Around a week ago, our family decided to go to dinner at The Urge. The Urge is a casual place in San Marcos, across the road from Cal State San Marcos. It is a sit-down restaurant that also includes a bowling alley.
I ordered the Burger of the Gods, and it was delicious! Svara ordered the Caesar salad, and Kiran ordered the pub mac and cheese. Kiran did not really like her mac and cheese, as it had a good amount of balsamic sauce on it. Our father got the Piri Piri Steak Salad, and our mother ordered the apricot glazed salmon. Overall, we liked our food, and I would recommend going!
We went to the Cracker Barrel Restaurant in Yuma, Arizona. It had a very old-fashioned, country vibe to it, which we loved. The restaurant also has its own store. They serve breakfast all day, along with their lunch and dinner menus.
The Cracker Barrel Store (image taken by the Jayasinghe family)
I ordered breakfast for dinner, choosing the French Toast Combo, which comes with four slices of French toast, bacon, and eggs. It also comes with a small glass bottle of Cracker Barrel Syrup, which I thought was so cute! The French Toast wasn’t amazing, but it was good enough when doused in syrup. Svara got the grilled cheese sandwich with a side of dumplings (Svara’s in love with dumplings). She says the grilled cheese was good, but the dumplings were a little “soggy and slimy”. Her words, not mine. Simran got the Fresh Start Sampler, which comes with a cup of yogurt, a fresh baked muffin, two eggs, and bacon. She says it was “okay, not amazing, but the muffin was delicious”. My mom got the meatloaf with green beans, carrots, and mashed potatoes. She says the green beans and the carrots were both overcooked, the meatloaf was okay, and the mashed potatoes were good. My dad had the chicken tortilla soup, but it was way too salty (we all tried it).
Our food at Cracker Barrel (image taken by the Jayasinghe family)
All in all, we didn’t particularly like what we ate, especially our dad. The service was good, but we don’t highly recommend Cracker Barrel.
Over the weekend, we watched the new Star Wars, The Rise of Skywalker, the last installment in the saga. It was a great ending to the series. It introduced new characters and brought back some of the old ones, bringing everything together for the last movie. The movie was about tracking down Emperor Palpatine, completing Luke Skywalker’s mission, and finally defeating the First Order. The movie focused on Rey’s training with the force and her journey to find her family. It also put more attention on Kylo Ren.
We rate the movie a 9 out of 10. It wasn’t our favorite movie (our favorite is Little Women, go check out our review) but Rise of Skywalker was definitely really good! We all agreed that it had several amazing fighting scenes. It also had a little bit of romance that we thought could have been left out, but all in all, it wrapped up the series nicely.
Little Women is a classic tale written by Louisa May Alcott. The book is about four sisters in the March family, Meg, Jo, Amy, and Beth, and follows the struggles their family goes through over the years. The sisters have their own ideas of what women should be seen as. In a time where women have limited jobs and opportunities, they have to find ways to earn money to support their family. The book follows each of their lives as they leave home, and go out into the world trying to make do. I really enjoyed reading the book, and the story it portrays.
The book was recently made into a live action movie, released December 25th, 2019. Last week, we went to watch the movie with our family. I liked the movie. It is set towards the middle of the book, but it goes back every so often to their childhood or the events leading up to the time it is set in. However, if you have not read the book, or do not know the general storyline, I can see how it might be confusing. I really liked the movie and if you have read the book, I definitely recommend seeing it!
