Big Brother - Recap - Episode 3

Alright, here's my apology up front.  I'm at a work conference that went late, so I missed the first half of the episode.  So there's a big gap in this recap, but hopefully the rest of this recap still works for you, because there's no PVR in my hotel room, so I can only recap what I saw.

SO - pick up at the nominations - Caleb nominates: Paola (Pow Pow .... I refuse to call her that), and Donny.  Frankie nominates Victoria and Brittany. 

So I learn that there is a guys alliance... "the Bomb Squad".... and Devin decides, without consulting the rest of his alliance, that he's going to as Amber and Christine to be part of the Squad.  Se get to see various reactions of people in the bomb squad to Devin's additions.  The consensus is, Devin is an idiot.  Why would you not consult your alliance first?  Bad move.

On to the Battle of the Block.  The nominees compete, the nominees that win come off the block, and the HOH who nominated them is dethroned.  For this challenge, the two nominees work as a pair swinging from chandeliers to collect champaign, pass it to their partner and the partner dumps it in to a class.  The first couple to have their glass filled until a berry comes out of the glass.

Paola seems to have difficulty getting the hang of swinging. ( Did she not do this as a kid?)  And her facial expressions show it.  I can't tell if she's trying to swing, or using the bathroom (yes, a classy bathroom joke on my blog). 

In the end, clearly Victoria and Brittany are in the groove, and they win. 

Next up... Power of veto!  (On Wednesday)

Big Brother 16 - Episode 2 Recap

Who else is excited to hear about the other 8 houseguests?  Well let’s dive in!

So everyone kind of blends together for me during this opening “meet the houseguests” montage, but the standouts for me?  Zach… because he’s arrogant…. The mom of 3 (can’t remember her name… it will come later), Hayden the super smart dude and Christine the Barista.

I do remember Jacosta says “I’ve done a lot of things, done alot of people”.   Say what?  I did a double take just then.  Unexpected.  When she started intro by saying she was a minister and motivational speaker, I definitely wasn’t expecting those to be the next words out of her mouth.

We learn that Barista Christine loves nudity.  Could this be the female version of Arlie (BB Canada 2)?  

As much as the mom of 3 seems nice enough, the duck face she was showing while waiting to go in the house nearly pushed me over the edge.

The new houseguests enter the house after learning there is already an HOH, and that there will be another one.  Hayden says he’s in the house with ‘The Rock’ (Devin), ‘Whitney Houston’ (Amber) and ‘John Travolta’ (Cody).  Too funny.

Zach has indicated he doesn’t need friends…. and he shows us that by being pretty abrasive with Frankie.  Yup.  Isn’t that a great strategy?  How about no!   What an idiot.

On to the HOH competition.  The houseguests basically hold on to a big “spit” and get spun around over “coals”.  A little bit further into the competition, they spray BBQ sauce on the houseguests to make it, you know, fun.  Untilmately, Cody wins.  

Then… Julie drops the bombshell… the two HOH’s will each nominate 2 Houseguests… meaning 4 people will be on the block, but then, in the “Battle of the Block” competition, each HOH’s nominees will compete against the other HOH’s nominees.  The winners come off the block, and the HOH that nominated them is dethroned, and thrown back into the mix, and could potentially be nominated.  The houseguests equally freak out about this revelation.

Team America, America’s alliance, had it’s first member named… Joey!   Thank you America!  I love her!!  Each member receives $5000 for every challenge they accomplish.

I am also happy to hear the live feeds open tonight, so I’ll be able to read spoilers!  Yay!

Until next time…. share your thoughts below!!

Big Brother 16 - Episode 1 Recap!!!

Well, here we are boys and girls, Season 16 of Big Brother.  Nothing makes me sound more judgemental than when I watch this show.  I think this show brings out the "dramarific" (yes, I know that's not a real word) side of me.

Lets get in to it!

We start by meeting the first 8 houseguests.....Amber, Paola, Cody, Devin, Joey, Frankie, Donny and Nicole. 

Right away... I don't like Paola.  Don't get me wrong, I'm pretty sure she will provide us with many memorable moments which may or may not include moments not appropriate for live TV, but there's something about this girl that rubs me the wrong way.     

