Then again, maybe not...

Star Trek review for Parents:

First, WRT Star Trek - I received a few questions from friends here, on email, and on Facebook asking me would or did I take my kids?

Answers: No and No.

The movie is rated PG-13 for intense action and brief sexual content. The sexual content is a very short scene of a man and a woman in bed, still wearing underwear but kissing and breathing heavily, but they get interrupted. You could easily cover your child's eyes for this brief scene.

The action is really intense though. In particular, there's a scene where Kirk is getting chased across the surface of some sort of snowy ice planet by an enormous and terrifying monster that keeps trying to eat him. I'm sure I'm NOT spoiling the movie for you by telling you Kirk does NOT get eaten (what would be the point of the movie if he died half way through, right?), but I won't spoil for you the surprise of how he gets away. While that scene was playing out, I said to myself, "Self, this would scare the holy crap out of ES and YB. Cross this one off the list for them to see."

For a more detailed list of the content you might not consider safe for your children, please see the IMDB parent's guide. (Don't worry, they cover up spoiler info with red "spoiler" signs you have to click on if you REALLY want to read it all.)

Air Show

I was trying to make a plan of attack for going to the air show at Andrews AFB on Saturday. In order to prevent the boys from being absolutely miserable, I was planning what I was going to pack in the cooler for snacks and drinks to keep them cool and hydrated. I thought we would bring our Camelbaks with some coloring books and games to play during periods in between air demonstrations.

Then I read the security portion of the website.

No coolers allowed.

No backpacks allowed.

No camelbaks allowed.

No food allowed.

No drinks allowed.

Basically, all the things I would have needed to make the trip enjoyable for the boys aren't allowed.

To sum it up, my choices would be:

a) Sitting on the hot tarmac watching the airshow in the heat and sun from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. (of course the Thunderbirds are the LAST on the agenda for 4 p.m.) with bored, hot, cranky, whining, miserable, dehydrated kids.

b) Taking out a home equity loan to shell out the cash for however much they're charging for bottles of water and refreshments, pumping our body full of preservatives and monosodium glutamate in disgusting food huts and later suffering from indigestion because we couldn't bring our own healthy snacks that we know are safe to eat.

I don't think so.

I did get a good laugh from one of the responses I got from a friend on Facebook: "Only terrorists would bring refreshments to an airshow."

We might go on the Loudoun County Farm Tour instead.