Dances with Wolves

Dances with Wolves came out in 1990 and swept the Oscars in '91. It was nominated for 12 Oscars and won 7 including Best Picture, Best Director (Kevin Costner), Best Editing, Best Cinematography. It's one of my favorite movies of all time.

One of the Oscars went to John Barry for a brilliant original score. We own the soundtrack. In fact, Drew, who loves to listen to music as he falls asleep, chose that soundtrack as one of his favorites. It's amazing.

Today we watched the first two hours of the movie with the boys for the first time. The arc of the story is perfect - an award-winning screenplay. And the characters - all of them - are so well defined, so human and so real. It brings history to life and really shows the devastation brought by war and ignorance. Needless to say, it's already made a big impression on the kids.

Watching movies together is one of our favorite things to do as a family. Each summer we make a list. One summer we did a James Bond film festival and watched them all in order. This year Dances with Wolves is on the list. So we've already kicked off our summer film series.

The movie is shot in Badlands National Park in South Dakota, which also happens to be at the top of our list for our summer vacation.

We hope to fly out to Rapid City and visit the Badlands, Mount Rushmore, Crazy Horse and then head over to Yellowstone and The Grand Tetons. Road trip!