7 Ways to Celebrate Earth Day With Your Kids

On April 22, 1970, over 20 million Americans participated in demonstrations and protests across the US to bring attention to environmental issues. Senator Gaylord Nelson from Wisconsin founded the "national teach-in" about the environment, which became known as Earth Day. It was the start of the environmental movement in the United States and, subsequently, worldwide. The first Earth Day resulted in the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency and several key pieces of environmental legislation. Since 1970, Earth Day has been celebrated every year.  In 2009 the United Nations designated April 22 as International Mother Earth Day. More than a billion people across the globe participate in Earth Day activities each year.  

For more information about the history of Earth Day and 

the campaigns led by the Earth Day Network 

please visit www.earthday.org.

The theme for 2012's Earth Day is "A Billion Acts of Green."  You can visit http://act.earthday.org/ to pledge your act of green. As of the writing of this post, there were almost 1 billion pledges!!!

So how can you help/participate?  There are so many ways to make changes in your life that encourage greener living. The basic idea follows the Reduce, Reuse, Recycle concept. Get outside, spend time with your family learning about the environment and our impact on it, and make changes to minimize that impact.

Here are a few things you can do with your kids (or students) to celebrate earth day:

We planted a Flowering Red Plum Tree

1. Plant a tree in your yard. We did this in 2010 and it was so much fun! Trees filter harmful dust and pollutants from the air we breathe, improving our air quality. They also emit oxygen that we need to breathe, and provide food, protection and habitats for birds and animals. 

2. Go on a nature hike. Spending time outside with your kids is a great way to teach them to appreciate the environment, and the benefits that it provides. It is also a great opportunity to learn about the plant and animal life around you. The more your kids know about the environment, the more they should want to protect it!

3. Make crafts with items from you recycling bin. This is a great opportunity to repurpose items that you might otherwise throw away or recycle. You can turn a milk jug into a bird feeder, or try one of these other milk jug crafts. The internet is full of recycle craft ideas! 

4. Volunteer! Host an Earth Day event, or sign up to participate in one. You and your kids can help a non-profit plant some flowers, or pick up trash at a local park. It gets them involved and reminds them that we have to take care of our environment if we want to be able to continue to enjoy it. 

5. Cook a special Earth Day meal featuring local, organic produce. Buying from local farmers is a way to support your local economy and reduce your carbon footprint. 

6. Calculate your carbon footprint.  This is a great activity to do with older kids. It allows them to see what impact they are personally having, and how your family impacts the environment as a whole.

7. Make a list of changes your family can make to limit your carbon footprint. Be sure to include the small changes you can make to conserve energy, such as turning lights off, using less air conditioning, unplugging electronics not in use. Then move on to the bigger things like recycling, riding a bicycle or walking instead of driving, planting a garden, etc. This is an activity that you can involve the whole family in.  Be creative!

This is just a short list of simple ways that you can get your children involved in Earth Day. You can do most of these activities year round too! Do you have any Earth Day traditions? Why not start a new one?

Traveling to Anna Maria Island

We recently took a mini vacation to Florida. We stayed in Bradenton, about 7 miles from Anna Maria Island, at the house that I inherited from my mother when she died.  We took all 3 kids, my 18 year old cousin and her boyfriend. It was a full car, but we managed the 12 hour drive with little excitement.

The gang at Downtown Disney

Since traffic was backed up around Disney, we decided to stop at Downtown Disney to stretch our legs and get a bite to eat before the final 2 hours of our drive. It was insanely busy, but we enjoyed watching the street performers and walking through the gift shops and, of course, the giant Lego store.

Once in Bradenton we had to do some upkeep on the house my mother left to me and my brother, but we spent most of our free time at Coquina Beach on Anna Maria Island. The weather was gorgeous and the water was warm enough to hang out in, unlike the beaches here in North Carolina. The kids built sand castles and kicked the soccer ball on the sand. It was so great!

Coquina Beach on Anna Maria Island

If you've never been to Anna Maria Island, it is a small island (about 7 miles long) on the Gulf Coast of Florida, south of Tampa Bay. It's full of vacation rentals, restaurants and small tourist shops. The beach extends the entire western coast of the island. It is a beautiful sandy beach which is kept very clean. At Coquina Beach there is ample parking (except on Easter, which we found out the hard way), grills and picnic tables, life guards and public restrooms. It's a perfect place to spend the day with the family.

