Congrats Bry and Mindy!!!

So, as I'm sure everyone already knows since I think that I saw everyone from this little AF blogging community except for Linda and Chris there, I went to Medford this weekend. I suppose the weekend kind of officially started on Thursday night when Melina came over, because I forced her to come w/ us so that I wouldn't have to travel alone w/ my family. I do love them dearly, but too much of them can be a little too much to handle (mainly talking about the sisters here, Dad...I'm aware that you read this from time to time ;). Anyways, we watched the super adorable Disney movie, High School Musical, which I happen to love. If you haven't seen it yet, you really should. So what if it's hokey, silly and probably meant for ages 10 through 16.

Back to the trip...we left Friday morning around 7:30 and it took an eternity and a half to get to Medford...really, it did. I think that we finally arrived around 5. I'm shocked that Melina made it there alive and in one piece after being cooped up w/ my fam for that long. Despite the fact that no one seemed to have been aware that it was taking place, the Ordinance service in Medford on Friday night was really good. I enjoyed the messages given by Sis. Susan Sprague and Bro. Terry Ross. We stayed w/ Miss Mindy who is currently residing in an adorable town house that was packed to the max this weekend w/ me, Melina, Melodie and Mindy downstairs while Moo and Joel stayed upstairs.

The following morning was, of course, the focal point of the whole weekend..........drum roll, please...................Bryan and Mindy's graduation. Finally! I mean, I was all of 14 when you two started college and now I'm 22... Lol, it was a nice ceremony, but just kind of...how do I put this nicely...um...long. Following that, we went to Ashland's own Lithia park for Mindy's celebratory picnic. Merna put together a rather fantastic feast that left us more than filled. We attempted to burn some calories and walked to Webster's where I purchased some lovely yarn for a couple of projects that I'm determined to complete. Then a couple of hours later, we were off to the Hinkles' place for Bry's "Graduation Ho-down Throwdown '06" where we forced to eat yet more food. We completed the day at the Lukas' where we just had a grand old time. This morning I had to wake up at the unearthly time of 6:30, so that we could get to Roseburg for church there since it would put us a little closer to home. Then I begged and then begged my parents some more to stop in Chehalis for the evening service there, because there was no way that we'd make it to Tacoma in time. So we did, were only about 10 minutes late and got majority of the service. They were doing Camp Meeting songs for the congregational singing :) My family wanted to leave literally right after the meeting, which is always a little hard for me, because I tend to talk a lot. But I think that I set a record for myself tonight. I basically just gave hugs, said hi and bye to everyone, then ran to the van. Now, I'm home and I miss everyone already...but...CAMP MEETING IS IN TWO WEEKS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Some Life Learnings:
3L #5 - If you are going to be hiking through Lithia Park, be sure to wear comfortable shoes that you can walk in.
3L #6 - Unless it's in a toothbrush case, don't put your toothbrush in a bag along w/ all of your toiletries, because your perfume might leak and you'll end up brushing your teeth w/ apple scented poison.
3L #7 - If you bring your camera w/ you out of town and actually intend to use it, but it is dead, make sure you get some batteries.
On that same note, if anyone has pics from this weekend that they'd like to send me, I'd be much obliged :)

LaDonna's Final Thoughts:
Mindy is on the prowl...Anyone up for a twinkie?...Bry's princess...Nuff said ;)

X-Men: The Last Stand

Okay, so I finally went and saw the third X-Men movie on Thursday and then again today(yay for having a friend who's one of the managers at a theater :). I think that I was kind of putting it off, even though I'm a big fan of the X-Men series, because I really like what Bryan Singer did w/ the first two and didn't think that the new guy, Brett Ratner could do as good of a job. Well, I was right, but Ratner did manage to exceed my expectations a little. What I loved about Singer's directing style was that he really worked to give the audience an insight into the characters' lives. Like when John/Pyro was at the Drakes' house in X2 and we saw him looking wistfully at the family pictures, so it almost makes you think that he may have had a rough life which might've led him to teaming up w/ Magneto. And then in the deleted scenes, there was a little clip w/ Jubilee that Singer really wanted to include, but couldn't for the purpose of time.

Anyways, I went into this new movie w/ fairly low expectations. I do agree w/ what people said about Ratner trying to fit too much in. The movie was only a little longer than an hour and a half, so there was room to elaborate on the material that was already in it. I wouldn't have minded a bit if it was like two to two and a half hours long. I mean, Return of the King was a good three hours. Quite a few new characters were introduced and I felt like we didn't really get to know too much about them or their powers, they were just kind of there. Several of the previously established characters were hardly used at all. Couldn't they have allowed Jubilee to graduate to being one of the X-Men like Colossus did? What about Artie, Siryn and the blinking boy who can control the TV, they were only shown in the classroom w/ Xavier near the beginning of the movie for barely a minute. I've always felt that Cyclops has been underused throughout the movies, so...whoops, I'm attempting to not include too many spoilers in this blog, so let's just say that once again, Cyclops was hardly in the movie. Some good points: great special effects; nice storyline about Jean/Phoenix; Ratner did a good job of leaving it open for a possible fourth(though I'm not really expecting there to be one); and Eric Dane, who played Multiple Man, was extremely pleasant to look at. Bottom line - a bit of a let down, but not a complete waste, for what's thought to be the final installment of the X-Men movie series. Of course, we can blame Singer for up and leaving to direct Superman Returns. I do have to give Ratner props for doing as well as he did, because it has got to be tough to do the final movie in a series after the original director did such an amazing job w/ the first two movies.