If you were to ask my girls what book was our favorite for them growing up they would both say "The Little Old Lady That Wasnt Afraid of Anything." by Megan Lloyd, and Linda Williams.
When a cheerful old lady heads out at dusk for a walk, she runs into a series of very eerie surprises in the middle of the dark forest. Shoes with no one inside them clomp, clomp behind her. Pants with no one inside them wiggle, wiggle after her as she walks along.
A shirt, gloves, and a hat all join the parade, with every article of clothing making a special spooky noise that invites kids to clank and clomp and howl along. Maybe the old lady is beginning to get a little frightened now, especially when a pumpkin head appears!
The utterly satisfying conclusion of this marvelous story shows children that facing fears can often turn something that seems scary into a delightful surprise.
Still a wonderful little Halloween story even if I read it better wink wink. Did you have a favorite kid's book that you read to your kids over and over again? Let me know below.
While your flipping through these blog pages, make sure to check out the other scarecrows counting down to the magical holiday. Countdown to Halloween.
"The Duxorcist", "Night of the Living Duck" and "Invasion of the Bunny Snatchers" are combined to form this TV special.
Invasion of the Bunny Snatchers is a Bugs Bunny short subject directed by Greg Ford and Terry Lennon and released in 1992. The cartoon was intended for theatrical release but eventually aired as part of the television special Bugs Bunny's Creature Features. Its premise is modeled after the 1956 film Invasion of the Body Snatchers, and it is considered subversive and a lampoon of cheaply-drawn animation.
The Duxorcist has Daffy Duck receiving a call from Melissa Duck that her house is being haunted. Daffy quickly rushes over and checks the house. When he opens the oven, it is a frozen wasteland with small people living in an igloo. When he opens the refrigerator, fire leaps out and burns him. When the cupboard door is opened, there is a train heading straight towards him. He quickly slams it and goes to talk to Melissa. He soon finds out that she is possessed, so he gets a book and starts reading corny ghost jokes. The three ghosts that possessed Melissa to jump out and chase Daffy down the street.
Night of the Living Duck finds Daffy Duck reading a scary comic book called "Hideous Tales". The story ends in a cliffhanger, and Daffy rifles his bookcase looking for the next issue ("It's a veritable collector's item!"). A Smogzilla clock falls, and beans Daffy, making him think he's the featured act in a nightclub. All the customers at the nightclub are classic movie monsters. Fortunately, there was a bottle of "Eau de Tormé" in Daffy's dressing room, which makes him sing like Mel Tormé. He sings "Monsters Lead Such Interesting Lives" to the room, and they love it. Then he goes around the room, greeting the patrons, but his good-natured ribbing of "Smogzilla" doesn't go over well with the giant lizard, who eats Daffy. Daffy wakes up, to find himself stuck in a wastebasket, along with the comic he was looking for, with "Smogzilla" on the cover. Daffy scoffs, and the Smogzilla on the cover comes to life, saying, "You were expecting maybe Calvin Coolidge?"
Not the best collection of Halloween spooky shorts but fun to revisit. So sit back and enjoy this 1992 VHS tape.
When you are done make sure to hop on over to the Countdown to Halloween headquarters for more Halloween goodies.
Wow-what a month August has turned into! The past few weeks have been a whirlwind literally. We survived Derecho and two milestone birthdays and the dreaded first days of school. So what is a Derecho you might ask well it is a line of intense, widespread, and fast-moving windstorms and sometimes thunderstorms that moves across a great distance and is characterized by damaging winds.
August 10,2020 will be a day not soon forgotten around here it all started early in the early afternoon when the alerts started hitting our phones. Soon after I received a text from Lainey who was home alone asking when I would be leaving work. I promised her soon and would be home before the storm. Well man that storm moved in fast! I was in the parking lot looking at the sky letting her know I was on my way and the storm still looked far away. I was within a mile from home when the wind started to swirl around me. Mind you I live five minutes from work once that wind started the sirens started to whale and my foot hit the gas. I never drove that fast in my life but it was all about getting home to protect my family. I called around to family members telling them to seek shelter only to find out my oldest was stuck at Hobby Lobby. Fear started to set in as I pulled up to the house and the light poles around me started to shot out sparks! I ran into the house flew to the basement to check on Lainey and all we could hear from that point was snap, crackle, and thud everywhere.
We had tree limbs everywhere once the storm ended. You could not drive down our street and our neighborhood was pretty much shut down. We had over 100 power poles ripped from the ground, it was a war zone. After checking on the family making sure they where all ok I ran across the street to check on the neighbors. We are truly blown away by the damage but are grateful that everyone is ok.