If you like to explore, you can rent scooters for an hour or more. We rent from Island Scooter Rentals on Gulf Dr. It's in a great spot and their rates are reasonable. My cousin and her boyfriend rented a scooter for half a day to check out the island. They had to show their driver's licenses and give a credit card for the refundable deposit, but they didn't need any parental permission since they're 18. They opted for helmets, but in Florida it's only required if you're under 16. After a brief training and several practice laps, they were off for 4 hours!

While they scooted, we ate ice cream at Joe's Eats and Sweets. They have a large variety of sundaes that they make with their homemade ice cream. It is a little bit pricey, but so worth it! They have great homemade waffle cones too!

One of my favorite things to do is watch the sunset on Anna Maria Island. Sometimes, as the sun sets below the horizon a flash of green light can be seen...or so I'm told. We held my mother's memorial at sunset on Coquina Beach and it was gorgeous. This may have been our last family trip to Bradenton, but it will always hold a special place in my heart!

Coquina Beach on Dwellable

Anna Maria on Dwellable

What I Read Wednesdays: Getting Attached

Have you ever gotten so attached to a character, a book, a series, that when you're done reading you can't pick up another book immediately because you aren't ready to let go? I first had that problem with The Twilight Series. When I finished Breaking Dawn I didn't read anything for a while. Then I read the other books by Stephenie Meyer and I was sated.  I read The Hunger Games even faster than the Twilight books, but I think that is mainly because they're half as long. To get over my attachment to that series I read Divergent, by Veronica Roth. It's a similar book but with better characters and less killing of teenagers. Now I'm hooked on The Fifty Shades Trilogy, in case you hadn't noticed! I haven't been able to read anything else since I started reading Fifty Shades of Grey by E.L. James.  I'm now almost done reading the entire series for the second time, and I think I've enjoyed it more the second time.

In the first book, you meet the characters and watch them fall in love. In the second book you watch their walls break down and they begin to understand each other and their love. In the third book you get to see their life together unfold. It's so captivating that I can't help but think about the books even after I'm finished reading them.

Last week I went to Florida and we saw a helicopter take off in Orlando, right next to the highway. Immediately I thought of Christian and Ana's first flight in Charlie Tango. Later we went to the beach, passing several large marinas on our way. I thought of Christian's boat, The Grace, and tried to pick out a boat that might be similar. I also notice the yachts off shore, imagining that one of them was the Fair Lady, the boat that Christian and Ana honeymooned on.  I neglected to share my thoughts with my husband because I'm pretty sure he already things I'm a little too obsessed with these books. I enjoyed keeping it to myself - almost like a fond memory that only I was privy to.

I have about 100 pages left of Fifty Shades Freed, and I have no idea what I'm going to read next. I have a ton of books on my nook just waiting to be read, but I'm not ready to let go!  Have you ever felt that way about a book?

What I Read Wednesday: Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

After seeing all of the movie previews for Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer, I borrowed the ebook from a friend of mine. I didn't have any expectations when I started the book, so I can't say that I was disappointed, but I didn't love it. 


Brief Synopsis:
A young boy, Oskar Schell, loses his father in the September 11th attacks on the World Trade Center, after which he finds a key in his father's belongings. He sets out to find the lock that the key goes to by visiting every person in the phone book with the last name black, in alphabetical order. Through a series of letters, a separate story unfolds about Oskar's Grandparents, which finally converges with the main story.

Overall Review: 
The overall story line is good, but the book was choppy and disjointed. I had a hard time keeping track of which character was narrating and found myself re-reading a lot. It was the telling of the two stories, and that fact that they were seemingly unrelated that made it confusing.

I didn't feel like the plot line built up to a good climax, and didn't love the ending. Overall, I would not recommend this book. I only finished it because I was hoping it would get better. Now that the movie is out on video, I might watch it, but it's not high on my list. I have to give this one a thumb's down.

Did you read this book? What did you think? Did you see the movie? I'm curious to know if others feel the same as I do about the book and if watching the movie might be better.  Please share!

Movie Monday: John Carter

I went to see this movie with my boys, mostly because there wasn't a lot to choose from. We had already seen The Lorax, and they're not quite old enough for the Hunger Games. I had seen the previews and wasn't exactly excited to see it, but I looked at a couple of viewer reviews (I never listen to the critics), and I was hopeful that we would all enjoy it. I have to say that I was pleasantly surprised!