I'm sure the most memorable/talked about houseguest of the night was Cody. Yes, yes, he's a good looking guy. I'm not immune to his looks... but I was not particularly impressed beyond that. I need more than looks..most of the time.

Similarly, Devin.... nice looking, but not much to offer beyond that. Yes...lots of ladies swoon over single dad's, but using good looks as a strategy? Unimpressive. He kind of came off as an arrogant jerk to me.

Donny... he is one of my personal faves. I love me some small town folk.

Similarly...Nicole - simple (not in a bad way) small town girl. And that accent... awesome.

Amber - Personally, I didn't really find she did too much to make an impression. I'm sort of indifferent at the moment.

Joey - I instantly liked this girl.  She's so bubbly it's infectious. And the blue hair just seems to suit her. She is my early favourite.

Frankie - Youtube sensation and brother of Arianna Grande of Disney Channel (and other ??) fame.  Fun and fabulous, but not over the top.  And his pink hair.  Great.

So there you have it, the intros.

So the first 8 (not to be confused with the First Five Alliance from BB Canada), enter the house.  Lots of screaming and giggles and they figure out the beds.

Then they all introduce themselves.  This is where they size each other up and decide who they want to “showmance” with.  Surprisingly, no particularly nasty comments by anyone… yet.

Amber had her eyes on Devin, Devin had his eyes on Joey, and at least half of the houseguests were enjoying the site of Cody.  

We also see some lining up for alliances.  These 8 agree they will align togther as the “Crazy Eights”, but there are a few sub-alliances including Devin and Donny.  Devin thinks this is a great alliance because no one would expect it, even Donny who couldn’t believe he was being approached by this big strong guy for an alliance.  The 4 girls decide to form an Alliance called “El Quatro” which Paola refers to as the first ever all girls alliance… umm.. I’m pretty sure this has happened before, perhaps she’s not familiar with this show.  My favourite part of this alliance is when Nicole says “I’m all for girl power, but what does El Quatro mean?”  Ha!

Julie tells the group there will be 8 more houseguests and because you’re HOH, doesn’t necessarily mean you’re safe.  Ooooo!

The group of 8 play the first HOH which consists of holding on to a kite while balancing on a moving… log(?)  then they get sprayed with sunscreen.  In the end, it comes down to Amber and Frankie, and since Amber is afraid about Julie’s statement that the HOH may not be safe, she throws in the towel, and Frankie wins!

Julie then drops the bombshell on the houseguests, there will be 2 HOH’s this season.

And we’re left with some scenes of the houseguests freaking out about all of these new tidbits Julie has just given to them.

Before we sign off, Julie shares that there will be a #TeamAmerica this season… a secret alliance of 3, chosen by America and given tasks by America.  We learn the first houseguest has already been chosen by America, but we won’t know their identity until tomorrow.  

What were your thoughts on tonight’s episode???  Share your comments below and tune in Thursday night when we meet the rest of the houseguests!!

Big Brother 16 Starts TONIGHT!

In case you can't tell by my caps and exclamation point in the title of this post... I am pretty excited for Big Brother to start tonight.  It's that special time of year when we start to forget the names of past houseguests, and meet a whole new set of people.  Don't get me wrong, I have my favourites (and least favourites) that I remember and some I wish I could forget... but as for the rest... I tend to forget there names within a season or two.  I see old clips of previous seasons and think "oh yeah, I forgot about that girl/guy".

I love my reality TV, and Big Brother is definitely my favourite.  So be prepared, if you follow me on Facebook, Twitter or read my blog regularly, you will be over run with posts about this season.  I live-Tweet every episode, and recap every episode here on the blog.  So strap in for a summer full of drama, showmances and Julie Chen's memorable "but first".

To get you prepped for tonight, have a sneak peak at the first Head-of-Household competition of the season:

(Clip from the CBS Youtube page)

Countdown to Big Brother 16!

The countdown is definitely on in my house (well, for me at least), Big Brother 16 premiers Wednesday!  Which means I will soon be flooding all of my social media feeds with Big Brother related tweets every Wednesday, Thursday and Sunday!  Can you tell I'm excited by all of my exclamation points?!?!  Anyway, as part of my "countdown to the first show", I've done a little digging around and found out some of the scoop as to what we have to look forward to this summer.

