Non-Optional Experiences

You know how sometimes there are things you just want your kids to do, no exceptions?  One of our neighbors calls these Non-Optional Experiences (NOEs for short).  For example, this summer, our nine year old is taking piano lessons, no matter what.  I'm a softie during the school year when he hates it so badly and has other things to do such as homework, but I can deal with piano for three months.  Swimming lessons is another NOE.  You have to learn to swim!

I'd heard good things about Ephraim's Rescue and wanted to take the nine year old and the seven year old with us.  I was pretty sure they'd like it.  However, when I said we were going, the nine year old just wanted to go play with grandpa with the little ones.  He practically started crying because he didn't want to go so badly.  We told him it was a NOE and made him come to the movie.

Once we were there, there wer NO complaints.  Afterward, my mom said she just had to ask him if he was glad he went.  He ignored her question and made some other comment.  She told him she thought he liked it and he agreed.

Ephraim's Rescue was wonderful.  When I was a girl I'd read the story of Eph Hanks and remembered it being really cool.  The movie hit home even more, too, because my husband and I got asked to be a Ma and Pa for our stake trek next year in Wyoming, which is where a good chunk of the movie takes place.  We've been reading handcart pioneer stories for the past week, too!  So, go see Eph Hanks as an NOE.

The Help

The other night my husband I rented, yes rented from the local video store, The Help.  I've always loved Civil Rights and race movies (Remember the Titans, etc.).  I quite enjoyed how the The Help portrayed the domestic/women's side of things during the era. I've never looked at the situation in that light, so it was quite enlightening and refreshing.  Although parts of the film were kind of melodramatic, I loved how it portrayed the potential cattiness of women, yet showed we all struggle and want to fit in, too.  We just don't know what people are going through.

I could have done without the language, but just had to keep thinking back to my Ricks days when the Idaho farm boys used one of those words like it wasn't a cuss word!  Not that I should be justifying it.

So, if you haven't seen it and want a good women's perspective of an era, The Help a great movie; just plug your ears. ;)  The movie could only have been better had it actually been based on a real story.