WHAT'S UP WITH "UP" ?

"You and Mom should watch the movie 'UP'...specially the first 20 minutes!"

Intrigued by our eldest son TJ's insistence, we finally watched Disney Pixar's movie last Sunday night,with all three kids in tow. (The three had watched it previously via a movie download,but they wanted to see it on the big screen.)

After a very delightfully entertaining "short" about a stork unfortunately assigned to a bumbling child-making cloud, the movie began...

...with how Carl Fredrickson met the love of his life, Ellie...and how the two, who both worshipped their hero Charles Muntz...decided (cross my heart & hope to die) they'd take a trip to South America someday and see the (Magic) Waterfalls.

The first twenty minutes (or so) that TJ wanted us to see was a fast-forward run through of Carl's and Ellie's married life...from their wedding day... to their purchase of the run down house where they first met...their dreams of having children...to the frustration of not having kids...to their saving money to finance their dream trip,only to spend the money on a busted tire or a roof that got trashed by a falling tree...to Ellie's funeral.

My guess is that TJ wanted us to see this part because it must have reminded him of how Jaja and I lived out our married life.

And it was very touching...not because it affirmed that we were both doing a good job of modeling to the kids what we thought a good marriage should be...but because TJ was growing up to be the sensitive man we wanted him to be.

When we were discussing the movie on the way back home,TJ said that one of the parts he liked most was when Carl "saw" the pictures inside the section of Ellie's Adventure Book entitled Stuff That I'm Going To Do---and the note Ellie wrote: "Thanks for the Great Adventure...Now It's time for you to go on a new one!"

Made me think...maybe we ought to plan for more new ones!