Movie Review: "Moana"

Yesterday we had the chance to watch Disney's latest "gem", a movie about finding your own purpose and following that inner voice that inspires you to follow your dreams.
Moana presents an atypical heroine, with no prince and no crew to help her along; a girl after her own heart, trying to achieve her goals with her own abilities and leading the way to what she has made her life "mission".
She is the girl that everyone loves, the one that makes every woman proud and one who should exemplify every girl out there by telling us never to doubt ourselves in spite of the difficulties found along the way.
Moana's mission revolves around helping her village and restoring what once was a peaceful balance between voyagers and nature. To achieve her goal, she recruits the help of Maui, a demigod who is the reason why the balance was "disturbed" thousands of years ago.
The writers do a great job describing the evolution of this unlikely "friendship" between the two main characters as well as telling the viewer the story of Moana and her ancestors.
In addition to Moana and Maui as the main characters, I was especially captivated by Moana's grandma, who is undoubtedly her number one fan and main inspiration; I saw a lot of my own grandma in her and that's probably why I teared up every time she showed up during the movie... Disney always has a way to make me cry during movies! :)
The setting of the story is a beautiful island and the ocean that surrounds it; it's so pretty I almost want to move there! ;).
With this movie, Disney also goes back to its musical-ish roots with several catchy songs included throughout the movie, which make the pace of it "just right". Despite the music, captivating story and amazing character development, I think the movie did drag a little bit around the middle, but I'm sure the kids didn't notice and I'm probably just being too critical at this point.
I loved the animation, the music, the colors, the characters and the cute story so this one is a winner in my book and gets 4 out of 4 stars...

...and the short before it! Oh my God! Please get to the theater on time because the feature short film "Inner Workings" was probably the highlight of this movie...seriously! How adorable!!!

11 years!

A couple of days ago on November 18th, Iggy and I celebrated our 11th wedding anniversary and even though I basically write the same thing every year, even after all this time sometimes I can't believe how blessed and lucky I am to have found this amazing man that I get to call my husband. 

Iggy is kind, loving, hard working and incredibly supportive...he truly is one of a kind and I don't brag about him enough but our anniversary is a good time to do so, even though he's so humble he probably wouldn't approve of any of my bragging! :)

Some say that marriage isn't always "rainbows and butterflies" and while I admit that it takes a lot of dedication to make it work, I swear I have it so easy with such a mellow partner. I can truly say that our relationship is amazingly fulfilling and such a blessing in my life. 

I want to thank God for choosing this wonderful man to be my partner in this life journey and I can only pray that He blesses us with many more years of love and happiness. 

Iggy, I love you more than you will EVER know and a lifetime wouldn't be enough to thank you for all your love and everything you do for us. You bring out the best in me and I will love you forever...

Happy anniversary, my love! ;)

Fall photo dump

I feel like I haven't blogged in FOREVER... and it's probably true! I can't say that this blogging absence is because of lack of fun and excitement, it's actually because I have been so overwhelmed lately with all of Iggy's trips, the girls' never ending school work, weekend getaways and much more...

A lot has happened since my last blog post including: Oliver started to walk and now he's a full time walker, our annual visit to the pumpkin patch, professional family pictures, a couple of trips to Orlando, Halloween (Oliver won a costume contest!), getting a new president (that's a sore subject for many) and a few other fun things...

So.. for practical purposes, here's a quick photo dump of some of my favorite pictures of the last month or so...

I hope to have more time to blog within the next week or so considering it's my favorite time of the year so I get inspired!

Enjoy the pics! :)