And still more!

TUESDAY

Error Correction: Before beginning I should say I was mistaken about having Sweet Potatoes at Thanksgiving, apparently we did have them and my memory is simply so fogged (after all, it WAS before finals) from it being so long ago that I had not remembered. I was reminded of that by my mother, who is also making BOTH sweet potatoes and scalloped potatoes for Christmas!

Tuesday was really quite a special day and I don't want to skim over too much of it. After a breakfast of Garlic Freedom Toast (not French Toast) we cleaned up and got ready to pull out. The boys were going to travel down to eastern Oklahoma to visit some friends: the "mature" gamer lady I keep mentioning, and her husband. So after saying our good-byes to our grandparents, my parents drove the camper away toward Springfield, MO while I took the southern route toward Ft. Smith. We made excellent time in spite of being stuck behind a few cars that apparently had never been on any mountain roads. I don't drive extremely fast but I know how to handle a car and narrow roads don't bother me. Some people get nervous if they don't have a huge shoulder on either side. The bad thing though, is these people never seem to be considerate enough to pull to the side for a minute even though there may be six cars stacked up behind them. It was about a five and half hour drive altogether so we were a bit tired by the end of it.

You know, I always seem to talk to myself in the car and I wondered if anybody else would think of me as being crazy if they were to see me. My brothers didn't mention anything but when I'm thinking to myself I'll often just burst out with some random thought that came to my head. For example, after a few minutes of silence I'll just suddenly say "Probably Sushi" without even realizing that I said it out loud at first. I do multitask better than most guys but I admit that girls are better at it, I tend to focus on one thing at a time and I enjoy doing that! I like to focus on my driving but when I have passengers then I want to make sure they aren't bored (or freaked out with my random comments to myself) so I talk and perhaps don't pay as much attention to the road. Though I have to insert here that a girl driving in a car with another girl (or worse, more than one other girl) is one of the most scary things to see on the road. More on that later, in Wednesday's description.

My brother and I sang songs to ourselves while my youngest brother in the back played a racing game and soon became a bit carsick. Trying to drive in a game while being driven on a windy road probably isn't the best combination ;) Again, it's amazing to me to see how fast some people drive, I always try to keep under the speed limit or at the most, right at the limit, not use that as a recommended speed and then go 10 mph faster than that.

We arrived at our destination at 1530 and stiffly clambered out of my low car. LES (or AL as I call her) came out to greet us, we passed around hugs and then went inside. She is quite the conversationalist and we talked for about forty-five minutes and then headed out to go see "The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe." I had purposely been waiting to see it with her. We had discussed seeing it when I was out of school, I had made these plans oh, probably at least 4 months ago. So that is why, Boromir, I couldn't go out and see it the previous week. She definitely had remembered but wasn't going to press it with me (i.e. pull the "But you promised" card) but I had been really looking forward to it. Apparently on a message board (on my brother's website) I had mentioned something about "As we learned in Narnia." And she remembers those words even though I do not. It prompted her to check into the books (which she had never heard of) and then ask about them. My friend in California and I really encouraged her to get them and read them. She ended up ordering them and giving them to her husband as his birthday present, and he still hasn't read them but she did.

When reading through the first book (we both recommended that she read "The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe" first) she was kind of doubting, knowing it was for a third grade level reader and when Aslan was killed she was very, very upset and didn't want to finish it. She did though and started to realize what it was all about. I wasn't telling her much because I prefer to let people discover things for themselves and I do NOT give things away. After reading through some more of the books and especially Voyage of the Dawn Treader (she fell in love with Reepicheep and cried when he left) she really began to see the books as more than books. That's how I feel about them, they aren't simply words to me, or not just for literary critics, there is so much more behind them! There was a guy in my chemistry lab that I saw who was reading one of the Chronicles of Narnia, and he seemed to approach them just like Harry Potter or something. I asked if he liked it and he said "it's below my reading level." First of all, I should HOPE he's above a third-grade reading level, but second, he's missing the point of the books, the beauty is lost on him. It's not just a fantasy, it's oh so much more! I can't describe how much they do mean to me.

Then when she got to The Last Battle, and the dogs fighting with the humans to the last (she loves dogs and has many at her house, all "freebies" that were dropped off) and then to see Reepicheep again, she wouldn't trade the books for anything now. The last time I read through The Last Battle I was quite moved too.

