Sunday, December 14, 2008

Holiday fun mixed with finals week

Hi family! Latest Stevens scoop:

Had fun Friday night with the Girl Scout troop. The annual holiday sleepover was at our house this year. The girls ate pasta, played Apples to Apples, and watched Prince Caspian. I was reminded how much I disliked the way the writers mangled the original story. But most of the girls were just focused on how gorgeous Prince Caspian was. Anyway, they had fun exchanging Secret Sister gifts on a neon theme (don't ask me why neon). Herb thought it was funny coming down for breakfast the next morning to see the bodies strewn all over the floor.

Brett's on a couple of basketball teams this year (nothing terribly serious), so he's getting some exercise. His team ended up winning this weekend's tournament, so he sent a hilarious pic/sound text to my phone and Kelly's, where he's singing "We Are the Champions." He doesn't see a lot of playing time, but he's improving.

I hosted a neighborhood cookie swap today, which was small but fun. Only six other ladies participated this year, but everyone's cookies were tasty, and we had a good time talking for a couple of hours. We're still so amazed at the friendliness of this neighborhood compared with our old one only a few miles away. I put some of the cookies away in the freezer - might even bring them to Pittsburgh if they survive that long.

Final exams start tomorrow. I'll be a correcting maniac for one more week, then it's break time. Now it's time to get back to the pile of final marketing plans stacked up on the dining room table. 5 down, 22 more to go!

6 comments:

larrysue said...

Hi, Chris,

I agree about the mangled Prince Caspian story! Sounds like you've had fun this past week! We never hear about your Patriot/Steelers game. The weather looked horrible! Did you survive? Mom and I made several batches of cookies last Sunday for when everyone is here. I'm glad your neighborhood is turning out to be such a nice one for you. Hope we'll get there to see your house someday! Good luck grading all your projects and finals! I know that is a huge task. We'll be done this Friday, and the kids are coming home Saturday. Ashley and Luke arrive Saturday, also, for a two week visit! Hi to Brett, Kelly, and Herb! Love, Sue

absofsteel said...

I actually thought that even though the story was very much changed, the book's plot and characters wouldn't have made for a solid movie. they had to make the characters and plot more "angsty" and dynamic. because to be honest, the 4 children in the book are exceptionally flat, and the plotby itself would be very slow for a movie. I'm excited for the voyage of the dawn treader, now thats an interesting plot from beginning to end.

good luck with grading, although I'm not happy about taking finals, I do feel bad for the teachers trying to get their grades in such a rush.

Hanna said...

I second abs. In the book the kids just kind of show up and save Narnia through the power of their awesomeness. The worst thing any of them does is not go the way Lucy told them to. Good fairy tale, bad potential movie, especially when you have four characters who spent a couple decades as royalty in a magical land and then had to deal with just being English schoolchildren again.

I hope they make it to Horse and His Boy, even if the kids aren't in that book.

Tom and Diane said...

Really enjoyed catching up with the Stevens. I remember having a cookie exchange when we lived in Whitehall. Everyone also brought copies of their recipe for the cookies they made. When I was making Thumbprint Cookies for Christmas last week, the recipe in my card file was Anne Wolfe's. Fun to remember old times. Love, Mom

Chris said...

Abby and Hanna, I agree about the original Caspian book. Pretty slow. So they had to do something different with the script for the movie. I just hated the way they took Peter's character and turned him into a whiny, selfish jerk. Spoiled the movie for me.

My favorites are The Voyage of the Dawn Treader and A Horse and His Boy (the best of all), so I'm with Hanna - hope they get to #5 (or whatever the number is, now that they've reorganized the whole series).

Back to finals. Thanks for the encouraging words!

Chris

larrysue said...

Chris,

Ditto about Peter's character. I understand why they feel the need to do that to a character in the cinematic versions of these stories, though. My favorite book was always Voyage of the Dawn Treader, until I did the play last year! It was really hard to translate to the stage(or the classroom). This year we're doing The Silver Chair, which I haven't even written yet. I'm sure it will be more challenging than the other three we've done, but I have a group of kids this year who are very quick at memorizing and following my direction, so I hope that will make up for the difficulties. Any ideas as to how to portray a woman who turns into a snake and gets its head chopped off? I'm not feeling very creative this year. Let's hope that changes quickly!
How did finals go? Are you done with grading? We finished up today and are off for two solid weeks! Yeah!
See you guys soon! Sue