Sadly I lost my car in the storm it was old but still running like a beast! Ella was really sad as it was going to be her car once her license was in. It was good to us she will be sadly missed.
As night started to fall it was quickly becoming clear we would not have power for a bit, and for the first night, it was kind of exciting. Thankfully it was a cool evening and rather fun to sit outside with neighbors talking and getting to know one another.
Tuesday August 11th, kicked off with clean up and man there was a ton of it. It also started to set in that the power was not coming on still and this started to bother the girls. In fact, the start of the school year was looming on Lainey's shoulders that she was not going to get a good night's sleep. As the day crept on we decided to reach out to friends that did have power and try to get as much food out of the fridge to be saved as we could.
Wednesday, August 12th the city has set up a dumpster for those of us still without power and it was time to clean out the fridge and the deep freezer. So sad we had just gone shopping on Sunday and with all the stocking up during the COVID (we used the extra money for from Erinn's unemployment for food) we ended up tossing well over $1,000 worth in the dumpster. It was sad really and it took us 3 trips. Also, today is my 50th Birthday and the kids are really bummed we can not do anything that was planned. We did make the best of it tho and that's all this guy needs. The weather was no longer cooperating with us as well sure 85 degrees does not sound hot but when you have no air movement it makes for a hard night of sleep. Ok, so we are starting to get a tad upset with the power, not at the company we get that they are working their butts offs. 8:00PM what is this? Is this the power company here to save the day?? Well... they came by looking at the damage came over to us and said "I'm so sorry folks there is nothing we can do tonight" we had so much damage around us that all they could do was clean up the wires and prepare for the next day. *sigh*
Thursday, August 13th and it was a rough night the house never really cooled off staying in the upper 70s all night long. It was also the first day of school with no power and no food in the house it made for an interesting send-off. But hey nothing a doughnut and milk from the gas station to start your day cant fix. I think this picture sums up August 2020, in a nutshell, wearing a mask to school tree damage in the background, yeah this one is for the books! They will be telling this story to their grandkids someday.
It's really hard to send your kids off to school during these trying times but this one is always full of joy and could not wait to get back. She has been away from school and friends for six months and she was ready to go.
Man Thursday was getting really bad the temps crept up to 90 degrees around 4o'clock we seemed to still be without hope. Finally, around 5 PM, the calvary showed up. It took them a while but shortly after 7, we had power! We cheered the linesmen and gave them huge Thank You and ran to close windows and turn on the A/C trying to cool off the house for the night. What a crazy week it has been.
Friday, August 14th the came to take my baby away. We bought this car when Ella was born because the car seat would not fit in our other car. So after sixteen years, this baby has seen a lot. It was really hard to say goodbye the car has been a beast. We felt safe handing it down to Ella when she could start driving.
Did the Derecho effect you? Let me know in the comments below. It was a crazy ride that we will talk about for years to come.
Of course I made a video of the experience for my kids to have down the road. It's a bit boring but your welcome to check it out.
Ok, gang here is a small update from the past month. It's been kind of hard to get online these past days. The negative world we live in is just too much. And sadly it's not going to get any better leading up to November. First up the BLM movement.
Even our small town was affected by the ugly turn of events. We had threats directed at us and with a store full of windows we had to take action. The whole town closed early boarded up windows and went home for the day. Thankfully nothing came of this and we went back to work the next day. Today we have a protest that has the town a little uneasy as Blue Lives Matter and Black Lives Matter plan on getting together on opposites sides of the street. We sure hope it stays peaceful.
Now a little bit of good news we became God Parents once again! Though we had to stay home for the actual blessing we did get to finally meet baby Elli.
Ok Ok stand back for this big update well two of them to be exact!! My oldest has begun her driving journey. She worked hard to ace the class during these remote learning days of summer! And believe it or not her first road time went pretty smoothly. We went out to the college parking lot for a few hours driving in circles. She starts instructor lead driving classes on the road this week and she will do just fine. And with that, this girl went out and got herself...
... a job! Look out world there is no stopping her! Both girls were chosen to be young ambassadors for Stage 212's virtual summer camp. Sadly 212 canceled all of there shows for the season and we patiently wait to see if Elf will happen this fall.
And of course, the biggest thing to happen this summer, Hamilton! We made it a party that night and the girls have watched it numerous times this week. I love it such a great show kind of bummed I did not see it on stage, and to say we did not have the surround sound jamming we ended up blowing out a speaker.
