Underrated Movie No. 3...

When I say underrated this time, I actually mean underappreciated. Serenity is, in fact, highly rated by those who have seen it, but it seems that so very few people actually have. Based on the short-lived and cancelled TV show, Firefly, Serenity is a science fiction/western hybrid and the creation of Joss Whedon, the man who brought us Buffy and Angel on TV.

As I understand it, Firefly was completely shafted by Fox when it was aired in 2002 (possibly partly because of its anti-establishment undertones) - apparently Fox skipped episodes, played episodes in the wrong order and messed the show around with its time-slot - and was then cancelled by the network after only 11 episodes (14 were made in total). In that short space of time it garnered critical acclaim and, more importantly, a devoted fan-base. So that after it was cancelled, the passion of the fans, the writer and the cast kept the flame alive, so to speak... and in 2005 they made the movie Serenity. It is essentially an extension of the story of the TV show, but in motion-picture form (so it of course needs to be able to stand alone as a story). I had not seen the TV show before seeing the movie, but I'm sure that the experience was no less rewarding as a result.

With no major stars and no real promotional budget behind it, you could be forgiven for letting it slip under your radar. But I strongly encourage you to see it. It is well made, well acted, with a strong story and history, it has excellent and complex characters - and, as all sci-fi's should, it has special effects that are there to help tell the story rather than be the story themselves. Since seeing the movie I have bought the TV show on DVD and, so far, am enjoying it immensely. Here are some links to help you in what should now become you quest to watch Serenity and Firefly:

Serenity on DVD (UK)
Firefly on DVD (UK)

Serenity on DVD (US)
Firefly on DVD (US)

Partying in Ibiza...

We have just returned from a week in Ibiza (not really sampling much of the nightlife if truth be told) with my parents, my brother and Ruth. The outbound journey was by far the most difficult part of the entire trip thanks to it being a very early morning (3:00am), which totally disrupted the kids' sleeping pattern. Once we were there we made good use of the help that my parents and uncle Joe and aunt Ruth were very willing to give. The weather there was excellent, perfect really for the twins. The only real downside was that the water, both in the ocean and in the swimming pool was too cold for our delicate little babies (although Maddie did seem to get to grips with it by then end of the week). There were some other difficult times during the trip, but we did have a very nice time and it seems that it has done the kids the world of good. They both seem much more confident in themselves than they were before we left. Maddie is walking all over the place and now Morgan is really finding his feet and walking with more confidence although not always with more balance. For me the highlight of the trip was a day in Ibiza town (the capital of the island), which included a walk up the Dalt Vila, the hill-fort/castle that dominates the waterside in the city. Here is a photo of the kids as they were overlooking the harbour from the Dalt Vila walls.

Birthday!

The twins are one year old today! What a year it has been. I know it is said far too often, but it really doesn't seem like a year has passed since we were in the hospital getting ready for their arrival. You certainly get a new perspective on how time flies when you have two young babies to look after. A lot of great things have happened in the last twelve months including extended visits from Marla's parents (twice), her sister Sheila (twice) and her best friend Pam. We've also been able to go to Dublin with the twins and have made a number of other outings with them, usually to places nearby like Dyrham Park, Stourhead, or The American Museum but there have been slightly further distances traveled too, for instance our trip to London in the winter to get the kids' US passports was quite a fun adventure.

Maddie and Morgan have had plenty of ups and downs. Morgan particularly has had to deal with a number of illnesses, which while not serious have been unpleasant for him and a strain for us. Other things that have been and gone include their initial troubles feeding from a bottle (both of them struggled with one thing or another) as well as the period of time when they could both sleep at different ends of the same cot. Developmentally they seem to be doing OK. Maddie was standing (aided) very early on - about three months - but Morgan beat her in the race to see who would be crawling first. Morgan is also winning in the number of teeth event, he has six now while Maddie still only has three. However, Maddie has started taking steps - her record is seven or eight - and standing on her own with confidence! Morgan can stand on his own, but only for a short time before he gets excited and loses balance (or nerve!).

