2009-06-11 - 3:57 p.m.

[Beware of Henry V spoilers!]

We watched Henry V, the Kenneth Branagh one. He was shouting and spitting at the same time throughout his big speech and it was humorous to me. Dad described the movie as, "The English won. Fine speech."

I actually fell asleep when we first watched it because we watched it at night after a hard day's work. I need to be fresh for Shakespeare because it is like a whole different language to me. Mom says we understand better than most, and she thinks it is because we read King James Bible and we are used to switching gears and putting on an ear for it. I watched the rest of it the next day. I also started a biography on Shakespeare.

One part that was distracting was Emma Thompson's facial hair. (Emma, I love ya, but what was up with that 'stache?) Mom is very understanding about women and facial hair and hormones and stuff but she can't understand why the make-up department didn't catch it. She wondered if it was a deliberate "d'elbow" to the French. We boys giggled a lot about it even though I loved the scene with the two of them after the battle scene. Did you know that Kenneth Branagh and Emma Thompson were married to each other in real life? I don't know why they divorced.

I also love the music from this movie! James used to sing Non Nobis Domine a lot when he was little. They saw this movie before I was born. Some things I saw the first time around but I don't remember them. By the way, Kenneth Branagh is carrying young Christian Bale in this scene.

We'll have fun comparing this film to the Shakespeare version and then comparing them to histories. That is how we study history. Dad goes to the library and gets stacks of books and movies and we also watch lectures from The Teaching Company. It is usually "interest led," which just means our interests take us from one thing to the other. We got to this because James was listening to some lectures from Vision Forum on the battle of Agincourt while he was loading the dishwasher. The lectures were from Sabers, Spears, and Catapults: A Providential History of Warfare Technology.

We've stripped all the wallpaper in our bathroom and we're waiting on the mud to dry before we paint it. We moved the toilet and removed old grout and it was hard work because there were two layers of wallpaper and hard old grout. We're updating the whole house. The laundry room is next because the wallpaper is peeling bad after the puppies got ahold of it.

Here's a picture of me as a Teutonic knight that James photoshopped.

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