So today we saw the greatly hyped, 3-hour epic, Peter Jackson’s King Kong. With both dinosaurs and a big primate, it was pretty much a sure thing that I would like it… and now that I have seen it, I can confirm that I did enjoy it. There were scenes that definitely felt “Lord of the Rings-ish” to me, but I loved those movies, so for me, that wasn’t a bad thing. Naomi Watts was great, Adrian Brody was pretty good – but really, Kong stole the show. It was evident that Jackson spent a lot of time making him seem like a real silver-back gorilla. The movie had a little bit of everything – there was lots of action, some funny bits and some really tender moments as well. What I wasn’t prepared for was that I would be so affected by the film once it was over. If you’re going to see it, go see it in the theater – it’s worth it.

Happy Holidays! Christmas was a grand event, as usual with my family. Aaron and I went home to my parent’s house on Christmas Eve and spent a couple of days visiting, gift giving, eating and celebrating with my whole family. In attendance were both my parents, me and Aaron, Amy and Joe, Peter and Maria (her first Christmas with us) and James (who spent much of the weekend on the phone, as his girlfriend Chrissy was back in CT working). Later in the evening we were joined by my Uncle Ken and Aunt Martha for a brief, but nice visit. I so enjoy, and appreciate, times when my whole family can be together. I am quite lucky to be related to and loved by such an incredible group of people.

The above photo is hopefully the last one we will take with my old digital camera, as Aaron got me a shiny (and tiny) new one for Christmas. The old Kodak has been a reliable teacher and tool, but the new camera kicks its ass. It’s charging up right now and I can’t wait to use it. Hope everyone had a great holiday!

Friday night we celebrated Amy’s birthday. We had pizza and yummy cake with ice cream. After dinner we played a 90′s trivia game, which if I do say so myself, Aaron and I did quite well at. Who knew we had such a reserve of 90′s pop-culture trivia? Aaron even came through with what EPMD (a 90′s rap duo) stands for: Erick and Parrish Making Dollars. Too funny.

We recently saw Monster a dark, unsettling, and utterly depressing movie based on the true story of Aileen Wuornos (played by Charlize Theron), who was one of this country’s first female serial killers. Early in the movie, Aileen develops a relationship with a younger woman named Selby (played by Christina Ricci). The film focuses on the period of time during which Aileen, a prostitute, begins murdering her clientele and stealing their money for her and Selby to live off of. This movie was not easy to watch. However, Charlize Theron’s transformation into character was amazing. She was completely unrecognizable and her performance was outstanding. The Best Actress Oscar she won last year was clearly deserved.

I recently watched War of the Worlds on DVD. On the positive side, the effects (especially the first 30 mins of the movie) were amazing and I was lucky enough to be watching it in a top of the line home theater, with the volume up nice and high. However, besides the effects I was greatly disappointed. I thought Tom Cruise’s performance was weak and that Spielberg neglected to modernize the story in any interesting way. It looked like a 2005 movie, but played out like a 1950s movie…it didn’t work for me. BORING!

A couple of years back, Aaron’s sister Lisa gave me Bee Season by Myla Goldberg. I was reading something else at the time, so it went into my ‘to read’ pile and had been there ever since. A couple of weeks ago, while at the movies, I saw a preview for the film version of this story and remembered I had the book at home, unread. I dug it out, put it at the top of my queue and just finished it. It was ok. I enjoyed, and was interested in, the relationship between the brother and sister. The thing that was off for me was that each character’s issue/problem was taken to such an extreme level; it was distracting, and made the story less plausible. An interesting book nonetheless.

My mom is a member of a choral society and this past weekend they had their holiday concert (she’s in this photo, towards the center, I swear). The whole family attended, including Nonnie and Aunt Becki who drove up for the day. The choir performed a mix of popular and lesser-known holiday songs during the first half of the show and a portion of Handel’s Messiah during the second half. Afterwards we all went out to dinner at the to celebrate mom’s performance and Nonnie’s birthday. Click on the photo to view the small album.

So many of you know that Aaron and I had a second car, a 1994 Buick Century. Originally, it was my sister’s first car and when she got a new car, she passed it on to us. This past summer we had a lot of problems with it. We hemmed and hawed about whether or not it was worth it to have it fixed. Ultimately we decided that we still needed a second car, so we put a good chunk of cash into getting it repaired. We got it back and then a month or so later the rear wheels locked. For me, that was the proverbial straw that broke this camel’s back. We agreed not to put another dime into it and that the best way to rid of it was to donate it to charity. So we researched charities, cancelled the plates and insurance and arranged for a pick up truck to come and take it away.

A couple of weeks later the pick up truck guy comes to take the car. I tell him it’s not drivable, the wheels are locked and I’m not sure how extensive the problem is. He says, “No problem,” and pulls out the biggest sledgehammer I have ever seen. He hammers the center of each of the rear wheels a couple of times, starts it up and then proceeds to drive it up onto the back of his flatbed truck, without the slightest problem. I wanted to say stop, wait, you can’t have it if it works…but it was a done deal at that point, so I just let it go. Meanwhile I was mentally kicking myself for not looking into what was wrong with the car. And yes, I know, chances are pretty good that something else would have gone wrong with the car soon…but I still felt betrayed by the Buick. So, it’s gone now…that car is dead to me. Here’s hoping the Honda hangs in there a little while longer.

So last year, Nonnie (my grandmother) asked Amy and I if we were interested in going through some of her holiday decorations before she got rid of them. We of course said yes and spent several hours sifting through ornaments and adornments of all sorts. We each happily took several ornaments.

However, and I believe Nonnie would agree with me here (I mean she was getting rid of the stuff after all), some of the stuff in the boxes was a bit um …dated. Amy and I made a pact that we each could pick out one funny/dated ornament and the other person would have to put it on there tree from that point forward. During Christmas last year we both had the agreed upon ornaments on our respective trees. However, this year when I was decorating my tree, I neglected to put mine up. Amy called me on this breach of contract, especially since she had hung her ornament again and kept up her end of the deal. So, this post is an apology to my sister and the above photo is of the ornament Amy picked out for me. Please note it is now hanging on my tree. I promise.

Oh and as a funny side note, the reason Amy picked out this specific ornament is because when Aaron was a kid he took mime classes (he vehemently denies this, but his mom swears it’s true) and Amy thinks that’s the funniest thing ever…and really, it is.

Here at Sah and Aaron, we’re proud of our extensive global audience. To illustrate our commitment to our countless international readers, we’re unveiling a new site feature. Not long ago we met with the CEO of Google, and told him we would crush his puny company unless he created an automated translator for our site. A few weeks later we had our site translated into Spanish. “Good start. Now, do it for seven other languages,” we said. Once those were delivered we stepped off his neck. Then in a benevolent moment of “here’s a quarter, buy yourself something nice,” we allowed Google to share this technology with the public.

So here they are… full translations of our entire site:

• Spanish
• German
• French
• Italian
• Portuguese

The following will only work if your browser and OS support these specific languages (if not, you’ll see mostle question marks):

• Japanese
• Korean
• Chinese (Simplified)