Movie Tuesday

Today is Tuesday and that means it's Movie Tuesday!! 

We will start off with dinner at:

Brann's Sizzling Steaks & Sports Grill - there are so many yummy things I don't know how I'm going to pick just one....

The movie of the night is:

Hugo 3D  -  I know NOTHING about this movie.  I haven't watched the trailer or read any reviews.  I'm going in blind.  Sometimes that's not a bad thing to do.  No expectations.

Getting back into the swing of things after a vacation is hard, but Movie Tuesday is always fun.  Looking forward to good food, good friends and a good movie.

Thumbs Up Monday

I'm gonna let Colton have this Thumbs Up Monday all to himself:

He is giving one thumb up to the Detroit Lions for pulling off a victory to the Minnesota Vikings this week! 

And the other is because his sister will be at 5th Grade Camp for the next 3 days - which means he gets to call all the shots around the house!

How The Glitz Stole Christmas Reveal

I was very excited to participate in Raven's (A Momma's Desires and Pacifiers) and Lindsey's (The Bargain Blonde) blogger swap - How the Glitz Stole Christmas. Being a GurleeGirrl,  the idea of swapping "glitzy" and "glamy" items with another blogger was a no-brainer.  I of course signed up and waited to be paired with another blogger.

Lindsey sent out the list, and I was matched up with Sarah Elizabeth of Belle in the City.  I found myself pouring through Sarah's blog trying to get a feel for what she would like so I could start my shopping right away.  Sarah is definitely my kind of girl.  She loves pink just as much as I do! 

My package arrived while I was away on vacation, so I was super excited to see my goodies upon my return.    Here is what I had waiting for me:

I want to thank Sarah for all of my gifts!  My 10-year old daughter was impressed too!  I know it's going to be hard keeping her from stealing the pink sparkly picture frame!    

I hope Sarah liked her presents as much as I did! 

Sea World - It Was A Splash!

Arrived in Florida to a balmy 75 degrees on Saturday.  And each day since, has only gotten better.  We spent the first day of our trip acclimating to the house and doing a little shopping.  Super Targets are the bomb.

On our second day we headed over to Sea World Orlando.  It was awesome!  I haven't been to this park since I was in high school (which we all know was eons ago).  The kids enjoyed feeding stingrays:

Feeding dolphins:

And also fed the Sea Lions (yeah we spent $$$ feeding the animals):

I finally talked my 10-year old daughter into riding Kracken:

It was her first upside down coaster. Grandma had to promise to give her $20, but she overcame her fear and loved it.  I was super proud - because I knew it was so hard for her to finally do it.  She is my Nervous Nelly and I was happy to see her fight through it (even if it was for the money).

Nothing like ending the day with seeing the killer whale show.  Those creatures are beyond magnificent.  Watching them literally made the hair stand up on my arms.  Now for the safety of the trainers, they never get into the water with them.  I think I liked that even better.  The whales are the stars!

I even let them sit in the Splash Zone :)

It was an exciting day.  I'm so glad we got the chance to visit this year!

Florida Here I Come!

Tomorrow I head to the Sunshine State for a well-deserved vacation.  It's my annual family vacation to visit Mickey Mouse.  There will be 7 adults and 8 children (ages 10 and under) all in the house this year.  Sounds like fun huh? 

For the plane - I'm prepared with:

My iPhone

My phone has the soundtrack to my life on it. 
It also has a super duper camera that works for on-the-fly photos.
Also by letting my son play a few games of Angry Birds - I can get a few minutes of peace!


My Kindle Fire

It is well stocked with reading material including Catching Fire and Mockingjay(The Second and Third books of The Hunger Games), and a few other girly books such as:

Dixie Divas

All I Want for Christmas is You. 

 To Conquer a Highlander

I'm hoping to have some downtime to read, but with visiting Magic Kingdom, Sea World, Epcot, Animal Kingdom, Family, etc., I hope to finish one or two of them.

What I am looking forward to the most:

When it's December in Michigan, you don't get to see this too often.

So in between reading, sunning and enjoying life - I'll post some pics of our trip.

Thumbs Up Monday

Well it's time for another Thumbs Up Monday!

Glenn will start us off  today with a thumb up for Howard Stern returning to his live radio show today.

I'm giving a thumb up today because I finally did what 250,000,000 other people have done - I joined Facebook!!!  Those who know me - understand this is HUGE for me.  Now I don't have to stalk GTuck's friends, I'll have a few of my own.  BUT - just to be clear, the MAIN reason I joined is to win Blogger giveaways!  Most require you to "Like" someone/thing on Facebook to get an entry into their contest - so now I'm gonna be "Like"ing like a fool!

Might Be A New Record

On top of all the shopping and eating I did over the long 4-day weekend, I also managed to set a new record for me - I went to 3 movies in 1 day!

Yeah - you might be wondering how one would accomplish such a feat.  Let me tell you - it wasn't that hard.

The day was Saturday, and the first movie I attended was:

Arthur Christmas

I absolutely adored this movie.  I loved the way my kids (and nieces and nephew) responded to this movie.  They were so connected to the characters and asked many questions afterwards.  Our teetering non-believers are almost convinced that Santa is real ;O)  

I'd give this a Too Die For rating.  With or without kids - it's a MUST see.

Second movie on my list was:

Footloose

Although this movie is remake of the 1984 classic - I felt that the movie was a little more than a complete redo.  There were some interesting changes, but the main story was obviously the same.  It was weird seeing Julianne Hough in the role of Ariel.  Her sweet, wholesome image just couldn't let me believe she was a "bad girl".  She can dance - but she just doesn't have the hard-edge that I expected from Ariel.

Overall, I though the movie was Good.  It was worth the $3.50 at the Farmington Civic Theater.

Since the timing worked out, Jenny Jenny and I stayed for the late showing of my third and final movie of the day:

Contagion

This movie scared me to death!!!  All I can say is I have never been so aware of people coughing, sneezing, blowing their noses, etc.  The idea that one person can spread a disease so quickly puts some fear in me.  What I walked away with from this movie is I am gonna be a crazy hand-washer and will always be carrying hand sanitizer.   There were a few scenes that just made me say ewwwww too.  This was not a feel-good movie, but hey, at least Matt Damon didn't die :)  Also, how come I never noticed Jude Law has some crazy snaggletooth? I guess he had a fake tooth added for the movie role.  Thank goodness! It was so distracting to me, I had trouble concentrating on anything else when he was on screen!

I give this a Very Good rating.  Germaphobes will go insane after watching this one.

So there was about 6 hours of my Saturday. I only had popcorn at one of the shows though.  I tried to be good :)  How many movies have you sat through in one day?  How many would you want to sit through?