Julie and Julia

I had promised the kids I would take them to see Aliens in the Attic this morning. Last week I took them to G-Force on the spur of the minute and as soon as we got home, Anna's friend Sierra called to see if she wanted to see it (again). Because Ryan had gone the night before with two of his friends, that meant that two of my children saw the same movie twice in a very short period of time. So this time, I planned ahead and asked Sierra if she wanted to join us. Her mom is my friend Meisje, who also volunteered to come along so I would have grown-up company. At that point I started to feel bad that we were both going to have to sit through the same silly kids movie. That is when the plan started to form. Instead of sitting with the kids through two hours of Aliens, we would settle them into their movie and then go see Julie and Julia, which just happened to start five minutes later. What a brilliant plan! Julie and Julia was absolutely delightful. I would highly recommend it, especially to anyone that has a blog. In case you haven't seen the previews, it is the story of a woman who decides to work her way through every recipe in Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking during the course of a year while blogging about her progress. It is, of course, about more than just cooking. After the movie we went out to Jason's Deli for lunch and then popped into the book store on the way home. It was an excellent way to say goodbye to summer. The kids hop on the school bus bright and early in the morning for a brand new school year. Crisp new backpacks, freshly sharpened number two pencils, gleaming white notebook paper, empty folders awaiting possibilities. What could be better than a brand new start? I truly think that one of the best things about teaching is the ability to start new and fresh every single year. How many jobs offer that?