We too are becoming slightly more confident. Although they change quickly enough that we are rarely able to comfortably settle into a routine before it has changed again. Big challenges on our horizon include a three hour flight to Ibiza in October with my parents and Joe & Ruth (followed by a seven night holiday) and then, in December, a much longer trip to Chicago (without any family help!) and then on to Mexico for a Wertz family vacation.

All in all it has been a wonderful year, full of challenges and successes. And best of all we have been able to witness the first year's growth and development of two great little human beings - each with their own very different, very endearing personality.

I am getting a little emotional as I write this. It is one of those times when I am struck by how much I love our two little guys. Anyway, we're having a bit of a party at our house this evening - before the kids go off to bed (and then maybe one afterwards too!). Here's to the next twelve months!

The latest...

Apparently this is the 146th post on my blog. That seems like a lot, doesn't it? Well anyway, what is there to report? Let's see, the twins turned 11 months old a few days ago. They are really starting to grow into proper little people, with their own personalities etc. Maddie is very cheeky and will often extend her hand towards you with a toy in it - as if to give it to you - and then quickly withdraw her hand and turn away from you when you reach for the toy. But at other times she is quite affectionate and will readily give you kisses, whether asked for or not. Morgan is cheerful and good natured and often blows raspberries (with or without food in his mouth!) but can be quite demanding when he is tired - his teeth still seem to be bothering him, certainly more than Maddie's bother her. They aren't walking or talking yet, but they certainly are mobile, cruising around holding on to the furniture or crawling.

We had a very nice visit from Marla's parents not long ago, which was quite a help. Ironically, they departed on the day that the terror alert was raised to it's highest level and were somewhat delayed in Heathrow during all the hubbub. But actually were only delayed by a couple of hours and got home in good time, considering what could've gone wrong.

The Premiership season is about to start and hopes are high amongst Liverpool supporters. It seems that we nearly all feel that the team has a genuine chance of really challenging for the title this year. But, we'll see.

Our softball season is drawing to a close. We have one more league game left and one more tournament weekend (this coming weekend - let's hope the weather stays nice). We've had a really good season compared to the last two years. We have won 7 games so far, which I think is actually more than we did in the last two years combined.

The next thing for us to look forward to is our trip to Ibiza in October. It'll be quite a journey, with my parents, my brother and Ruth and the four of us all going. The twins might even be walking by then, which could be fun/difficult.

Today is...

Today is our wedding anniversary. Here's that time in numbers:

7 years
6 cars
16 vacations
1 cat
4 fish
2 softball teams
1 high-school graduation
16 Indian restaurants
11 transatlantic flights
2 weddings
9 friends' weddings
2 continents
5 addresses
3 tents
1 new niece
1 new nephew
1 pregnancy
2 kids
6 passports

My Myspace space...

I have joined the Myspace bandwagon. You can view my profile at: www.myspace.com/sunface13.

This site will continue to be my main blog, so no need to change your bookmarks (favorites)... of course, I'm assuming you have this site bookmarked and visit it regularly!

The Magna Carta...

Life with the twins is equal amounts of enjoyment and hard work... OK, maybe a tad more hard work. They're certainly getting to grips with being their own human beings. Maddie loves to "cruise" the furniture but gets upset when she is on her butt too long. Morgan is getting more mobile too and is doing proper crawling. It makes our life more challenging because we have to keep our eyes on them but it also means that they can keep themselves happy for a little bit longer.

We went to Salisbury today for a short excursion. It was an hour long drive, which gave the kids time to sleep and we were only there for about three hours but we had a great time and met up with my aunt and uncle and my cousin and her family.

One interesting thing happened; they have one of the four remaining copies of the Magna Carta there and yet there was very little fanfare about it. For those that don't know, the Magna Carta is essentially the first modern day constitution (written in the 13th century) and therefore is one of the most important documents in human history. The copy they have at Salisbury Cathedral is, as I said, one of only four remaining original copies - and it is in the best condition of all four. So, quite a big deal really. And yet it is kept in the chapter house, just off the cloisters with a very small sign outside saying something like, "Chapter House. Oh, and by the way the Magna Carta is in here." I find it remarkable that such an important piece of British (in fact, world) history is in Salisbury Cathedral and it bearly gets a mention.