I did get some good movie viewing in last month and plan on posting those this week. I sure hope everyone is staying safe! And let us not make the wearing mask's political and more polite! Please wear a mask for the sake of the clerk behind the counter trying to help you while your breathing on them 😁!
So how is everybody holding up? Going into my second week away from work and doing ok, I miss working but enjoying the time with family. I managed to put together a few more videos this week. Remember you can always follow my YouTube channel.
First up with this wonderful lock down our town thrown together a drive through Easter Bunny and Friends event. I have to say it was pretty cool and even tho my kids might be a tad old but we needed to get out of the house, you know? So sit back relax and join us, shall you? And keep your windows rolled up for the safety of yourself and others.
Of course, Easter had a different look this year, and while we stay in we still find ways to get out safely. For example on Saturday we where egged. Yep, some of our friends came by snuck around the house and hide eggs. So we paid it forward hitting a few of our friends. You'll find that as part of this week's Coronavirus video. Enjoy...
Ok, and as a bonus, I found some old video of the girls doing a fashion show in 2010! So for fun, I tossed it together and you know if you would like the video is here for you.
Hang in there everybody! The light seems to be at the end of the tunnel and fingers crossed it's almost in view!
The Strongest Man In The World
1975 | G | 1HR 32 Min | Family | Disney
Director:
Vincent McEveety
Writers:
Joseph L. McEveety
Herman Groves
Stars:
Kurt Russell
Joe Flynn
Eve Arden
Synopsis:
A school laboratory accident mixes one student's vitamin cereal mix with Dexter Riley's chemical experiment. When the kids decide to dispose of the mess to their neighbor's cow, they learn that the cereal gave the cow the super-strength to give a massively vast supply of milk. When they try it out on themselves, they discover that the stuff gives any human superhuman strength for a few minutes. The school sees this as the thing needed to save their school from closure, as the Dean makes a deal with his relative who owns the company that makes the cereal for financial support, unaware that it was Dexter's chemical which was solely responsible for the strength. When her competitor learns of this deal, he hires two criminals to stop it.
One of the first things I could not wait to do when signing up for Disney+ was watching childhood classics again. All of us that grew up on those classic's remember how heartwarming they were and in many ways simplistic fun. Now for me, many of those Disney movies would include stars Jodie Foster, Kurt Russell and of course Fess Parker. I would say I'm pretty passionate about this project and have spent a bulk of my time watching many of the short cartoons first so today was time to jump into the real fantasy world. Not ready to dive into the Jodie Foster end of things yet I grabbed a Kurt Russell vehicle instead. First to note I forgot that this was part of the Dexter series so lucky me I went out of order. Strongest Man is part three of this collage-based trilogy.
The Worlds Strongest Man will sadly be the last film for a few legends. Raymond Bailey yep (Milburn Drysdale) and Roy Roberts (John Cushing) both of Beverly Hillbillies fame give us one last performance before retirement. After an impressive 194 tiles under his belt, William Bakewell hung up his SAG card. Sadly this will be the last on-screen appearance for the beloved Joe Flynn. Best known as the co-star of many Disney films in the 1960s and '70s he was found dead lying at the bottom of his swimming pool, weighted down by the cast on his broken leg, having suffered a heart attack while in the pool. Sadly he was only 49. His last picture would be the 1977 animation hit The Rescuers.
Wow, that took a dip sorry! Let's talk about one more cast member, shall we? When Eve Arden come on my kids perked up strolling into the living room knowing her voice. It may have taken a few minutes but they got it the famous (in our house) voice of Principal McGee in the 1978 masterpiece Grease (the most-watched movie in this house) her husky voice is legendary. Dick Van Patten another Disney staple plays the bad guy and plays him well. So with such a great cast why would Kurt Russell still get top billing? Even if the whole 2nd act and most of the 3rd act is lined with the cast mentioned above.
The first act fly's by rather quickly with Russell and his gang in a very clean looking collage. In fact, their house is immaculate. Not the kind of college hangout you would see in say Animal House. And the cast is starting to look a little old for their parts yet there looks do not take you out of the movie. In the second act, the meat that goes with those potatoes comes with comedic relief as Flynn comes up with a plan to save his job and the school by selling this newfound experiment to a cereal company. Unffortanty this is when the movie starts to drag us down and almost crashes to a complete halt. Thankfully we head to the finish line of the big contest of what team can lift more weight the state champs or our dweeby scientists.
