I feel like this past week was the last one of summer for me! This week starts a very busy week – my hubby is getting hernia surgery, my daughter goes for her Kindergarten placement test, and we got school t-shirt uniform pick and teacher meet and greet for my son on Friday! Gonna try and haul all his supplies on that day too. And that’s it, school starts for my kids on August 1st (for my 4th grader), my daughter will get a tour and orientation and a half day of school and then she starts full on August 8th.
Where has the summer gone? 😢 I’m mentally preparing myself for…everything! How was your week? Can you believe July is coming to an end soon?
Persuasion (Netflix) – a very cheeky, modern-ish version of Persuasion. It’s not going to please anyone who wants the movie to be exactly like the book but I think Dakota Johnson is funny and beautiful. Also Henry Golding is gorgeous! I kept an open mind and enjoyed it enough. My favorite Persuasion is still the one that was made in 1995. Now if they remade that one exactly I would be so happy.
Mystic Pizza (cable tv) – I have loved the movie Mystic Pizza since I was a teenager! I’ll never get tired of watching it.
Games I Played:
My Singing Monsters
Just Dance – doing my cardio again
How was your week? Did you get a lot done? Watch anything good? Read any amazing books or books you didn’t finish? What are you reading?…Leave me a comment below!
Today is my 11th wedding anniversary and my hubby, kids and I are going to do a buffet brunch together. Now we had a lovely week that started off with A Peanuts Adventure event at the Ala Moana Shopping Center in Honolulu. Now Charlie Brown and Snoopy is what my hubby and I grew up with as kids. Our kids know Snoopy since he’s iconic but never had the patience to sit down and watch any Charlie Brown specials. But we had SO much fun. The goal was to download and app and find clues around the event. We found all the clues and they really did a great job inside the event!
Here are some pics from the event:
There were about 8 rooms to explore and there were some characters in some rooms that you could take photos with like Snoopy, Lucy and Charlie Brown! There was a Winter Dance room with a lit up dance floor – too much fun! We found all the clues and yes the staff helps you out lol.
The classroom was fun, they had an old microphone stand and if you speak in it – it had that iconic “whaawhaawhaa” kinda sound. Of course my hubby had to try it out 😅. I loved Schroeder’s piano room and the Great Pumpkin scene was done really well. We got to take a family photo with Charlie Brown in his room and then we went into the “scream” room. That was cool – you could scream into a microphone and watch the scream-meter move lol. The prices for the tickets were a bit high BUT I do think it was well worth it – there were so many things for the kids to do and it was colorful and come one…it’s Snoopy. How do you not love Snoopy?
How was your week? Did you get a lot done? Watch anything good? Read any amazing books or books you didn’t finish? What are you reading?…Leave me a comment below!
We didn’t celebrate much for the 4th of July. With all that’s going on in the country it felt somber for us. So instead my family and I went to the Beyond Monet exhibit because my husband loves Monet. Then we went to the mall to visit the newly opened Oreo Cafe which is part of the It’s Sugar candy store.
Here are some pics from the Beyond Monet event:
It was way smaller than the Beyond Van Gogh event I think. My daughter concluded her favorite was the Van Gogh one because of Starry Night. But now she has two shirts from both events that she can wear obsessively lol. She is my little artist.
Here are some pics from the Oreo Cafe and It’s Sugar!
Sugar rush! My sister met us there so she bought my kiddos some candy. Not too much – thank goodness my kids aren’t big on hard candies. Chocolate though? They love.
Tetris 99 – my son was playing on his switch and I wanted to play one round lol
How was your week? Did you get a lot done? Watch anything good? Read any amazing books or books you didn’t finish? What are you reading?…Leave me a comment below!
Hi everyone! I haven’t written an Outside of Books post in a long time because the holidays caught up to me. 😑 I’m still working on things for my Etsy shop, but very sparingly. I have no motivation! Also still helping my son with his youtube channel – I try to motivate him but sometimes that’s hard too. He’s finding out that content creators put it a lot of work to make good content.
But the thing that has taken over our life the past two weeks is the movie Encanto! We are obsessed.😅
I didn’t have any interest in seeing the movie only because I didn’t know or hear much about it. But then I was on TikTok scrolling and this one song kept popping up…“We Don’t Talk About Bruno”! I heard a snippet of it and was intrigued, plus I love latin music – it’s my favorite kind of music to work out to. I asked my kids if they wanted to watch the movie with me but they seemed lukewarm to the idea. So I started watching it by myself but when the house, Casita, was showing it’s magical powers I called my kids to watch with me, I knew my daughter would love it. My son came in when “We Don’t Talk About Bruno” started and stayed til the end.
We love the story and the soundtrack, it gave me opportunities to talk to my kids, mostly my son about adults and how we have pasts too. Every time I watch the movie, I learn something new, but I just really love how I can relate to a bunch of the family members.