In fairness, I have just looked at the Cathedral website (which, by the way, does not advertise the fact that it has the Magna Carta) and there are plans to construct a custom building specifically to house the document.

Anyway, we got to see one of the original copies of the Magna Carta today. Pretty cool.

In the month that has passed...

So, over a month has passed since I posted last. Very slack! In that time Marla's sister has been staying with us, helping us with the twins and trying to enjoy a few travel experiences at the same time. We went to Dublin with her for a few days and did some exploring, which was great fun. We also got to see my old friend Eddie (and his family) while we were there, which was very nice.



During the last month or so we have also been watching a lot of the World Cup. England's exit to Portugal in the Quarter Final was dissappointing and frustrating - considering it is a team I believe we could and should have beaten. The outcome of the final (Italy beating France after a penalty shoot out) was overall the right result, I think over the course of the competition Italy were just about the best team. There are a number of talking points from the final, not least of which is Zidane's red card offence (for head-butting an opponent in the chest). Personally, I think there is nothing that can excuse what he did and in fact I struggle to understand why anyone would want to defend his actions.

The twins are growing nicely and are starting to become more mobile, although not as mobile as they would like. Morgan is pulling himself along on his front but struggles with even the most minor of obstacles. Maddie is pulling herself up to a standing position by holding on to the furniture, and she is very happy to walk along when we hold her hands for her. Once again they have been hit with a cold/cough, which is still lingering, but other than that they are generally pretty happy.

Let's see. What's happened in the last few weeks...

So much has happened since my last post!

• Marla is fully recovered from her broken nose.
• In our last game (vs The Tigers), Friendly Fire softball came back from 0-12 down after 2 innings to win 21-19!
• The twins are starting to noticeably "grow up"; they are making kissing noises when we make them first, yesterday for the first time they actually started laughing at each other independently from anyone else (they were on the living room and Marla was in the kitchen), and they had a run of four straight nights when they both slept through (although that run was broken these last two nights with Morgan keeping us awake for about two hours each night!).
  
• The World Cup starts on Friday. I can hardly contain myself.
• Marla's sister Sheila will be arriving very soon - and we have already planned a short trip to Dublin while she is here. And then Marla's parents are coming in July.
  

Marla's nose and the Mighty Reds...

Things have been up and down a bit these last couple of weeks. Things were pretty bad initially with Morgan still ill with an ear infection and then Marla broke her nose! We were playing softball, Marla was Catcher and there was a foul-tip that whacked her right on the bridge of her nose. We went to the Emergency dept. of the hospital and waited almost three hours only for them to tell us that there was not much they could do until the swelling went down in about ten days time. Anyway, since then her nose has started to look and feel a lot better (it never looked terrible, surprisingly). The twins knock it occasionally and it really hurts when they do, but apart from that she is dealing with the situation very well indeed.

Anyway, since then things have started to look a bit brighter for us. Morgan appears finally to be getting rid of most of his many ailments, which is the main relief. Other good news is that Liverpool won the FA Cup Final in dramatic fashion (many are saying it was one of the best cup-finals ever!). Here is a photo of us all in our red shirts to cheer on Liverpool on cup-final day:

Another photo of the twins...

The weather has become nice enough for us to go outside more often. Here are the twins on our front steps.

What makes my blood boil...

For the first time in what seems like a long time I am writing a post that is not about the twins. I'm here to mention Liverpool's fine 2-1 win over Chelsea in the FA Cup semi-final on Saturday. I thought that Liverpool were just about the better team on the day (certainly for the first hour) and deserved to win. It is pleasing for many reasons besides the obvious (being that Liverpool are now through to the FA Cup Final). Specifically, it is pleasing because Liverpool have beaten Chelsea, the best team in the country, despite the millions spent on them and the arrogance of their manager Jose Mourinho.

