Go West Young Man

Well...tomorrow we head off on our "grand" 2 week adventure. For those of you who don't know we're going to drive to Wyoming and camp at Grand Teton National Park with several members of Jenny's mother's family. We'll stay there for a week seeing the Tetons and Yellowstone. A lot of us did this same vacation together back in 1997. 14 years later we're all doing it again, so that explains the picture above. Anyway, then the second week we'll drive to South Dakota and meet my parents in the Rapid City area. There we'll see Custer State Park, Mt. Rushmore, Wind Cave, and the Badlands. All in all it will be a great adventure. The kids are psyched and so are we. Talk to you when we get back!

The Raingutter Regatta

Well...tonight was Ben's "Raingutter Regatta," and all I can say is WOW! Ben came in first place with the fastest boat in the pack. He won every race he competed in. I guess the "catamaran" design really worked. For lots of pictures of Ben's big night check out our scout blog.

"The Expedition"

Last year Ben participated in his first "Raingutter Regatta" for Cub Scouts. Similar to the Pinewood Derby, the regatta is where Cub Scouts build a boat and race it in a raingutter filled with water. This year Ben wanted to build a "catamaran," so he drew up his design and we worked on it together. He named it "The Expedition" and drew a compass on the front and placed "travel related" stickers all over it. Supposedly the "catamaran" design is faster and more stable than the traditional "sailboat" design, (which is what we built last year.) Anyway, he's proud of his new boat.

Nature Camp

The kids are enjoying an exciting week at Nature Camp this week out at the Nature Center. Our kids are doing the camp with our friends the Manchesters. Ben is doing an "Insect Hunters" camp with his friend Nicholas, and Megan is doing her first ever nature camp ("Tiny Trailblazers") with Nicholas' younger brother William. Ben and Megan are having a blast, especially Megan. This is her first year and she's very excited to be learning about critters, bugs, frogs, turtles, and making all sorts of crafts. It's been a fun week so far.

At The Movies

BREAKING BAD: SEASONS 1 & 2 - This is an AMC series I first got into during season 1. Then I decided to start it over cause I thought it would be something Jenny would find interesting as well. This show is about Walter White, a chemistry teacher in Albuquerque, N.M. Living an unsatisfying life Walter soon finds out he has cancer. As one who struggles to make ends meet Walter quickly finds a way to pay for his cancer treatments - making crystal meth. This is a show about a good man doing bad things. As the show has developed it's been interesting to watch Walter struggle to live 2 lives - the high school chemistry teacher, and the criminal wrapped up in the drug world. This is a great show with great acting and great writing. Highly recommended.

X-MEN: FIRST CLASS - Ah...the "reboot." That's the new thing in movies these days. When a franchise isn't living up to its potential anymore filmmakers want to press the "reset" button and start over, and you're supposed to forget everything that has happened. Thus is the case with the X-MEN franchise. In FIRST CLASS, we get to see the origin of Professor X, Magneto, and other X-Men. While the movie is okay at best, there are some interesting moments here. I liked how the entire story was set in the 60's during the Cuban Missile Crisis. There was a little "historical fiction" that I liked (basically it was the X-Men who saved us from Russia, not Kennedy.) But all in all this was an average, run-of-the-mill summer movie. Mildly entertaining, and then easily forgettable.

THE SHIELD: SEASON 5 - Man...I love this show. Every season it gets better and better. I've said it before and I'll say it again - rent season 1 and start following this show. It's so good.

SKYLINE - This was one of those "why did I rent this?" movies. Really...what was I thinking? This is one of those "alien-invasion" movies. There's nothing here that you haven't seen before. The trailer was a lot more interesting than the actual film, so just watch that on You Tube if you're interested.

THE HANGOVER: PART 2 - I really enjoyed the first HANGOVER movie. It had it's raunchy side, but it also had some witty writing, and I remembered being surprised by how much I laughed. Now the sequel has arrived and one has to ask himself "are they really going to follow the same formula?" The answer is yes. For some reason our trio wake up one morning and find out they just spent an evening they can't remember, so they spend the rest of the movie putting the pieces back together. While the first movie was somewhat plausible it just doesn't work here in the second one - simply because you have a hard time believing these characters would allow the same thing to happen again. This is a franchise that is handcuffed by it's own formula. Skip the sequel here and stick with the first one.

BOBBY FISCHER AGAINST THE WORLD - This is a documentary made for HBO that I found extremely entertaining. For those of you who don't know Bobby Fischer was a chess genius in the 50's and 60's and throughout the Cold War. He was the best American chess player who regularly beat the best in the world, including the Soviet Union. He was a rock star in the chess world, and even gained a following in mainstream society. But the man led a twisted and bizarre life. He was once falsely suspected by the U.S. of being a Soviet spy (which later contributed to his resentment of the U.S.) He was constantly paranoid, eccentric, and obsessed. He was literally a person too smart for his own good. From his troubled childhood, to his domination of the Soviets, to his life as a fugitive in hiding this is a classic story of a man walking the line between genius and madness. Whether you're a fan of chess or not this is a great film.

TOO BIG TO FAIL - This was a film made for HBO. It's the fictional account of the Wall Street meltdown of 2008. This is an interesting movie that is very dry and slow. There's a quality cast here with some great performances (James Woods as the head of Lehman Brothers, William Hurt as Henry Paulson, Ed Asner as Warren Buffet, and Paul Giamatti as Ben Bernanke.) While I'm not sure I would recommend you watching a slow moving movie on the 2008 Wall Street Crisis (I'm sure we all want to forget it) this is still a quality film. Pretty good.

Whiting Forest

The other day the kids and I went to a local stretch of woods called Whiting Forest. For the past few weeks we've been getting excited about our big trip out west, so we've been hitting a lot of the local hiking trails and bike trails. The kids love hiking in these woods because of the "forts." There's about 6 of them throughout the woods, and each one has its own personality. Megan did great walking with her leg by the way. She's been out of her cast for a little over a week now and she's been doing great. She should be all ready to go in Wyoming.

2 Wheel Fun

We've been experiencing some fantastic summer weather of late. For the past week or so we've had mid-80's, sunny skies, and low humidity. So we took advantage of the weather and took a great bike ride tonight after dinner out at our nature center. The beautiful scenery and great sunset made for a very nice evening.

4th Of July

For the second straight year we celebrated the 4th of July at our nature center. Every year the center hosts a "members only" event where you can sit outside and watch the fireworks in the distance over the fields. There are crafts, stories, and games for the kids, and plenty of smore's for everyone. Ben and Megan enjoy watching the fireworks of course, but they also love running around trying to grab all the fireflies. We used to go downtown and watch the fireworks and fight the crowds like everyone else. But ever since we started going out to the nature center it's been so much better...and more relaxing. It's our new 4th of July tradition.