Ok, this is highly irksome. I just got home from the OH convention (where I was nearly robbed or worse in my hotel room – my facebook friends know what I’m talkin’ bout) and now I’m back and dead tired but I’m composing this dumb post at 2:22 in the morning. And why? Why am I not sleeping? I *was* sleeping soundly as a big fat snoring princess but then Geoff the Great woke me up about an hour ago. And now an hour later, while he’s asleep and snoring his head off, here I am WIDE awake.
I spose that’s ok, because I have all sorts of news to share. We had a *really* super excellently fabulous time at the convention. Plus, jealous you, just LOOK at all the people me and Coie got to play with:
We met Ryann’s friend Tess and her mom (boy is Ryann mad she didn’t get to come), Julie Park, Spunky, EEEEMommy, Amy W, Jen (Mrs. Incredible), Marshie with her crew Amy and Darcy, Christine Field, Jay Ryan along with his beautiful family, Kim Wolf and her gorgeous daughter, the Prices, Maggie the Magnifico’ and her crew, Carol Barnier …and I just KNOW I’m forgetting somebody really important. Tell me if I forgot to list you. I know Gina D was there but I never actually got to see her because I was busy when she came by.
Anyways, on Thursday afternoon (our first day up there) we were able to get together with the famous Home School Enrichment publishers. Ok… can I just say how much I LOVE the Lewis family? They are so hilarious. And they especially love ME because they almost got me to completely promise not to start blabbing their secrets (are you guys starting to panic? HA! I love the power I wield. I bet you wish you’d never even told me…). But no, I will be a good friend and be content to drop non-hints and teasers.
Alright. Moving on. I mentioned contest and I meant it. The Lewis brothers have been telling me for a while about some so-called incredible movie that was put together by this homeschool family. And naturally I just smiled and nodded and such whenever they’d start talking about it. So anyways, at the convention, it just so happened that this family was there as a vendor, so young Mr. Lewis brought me over for an introduction, and then the Burns family was kind enough to give me a free copy of their DVD.
And of course at that point I was thinking, “Ok, this could very well be dreadful but I will take it home and watch it with my family anyways”. I mean seriously. This is a homeschool family. Not a slick Hollywood outfit. I was envisioning two or three families running thru a neighborhood in Illinois putting on a play about King Arthur.
… fast forward to yesterday… I showed all the kids the movie cover when I got home and they were excited, because the graphics on the front really do look good. So we set up the couches and laptop and got all cozy and set up. Right off the bat I realized that no… we were not simply dealing with some hodge podge cutsie play. This is a real movie, and it’s actually professionally done. Me and Geoff the Great sort of looked at each other like, “wasn’t expecting this” and kept watching. The first 20 minutes or so took a little getting used to. Like I said, it’s *not* a slick Hollywood outfit. That being said, I think it was better done than Flywheel and Facing the Giants. Yes, I am serious. And yes, this is a homeschool family that put it together.
My husband, who hates it when I blog about him (because he always gets phone calls from people saying things like, “so, how’s the inside of your arm doing? I heard your wife bit it really hard), anyways he told me that I had special permission to quote him about what he thought. And for the record, my husband has a very critical eye. But he was astounded. He said he couldn’t believe the detail they put into the sets, the soundtrack (the soundtrack was amazing), the weapons, and the costumes. The storyline was also really good. REALLY good. And the fellow who plays the bad guy in the movie is one of the best actors I’ve ever seen. He stole the show.
Here is a link, watch the trailer clip on the front page. And then to win my own personal copy, which I will mail straight to your house, all you need to do is leave a comment telling me what some of your nick names were/are thru out your life. Why nicknames? Because this movie is called Pendragon, which is a reference to King Arthur, and I’ve decided that Pendragon must have been his nickname. That’s my whole story.
On another note, the movie takes place in 411 AD, right when the Roman hold on Britain was collapsing and all of Europe was falling into the Dark Ages. The Saxons, Angles and Jutes moved into the area to seize the land for themselves. The movie doesn’t necessarily go into all of that background history, but I just wanted you to know how smart I am. I already knew the historical background because we’ve been going thru Bright Ideas Press Mystery of History for the last three years.
SPEAKING OF WHICH, oh my heck, I almost had a heart attack… guess what my friend Maggie handed over and placed in my sweaty little hands for FREE? She gave me the brand new Mystery of History volume THREE that I’ve been drooling over for an entire year. It covers the middle ages and it is SO beautiful. I LOVE THAT WOMAN!
And on the same train of people whom I like for giving me free stuff, I ALSO ran into Jay from Cleveland (I haven’t seen him in forever!) and he gave me a copy of his new astronomy book called Signs and Seasons along with a corresponding workbook. I can’t wait to start that with the kids. They’ve already been pawing thru it and it looks super.
Ok, it’s 2:51 now. Hopefully I’ll be able to post this fast and get some sleep. And I didn’t even go into my whole story about Geoff the Great and his new friend he met from work. I haven’t met him in person yet (his friend, I mean, I’ve met Geoff in person several times), but his friend did come with me and Geoff on a date last night. We were having a cozy dinner all alone at my favorite Chinese restaurant, but instead of talking to ME, my husband was text messaging his buddy the whole time to chat about what they had for lunch earlier. Total dorks. Anyhow, I’m looking forward to meeting him and his wife soon. I just found out they read my dumb blog. How’s that for pressure?
PS I am not proof reading this before I post it, so it will most assuredly have even *more* typos than usual.
Don’t forget to leave comments telling me your nicknames (or your kids’ nicknames) for a chance to win Pendragon, Sword of His Father I’ll do a random drawing later this week.