And it is Mourinho's attitude towards, Liverpool, the game on Saturday and football in general that has urged me to write this today. His behaviour is unattractive when things are going well for his team, but it is at times like this - when his team have lost - that he aggravates me almost beyond belief. What upsets me most about Mourinho is his lack of respect for almost anything you care to mention: his opponents, the fans, the Premiership, his team, the competitions his team are entered into, but most gallingly the disrespect he has for football, the sport which has made him what he is today - highlighted perfectly by his entirely fabricated story last season about referee Anders Frisk having a meeting with Barcelona manager Frank Rijkaard during half-time of their UEFA Champions League match against Chelsea. It is a lie that Mourinho retracted later, however, too late to stop the soul-destroying death threats by Chelsea fans towards Frisk and the referee's subsequent retirement from football.

Whilst not in the same league as the aforementioned example, the list of offences after the game on Saturday are many: refusing to shake his counterpart's (Rafael Benitez) hand after the match, refusing to take responsibility for defeat blaming it on two refereeing decisions, describing his team as demotivated because the Premiership has been so easy for them this season (which you would think would allow his team to concentrate on the other trophies available to them, none of which they will win this season!), and comparing Liverpool (current European Champions) to a fourth division side, to name just a few.

There was an article in the Independent today that sums things up nicely. Strangely it is written by James Lawton who is a journalist that I can rarely stand to read, but today he has hit the nail on the head:

http://sport.independent.co.uk/football/comment/article359775.ece

I love this line: "Naturally, Mourinho blamed defeat not on this team-sheet gibberish but the bad aroma of two of the decisions that the referee, Graham Poll, made in favour of Liverpool and, according to some unbiased professional observers, breaking an astonishing tendency to rule routinely for Chelsea in anything that sniffed of 50-50. No, Mourinho was emphatic, this was another mythical defeat of Chelsea by Liverpool."

(I have also added the text of the Article to a comment on this post just in case the Independent removes the article in the future.)

I'm sure that my opinion about Mourinho expresed here will not sit well with some readers, and that's fine. Please feel free to leave any (sensible) comments in response (offensive gibberish will be deleted).

Easter adventures...

Easter greetings to all! We've just spent a couple of days camping for the first time with the twins. We chose a campsite just a few miles from Bath just in case we needed to go home at short notice for any reason. Luckily we did not need to. That is not to say that things weren't difficult. The days were fine, if a little complicated thanks to the lack of high-chairs, puchchairs, changing tables etc., etc. The nights, however, were hard work. The weather was too cold really for camping with little babies and it made for two nights of restlessness, cold faces and cold hands and feet. Plus, when they woke up crying, which they did more than once, I was very aware of the possibility of waking the entire campsite. I'm sure in a few months, once the weather warms up and the twins get a bit older we will try it again, but for the time being we think we will give it a miss.

We went with the usual gang, Andy, Fi (and little Harry, who was under the weather but still coped with the camping thing better than our two), Griff, Paul and Rachael. It was an up and down time with Paul, Andy, Rachael, Marla and Harry all getting ill to one degree or another. All in all it was fun at times and pretty miserable at others.

Anyway, twins seem to be OK at the moment although Morgan has a bit of a cough. They are starting to sit up almost by themselves - they still need guarding though because they do sometimes throw themselves backwards - Maddie is slightly more accomplished at sitting up. Morgan is rolling over at will now, and can roll himself back too. Maddie couldn't care less about rolling over.

Things are still difficult but are gradually getting easier as the weeks and months go by. They were seven months old on Friday! Blimey!

Short update...

This week is Marla's first back at work, so that means that I now spend a day and a half at home with the twins. Marla stays at home Monday and Tuesday, I stay at home all day Wednesday and Thursday morning, the twins go to a child-minder on Thursday afternoon (which is where they are now) and to Nursery all day Friday. Childcare for twins is so expensive so it really is a tight balance for us financially. We think we have got it about right but we will have to see how things go.