Anyway, all of this to say that we were both really looking forward to seeing the movie together and then discussing it afterward. Her husband paid for both the tickets and then wouldn't let me pay for the pizza we picked up afterward, they were very generous toward us and I really appreciated them. She baked a pie JUST because I had said I liked pie and believe me, it was the best apple pie I'd ever eaten, it just melted in my mouth! For my brother she made a chocolate cake that was very moist and delicious. Daisy, if you ever read this far, you've never had chocolate cake like this before, it was SO delicious. I don't care for chocolate cake ordinarily (too dry) but this was good, good, good!

So anyway, the movie. We didn't arrive very early but were able to get seats easily enough. I sat next to AL on one side on purpose so we two (my other brother had already seen it) could be surprised together. They had a lot of previews beforehand, none of which were worth mentioning except perhaps Cars. I'm dubious though, as I usually am about new movies. I felt the same about The Incredibles but I absolutely loved that movie so this could be good too!

During the opening scene I instantly recognized the Nazi's cross on the planes and I wondered if many others did. I think it should be recognizable but it's surprising to me how much history many kids don't know these days. Such as December 7th, a lot don't know about it and it's rather sad to realize it.

Once the movie had started, all of my former fears and critiques (from the trailer) melted away and I was engrossed in the movie. Some of the lines were perhaps a bit too familiar from the trailers but wow, the whole movie itself was very moving. I didn't really care for the in-fighting between Susan and Peter (she seemed to side with Edmund on a few occasions) and it seemed odd that the beavers were still at their house when the wolves attacked (and wow, they sure made a huge tunnel exiting, considering their size).

Mr. Tumnus was very good, perhaps a bit too tall still but very personable. I liked him a lot. The snow falling, everything seemed so rich. The Turkish Delights looked absolutely delicious. I did think that when they ran away from what they thought was the White Witch and hid in that hole, that it would have been extremely easy to track them, being as it wasn't snowing at all but was actually quite sunny. You know, the book itself isn't extremely long but it is packed with detail and much of it they captured in the movie very well. I thoroughly enjoyed it.

The central part though, where Aslan, with a very great sadness that you could almost feel, went up to the Stone Table. He let himself be tossed down, taunted, tied up tightly, dragged up the stones quite roughly, and then killed by the White Witch. At any moment he could have easily broken his bonds and torn them all to shreds yet he stayed there. It reminded me very, very much (as it should have) of my Lord and how He could have come off the cross, He had legions of angels who would have come to His aid, it wasn't the nails that held Him to the cross, it was His love for His people, for sinners such as me. It really brought that home, it's about as close as I've come to crying on any movie even though I knew exactly what was to happen. My eyes watered up. I wish they had spent a bit more time on the "resurrection" scene and let the girls get further away and then come running back (because since they were right there, how would they think that the baddies had come back to do worse things to him?) but wow, seeing Aslan pictured in the frame of the stone pillars with the light behind him. His roar was really good too. Too much of the movie was computerized in my opinion but overall it was really, really good and I'd definitely want to see it again sometime.

Narnia does mean a lot to me. I remember being devastated when younger and reading The Last Battle and finding out that Narnia was gone, but it wasn't the "true" Narnia as I later realized. The books seem to mean much more to me as I grow older, one would think it would be the other way around but it's not.

We discussed the movie quite a bit after getting back to our friend's house. We all agreed that they got the key points in the movie and did them very well. I still like the old White Witch better though, this new one just seemed a bit strange for some reason. I liked the Centaur (I can't remember his name right now) and Mr. Tumnus was very good, but I actually like the professor a lot too, as I said before, perhaps his hair stuck out a little TOO much, but he did a pretty good job overall I thought.

One thing that was interesting, was how they portrayed Susan as already being more of the "grown-up" one, Lucy commented on her getting boring etc. and at first I didn't care for that but I have to wonder if they did that so they could set it up for Susan's ultimate turning away from Narnia at the end. I do hope they make the rest of the series, I want to see The Magician's Nephew, and Voyage of the Dawn Treader, and The Last Battle (though no movie could do the ending justice) and A Horse and his Boy. I really like that last book for some reason, perhaps it appeals to the boy in me.

Gus, if you're reading this, it's no longer a bedtime story for you, it's got to be an "early morning" story by now ;) I've still got to write about Wednesday a little and then the next couple of days could probably be lumped together fairly easily.