Outdoor Movie Night

Have you ever had one of those weekends that ended up just about perfect?  That was this past weekend for us.

I've been more asocial than usual since I started back to work, hoarding every free moment to squeeze in all of the stuff that doesn't get done throughout the week.  Mike called me out on my solitary tendencies, and we invited a few neighbors and friends over.  And a few more.  And then some more.

I'll tell you what: there's nothing like having 20 people over to get you motivated to clean the house.

The beautiful weather, good company, and SEC football would have been enough to make it a great time, but the real showstopper for me was the outdoor movie theater for the kids.  Our sweet neighbors brought over their projector, we put up a white sheet I had saved for just such an occasion, add kids, and, VOILA! We crossed a major to-do off of our summer bucket list.

Sorry, but our movie night looks nothing like the ones on Pinterest.  Y'all, there was Duct tape involved.

Guess what?  We still had a BLAST.

Here's the rigged setup for the projector.  Beautiful? No.  Effective?  Oh, yeah.

Of course, when watching a princess movie, princess attire is strongly encouraged.

The view from the patio

Dr. Facilier

The darker it got, the better the picture.

There was just something a little bit magical about watching a movie outside.  Maybe it was because most of the little guys aren't up late enough to watch the moon rise and the fireflies start blinking.  Maybe it's sort of a 21st century version of the bonfire or the bug zapper.  Whatever the reason, a movie projector has moved from my "Want" list to my "Need" list.  

Even our 4th- and 5th-grade neighbors think outdoor movies are cool.

Shadow Puppets

So, I will be pinching my pennies to get one of these buggers.  Maybe Sarah was onto something, charging people $10 for a glass of lemonade...

In the meantime, I'm hoping we can mooch off of the neighbors for one or two more movie nights.  I'm dreaming of seeing the Peanuts Gang up on that big white sheet.


In other news, Will has picked up a bad habit from me.

I turn myself into a blowfish on the car windows while I'm pumping gas.  It gets a lot of laughs from the wee folk inside the car.  I never thought about how it looks to strangers from the outside.

Hmmmm...