Well, sort of. The account @angelinajolie is locked and not accepting followers. But we can still speculate what Jolie would tweet, can’t we?

Someone asked if @bradpitt and me were really like Mr. and Mrs. Smith. Yes, only we have more money.

Just adopted another Asian baby. #gottacatchemall

Tried to convince @bradpitt to be a SAHD. Then he reminded me how much better Benjamin Button was than Salt. LOL good point!

@billybobthornton I’m sorry, have we met?

Or maybe not. Do you follow any celebrity parents on Twitter? Are you following @life360?

Continuing our tradition of trying to give you as many creative summer activity ideas as possible (y’know, so your kids don’t get bored or drive you crazy), Love and Be Loved’s has a list of 101 things to do this summer. Here are the first ten:

1. Picnic under the shade of a tree
2. Star gaze
3. Fly a kite
4. Set up your own lemonade stand
5. Throw and outdoor party
6. Play in the rain
7. Go to the zoo
8. Surprise someone you love with a special gift
9. Make homemade ice cream
10. Plant a flower, watch it grow

This is seriously a gorgeous post with even more gorgeous photos. Check out the 91 other ideas at Love and Be Loved.

I’ve always believed the saying “kids don’t understand the value of a dollar,” but turns out they think it’s worth way more than it is. And just FYI, LeBron James’s new contract with the Miami Heat was for $110 million.

Volunteerism helps your local community, but what positive effects can it have on the volunteer? According to guest blogger Erik Fisher at MomLogic, there are many, apparently, and that’s why your family should volunteer together.

“Giving back to others is teaching the man to fish: It creates a cycle of giving and receiving,” he says. “Frankly, what got us into the mess we’re in now was more taking than giving (plus an excessive sense of entitlement that seemed to be taught from the top down).”

I’m assuming “the mess” he’s referring to is the economy. But I think the chance to do something as a family that teaches everyone to value what they have is a hugely positive experience, even for parents. And hey, it’s a great, free activity to do with your family.

Does your family volunteer regularly?

From MomLogic. Photo by angelmedflight.

“So come with me, where dreams are born, and time is never planned. Just think of happy things, and your heart will fly on wings, forever, in Never Never Land!”

I believe in fairies. And I’m not ashamed to admit it. I mean, I don’t go around telling people that, but between you and I, I do.

For a story about fairies, flying, magical places beyond the stars, and little boys who won’t grow up, Peter Pan is one of the most relatable stories ever written. As children we shout that we believe in fairies, we dream about what it would be like to fly to Neverland, and we keep an ever-watchful eye for pirates.

But then we grow up, and the magic is lost somehow. Until we have our own children. And then, just as Wendy says goodbye to Peter in the end, the magic returns and the story only begins again with our own child.

Yesterday my own two darling children and I hopped on the train to San Francisco, a magical place in itself, to see the live production of Peter Pan at the Threesixty Theater. I knew it would be special, but I had no idea it would be the most amazing live theater experience I’d ever seen.

My heart began to race when we saw the real Wendy, John, and Michael fly through the air above us along with Peter and Tinkerbell. I looked over at my kids and both of them were sitting there with smiles on their faces and pixie dust in their eyes.

They were mesmerized.

And later when we all shouted that we believed in fairies so that we could save Tink’s life, I felt myself start to cry.

Sometimes as adults, the stress of life can be overwhelming. And the magic of childhood is only a distant memory, if we remember it all. But in that moment as I watched Tink light back up, I remembered. I remembered what it was like to believe in fairies, and I remembered that magic still exists.

And in the last moments of the show, as Peter Pan smiled at Wendy’s girl Jane, for a moment I looked up and thought maybe somewhere there really is Neverland. Just maybe…

But lucky for us the magic did not end there. Thanks to a very generous invitation from SHNSF we were able to meet up with some of my favorite local bloggers and meet the cast of the show. All of them were so unbelievably sweet to my kids, only reinforcing the magic of the day.

I love the theater. I love classic books. And I love taking my kids on magical journeys to places like Neverland. And I love that my kids think Pixie Dust is real and that fairies are never far away. And I won’t ever be the one to tell them otherwise.

“And because Peter never grew up, when Jane had her own children, they flew away with Peter too, and so it will always be, as long as there are children.”

Thanks so much to cast and crew of Peter Pan in San Francisco for an amazing day. Also big thanks to SHNSF for putting together this event and allowing my kids and I to be a part of it.

Though SHNSF provided tickets to the show I was under no obligation to write this post or in any other way compensated for it. This is a cross-post from Meg’s Idle Chatter.

There’s a lot to like about Inception, the newest blockbusting thriller from director Christopher Nolan of The Dark Knight fame. It broadly succeeds as an action movie and a psychological drama, packed tight with suspense, special effects, and terrific performances, all of which is packaged in a thought-provoking if not entirely consistent plot.

The story itself should pose few obstacles to adult’s enjoyment of the film, that is unless they bring children along, mostly because youngsters will be asking questions throughout the movie like: “What’s going on?” and “Is this a dream now? Still?”

The good news is usually the answer is yes… probably. The idea behind Inception is a fairly simple one. In the corporation-dominated world of the film, technology allows people’s minds to be invaded through their dreams. There’s an app for it. Actually it’s a machine you hook them up to, but that’s not super important. What does matter is that Leonardo DiCaprio’s character Cobb has been leading crack teams—made up of architects, thieves, and chemists—into people’s minds at the behest of business rivals, in order to steal corporate secrets.