With the dweebs losing badly, thank goodness for Dexter (Russell) as he uses the last of his super-strength serum to lift the 1,111-pound weight to win it for Crumply Crunch Cereal Company and Medfield Collage. Hurray Higgins and Quigley get to keep their jobs! And that my friends would be the final chapter on the Dexter trilogy
Even tho I watched The Strongest Man In The World for purely nostalgic reasons it falls just a tad short of worthwhile. Maybe I'm wrong and just being a little harsh but I feel like the dip from the second half brings the mood way down. I was so close to fast-forwarding just to find Kurt once again. It's a cute 70s Disney story that does not veer far from the Magic Formula of most Disney Classic's but falls just short of memorable.
A kind-hearted street urchin Aladdin vies for the love of the beautiful princess Jasmine, the princess of Agrabah. When he finds a magic lamp, he uses a genie's magic power to make himself a prince to marry her. He is also on a mission to stop the powerful Jafar who plots to steal the magic lamp that could make his deepest wishes come true.
The Monkey In The Room.
Ok, let's talk about the monkey in the room for a second, shall we? When Aladdin was teased everybody was up in arms about Will Smith and his role-playing the Genie. Look he is no Robbin Williams but was he really that bad? I think not, in fact, I thought he did a great job when he was being himself its when he tried to channel in the cartoon Genie that he failed. And to be honest you would think he could sing just a tad better then he did. Honestly, I did like him 90% of the time. So with that, the rest of the movie should make everybody happy right? With the right blend of action and romance, Aladdin is a perfect family movie that just happens to run over 2 hours. Yep, my kids were growing bored rather quickly.
It's so beautiful!
My kids also took notice of the strangely placed camera angles from time to time and trying to explain to them this was a Guy Ritchie flick did not help. Ritchie must have had the Disney blessing to stick to his style action movie formula and for the most part, it paid off. Aladdin is stunning to look at from the sets to the costumes and how the color really splashed off the screen. Pepper in dazzling sound effects that had the whole house shaking and the family belting out the familiar tunes making this one heck of a fun ride.
Choose Wisely
And they did Naomi Scott is a breath a fresh air playing Jasmin and Mena Massoud although rough around the edges did pull off Aladdin. But the one you will remember the most has to be Marwan Kenzari playing Jaffar. Kenzari plays one wicked bad guy hell-bent on ruling the world. Also if I may SNL alum Nasim Pedrad is really cute playing Dalia, yeah just putting that out there.
A Whole New World
This is Guy Ritchie's first PG-rated film and it worked well for me. Take is directorial style add-in Disney Magic and a cute princess exquisite music you can sing along to you are bound to have a $1,050,693,953 dollar hit on your hands. Disney dominated this year's box office and its no secret. I'm just glad people got past the negativity and went out and enjoyed Aladdin. Fire up Disney Plus and take this magic carpet ride I promise you will not be disappointed!
4 Stars out of 5
After watching Avengers and Toy Story 4 in the theatre we look forward to watching The Lion King coming to Disney+ at the end of January. I see another family movie night coming up soon.
I remember when I was dating my wife I gave her this card, she framed it and put it on her coffee table. Now twenty some years later it is still up. Snuggle up with your favorite Pooh fan, a pot of honey and take turns reading about the adventures of Winnie the Pooh on National Winnie The Pooh Day.
Holy Molly what a crazy week it has been, this week at school we had an 8th-grade night as our kids said thank you for all that we have done for the past 8 years. And it was a nice way for the kids to get recognized for everything they have done.
Then on Friday, the school hosted a movie night and it was crazy! All those screaming children ugh not sure many watched "Small Foot" I think that's the name of it.
I could not tell you anything about the movie I was making popcorn all night but when it was over seemed like the kids had fun. And then came #Snowpocalpese 2019, I get it we knew it was coming but it is still fun to talk about anyway right? Sadly tho I rather have been home with my feet up watching out the window instead I was at work.
Sadly the excitement came when a driver lost control on route 80 slid off the road and crashed into a power pole. That said pole then dropped down enough for an oncoming Semi to get tangled in the wires pulling them down. The good new everybody was fine Rt 80 was closed for a few hours and the best part...
We worked in the dark and crazy enough we where busy. Of course, some of the customers were those that had to get off 80 so they came and hung out with us. The power was out from 10am until 4pm and even though the building got cold and we ran on backup power we made the best of it.
So that was my week in a nutshell next week is to be pretty crazy Ella starts Mamma Mia and Lainey starts Volleyball games. So how was your crazy week?
Oh and my kid is way more popular on Twitter than me
