Friday, July 25, 2008

Mamma Mia!

I went to see Mamma Mia! the movie with some girlfriends last night. About a quarter of the way through the movie, I couldn't get out of my head that this was High School Musical for middle aged women. I wouldn't show it to my kids because there are too many adult themes running through the plot. In the end though, I really enjoyed it. I have always been a sucker for musicals and can easily get lost in them. I laughed, I cried, etc.

I am embarrassed to admit that I had heard nothing of this film or the actual musical production that opened in London in 1999 before my friends suggested a "girl's night out" to see it. Today, I went to the official Mamma Mia! movie website and the official ABBA site. The ABBA site has an article that describes the process of making the musical into a movie. The beginning of the article states, "Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the past ten years, it’s highly unlikely you’re not familiar with the global success story that is Mamma Mia!". I guess living under a rock perfectly describes me. My first child was born in 2000 and my second in 2002. Since then, my view of pop culture has been through the eyes of small children. I can discuss the finer points of Transformers & Lego Star Wars all day and of course I can sing every lyric to the songs of both the High School Musical movies. But, I digress. This is supposed to be a posting about Mamma Mia!. I can discuss the complete and total loss of coolness I experienced when becoming a stay at home mom in another post.

Overall, I thought Mamma Mia! was a fun and entertaining movie. It is not for everyone. There were a few groups of people who walked out during the middle of the movie. I don't think I've ever done walked out on a movie, although I wanted to when my youth group went to see Chariots of Fire back in 1981. Also, I recently fell asleep when I took the kids to see WALL-E (they enjoyed that movie, I found it a bit slow to get going). I probably go to the movies less than the average person. In the past 10 years I have been stuck in a Kid Movie or "Super Hero" movie rut. My husband loves the "Super Hero" movies. It was fun to see this movie with friends. I loved the music by ABBA even though I've never considered myself an ABBA fan before. I could see myself in the character of "Donna" someday in the future when my now 5 year old daughter gets married. I know that my sister and I will do our best to embarrass her by singing all of the songs we used to sing on the long car trips with our parents. We loved to string commercials together and even made up a song or two of our own. Later, we graduated to singing Rick Springfield songs. (Only 8 more days until I get to see Rick Springfield live in Peachtree City, GA at the Frederick Brown Jr. Amphitheater. I can't contain my excitement!)

Even though my entire family never hesitates to tell me what a terrible singer I am, I have always loved music. We are passing that pure joy of 1980's music to our children with Friday Night Dance Parties at the Robichauxs'. We don't do this every Friday night anymore, but I may have to start it up again after seeing Mamma Mia!. The kids are getting a little heavy to be our human guitars, but I think they are still young enough to dance around the house like idiots with us.

So, if you go see Mamma Mia!, I would recommend leaving the hubby and kids at home. But when you get home, dance around the house with them and have some fun while you remember your youth and pretend to be cool again.

Wednesday, July 23, 2008

Welcome to the LocalKidFun.com Blog

This is my very first blog. Finally! My husband has been blogging for at least 6 years so I really have no excuse for waiting so long.

I guess the best way to start your blog is to tell people what you will be writing about. This blog will contain updates about me and my family which may not be that interesting to people, but I'll try to keep it interesting and real. I also may have some information related to LocalKidFun.com, although this is not a commercial for any of the business or places listed on there. (sign up for LKF's newsletter if you want to see things only related to LocalKidFun.com) I'm also a bit of a nerd about careers, finding work, resumes etc. since I used to be a recruiter. I try to keep up with the latest trends in that area and may pass some of that along.

So, I hope you'll read and enjoy.