I’m the last person to search out movies that allow you to indulge in the “opulent lifestyles of the rich and famous”, but when the Coen brothers are driving the horsecart, sign me up. In this case it’s Catherine Zeta-Jones and George Clooney playing the cold-hearted gold digger and high-powered divorce attorney, respectively. It’s like a surreal self-parody of themselves (or at least their stereotypes), and of course, being a Coen movie, there are some great supporting characters (even if there are less than in the average Coen movie) – don’t miss Geoffrey Rush’s great performance kicking things off.

It was a birthday too big to not celebrate in person, so we packed up the minivan with the family, dog, snacks, sleeping bags, VCR, pillows, cooler, laptop and kitchen sink and headed out for the 13-hour drive from NC to FL. We didn’t realize until the day before that we would be driving right through the Superbowl in Jacksonville, FL, but the only repercussions were passing an occasional decked-out RV enroute to the 100,000-member party. But we had our own to attend, and the important people were at ours: Donna, Dick, Reiley, Wren, Bailey, Mike, Andrea, Dan, Val and Betty. It was a bummer that Niki, Tom and Corey weren’t in town, hopefully we catch up with them the next time.

We came down for the weekend before her birthday, driving down on Friday, whooping it up on the weekend, and heading back on Monday. The plan: to surprise the guest of honor by arranging a Saturday lunch with her usual gang, with the rest of us already there waiting for her arrival. We somehow managed it, but when she arrived, she jumped right in the buffet line and was NOT about to give up her spot! It took us 10 minutes to get her attention off of the line. When she finally looked over, her jaw hit the floor. Wheee!!

A nice full weekend of meals and jokes (and even some video gaming with bro, whoop) later, we headed back home. We need to work in more family time!!