7 Quick Takes on Mormons, Entertainment, & a Zoo Trip

I don't have time to pull together a coherent, well-developed blog post, but it's Friday! So I'm joining Kelly & Co. to share some random snippets of life from this week.



1. Part of the reason that I don't have time to blog is because my older brother is visiting! 
He lives on the other side of the U.S.A., so spending time with him is a real treat. It's so much fun to see him play with his little nephew for the first time, and it's been awesome to chat about life and play games. He, my husband, and myself currently have a game of Civilization V going, and yesterday, I immersed my brother in one of my favorite Youtube channels. Which brings me to my next point...

2. Studio C. 
For the past few years, some of my friends have occasionally sent me Studio C videos. While I always thought the videos were entertaining, I never actually watched the channel. Recently, Rachel included the link to one of their videos in a blog post, and after watching it, I decided to make the plunge and commit. There's no looking back, and I've been spending entirely too much time watching their sketches on Youtube now. But it's so much fun!! Jacob and I have consistently been quoting "Lobster Bisque" quite often, and it's great. 

3. Mormons are great entertainers.
One day, while I was thinking about some of my favorite entertainers, I realized that many of them are Mormon: Lindsey Stirling, Bored Shorts TV, Studio C, and the funniest blogger around, Jenny Evans. I think it's really awesome how these people all show that you can be extremely entertaining and funny without being inappropriate. Years ago, in one of my writing classes, the teacher kept talking about if you want to be successful as a writer, you need to focus on conflict, darkness, and the sinfulness of human beings (which also involves including content that I am uncomfortable with including). While this approach has its place, I was never comfortable with such a dreary outlook as a requirement for being a successful entertainer. But these awesome entertainers show that you can be successful without cussing or only focusing on dark subject matter. I may not agree with the faith beliefs of Mormons, but I love how they bring good values into all aspects of their lives, including their entertainment. 

4. On Monday, my husband had a day off of work, so he took Peter and I to the zoo! 

This bird was going rogue, wandering down the path. So naturally,
I chased it down (while wearing a baby, mind you) to take a picture.

It was so much fun to walk around, look at the animals. Such a gorgeous day with incredible weather, and I loved exploring with my husband. It was also neat because I got to pet a stingray for the first time! I really liked the stingray-it was so soft, smooth, and slimy. Peter, on the other hand, cried the entire time while we were in that exhibit. Of course, that may have to do with the fact that he had been fast asleep, but then woke up once I started bending over the stingray pool. Whoops. It was Peter's first zoo trip, and aside from the stingray exhibit, I think he enjoyed himself fairly well. 

5. Support for breastfeeding is awesome, and can come from the most unlikely of places.  
After the zoo trip, Jacob spontaneously decided to take us on a date to Red Lobster, and the waiter, a 20-year-old man, was awesome. After he brought us water to drink, he looked at Peter and I and said: 

"Now, I want you to know that you should really breastfeed him if he needs it. None of us are looking, and we don't care, and he needs to eat more than any of us." 

Granted, I breastfeed in public regardless of what others think, and I've never had a negative experience concerning breastfeeding. But, it is still awesome that this guy was so supportive and that he was trying to break the negative stigma that some people associate with public breastfeeding! Later on in the meal, we found out that this guy is an uncle to several little kids, so I imagine he was drawing on his own life experiences. Bravo, random waiter from Red Lobster!  

6. We took the plunge and committed: We now subscribe to Amazon Prime.
I'm super frugal, and have never really thought that we need Amazon Prime. BUT, a couple things happened lately which helped us commit to Prime: Amazon recently bought Twitch, a live-streaming website. Now, Amazon Prime subscribers can automatically be part of the Twitch Prime program-and one of the benefits, is that you can subscribe to one gamer's channel for free each month. Normally, people pay about $5 a month to subscribe to a gamer's channel, and the gamer gets a portion of that money. Now, the gamer still gets the same amount of money, but the subscriber doesn't pay anything extra. So, a large portion of the fee for Amazon Prime is ultimately supporting gamers, which is pretty snazzy. The other big pushes to get Amazon Prime? The holiday season is coming (Amazon is easy Christmas shopping), and I really wanted to get my bonito flakes in the mail in 2 days, as opposed to a week after we ordered them. So we subscribed to Prime, and I'm taking full advantage of the movie streaming service ;) 

7. I finally watched Doctor Who Series 9, and I LOVED IT.
Because we now have Prime, I could finally catch up on Doctor Who this week! Series 8 had some good points, but I wasn't super into Peter Capaldi as the Doctor or Jenna Coleman as the Companion. Let's be honest: It's really, really hard to follow Matt Smith and the Ponds. Series 9, however, was amazing. I thought that Capaldi and Coleman really came into their own and were both extremely strong (Capaldi totally rocked the episode "Heaven Sent"). The season was mostly comprised of double episodes, so storylines could really develop well. The entire season had a cohesive plotline running throughout (similar to Series 6), which was awesome. The finale was incredible, and the latest Christmas Special is a hoot. I really recommend this season!! 

Thanks for joining me today! If any of you have recommendations for shows or movies on Prime, feel free to share your wisdom :) I hope that you all have an amazing weekend!