movie night

Jeff had hoped to come home in time for dinner tonight but then realized (as he so often does) that he needed to stay later. Jean-Noel (our billeting student) had already gone out to have fun with some of the other students in his program so the kids and I were on our own again. I decided it would be fine to sit around at home all evening but that instead we would try to make the evening fun. I took the kids out to see Shark Tale and they both enjoyed it. Calum seemed to be equally impressed with the big posters and the trailer for the Spongebob Squarepants movie (they certainly got a big reaction out of him) but he also managed to sit through almost the entire movie without getting squirmy. It's nice that he's old enough to start doing things like this.

After the movie we had twenty minutes to kill before Jeff was ready to be picked up from work so we went and had sundaes at McDonalds. As we sat in the parking lot eating our treats Megan made a comment about how we'd had yummy noodles for dinner, had seen a good movie and were now eating ice cream so it had been a pretty good night. High praise coming from our difficult to please nine year old!

Now if I can just figure out some other ideas for ways to have a fun evening out that don't cost thirty bucks!

Recently I've been invited to two (!!) parties which happen to fall on my birthday, October 30th. Both parties revolve around an East Vancouver tradition, the Parade of Lost Souls, which sounds intriguing - a family-friendly event that is designed to recapture the roots of the Hallowe'en holiday. People build shrines to honour people in their families that have died, houses along the parade route go all out to decorate for the big event and anyone who wants to can dress up and walk in the parade along with the fire dancers & professional ghouls (?) I'm not sure if my kids would find this scary or fun, and I also really want to just spent my birthday having fun with my family so I am still considering if we will do this or not.