Drive In movie

Growing up we watched television and some movies via our VCR. We primarily watched re-runs of shows that were aired decades before I was born (I love Lucy, Dick van Dyke, etc.). The first sitcom I remember watching as it came out was "The Cosby Show." The only time we ever watched a movie in a theater was if it was an IMAX movie at a science museum or something like that. In the summer of 1992 I attended Liberty University to start working on my master's degree. My roommates wanted to go see the movie "Beethoven" about a St. Bernard dog. I thought that since I was a college graduate and would soon be starting a job teaching middle school, I was old enough to make my own decisions about whether or not I could darken the door of a movie theater. However, when I actually went to do so, it was so stressful to me that one of my roommates said she thought I should probably not do it because it seemed to me I thought God was going to strike me down with lightning if I entered the building.

Although she was not far off the mark in her assessment, I did go see the movie with them. Not counting the $1 movies I have taken the kids to the past few summers (in which they are not showing newly released movies), I would say I have been to a movie theater about five times over the past 20 years. I remember seeing "A Perfect Storm" and "A Beautiful Mind" with Paul when we were dating. I think we've seen two movies over the past fifteen years of marriage, and both of those were before we became parents. Now it has nothing to do with me feeling any guilt about walking into a movie theater (although there are certainly movies I do think as a Christian I should avoid I don't think it means you need to totally avoid the theater altogether). Mostly it's always been about the money. Even before we had kids it was hard to justify the cost of two movie tickets when we could watch it on dvd for $1 (or for free now that we get almost all our dvd's from the library), and now that we have kids the thought of buying two tickets to a movie PLUS paying $10/hr for a babysitter makes it just totally out of the question.

Anyhow Paul finds it amusing that I've never been to a drive-in movie. We have a couple of them up in our area - one is only about 10 minutes from our house. Since I have been trying to give my kids a wide range of experiences, I do want to take them to a drive-in movie sometime. I considered it this past summer when they were showing Finding Dory at the local drive-in, but the movie ended WAY past their bedtime so I decided to wait until they were older to give that a whirl. I am hoping that at some point Ian and Oliver will learn to sleep in a little later when we keep them up later. Nadia can do that, but the boys haven't thus far. Well today we attended an event at the library that was labeled a drive-in movie. First the kids were each given a box to decorate to turn into a car, and then they were given snacks to enjoy (goldfish crackers, popcorn, Swedish fish, etc.) while watching the movie "Finding Dory." Nadia and Ian sat in their "cars" for the whole movie. Eleven kids each made a car. Oliver got a little scared at one point and sat on my lap for the rest of the movie. It was our first time seeing the movie, and we all enjoyed it. Ian's favorite part was the otters. There was a reporter there today taking pictures, so one of the kids might end up in the newspaper. A reporter from a different newspaper (Press Enterprise) was at the Children's Museum on Saturday morning, and as you can see (above), Ian, Oliver, and I were in it with one of the turkeys. A woman came up to me in Sunday School and told me she saw me in the newspaper that morning (which is how I knew because we don't get any newspapers). Nadia left her car at the library, but the boys wanted me to bring theirs home. We shall see how long they last before I put them in the recycling bin. I'm glad they had fun and enjoyed the movie, and hopefully some day the kids and I will experience our first drive-in movie together.