Movies, Updates and Bonnie Brae

Here is a movie I highly reccomend NOT renting. The movie is called Fragments (aka Winged Creatures). And it starred an amazing cast too, which makes it that much worse. Dakota Fanning, Forrest Whitaker, Kate Beckinsdale, Josh Hutcherson, Jennifer Hudson and Guy Pearce. Amazing ensemble right? And they are touting this as a suspense movie...and I am now thinking, HOW so?! This people were all in a diner together, when a man with a gun shows up and murders a few of them before turning the gun on himself. Dakota's dad was one of the victims. Well, *SPOLIER*, Dakota becomes obsessed with God, her best friend played by Josh, he stops talking and withdraws from the world. Kate Beckinsdale has a baby, but she starts leaving him in the car while she goes off and has meaningless sex with anybody she can. Forrest, who is dying from cancer, goes to Vegas to gamble his life savings. And Guy Pearce, who wasn't even IN the diner, he treated them after, he starts experimenting on his wife, to try and cure her migraines....without her knowledge! Well Kate ends up having her child taken away and has to go to a place to get help. Guy Pearce almost kills his own wife with his experiments. Forrest loses almost everything and is beaten almost to death but brings a check for 100K home to his daughter Jennifer Hudson. And Josh Hutcherson, the mute boy, goes back to the diner with a gun, so Dakota goes with her Mom, and finally admits her Dad wasn't the Christ-like hero she'd been calling him. As she and Josh hid under the table, she was holding her father's hand. Then he was confronted by the gun man and begged for his life and wet himself. Dakota shook her hand free and then her Dad was shot. So she blamed herself for being ashamed and for not saving her father. And after the gun man left them she told Josh to NEVER speak about this, as she poured soda on her father, so no one would know he wet his pants. So that was why he ended up being mute. And that is the end...what the crap?!! How was that suspense? And yes, I get that people spiral after being involved in such tragic events, but besides showing that, what did it show? They never showed them healing, this was such a miserable movie!

I also watched Obsessed with Beyonce and Ali Larter, and it was good. I give the biggest kudos to Ali because it is harder to be the villain. Yeah, apparently it is more fun, but Ali really had to show her acting chomps, by turning into someone that crazy and that delusional! Beyonce had an easy role, I am sorry but it is true. First she gets mad when she finds out all this crap has been going on and her husband didn't tell her. Then she forgives him. Then she has to fight with Ali Larter. Ooooh. Not really much of a challenge. This concept HAS been done before. So I hope this wasn't supposed to show us that Beyonce is a REAL actress, because it is Ali that did all the work. She goes from a sweet temp, to someone so convinced she is in a relationship, that she sends flowers to herself, but thinks they are from him! Wow. Psycho. So this was a good flick. LOL.

My poor Mom, still recovering from kidney stones, now has bronchitis, which makes the stones worse, as coughing makes her need to pee every 5 minutes!! And she sounds just dreadful. I am going to check in on her around 5 and call in sick for her if she can't make it into work. She can speak without hacking, poor Mom. And my Dad's knee surgery is in exactly one week.

Plus people who were supposed to be cook staff at Hartford Stake's Girls Camp (which my Auntie is the head cook for again) are pulling out. I emailed her again, telling her I am more than willing to go up and help. Hartford Stake will always be MY stake, I don't care that they placed us in a different one, I grew up in Hartford's and love all the people from that stake! So I actually hope she accepts my offer, I love Bonnie Brae! It is so beautiful! I am still jealous that the camp was SO not like this when I was a camper!! Here are some pics I took a couple of years ago. Pay attention to the small print too!

* This is the NEW boathouse, where the cooks sleep. It has a kitchen and showers, everything! I still won't sleep over!

*This is the dining hall that's attached to the kitchen.

*This is the new porch they put on the dining hall. See the left part. That was where we crammed together when I was a camper to sing. I think it made us closer in spirit too!

*These are the "tree house" cabins! I KNOW! They even have back porches overlooking the lake!

*These are the cabins (!!) Level One used!

*Check out the awesome bunks they have inside, we had ratty cots with broken springs! I SWEAR!

*And look at the walkways they built to get around the campsites easier! It is like that in most of the sites now!

*Look at the fireplace! Doesn't it make you sick, it is so pretty and easy looking! We sat on logs! So jealous!

*These are what I call the Beehive's. They have a ceiling window and everything. Level 2 stayed here this year.

*And inside the hives...which have electricity just like the cabins! Rrrrr!

Even Level 4, which still has the tents we used as campers, has it sweeter! They have the same walkways and fire pits and this:

*They are set up as neighboring tents ON platforms. So three tents are like a communal area! Cool! Easier to get together in tents to talk all night!

*And this is the beautiful lakefront!! So peaceful at dusk!

*The Arts & Crafts building is an original building. But they redid the inside and it has showers, etc. No pics sorry! And they put great rockers on the porch!

The things that drive me most batty though? There are bathrooms (not latrines really) everywhere now!! If I wanted to use a real bathroom when I was staying at the farthest campsite, it was a 20 minute walk one way. And you had to take a buddy. But now, they have them between every site, if not AT the site! Aggh! And with showers! There was only the showers at that main bathroom, about 6 of them and so showers were rare! Not anymore! And then there is the newest building, where most of the other staff choose to stay at. I call it the Swiss Chalet! I lost the outside pic, it is 2 stories and BRAND new, 3 years ago.

*They have these single bed bunks all around the open top floor. They have privacy screens you can use for when you dress or read at night. And each has a wall jack so yeah that IS a fan right there! Double GRRRR!

Anyone not a cook or a level leader stays here!! Even Arts & Crafts! They let the youth camp leaders stay in Arts & Crafts. Why would you stay anywhere else? It has a full kitchen, TV (supposedly they don't use it), this amazing fireplace:

And the living room!

Can you believe these girls AND women get to camp like THIS?!! Seriously though, while it may have gotten fancied ( I am laughing because it is SO much more than fancied up!) up over the last 10 years, Bonnie Brae just has this special quality to it. At least while our church is there. I just feel at peace there, even as I am slaving over meals for the campers who don't even fully appreciate how much work it takes to feed them all. (Even while some girls are so rude that they go through line again and the cooks haven't eaten yet and that could mean they are left with nothing. Yes, we have had that happen. Even when they are told, no seconds, until the cooks say so, some girls just haven't learned anything from their parents obviously.)

Anyway, the tents in this one campsite that has been left untouched are what I had as a camper. They were in every campsite and there were no walkways to the other tents or fire. You stumbled over the roots like everyone else! Here is what Bonnie Brae camping was for me:

And this was the creepy boathouse we used. It is gone now. They built a big deck overlooking where the girls swim, it is kind of like a sundeck, but I managed to get this picture taken before they took the Old boathouse down. It was scary to go in, no lights or anything!

At least they haven't touched the Gong, which they ring at meal times and special events. You can hear it ALL the way through the entire camp!! Man I so want to get to go back! I hope Auntie needs some extra help. No, I don't get to enjoy the new gorgeous digs, but I hate camping, bugs are so nasty...and scary. It may be an hour drive each way, but I love taking a hot shower and getting into my comfy bed after! The spirit, you can feel it there while we are there. And it is just...special. Bonnie Brae is in my heart and runs through my veins.