I'm not sure why this movie hasn't received more attention, especially since it is a Disney made film. The director/writer, Andrew Stanton, worked on Wall-E and Finding Nemo, but this was his first live-action film. The movie earned almost half of it's domestic box office revenue to date in its first weekend, earning just over $30 million and debuting at #2 . Foreign revenues for the film have almost tripled the domestic revenues. According to the LA Times, one of the biggest hurdles this movie faced was the executive turnover and marketing inexperience. Usually Disney movies are marketing to the nth degree, and you can't help but want to go see them. I don't think that the previews did this movie justice, and there was very little buzz about it before it debuted. My kids wanted to see it when they saw the previews, but they quickly forgot about it once we left the theater.

Brief Synopsis:
A civil war veteran, who has lost his wife and child and is wanted by the military, is transported to Barsoom (Mars) after picking up a  medallion in a cave.  He is taken prisoner by the native race, and is quickly thrust into the middle of a civil war between the cities of Helium and Zodanga. The Jeddak (King) of Zodanka proposes a cease-fire as long as the Princess of Helium agrees to marry him. John Carter helps the Princess escape and they set off to find a way for John Carter to get back to Earth. The Princess is recaptured after they find the weapon that the Jeddak has been using. John Carter saves the Princess from her impending marriage,  and they are about to live happily every ever after, until he is banished back to Earth by a shape-shifting Thern (White Martian).

The twist, that is unclear until the very end, is that while John Carter is on Barsoom, his body double is still on Earth in an inanimate (coma-like) state. After he returns to Earth, he fakes his own death to draw out the God-like Thern that was sent there to watch him. He is able to use the Thern's medallion to go back to Barsoom forever, leaving his nephew inherit his fortune and watch over his human body.

For a full plot summary, visit John Carter on Wikipedia.

Overall Review:
There is a lot of special effects in this movie, which are actually pretty cool. I loved the ships and the Ninth Ray weapon that the Therns have. The love story between John Carter and the Princess is predictable, but a welcome reprieve from the fighting and special effects. To me, this movie is Star Wars meets Avatar. While I'm not usually a big sci-fi fan, I enjoyed it much more than I thought I would, and the kids were engulfed the entire movie. Even my 3 year old, who had no idea what was going on, stayed quiet and glued to the screen. I hope that more people go see this movie. It is a good movie for the whole family. Two thumbs up!!!

Movie Monday: Possible Fifty Shades Movie?

There is no question that The Fifty Shades book trilogy written by E.L. James is a hot topic right now. It's being discussed on morning talk shows, entertainment shows, in car pool lines, on the soccer field sidelines, and countless other places! Recently, I wrote about the trilogy in What I Read Wednesday: Fifty Shades Trilogy. Later, I was interviewed by Right This Minute about my review of the series. The thing about these books is that the more you think about them, the more you talk about them, and the more you think about them.

There has been some speculation about whether or not this series will be made into a movie. People question how they could do it while continuing to appeal to the female viewers. According to The Hollywood Reporter,

A veteran producer who spoke to THR ... wonders if Fifty Shades can actually be made. "I’ve heard that women will read about pornography; men like to watch it," he notes, adding, "This sounds like an updated version of 9 1/2 Weeks."

While I have to agree that not all women are looking for pornography to watch on a Friday night, I think this movie can be made as a mainstream movie that appeals to both women and men. The sex scenes don't need to be explicit to get the point across. A lot of the passion and naughtiness can be conveyed without the closeups and money shots typical of porn movies.  I think men will still want to watch it because they'll want to know what their women have been obsessing over. I think it's a win-win. So what if it's an updated version of 9 1/2 weeks? That movie is always recommended to women as a way to spice up their sex lives. I'm okay with a newer version, as long as it's done right. There are plenty of movies out there right now about teen angst and young love. It's about time we have one that is for adults!

So let's talk about what one should expect from this movie. As anyone who has read the book(s) can attest, this story is not just about the sex. And when it is about the sex, it's not all about S&M. I think the movie should capitalize on the fact that while he is originally looking for a pure submissive, he learns very quickly that she doesn't have a submissive bone in her body, and he decides that he is okay with that (but that doesn't mean he is willing to give up control). He introduces her to a lifestyle that she would probably not have come across on her own, and she pulls him out of his world and into hers where he experiences many firsts with her, including introducing her to his family, sharing his bed with her, flying her in his helicopter, etc. The key is that they find a balance while falling in love, so he still gets some of what he needs, and so does she. It's hot and steamy, but it's still a love story.

There are a few things in the books that I really enjoyed that will be hard to convey on the big screen.  Christian and Ana have a playful banter, which is often portrayed through email in the books. It's not always what is written in the body of the emails that is important, but more often the subject and the email signature that make me laugh. Along with the playful banter, we also get to see the many sides of Ana's psyche in the books, which she calls her Inner Goddess and her subconscious. It's funny to see how the different sides of her mind react to certain situations compared to how she ultimately decides to act or react. If they can find a way to capture these things in the movie without being cheesy, I will be very happy!