I won’t rank the songs because I love them all. But let’s talk about a few of them:
Surface Pressure | Songwriter: Lin-manuel Miranda | Artist: Jessica Darrow
I love this song, even though I’m not the oldest sibling in my family. I’m the youngest but I was the only one I out my first generation American cousins and my sister to go to a four year college and get a degree. The fact that I wanted to do that, was a big fight. It didn’t help that the college was out of state. I got lecture by my uncles of how wrong it was for me to leave the family! Yet they also pressured me about becoming a doctor (which was not in my plans AT ALL…they just didn’t know that). Here are some lyrics from the song:
“Pressure like a grip, grip, grip and it won’t let go, whoa Pressure like a tick, tick, tick ’til it’s ready to blow, whoa Give it to your sister, your sister’s stronger See if she can hang on a little longer Who am I if I can’t carry it all? If I falter
Under the surface I hide my nerves, and it worsens, I worry something is gonna hurt us Under the surface The ship doesn’t swerve as it heard how big the iceberg is Under the surface I think about my purpose, can I somehow preserve this?”
These lyrics really hit me now as a mom. I feel the pressure on me at times, pressure I put on myself!🤦🏻♀️
I love this song! My kids love it because Bruno is so awkward and funny. He is their favorite character. I love the whole ensemble singing, it reminds me of a musical. But the beat is awesome and I can’t help dance to it. It’s so catchy. Bruno gets a bad rep in the movie but Mirabel finds out he was just misunderstood because of his gift!
I felt like Isabela as a child, my parents and uncles and aunts wanted me to be so perfect. Mostly my parents though , my dad wouldn’t even let me cut my long hair (it was “feminine”) until he gave up the battle in my freshman year of high school! I chopped my hair off so short the moment he said I could. 😅 It was the combination of perfection and pressures though that made me leave Hawaii to go to college. I needed a break. I love this song – here are some lyrics from it:
“I just made something unexpected Something sharp Something new It’s not symmetrical or perfect But it’s beautiful And it’s mine What else can I do?”
Dos Oruguitas | Songwriter: Lin-manuel Miranda | Artist: Sebastián Yatra
The song that makes me cry even though I can’t understand Spanish, I had to look up the english translation and ugh…it’s so good. The lyrics are just so beautiful. This song is all emotion. It’s like a lullaby, my daughter loves it so much, I can hear her singing it even though she doesn’t know Spanish either, I hear her try and it’s so sweet. In this part of the movie, she likes to climb into my lap – she’s 5 and I tell her she and her brother are my oruguitas (little caterpillar). 🥺🐛 But this is the moment in the movie where Mirabel understands and acknowledges what her grandmother went through when she was younger. There is such trauma her grandma lived through, she never got to face it, she kept on going because she was a single mother of three kids and needed to survive for them. 😢 I like to tell my son that adults were young once too and things happen in life to change them sometimes. Hurt people hurt people. I love that Mirabel becomes the catalyst for change in the family…broken but put back together, even better and stronger.❤️
” Two oruguitas Cocooned and waiting Each in their own world Anticipating What happens after The rearranging?
And so afraid of change In a world that never stops changing So let the walls come down The world will never stop changing (Never stop changing) (Never stop changing) (Never stop changing)
Ay, mariposas Don’t you hold on too tight Both of you know It’s your time to go To fly apart, to reunite Wonders surround you Just let the walls come down Don’t look behind you Fly till you find Your way toward tomorrow”
Abuela gets acknowledge in Dos Oruguitas and in All of You, Mirabel gets acknowledge. Ugh…my heart! Apologies, acknowledgements…all we want sometimes is just to be seen. Even in a family. I come from a big family of aunts, uncles, cousins…and we lived all together for all of my childhood until I went to middle school. So I didn’t only live in my own little 4 person dysfunctional family…I got to witness all the other dysfunctional families in the house so that we were one huge dysfunctional family! lol…I can laugh now but wow…this movie brought some crazy emotions in me and memories.
“Look at this home We need a new foundation It may seem hopeless but we’ll get by just fine Look at this family, a glowing constellation So full of stars and everybody wants to shine
But the stars don’t shine, they burn And the constellations shift I think it’s time you learn You’re more than just your gift
And I’m sorry I held on too tight Just so afraid I’d lose you too The miracle is not some magic that you’ve got The miracle is you, not some gift, just you The miracle is you All of you, all of you”
I read a comment somewhere said the movie was about generational trauma and healing. And this is it, 100% and as a first-generation American from a family of immigrants, this movie hit me hard. I love how in the end it was about love, hope and repairing something to make it better. I’m so glad my kids love it too – even though I swear this movie is more for adults than children lol.
Have you watched this movie? What did you think of the story and music?
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