We've had a bad couple of months health-wise. Marla and the twins are just recovering from a cold at the moment. It's amazing how much things can be thrown off-kilter when something as seemingly small as a cold is multiplied by twins. There was vomiting and other nasty symptoms as well as a few tricky nights with interrupted sleep and neither of them have their appetite back yet even though the cold symptoms have more-or-less gone.

On the bright side, the weather has started to warm up and we've had a few sunny days recently. It makes going out with the twins much easier and more enjoyable. I can't wait until summer-proper arrives.

Neglecting my duites...

I'm sorry it has been over a month since my last post. One of the main reasons for the delay was that during the absence we had a week or so when 75% of our household was quite unwell with some sort of stomach bug. To say it was a difficult time would be putting it mildly. Morgan started the ball rolling early in March with some projectile vomiting and spent the next seven days crying (it seemed like it anyway) - during that time first Marla and then me were struck down with a similar ailment, which made looking after the twins a major difficulty. Luckily Maddie escaped the illness but was a bit of a moody young strumpet for a couple of days as it seemed we were giving most of our attention to the poorly boy.

Anyway, things are certainly better now and both Maddie and Morgan have begun to be quite cheerful. They both still have their moments but in all things are quite good. Here is one of their latest photos:



In other news, softball season starts soon for us and we had our first training session of the season on Saturday. It was wet and muddy and hence, very short, followed by a team bonding session in the pub. I can't tell you how excited I am for the season to start.

Liverpool FC have overcome a rather dodgy spell and have really started playing well in the last couple of weeks. They are third in the Premiership and are through to the semi-final of the FA Cup. It doesn't look like I'll be going to any more of their games this season but fingers crossed for next season.

Marla starts back to work next week. She's been off for a while and it will probably be a little diffucult for her to get back into the swing of things (and to be away from the twins). She will be working three days a week, so at least she will have four days a week with them.

The latest photo...

This photo was taken this morning. There are others on my Flickr pages. You'll also notice that there is a new section on the sidebar of my blog. It is a mini gallery of three random photos from my Flickr account... you can click on the images to be taken to that particular Flickr page.

Five months and all's well...

The twins were five months old on Tuesday. Life continues to be full-on for us all with one thing or another keeping us on our toes all the time. Last week Marla and both the twins were under the weather to one degree or another. Marla was very unwell with the flu, while the twins have been not themselves for a little while. They seem to be getting over the problem, whatever it was. Psychologically they both seem quite happy. Morgan is very quick to smile and laugh when we do things to amuse him and will do so sometimes whilst in the middle of a crying fit. Maddie is more independent and only really smiles and laughs on her own terms - we can be as silly as we like without getting so much as a grin from her, then start having a conversation with someone else in the room and Maddie will give an enormous smile. She does love to stare across the room and smile at you from a distance. She also loves to stand up (supported, of course). Hopefully I will have some more photos to post soon.

Visited states map...

create your own visited states map

Visited coutries map...

create your own visited countries map

At last...

Oh my goodness, what a long time it has been. Over a month in fact. Many apologies for those of you who read my blog religiously (are there any of you?).

One reason for the long absence is the fact that the twins are not particularly well at the moment. All four of us are trying to recover from a tummy bug that struck last weekend. Morgan and I got it on Sunday (I was in bed most of the day) and Marla and Maddie got it a few days later. We seem to be getting through it... but, gosh, it has been a difficult time. Morgan is also having a general problem with his feeding - he really hasn't been himself for a good two or three weeks. The doctor thinks it is some sort of acid reflex and has prescribed some Baby Gaviscon. Hopefully it will do the trick and we'll have happy little Morgan back with us soon.

Our Christmas and New Year was actually very good fun. We had Marla's sister Sheila staying with us and that made things a little easier for us. It was nice having her in England for Christmas. The twins didn't really get too involved in the Christmas Day thing. They sort of grabbed bits of wrapping paper... but that was about it. They did, however, get lots of presents.

Since then, things have been progressing slowly. Marla has been working hard on her Masters work and I have been trying to juggle work and home duties (it has been especially difficult these past two weeks). Anyway, nothing major to report. Check my Flickr pages for the most recent photos of the twins.