One of the things many people are speculating about right now is who should play the parts of Ana and Christian in the movies. I haven't seen any suggestions that I whole-heartedly agree with yet, so I'm trying to come up with a few suggestions of my own. I think the most important thing for the actor portraying Christian to have is the eyes. I would like to see someone like Ian Somerhalder, who plays Damon on the Vampire Diaries,  play the part. He has a great body, extremely good looks and crazy eyes that can just as easily  melt you as terrorize you. The only problem is that he doesn't have copper hair, but I can get past that. Another option could be Jensen Ackles, who is currently playing Dean Winchester on Supernatural. He, at least, has almost the right color hair. I also think Chris Pine, who played opposite Reese Witherspoon in This Means War, might be a viable candidate.

As for the leading female role, I am torn. I know that Anastasia is only 21/22 in the books, but I'd like to see a slightly older actress playing her. This article suggest  Rooney Maura, and after seeing The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo I know that she could do the sex scenes, but I don't know that she could pull off the rest of the character (only because I haven't seen any more of her work). I would hate to see Kristen Stewart playing the role for many reasons, so she's definitely out. I've also seen people suggest Jennifer Lawrence, but Katniss (from The Hunger Games) cannot be Anastasia! That would just not work for me. I guess I don't really have a suggestion for the leading female role. Maybe it should be an unknown!

So what do you think? Would you like to see them make the books into a movie? Who would you cast?

ETA: The movie rights for the entire trilogy have been sold to Universal and Focus Entertainment for an estimated $5 million. The author retained the rights over final scripting and casting. I'm anxious to see who gets cast!

What I Read Wednesdays: Fifty Shades Trilogy

I first have to apologize for being almost completely absent for the past 6 days or so. I didn't write a single blog post, and barely posted to FB or Twitter. I blame in all on E.L. James' Fifty Shades Trilogy: Fifty Shades of Grey, Fifty Shades Darker, and Fifty Shades Freed. Once I started reading the first one, it was on! I stayed up until 4:00am most nights (mornings?) just to finish a book...and then start the next one. I neglected pretty much everything else to read these books, and it was so worth it!

If you haven't heard about these books because you live under a rock  from one of your girlfriends, or from Good Morning America, allow me let you in on the secret - it's being dubbed "mommy-porn" and it's awesome! What I love most is that the story isn't just about sex, although it is really hot. It's about relationships of all sorts, and the flaws that make us human. It's about overcoming your past (and your present), to have the future that you deserve.

So here is a brief synopsis:
A fairly plain 21 year old virgin, Anastasia Steele, is forced to interview an extremely gorgeous, and tremendously wealthy, young entrepreneur, Christian Grey, for the school newspaper because her roommate catches the flu and can't go. That one chance meeting turns out to the be the biggest game changer of her life. She soon realizes that he is scarred, and deeply flawed by his haunting past, but she can't resist him. He wants to possess her, and make her his submissive...until he falls for her.  He realizes that she will never be what he wants her to be, but she is everything that he needs her to be. He tries as hard as he can to pull her into his lifestyle, and she does her best to acquiesce. The heat and passion that ensues as they battle over where to draw the line is intense. They fight, they make up, they hurt one another, and they heal each other.

Although I have no doubt that these books will become equally as popular, they were not written for the young adult audience that The Twilight series and the Hunger Games Trilogy were, and I like it that way. While I am perfectly happy to read a story about teenage romance (because I was there, once) I can truly appreciate (and welcome) a well written, appropriately placed sex scene. These books are loaded with hot, steamy sexcapades, but the story isn't diminished by it -  it's enhanced by it. It's part of what makes this trilogy so captivating. If you're insulted by the f-word, however, I don't think these books are for you!

There is a lot of discussion about whether or not these books are fan fiction. Originally, before it was rewritten, this story was inspired by and based on the characters of Twilight. While you can definitely see some similarities between some of the characters, especially Bella and Edward vs. Ana and Christian, for me that is where the similarities end. There is no supernatural element to these books, unless you consider Christian Grey's supernatural good looks and heavenly body, and these are adult relationships with adult problems.  Personally, I don't care what inspired this story, I'm just glad it was written. Call it fan fiction, erotic fiction, erotica, or any other name of your choosing, it's a great trilogy to read, and then reread!

So have you read these books yet? What did you think?  Who would you like to see cast in the movie?