A Morning at the Movies

Every summer, Regal Cinemas hosts what's called Summer Movie Express. For nine weeks, during the summer, Regal cinemas have family friendly movies that only cost $1 per person. These movies are shown at 10am on Wednesdays and are so family friendly, that your kids can talk, walk around, and be themselves in a theater setting.
Last summer, I took Liam to his very first theater movie. We saw The Smurfs (the movies tend to be a bit older, definitely not newly in theaters). This was the perfect setting to try out a toddler's first theater experience. There was no worry of whether or not he would stay still, be quiet enough, or that we might have to leave in the middle of the movie. These movies are also prefect for little ones because they are offered so early in the day. I was able to take Liam and still get him home in time have lunch and take an afternoon nap.
Liam did a wonderful job, but there were a couple of times that he asked questions, asked to sit in my lap, and said things like, "It's too loud.", so I'm very glad that his first trip was in this setting. No one commented on his movements, no one complained that he was talking, in fact several other kids were doing the same thing. This took the pressure off of me, to make sure my son was "perfectly quiet and still". It was a fantastic experience, and we'll be doing it again this summer!

Liam's first trip to a movie theater

Silver Falls State Park, near Silverton Oregon

It's been quite some time since I wrote about our adventures, but both of my boys are sleeping soundly, so I thought I would try to write about one of them. To celebrate my husband and my wedding anniversary this year, we took Liam and our dog, Maizy to Silver Falls State Park which is located just a couple of miles from the vineyard where we were married. We all had a wonderful time!

The park is a great place to go, no matter what you are in the mood for. It has miles of forested trails and several waterfalls. We were not able to walk any of these trails on this trip because they do not allow dogs on the trails for safety reasons. There are many places where the trails are narrow and back to a cliff, and the park rangers explained to us that there have been times when two dogs have met, got a bit out of hand, and someone has ended up falling off the trail.

Since we were unable to take advantage of the wonderful trails, we decided to have a picnic and go swimming in the river that runs through the park. There is one particular area of the park where the water pools and is shallow enough to be safe for little ones (with supervision of course). We spent the day laying in the sun, snacking on our favorite foods, and wading in and out of the river. Joe and Maizy played fetch several times, and Liam and I went to the playground that was just steps away from our picnic table.

The park also has many covered meeting areas, in fact we used one of them for our rehersal bbq. The covered areas are easy to rent and come with several picnic tables and at least one bbq grill. Silver Falls State Park is a wonderful place that is family friendly and packed with fun things to do. Unfortunately for Maizy, next time we plan to leave her at home and hike through some of the beautiful trails.