2009: a review.

I've been spending a lot of time the past few days thinking about some of the good things about this past year. The good, simple things. I got to thinking about all of the times I drove back and forth between my home and Charlotte, and the experiences my family had. We were able to do a bunch of stuff I would not have imagined in 2008 that we would be doing, and we had a lot of fun.

We're pretty low-maintenance as a family. We like a good, home-cooked meal, a good movie, and playing games together.

We played Rock Band 2 and Wii Bowling and Wii Sports. A lot.

I cooked a lot of baked crab and rice. It's a family favorite.

We went to the movie theater a couple of times. Just a couple. Literally. We saw Up and Avatar. Both were in 3D, and both were excellent.

Most of the movies we watched were at home. The Dark Knight, Iron Man, and Wall-E were faithful standbys.

My little ones watched a lot of Yo Gabba Gabba and Wow Wow Wubbzy.

One movie I watched and thought was absolutely perfect was Michael Clayton.

A dvd that I looked forward to watching but never did (because it got lost and never found again, right after I bought it) was Slumdog Millionaire.

A film that I watched due to all of its accolades but thought was really lame (I guess I'm just stupid because I just totally did not get it) was No Country for Old Men.

As for other entertainment, I listened to countless hours of music, as always. Road trips are great for that. I bought a few albums that served their purpose of entertaining quite well. They were Onmyradio by Musiq Soulchild, 808s and Heartbreak by Kanye West, and The Renaissance by Q-Tip. Not to mention my albums by John Mark McMillan and Will Reagan. Yep, it was a good year for music.

We also read a lot of books. Or, I should say, we read a lot of books to the little ones. Gobs and gobs of Dr. Seuss, in addition to all of the twentieth-century children's classics. And we never got tired of being made to read the same stories over and over again.

Now here we are, in a new year, and I wonder with quiet anticipation what simple moments will end up etched in my memory come December 31.