Now he’s been hired to do something more dangerous: plant an idea, a process known as inception (get it?). It’s not as easy as it sounds. You have to do it in a dream, within a dream, within a dream—and sometimes delve even further. Therein lies much of the movie’s potential for confusion, and also plenty of its suspense and thrills, much of which will be lost on younger audiences, who will struggle to wrap their mind around the wider narrative.

Violence: What won’t be lost is some of the violence. Cobb’s dead wife, played by Marion Cotillard, constantly tries to thwart his dream missions, often in creepy ways that involve stabbings, or worse, the threat of stabbing. There’s a hunk of fairly standard action—one of the dream sequences is positively Bond-esque—and one character perpetually bleeds through his shirt after getting shot, but that’s about as gory as it gets, even during the film’s two depictions of suicide (one in a dream, one real). Ultimately it’s the intensity of Cotillard’s performance, not the action, which could cause nightmares.

Language: Outside the violence, there’s not much that extends beyond the bounds of PG-13. If there is strong language, it’s disguised by explosions or car chases and never makes it on to your ears.

Sexuality: In fact, if it weren’t for the moments of blow ‘em up action, the movie could be described as downright classy. A few kisses are as scandalous as things get and the film’s stars stay fully and very smartly dressed.

Is Inception a great movie? That depends on whether you thought The Dark Knight was 2008’s best film. I did not, but I do believe Inception, like Nolan’s last project, is a very good movie, just not for kids. A mature 11 or 12 year old could probably handle and appreciate it, but it’s geared teens and adults who are ready to explore ideas about what truly makes a dream a dream.

OM NOM NOM NOM. For freedom.

What other funny videos have you seen on YouTube recently?

Here’s a neat site: I Write Like, which lets you compare your writing — based on a statistical analysis — to famous writers of past and present. I’m not sure how accurate it is, but it’s always fun to see who it compares you to. Me? I plugged in this very blog post and it says I write like David Foster Wallace. I’m so hip.

This piece is somewhat of a Bay Area-centric story, but don’t stop reading just because you live in Florida. You never know when you might make a trip out west to visit San Francisco, and if you do, there’s a good chance that you will cross the Golden Gate Bridge into Marin County.

Just for fun let’s just say you live here or have plans to make it out sometime in the near future. Here’s a cool place to put on your ‘to do’ list.

Directly across the Golden Gate Bridge from San Francisco is the Marin Headlands. The Headlands have a long military history dating back to 1890s, and during World War II the Headlands were occupied by U.S. Forces as a defensive fortress against any hostile ships that may have tried to enter the SF Bay through the Golden Gate. Later, during the Cold War, the large guns protecting the Bay were decommissioned and replaced with antiaircraft missile sites.

Today, the Marin Headlands are part of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area and you can visit and explore the old military bunkers, the locations of the gun batteries, and even take a tour of a Nike Missile site complete with a dummy missile that still resides underground. On clear days, the Headlands provides panoramic views of the bay including the Farallon Islands, Angel Island, Alcatraz, the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge, the Golden Gate Bridge, and the East Bay.

(Since the point of the article isn’t necessarily the Headlands themselves, but rather a place within the Headlands, I will leave you to google the “Marin Headlands” if you wish to learn more.)

Located at 2000 Bunker Road, just before Rodeo Beach is the Marine Mammal Center.

From their website they describe themselves as follows: “Our mission is to expand knowledge about marine mammals—their health and that of their ocean environment—and to inspire their global conservation. Our core work is the rescue and rehabilitation of sick and injured marine mammals, supported by state-of-the-art animal care and research facilities, a corps of dedicated volunteers, and an engaged community.”

Tanner and I went for a visit yesterday and as a rehabilitation center for injured marine mammals. We found almost 120 sick or injured mammals such as sea lions and elephant seals that were easily accessible for viewing. We stood back and watched as the full-time and volunteer staff worked to isolate one of the sea lions for a check up before being released back into the wild. It was interesting to watch and fun to hear the grunts of all the elephants seals competing with the barking of the sea lions.

We were also able to visit a hands-on classroom for a view of the kitchen where they were preparing the meals for the mammals and even the hospital itself where they care for the injured animals when they are first brought in.

Tanner and I see California seals and sea lions quite frequently around the Bay and on the shores of the Pacific Ocean, so it was a cool experience to get ourselves closer than ever before to have a look at these beautiful animals.

I certainly enjoyed the visit and I know from all the questions that Tanner had that he learned a lot that day. I’m sure he now has a better appreciation for these creatures, as well as an understanding of how humans can have a negative impact on these animals from careless and irresponsible behavior. According to the Marine Mammal Center, “nearly 10% of the animals we rescue have been impacted by human interaction and hazards like net and fishing line entanglements, gun shots, illegal pick-ups, and boat strikes.”

As mentioned earlier, the Marine Mammal Center is located just before Rodeo Beach, so bring a picnic to enjoy down at the beach after your visit to the center. The center is constantly releasing and rescuing new patients so you never know what you might find when you visit. If you are in the area, stop in for a visit. It’s educational, fascinating, fun and free with donations welcomed.

Apparently it’s parks week at Life360 Now. I stumbled across this randomly and felt like it was too pretty not to share.