Quick Henry & Malcolm Update

They arrived safe and sound on Tuesday afternoon. After some energetic swimming and a very welcome untangling of fishing poles and cleaning of tackle boxes by Arsen, the assault on the fish population began in full force. Not many fish were caught this first afternoon, though, and it was however, an early night for our jet-lagged heroes, and they were off to bed after dinner.

The next day, the fishing brought results:

Malcolm's first bass of the year: July 15, 2009.

Henry's first bass of the year: July 15, 2009.

And the fishing pressure stepped up today, as the fishing fleet was launched upon the seas.

The mighty fishermen venture forth: July 16, 2009.

The mighty fishermen return triumphantly, covered in glory: July 16, 2009.

In other summertime Malcolm & Henry news, the three of us went to see Harry Potter & the Half-Blood Prince on its opening day when we went to the 6:30 pm Wednesday show. Monique, alas, didn't get to see it because she still had pages to proof. So she had to return home after first bringing the crew to Taco Bell for dinner and then ferrying them to the theater, where I met them on my way home from work.

The quick review is that I thought it was pretty good and plenty of fun, but not the best of the Harry Potter flicks. It suffers a bit as a stand-alone movie from really just being the first act of the story arc of the final two Henry Potter books. The "10-year-old French boys review" is that Henry liked it more than Malcolm, who thought it got pretty slow for a while. (One word of warning: if you or your wee ones haven't read the book, be forewarned that it gets darker than some of the earlier ones, and there's a pretty scary and sad scene towards the end. There were definitely crying children in the theater. However, I don't think it's anything that would discourage me from bringing all but the youngest children to see it.)

That much fun doesn't come without a bit of a casualty report, too. We can report two minor cases of sunburn from Wednesday and one scraped hand this morning for Malcolm. Thanks to Monique's superior nursing and first-aid skills, I'm still pretty optimistic that we'll be able to return two intact boys to France in a month's time.

And that's the news from Wolverine Lake, where all the visiting children are above-average, all the beagles are a bit perplexed by all the hubbub, and all the fish are scared.