I Suck At Brave

Today, Karen and I took my niece (Kaleigh) out for her birthday. It has been one of the few family traditions that I actually enjoy.

Ever since my niece and nephew were young, Karen and I decided that we would do something with them for their respective birthdays until they no longer wanted us to do so. It was a way for us to give a gift of a memory, as opposed to just giving them some secular toy or whatever that would most likely collect dust after a few years and become clutter.

Lucky for us, neither Karen nor I have reached that stage yet for my niece and nephew where we are uncool to hang out with. So today, we ended up taking Kaleigh to see the latest Disney Pixar film: Brave. Now, I suck at Brave.

Without giving anything away, I enjoyed the movie. Plus, we got to see the trailer for another upcoming animated movie with a video game theme that looked pretty funny as well: Wreck-It Ralph. And although I can't say for certain, I think Karen may have shed a tear during one of the more touching mother/daughter scenes of the movie.

My father-in-law also joined us for the movie. He has been wanting to see Brave. Originally, he was planning to take my niece and nephew to the movie, but apparently Karen and I threw a wrench into that plan. Consequently, he came with us to the movie which was somewhat comical because Kaleigh imposed a rule for my father-in-law: no talking during the movie.

And after the movie, we headed to one of Kaleigh's favorite dining spots for lunch: the 99 Restaurant. It was fun to hang out with just Kaleigh. And of course, no birthday celebration would be complete without having the staff of the 99 sing Happy Birthday to Kaleigh, right? Needless to say, the staff was very accommodating.

I probably should mention that Kaleigh's birthday was two months ago. Two months ago, the plan was to do something else entirely. But since my favorite sister-in-law (Janine) never provided us with an available date to take her out back then, we waited... and waited... until the timeframe for celebration became a little absurd.

Incidentally, Janine wanted to do a similar tradition with my two year old daughter (Briana). She had been talking about taking Briana to the zoo. That was almost four months ago and she hasn't gone. So at least our delayed birthday celebration for Kaleigh isn't as bad in comparison.

All in all, I think Kaleigh had a good time watching Brave and having lunch with us, which is what is important. She even got to spend some additional time with us as we watched her and my nephew for a few hours while Janine went to the movies herself with PJ and her BFF (Gretchen).