Movie Night

(Published in the Nov. 5 issue of the Citizen)

I know it is cliché, but sometimes, it truly is the simple things in life that make us happy.

Last Saturday was a rare weekend where my family and I had nowhere we had to be, so we decided to keep things simple and order pizza and rent a few movies.

It was raining outside, so we really enjoyed this family time we could spend together warm and cozy in our house.

We rented “Journey to the Center of the Earth” and a Batman cartoon, two kid-friendly films the entire family could enjoy.

We settled in our family room, and pretty much spread out on the carpet while we watched our movies. We got to pig out on pizza, garlic bread, hot wings and Halloween candy and we couldn’t have been happier.

What was really nice was we were able to enjoy the movie while my daughter Cheilin, who is 14 months old, ran around and played.

She pretty much just played and did her own thing during the movie. We only had to take one break to get her some milk.

We don’t get to watch movies very often anymore since we can’t really take an active toddler the movie theater.

So it was kind of a treat to catch up on some of the movies that we have been wanting to watch.
Our pizza and movie night was really great bonding time with my son Deven who is 8 years old.

Little things like this really brighten him up and make him happy. We do not always have to go out and spend a ton of money to have family time; simple things like renting a movie can be just as rewarding.

It is not always about what you do, as long as you do them together. This is what memories are built on.

Regardless of how busy our schedules may be, we have to always remember to put some time aside to spend with our families.

We used to have lots of movie nights, but things have changed a lot since we added another member to our family.

Babies are very demanding of time and energy, so we kind of let our movie renting nights fizzle out.

But Deven was so happy after our movie night, and we all had such a great time that we decided to make it a monthly ritual. It was nice to see Deven’s face light up when I told him this.

On another note, “Journey to the Center of the Earth” was a fun movie and I liked it a lot. Yes, it is unrealistic and cheesy, but it is a great family movie and it was exciting and I enjoyed it just as much as Deven.