We love those guys! They live in San Luis and we met up with them a few times while we were there.

The 4 boys, Trevor, Logan, Jacob and Sam, named themselves the "Razor Riders". They rode those scooters all around the campground constantly. The first day Logan had a little mishap and his head ate it pretty bad on the asphalt. We probably should have gone to get stitches, but decided a butterfly bandaid and a small scar would be cooler. We were lucky to have our own EMT firefighter on hand and several first aid kits to choose from - thanks everyone for your help! Jeremy took this picture just before the accident - notice no bandaid on Logan's head in this picture. (Look at their expressions - those faces crack me up!)

Lizzie made friends with some of her distant cousins. Maddy was the girl cousin closest to her age and they played great together. Lizzie named her "New Maddy" because she has another cousin named Maddy too. She had a blast climbing trees with her other cousins Jacob and Jackson.

It was another great camping/beach trip. Good times and good visits with the family. See you next year Pismo!

Splash Cafe - Pismo, CA

Here's where we were last week. Stay tuned for more pictures and a slide show from our fun family vacation...

how cute are we?

Create your own family sticker graphic at pYzam.com

What a journey it was

Yesterday we took the kids, all the kids - including 2-year-old Jackson monster, to see this new movie "Journey to the Center of the Earth 3D". I did not realize it was 3D till we got there, but that was a pleasant surprise. Brenden Fraser was at his sci-fi goofy best as usual. And his side kick nephew, the one from icarly and Firehouse Dog, did a decent acting job as well. Trevor, Logan and Lizzie sat mesmerized the whole time. There were some cool 3D parts that made us all jump - we liked that. My favorite funny was when the 35-year-old and the 13-year-old both called dibbs on the cute girl. Can a 13-year-old call dibbs on an adult? Anyway... Jackson actually held up pretty well. He bugged the kids in front of us for awhile (that's ok because they were his cousins) and sat on our laps for the rest of it. It was a fun entertaining show - kids 4 and older will eat it up.

We give it 3 bio-luminescent birds out of 5.

So Long Ol' Blue

We said good-bye to Jeremy's long time friend and companion - his truck, Ol' Blue. She is on her way to Montana right now as I'm typing this post. Jeremy's cousin bought the truck - it will be his first car. We hope she meets all their expectations.

She ran great and did her job always taking Jeremy to point A and point B as he needed. She did run into a few mishaps - the stereo was stolen twice, once was right from our own driveway. Such a bummer...

Thank heaven's for that ultra blue color. We always knew Jeremy was on the road - you couldn't miss him!

So long, Ol' Blue. We will all miss you....?

Jackson's Summer Do

BEFORE & AFTER

Horatio Hornblower

We're watching this A&E series this week. It's based on the books written by C.S. Forester. This show is a change of pace for us. We usually do action or comedy shows. If you like the other A&E programs then you'll probably like this one too. My all-time favorite is Pride and Prejudice by A&E. And I also loved Emma. We are only on disc 2 and there is no romance yet - I'm hoping for a love story later on...


What series are you stuck on?

Jordan's 21!

My brother, Jordan, had his birthday last week. I can't believe he's so old! He bought his first car last month and his own insurance to with it. Sweet!

We went to Bobby Sal's to celebrate. We love Mexican food.

Happy Birthday Jordan!

Music of the week

Here's what we're listening to this week. It's old, we know, but still fun. I like the Sweater Song.

What are you listening to?

Camping, canoeing, campfire, crafts, cooking...

We left last Monday for Family Camp up at Shaver Lake. We were there for 5 days and 5 nights. It was a week of fun - that's for sure. Jeremy and I both decided we could've stayed a few more days.

We've done this same camping excursion for the past 7 or 8 years in a row now and we LOVE IT! The kids always have a blast doing everything they're not allowed to do at home (staying up late, eating junk food from dawn till dusk, playing in the mud, throwing their food on the ground, playing with fire, and playing playing playing all day long). And when I say "kids" I do not use that term loosely. This was no measly family camp. No, no, no... there were 30 kids for 3 days straight and 36 all together including those that came and went. And that's just the kids - there were adults there too!

We were alone most of the week. We camp in a semi-private campground and were lucky that there was only 1 other family there besides our group for about 4 of the days. We could be as loud as we wanted - early or late.

We always say that we do these camping adventures for the kids, but I don't know anymore. I know all of us adults really enjoyed most of our time there.

Here are our top 10 Family Camp favorite moments:

10. Trevor and Logan slept in their own tent. Ahhhhhh. They are finally old enough to branch out on "their own" and sleep away from mom and dad. It was a small distance they slept from us, but a huge leap for our family dynamics.

9. Little blue screens in every tent at bed time. We are pretty lucky in this campground to have electricity at our fingertips. So every night most families would put the kids to bed for a little wind down time and turn on a movie for them. It was pretty comical to be in the great outdoors and see little TVs set up in every tent after dark.

8. Lizzie's crush. We made some new friends this week - a family that the Minnicks know from their Turlock days. About 2 minutes after they arrived Lizzie came over to me and said, "Mommy who's my new friend?" There were 4 kids mind you and she zeroed in on one - instantly. She and "New Trevor" were glued at the hip for the rest of the stay.

7. Putting the kids to bed and then hanging out with just adults every night. This was soooo enjoyable! It was like a mini date night where we could feel sane again playing games and talking about things other than kids for awhile.

6. The food. Oh yeah. We ate like camping royalty. Mexican food, ableskivers, pulled pork sandwiches, burgers and dogs, homemade chili, campfire treats every night, lunch served on the beach, oh baby it was great. Matt and Aimee even bought pizza one night - the kids were in hog heaven!

5. Watching Trevor ROCK OUT during kareoke night. We've NEVER seen him get out of his shell like that. He's usually mister quiet/reserved boy, but that night something happened. He was dancing like crazy and even sang a duet in the microphone with Jacob - and we didn't even have to twist his arm!

4. Campfire stories. Grandpa Doug rocked our campground with his traditional telling of the scary stories. He had all the kids captivated for about an hour and then sent them to bed. About 7 of them woke up that night in a nightmare terror.

3. The frog in the shower. Buffy went in to take a shower one night after dark and as she went in she reached around to turn on the light a slimy something slithered across her bare foot. She let out a blood curdling scream and came running out. A few minutes later we found a slimy green frog climbing the wall. Ew, ew, ew!

2. YMCA. All I have to say is Jared, Matt, Jeremy and Robb dressed up (sort of) like the Village People and singing all the wrong words. We haven't laughed that hard in a long time.

1. Matt got pulled over by the Shaver Lake Sherrif for having too many bodies on the boat with life jackets that were either too big or too small for most of the passengers. They got off without a ticket, but the officer was "nice enough" to hand out whistles to all 30 kids that were there that day. All the adults agreed we'd rather have had the ticket.
Check out the slide show Matt put together below...

Packing sure is hard!

Jackson passed out on the living room floor as we were packing to leave town. Logan thought it'd be funny to put a hat on him and some Pokemon cards in his hand. You can even see some water drops where Jeremy dripped bags of melting ice (for the ice chests) right over his sleeping body and he didn't even wake up! Sleep on babe - you'll need it for the week you're about to experience!