***Warning**** Don't read any further if you prefer to wait until the first night.

1 - The newest Big Brother twist is that this season there will be 2 HOH's crowned every week.  Each HOH nominates two houseguests (so 4 nominees all together).  Then the 2 HOH's will participate in a "Battle of the Block".  The winner of this challenge gets to stay HOH and their nominees remain.  So what does this mean?  A lot more drama.  It means 4 people will be ticked off this week instead of 2.  Also, we will most certainly hear a lot more "don't worry about it, you're just being put up as a pawn".

2 - There is apparently a houseguest who has previously tweeted homophobic and racist comments.  Wonderful (sarcasm)... as if we didn't have enough of that in Big Brother 15.  I wasn't going to reveal his name, but it will all come out anyway.  His name is Caleb Reynolds.

3 - Caleb, the same houseguest mentioned in point # 2 also has a video of himself killing a wild boar with a stick.  Wait... is this Survivor?  Or Big Brother?  Anyway, he describes himself as an avid outdoorsman, and apparently that was part of his outdoorsman lifestyle (?)

4 - America will apparently have influence of some kind over a houseguest (perhaps like America's Player?  I'm not sure).  Last week on CBS's website you can vote for "Team America".  The description appeared as follows:  "If you had to form an alliance with one of the House Guests who would you select? Choose wisely, your vote will impact the game."  Ooo... intriguing.

So there are a few tidbits to get you revved up for Wednesday's episode.  Be sure to head to the CBS website to check out all of the Houseguest profiles there.

How to Train Your Dragon 2 - Review

I will freely admit that the majority of my movie watching, since I became a mom 5 years ago, has seemed to primarily revolve around children's movies.... and I'm ok with that.  Lots of the children's animated movies nowadays include little nuances and jokes that adults will enjoy.  I have also noticed that I have become a bit emotional since I became a mom.  Half of the movies I've watching with my daughter.... Frozen, Up, and others... have made me cry.  This movie was no exception.

I didn't see the first "How to Train Your Dragon" (it was a daddy-daughter date movie), but I was still able to follow this one and gather what happened in the first.

The movie follows Hiccup, the hero of the first movie, and his village, which has now embraced dragons.  Many of the village residents have dragons of their own that they ride around on.  When we pickup with Hiccup, he's creating a map of many surrounding lands that he's now able to visit because of his dragon, Toothless. 

Without giving too much away about the movie, Hiccup discovers that a villain, Drago Bluntvist, is trying to control dragons in order to create a dragon army. 

Hiccup meets a mysterious dragon rider and a safe haven full of rescued dragons.  They work together to fight back against Drago.

I won't say too much else, so I don't ruin the movie for anyone.  This movie has some powerful messages contained in it about understanding and tolerance.  I will warn that this movie has some frightening scenes for younger children, and some sad scenes (for sappy moms and dads like me).

I highly recommend this movie. 

Stay-cation - Pt 1

As promised, the first installment in my stay-cation series.  Because we plan to spend most of our summer close to home, I decided to highlight some of the awesome things our area offers.  I think sometimes we don't explore our own hometown, and that's unfortunate.   

So today we decided to do a little drive to Hampton, NB.  Hampton is about 30 minutes away from where I live in Saint John, NB. 

Hampton is a small community of a little over 4200 people.  It's rich with history!  Originally settled by Loyalists in the 1780s.  Lots of charm in this place.

We decided to head out to a fundraiser for the Hampton Food Bank.  The fundraiser was a Pontoon Ride on the Kennebecasis River.  Cool, right?  It really was.  The fundraiser was put on by Zelda's River Adventures.  (Check out their website here:  http://zeldasriveradventures.ca/home/).  The ride was about an hour, but so much beauty and wildlife:

 

My little girl enjoyed herself.

 

After our boat tour, we did a little drive through Hampton and found a park, which my daughter was quite pleased about:

 

 

It was a great little park surrounded with old buildings, a cute little gift shop/info center, and they were even setting up for a little concert.



Lots of little restaurants, shops and fast food places along Hampton Road for every taste.

Although it was a quick little trip away today, we definitely got the "getaway" feel.

On a budget note, the cost of today's excursion - a donation to the Hampton Food Bank, lunch (about $12.... but if I had of been better at planning ahead, there would have been lots of opportunity/spots to have a picnic).

Have a mini-getaway story of your own?  Feel free to share!