It's official!

We are going to Italy! We booked the flights today. I have been watching the prices and the have been pretty static. I decided I would take a look today and Air Canada's price had jumped $700! I ♥Expedia ☺ Their price had dropped $700, so we got a great deal on flights, flying into Madrid and then out of Rome.

We are going to be spending 2 and a half weeks there but we are not going to really start planning in earnest until after we get back from Jamaica. (we leave one week tomorrow Eeeeeeeeeeeeee)

I went skiing yesteday with Kelly and we had a great day. The weather was beautiful and there weren't too many people on the hill so we got in a ton of runs. Too bad they don't have more snow, but it's not horrible. I will definitly need to get my skis waxed at the end of the season since the bases are in pretty rough shape. Kelly and I are going again next week so hopefully the snow just dumps on them this week! It is our 2nd free day on our Sunshine cards (our 4th time out) so hopefully it snows and bunch more and we can make it to our 3rd free day (7th day).

Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West by Gregory Maguire

This book's premise has so much potential. Although, I did glimpse a little of it in the pages of this book, for the most part it fell flat. I don't know why I expected otherwise after reading another of Maguire's books an not liking it you would think I would have learned my lesson.
The writing style is disjointed and somewhat hard to follow. I also felt like I had missed large parts to get background on issues or other happening which is frustrating.

1 Star

MS Supercities Walk 2009

I am participating in the MS Supercities Walk again this year (Year 3 for me). I have even talked Ian into joining me so I won't be walking by myself :)

It takes place on Sunday June 9th starting at Prince's Island Park here in Calgary. I have a fundraising goal of $500 which is a pretty big goal for me but I think I can do it. You can check out my page (and make a pledge if you wish) here. You can also make your pledges in the form of cash or cheque, I can help you out with that!

Yes this is a shameless plug and plea for money but it's a good cause that I think is worth every penny!

Movie Reviews

City of Ember

This wa s a pretty good movie. Its target demographic is considerably younger than my 26 but it was still enjoyable even if it wasn't deep.

For some reason it was decided that the planet earth would be unihabitable so this city was built in the middle of the earth (Ember). It's now 200 years later and supplies are running low. The story focuses on 2 teenagers trying to find a way out.

Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist

I thought this was a really good movie. Nothing serious, nothing that requires any thinking but quirky, enjoyable and relatable. It's a teen romantic comedy without the "American Pie" style humour. It's a good deal more realistic than that and takes place for the most part on one evening.

Nick has broken up with his girlfriend of 6 months, Tris and he is devastated. She has moved on with another guy and loves rubbing it in his face but is really jealous of him showing interest in anyone else as well. It's a good bit of entertainment.

9. Tiny Dancer by Anthony Flaco

This is the story of a young girl in Afghanistan who is in a terrible accident which results it horrific burns all over her body. Eventually an American soldier (stationed there post 9/11) notices the girl and his brother-in-law happens to work as a doctor at a burn clinic in the US. So the Zubaida ends up going to the US for numerous surgeries.

I was disapointed in the book since I was hoping that the focus would be more on Zubaida and her struggles and less on the beauracracy of NGO's and the US military.

2 Stars

Movie Reviews

Burn After Reading

I had heard that this was a hilarious movie and when the cast included Brad Pitt, John Malkovich, George Clooney among others I thought it would be great. I was expecting big things.

The movie started out pretty disjointed and while some pieces started to come together it never really gelled for me. There were a couple oneliners that were funny but all in all it was dumb.

Babel

I guess we were stuck on a bit of a Brad Pitt thing this weekend. This movie I thought was good. I had a few different storylines that came together in the strangest of ways but it definityl held my attention for the full 2 and a half hours and really made me thing about various things. Terrorism, Americans travelling abroad, the US/Mexico border security, self esteem, self worth and sexuality.

8. The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls

I appreciated the style of writing in this book. It didn't make me feel like the author was out for shock value and nothing more. That being said it would have been interesting to have a glimpse into some of her emotional reactions to the situations in her upbringing. I can accept that to a certain degree she would be desensitised, I still would expect a reaction to any number of the things that occur. The only real emotional reaction you get are the children standing up for their own family and then the events that eventually cause them to move to New York.

3 stars

Waiting

So it's 11:17 on my saturday morning. Our TV was supposed to be delivered between 8-11 and well I am the queen of impatience when it comes to things like this. Is it really that hard to show up in the alotted window of time? Really? I don't think it is. You give us this time slot for a reason and now here we are still waiting! Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr...............

Tonight after our new TV arrives we are going to settle in for some DVD watching...reviews will follow.

So in the mean time I will tell you all about our trip we are going on in March. We booked it! One week at an all inclusive in Jamaica! Should be heavenly. Since we booked last minute off one of the cheap last minute sites so we got a wicked deal too!

***UPDATE***
So I finally gave up on waiting, left Ian alone and went grocery shopping. By the time I returned we had the new TV. It is great and we both love it. My only challenge is going to be convincing Ian that he doesn't need to be playing video games on it all day every day...

Passchendaele

Michelle and I watched Passcendaele last night and although it was a good movie, it was not at all what I had expected!!

A lady I work with had said her husband thought there was too much love story in it but in my opinion that was completly over shadowed by the graphic war scenes. The story also went a lot differently than I was expecting. The story other than when they are at war takes place in Calgary. It was neat to see bits of familiarity on the big screen!! It's a truly Canadian movie and a good one too...

The movie kind of depressed me in a way since it just really made it hit home how completly senseless war is, nothing is accomplished. But I suppose I could rant on that one all day.

We get our new big screen LCD this weekend so we will be watching a couple more movies so stay tuned for the reviews :)

7. Tales of Beedle the Bard by J.K. Rowling

This book contains some "children's" fairy tales as translated from the ancient runes by Hermione Granger, with commentary from Dumbledore.

I would have a hard time reading these stories to young children however since I am not sure that the language or subject matter is appropriate even if the morals are. I suppose this is why the stories were written for wizard children.

It was a quick read (leass than one hour) and thoroughly enjoyable. Although likely less enjoyable if you are not familiar with the Harry Potter series.

3 Stars