Movie Review: Wreck It Ralph

Movie Review: Wreck It Ralph

Parents who grew up in the Pac-Man, Q-Bert arcade age will enjoy this movie as much as their children will. The games that provide the central settings for the movie: a first person shooter with vicious destructive bugs, a candyland racing game, and Fix-it Felix Jr. – Wreck It Ralph's own game, are all fictional games (so far). Yet, the old classics make lots of amusing cameo appearances in the surge protector that serves as a passageway for the characters from one game to another.

There are good messages about friendship and being true to yourself, while also stretching to do more then you thought you could. What follows includes some spoilers for content to help parents judge if the movie would be a good fir for their own kids and family.

Overall, while there are scary moments, and sad moments, they felt milder than many kid movies. My kids said they shed a few tears.

Violence: The first person shooter game, and the character that comes out of that game use lots of over the top firepower. All the shooting is directed solely at the enemy giant bugs. Ralph causes lots of damage to objects and buildings, and occasionally uses his strength on the bugs, but there is no other violence toward other people. (People in the video game sense which is very diverse.)

Romance: Fix it Felix is quickly enamored with the character from the shooting game and makes frequent innocent romantic remarks to her.  They also kiss a few times.

Language: Ralph and the Candy racing girl exchange a lot of personal insults along the lines of ‘stinking breath’, ‘stupid head’, and so forth. As their friendship progresses, these are clearly used as terms of affection, but they are frequent. They also have a discussion of “Duty’ as a pun on ‘doody’, ie: poop.

Drugs/Alcohol: A character makes himself a martini. I didn’t notice any other references.

Book review: Fancy Nancy: Poet Extraordinaire!

Book review: Fancy Nancy: Poet Extraordinaire!

Fancy Nancy was my own wake-up call about not judging a book by its cover. I avoided these books for my girls because I assumed they were about being pretty and having the right clothes, and things that I didn’t want my girls to get caught up in.

One day, my youngest found “Fancy Nancy: Poet Extraordinaire” at the library and asked to check it out. I do my very best to let them pick out whatever interests them at the library, so I let her. Naturally, then she needed me to read it to her. I was happily surprised by the story.

It turns out that Fancy Nancy like fanciness in all aspects of her life. Yes, her clothing and appearance is one aspect of her fanciness, it is also treated in the book as somewhat of a given, and not discussed. I suppose the illustrations do that part. She also loves fancy words, and this it turns out is the theme of this book. Fancy Nancy is trying to write a poem, and read other poems in her quest to write a great fancy poem. She learns new fancy words along the way, and their meanings. It reminded me more than a little bit of the “Martha Speaks” book and television series in that way.

More importantly, my daughter loved it, and wanted to talk about some of the words she learned. So it has been a lesson to me. My original rule to myself – to not judge what books my children pick out to read – has served us both well again. And making assumptions about a book I haven’t read or bothered to learn anything about almost cost us a wonderful read, and vocabulary building experience. I don’t know if all the Fancy Nancy books follow this same theme, but I do know that I will no longer be hesitant to check out more to read with my daughter and find out.

Draw with Sidewalk Chalk – Fun Stuff to Do Anywhere

Draw with Sidewalk Chalk – Fun Stuff to Do Anywhere

Those big pieces of sidewalk chalk can be found very inexpensively.  Whenever we are with a group of kids it's always a surprisingly big hit. Toddlers love making marks on the ground, and even the teens in the group enjoy making more elaborate or artistic drawings. I love activities like this that appeal so well to all age groups, and are just so simple, and pure fun.

The Golden Skate in San Ramon

Golden Skate in San Ramon

It made me kinda happy to see so many kids enjoying roller skating at our recent visit to Golden Skate in San Ramon. Just like when I was a kid, you could tell that some had spent quite a bit of time on skates, and others appeared to be trying it out for the first time, clinging to the rail for dear life as they scooted around the ring. I was impressed how clean and new the inside of Golden Skate appeared. We haven’t been roller skating in a very long time, but the rinks we visited were older, word and dingy.

The Golden Skate was colorful, and bright. Carpeting lets less confident skaters get their bearings while putting on their skates and when they are off the rink. The exception, reasonably, is the restrooms which have traditional linoleum flooring. This became a bit of a problem for my youngest, which was unwilling to get on the rink with her skates at all, preferring to scoot around on the long stretch of carpet. In retrospect, I would have had her take the rollerskates off before going to the restroom, but it felt like a hassle at the time.

While we were there, they played a group skating game, had shout-outs to the birthday kids, played a few songs with the lights out and colored spotlights and the disco ball going, and even did one traditional playing of ‘YMCA”, even though the rest of the time they stuck mainly to modern pop music.

They also have a nice large snack area with lots of seats for anyone not skating, or for skaters to rest and snack. A dozen or so video games and ticket games are also available with the usual little plastic prizes for tickets.

The party rooms are small. For the party we attended, parents couldn’t fit into the room at all, although one or two squeezed themselves in and stood by the wall. There was another slightly larger party room next door to ours, but I noticed that parents in that group didn’t really try to fit themselves in there either.  The two young men who were in charge of facilitating the birthday party we attended were wonderful. They had constant smiles, and I saw them constantly offering assistance or helping or tidying up. All the employees I interacted with seemed to really enjoy their job, and that was so refreshing and pleasant. 

