Back To School…Already?

It’s that time of year again…where kids are getting ready to head back to school.  Well, maybe they aren’t getting ready, but it’s going to happen.

 

Where does the time go?  It seems like summer just started, and it’s already almost over.  The stores have had back to school items out since the 4th of July, and I have already seen some Halloween decorations going up.  What???

I remember when I was younger, and time seemed to stand still.  I fondly remember summer vacations as a child.  We would spend hours upon hours building daisy chain crowns for our heads, running through sprinklers, or riding bikes down to the local dime store for penny candy.We reveled in our days, our childhood, our freedom from worry.  For us, days seemed to last longer.  Maybe it’s the business of adulthood that speeds the time up.  We seem to forget to enjoy each day that we are given.  We are always planning ahead, planning next week, next month, next year.  We plan for days that we are not guaranteed to get.  We are each given a certain number of days on this earth; a certain number of sunrises and sunsets.   We should be enjoying them, don’t you agree?

Stop and smell the flowers with your toddler instead of hurrying them along to your next errand.  Take time with your teens to experience the joys of burgeoning adulthood.  Take time with your parents and grandparents and really talk to them.  And LISTEN- to their stories, their lives, their memories.  Enjoy watching a sunrise and/or sunset with your loved ones every now and then. And make sure to budget for family vacations. They don’t have to be expensive to build the memories that will last a lifetime.

And take time to run through the sprinklers…

(This post written by Heather of The Homesteading Hippy)

Cars 2 and Fandango with Giveaway

We took the boys to see Cars 2 today. They’ve been chomping at the bit to see this movie, ever since they heard it was coming out, especially Jaden. He is a HUGE fan of Cars; in fact, a day doesn’t go by that he’s not playing with his cars.

In order to go see the movie, we had to buy tickets, but thanks to Fandango, we didn’t have to wait in any lines; in fact, I was able to order our tickets right from my iPhone (Android works too). Using the Fandango Mobile App, I was able to order the tickets for the movie, purchasing them right on my phone, no printing involved.

This works great if you’re out and about and want to check movie times or just skip the lines. Once we got to the theater, we went right in to the kiosk, swiped our credit card, and printed our tickets. That was it! It was so easy! I would definitely do this again just to avoid the crowds. Check out our experience here.

So, what did I think about the movie? Hmmmm….eh….I’m a bit so-so on it, honestly. While I love, love, love these characters, I felt the movie was a bit slow in the beginning. They traveled in the movie to places like Paris, Italy, etc., so it wasn’t set in Radiator Springs, which kinda took away a bit of the quaintness of the movie. The characters from Radiator Springs weren’t really in the whole movie, but I won’t say anymore because I’m not writing a spoiler here. Ok, so there was a bit of violence, especially for young children; however, my kids are so into superhero movies and all that it really didn’t bother them. Lightning McQueen and Mater were every bit as lovable as usual; Owen Wilson is the PERFECT McQueen (he’s just awesome), and then you have Larry the Cable Guy playing Mater (they could not have a better actor playing Mater; he is fantastic!). The message behind the movie is so good; it’s all about friendship and how important it is to safeguard that friend to friend relationship.

My boys loved the movie. Jaden ran out of snacks about halfway through, so he got a bit restless, but then the action really kicked in, and he was all eyes and ears. If you haven’t seen the movie yet, I highly recommend you use Fandango to purchase your tickets. You can order in advance; for our normal theater, I was able to see up to a week in advance; another theater showed more than a week in advance. There is a small fee, $1.25 per ticket, but the perks with Fandango, as mentioned in the video above, are well worth it. It’s so easy, fast, and convenient.

Right now, when you purchase tickets on Fandango, you get a free iTunes download. Who doesn’t love free music? In fact, there are some awesome movies either out or coming out really soon, including Transformers: Dark of the Moon (came out 6/29) and my personal favorite that I canNOT wait to see, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 (coming out 7/15). You can see more releases on Fandango’s website.

The great news is that we’re giving away one pair of tickets from Fandango to a MamaBuzz reader! You can enter to win by doing one or more of the following; just be sure to leave a separate comment for each way that you enter. I’ll draw the winner, via random.org, on Friday, July 22. This giveaway is open to U.S. only (void where prohibited). Good luck, and have a wonderful day! #gocars2

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(Disclosure: This shop has been compensated as part of a social shopper insights study for Collective Bias. All views/opinions remain solely our own.)

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