The cost seems to depend on the session you want to attend, with most sessions lasting around 2 hours. They are only open for roller skating on Fridays thru Sundays, with an adult skating session on Wendsday nights. You can visit their website to see their calender of upcoming skating sessions and prices. 

My kids has so much fun, they have been asking to go roller skating again ever since. So I hope to have other roller skating rinks to review for you soon.

Pumpkin Patch Review: Clayton Valley Pumpkin Farm

Clayton Valley Pumpkin Farm

We like the Clayton Valley Pumpkin Patch partly because it is not too far from us. Even so, it is a very nice pumpkin patch, with lots for kids to do.

The Clayton pumpkin patch seems to have expanded somewhat this year since our last visit a few years ago. They have two separate play areas for kids now instead of the one they had at our last visit. With a separate charge for each one, although they do offer a combination charge that saves you all of $1 if you do both. We decided against going down to the play areas this year due to the cost. It felt overpriced the last time we were there to me, although the kids loved it.

There is also a very small train ride for a smaller cost that makes a loop around the upper patch area. We did take a train ride this year, and it was what one would expect for that type of ride, although there were some cute decorations set up along the route to look at and even a tunnel to go through.

Even without spending much money, there was enough to keep our kids busy and happy for the hour or so we spent at the Clayton Pumpkin Patch. There was a small hay tunnel that they went in and out of over and over and over again with enthusiasm. I understand there is a much larger version of this in the pay-to-play area.

There are also a few farm animals to look at. Two pigs and two goats that we could see the day we visited. While the kids can't go in with the animals or touch them, they have a neat contraption for the kids to feed them with. It is sort of a stationary bike connected to a pulley. They can buy animal feed for a quarter, put the food into a can, and then peddle the can up where it will tip over the fence into a bowl before coming back down. My children were a little disappointed that the animals were not interested in the food pellets they peddled into their bowl, but not disappointed enough to keep them from asking to do it again.

Then there are the pumpkins. They are divided into piles by size. They even have piles of the more exotic green and white pumpkins some folks like. There are wheelbarrows in the pumpkin area to load up your pumpkins to take to the payment counter. The wheelbarrows are small and easy enough to handle that I never touched it, my 5 and 9 year old kids could maneuver them on their own. My husband learned that they don't actually grow the pumpkins there at the Clayton Farm; they are brought in from other places in California.

They also have a shop with other nice fall items, such as gourds, Indian corn, and Halloween decorations. The prices were not the lowest I've seen, but they are reasonable. The workers were all very helpful, and did their best to keep anyone from waiting for help.



We visited in mid-morning, and never had to wait in a line except for the train, and then not more than maybe 5 minutes. However, by the time we left, parking was very full, and I noticed that the train line was easily 5 times as long as when we had taken our ride. So aim for an earlier visit if you want to avoid the more crowded parts of the day.

Storytime at Your Library - Fun Stuff to do Anywhere

Storytime at Your Library – Fun Stuff to Do Anywhere

Most libraries offer a storytime for young children. All the libraries that we have lived near offered three different storytimes, one for babies, one for toddlers, and one for preschoolers. We have also visited other libraries that only offer one storytime for all ages together. Several times, I have seen evening storytime hours for the whole family, although we haven’t had a chance to attend one of these yet.

Regularly attending library storytimes has benefited both my children and me in a number of ways. When I was a new mom, with no friends who had babies, library storytime is how we made connections with other families with new children close in age. Some of the friends we made there, have remained lifelong friends to this day, over 9 years later.

It also established what I consider a very healthy habit of regular visits to the library. The kids love to pick out a book or two (or six) to bring home. I got into the habit of checking out parenting books that I had heard about without spending a lot of money. One or two were useful enough to me to buy my own copy of, but without the library, I would have given up before I found them.

While libraries don’t usually offer storytimes for school aged children or teens, they do have a lot of other programs for the older kids too. Some have book clubs, movie afternoons, read-to-dog programs, or other regular activities for older kids and teens. And, the programs are all free. Check out what your local library has to offer. Most libraries post their offerings online at their websites.

The Ruth Bancroft Garden in Walnut Creek

The Ruth Bancroft Garden in Walnut Creek

Our only visit to the Ruth Bancroft Garden in Walnut Creek was recently during their Fall Festival. While I enjoyed wandering around the beautiful garden, and the kids had a great time with all the activities and crafts that were set up for the festival, it was hard for me to envision what a visit might be like on a regular, non-festival day.

A few of the plants we saw sparked the kid's interest – especially the large variety (and large in size!) cactus we looked at. Otherwise, I'm not sure how much interest they would have had in our visit without the festival going on.

However, the Ruth Bancroft Garden website has a calendar of events that includes some events, like an upcoming fruit tasting, that kids might also enjoy. The garden also offers tours, and special children's tours that could well make things much more interesting for kids to visit. We have had friends attend these children's tours, and they reported that everyone had an enjoyable and educational time.

I did not see any labeling plaques on any of the plants, so a tour could be really helpful to get a full appreciation of what you are seeing. There were several handouts that we didn't take that may have also provided more information about the plants.

We had not visited The Ruth Bancroft Garden before because, while children get in for free, admission for adults is $10. However, I just learned that on the first Tuesday of each month, the garden offers free admission to everyone. So that would be a great time to check them out.