The Hunger Games

 

I know I've said this already, but The Hunger Games series was by far the best book series I've read in years. The trailer for the movie was just released, and let me just say... it looks EPIC. I can't wait!

Last weekend, Jon and I had a garage sale.
We decided it would be short and sweet, and anything unsold would be going straight to Salvation Army. 
We were open from 9am until 2pm, and made $150. Nothing impressive, but it felt so good to get rid of all the CRAP that has been piled in our garage since we moved into this house.

Normally, when we earn or are given money outside of our regular income, it goes straight into savings.
However, we've been living on a super tight budget for the last year. So we decided to be reckless with the money we made from the garage sale.

Since we don't have much of an entertainment budget this summer, we bought a boat. There is a lake right by our house, and now we have hours upon hours of FREE entertainment.

Behold.

The boat

 And of course, life vests

On Wednesday night, we packed a "picnic" (read: beer and chips) and floated around the lake to eat dinner and talk about our day. It was amazingly peaceful and fun. I can't wait to go out again this weekend!

Jon and I just got back from seeing The Losers.

It was less than impressive. But still enjoyable.

A bunch of good movies are coming out in the next couple weeks.

Good thing I have a few Regal gift cards left over from Christmas/Easter.

I think tomorrow Jon and I are going to see Date Night. It was that or The Greatest, but sadly it isn't in wide release, so I might have to wait until it's out on DVD.

Jon and I went to see the new Alice in Wonderland last night.
It was excellent.

I just saw a preview for this movie, and cried.

Embarrassed.

We got the truck home in one piece last night. Success.

Tonight we're going to see Blind Pilot and Laura Veirs. I'm pretty excited. Although a little bit bummed that I have to come back to Seattle again after work. Alas, that's the price one pays for moving so far out of the city.

Work is weird right now. Hopefully once the holidays are over things will get better.

I am a musical theater nerd.
I LOVE musical theater.

Today, I just watched the pilot of "Glee" - and let me tell you, I LOVE IT. If you haven't seen it, go to Hulu.com and check it out. It's worth 42 minutes of your time.

Am currently watching Princess Diaries 2: The Royal Engagement. I went and saw Star Trek (SO GOOD!) yesterday with Jon's family. Current movie choice inspired by Chris Pine.

And just like the movies...

Movies I've watched this so far this year (in no particular order):

• Yes Man
• Mamma Mia
• Bella
• The Devil Wears Prada
• Harry Potter and the Sorcer's Stone
• Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
  
• Sense and Sensibility
• Wanted
  

Here is how I felt about them

• Yes Man -- I love Jim Carrey. I have always loved Jim Carrey. He can do no wrong in my eyes, and I will always love him in films that emphasize his physical comedy. Do you like Ace Ventura? Than you'll like this one. 3 stars.
  
• Mamma Mia -- Now, I saw this one in when it was in theaters and thought it was OK. However, I decided I wanted to give it another chance and see if I could love it more. However, that idea backfired and I ended up downgrading my rating on netflix. I'm sorry, it was THAT bad. Pierce Brosnan was a kill-joy. 2 stars.
  
• Bella -- I'm embarrassed to admit this, but Ciara bought me this movie as part of my bridesmaids gift for her JUNE wedding. However, in the midst of all the wedding craziness, I lost the movie. Fast forward to Christmas, my mom found it somewhere in their house and gave it back to me! Yay! So I finally watched it this week, and wow, it was fantastic. A little slow moving, and certainly sad, but it was very very well done and beautiful and romantic but not in the sappy or ripping clothes off kind of way. More like romantic in the folklore/Edgar Allen Poe/Nathaniel Hawthorne/Mozart kind of way. Bottom line, if you haven't seen it, do. 4 stars.
  
• The Devil Wears Prada -- I've seen this movie too many times to count. I still love it. 4 stars.
  
• Harry Potter and the Sorcer's Stone & Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets -- We got Harry Potter Scene It for Christmas. No further explanation needed. 3 stars.
  
• Sense and Sensibility -- This is the new BBC version from 2007. It is WONDERFUL! Rent it. 4 stars.
  
• Wanted -- The cinematography was cool. The action was cool. The plotline was so painfully terrible, with so many holes. And too much violence. Overall, not worth it. 2 stars.
  

ElfYourself!

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

Happy Thanksgiving!

First and foremost, I really liked Twilight. I didn't love it, but it exceeded my expectations and I have every intention of seeing it again (hopefully in a theater without the screaming teenage girls).

However, Rob Pattinson is a disappointment. I want to like him, really I do. I think he makes a fantastic Edward. However, he has millions of young girls looking up to him and here he is this past weekend wondering drunk around L.A. Not exactly the kind of person you want your 13 year old daughter to have a poster of over her bed.



But enough about the movie, what I'm REALLY excited about is THANKSGIVING! Jon and I are heading down to Puyallup today right after work and we will be spending the entire weekend down there. This will be the first time in my life I haven't spent a holiday with my family. We had originally planned on heading down to Portland on Friday morning. However, my great great aunt passed away on Friday and her funeral is the day after Thanksgiving so my parents will be out of town to attend that. I'm bummed not to see them this weekend, but Jon and I are going to head down to Portland early next weekend to get some quality time in with them before Christmas.

I hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving and have a chance to share the holiday with people that you truly love. As much as I'll miss my family this weekend, I'm thankful to be spending the holiday with Jon's family and friends.

Love,
Kristin

Twilight Tonight

The Twilight movie came out as of 11:59pm last night.



My wonderful husband is taking me on a date to see it tonight. He is willing to spend 120 minutes of his life watching tween girls fawn over Edward Cullen and crew, and he hasn't even been complaining about it. I'm impressed.


P.S. - Wooooooooooo!!!!!! I'm pumped!!!!

"Stuff"

I went to title this blog "Big Time Stuff" but as it turns out, I have already titled at least one other blog with the same name. Hmmm... I need to be more creative.

We got a call from the furniture story today and our new couch is finally ready! We ordered it 7 weeks ago and I'm so excited to FINALLY get it into our home! Last night we bought a "new" coffee table and two matching end tables from a lady on craigslist. They're cherry wood, and our new couch is red, so I think the two will compliment each other nicely. The tables were at one point incredibly nice, and although they look a little worse for the wear, they look great in our apartment and it's nice to have matching furniture!

Also, Jon finally caved and bought "us" (himself) a new monitor for his computer. I think it's 27 inches... so... it's huge. I made him promise that his other 3 monitors would be gone by the time the new one is delivered. Even though his new monitor is giant, I'd much rather have one big monitor than the three smaller ones he's had for the past few years. I know he's excited about it and he really doesn't get to buy many "fun" toys.

I know it's all just stuff, but it's nice to have stuff that is really ours! We worked hard and earned the money and picked out what we wanted and purchased it ourselves. We didn't have to save up allowance or wait until Christmas. It's all part of the big scary adult world, but buying new stuff is one of the fun parts :)

Twilight

You may be wondering why I haven't written anything in the last few days. I'm usually pretty consistent about my blogging. However, something else has captured my attention over the last five days. Twilight.

I mentioned the books in my last post, but perhaps I didn't do my obsession justice. The Twilight Saga is a collection of four novels, written by Stephanie Meyer. In essence, they are the new Harry Potter. The main plotline revolves around a teenage girl named Bella who moves to Forks, Washington and falls in love with a "vegetarian" vampire named Edward. My weak attempt at explaining the books won't do it justice, so I'm not going to venture down that path. Instead, I just wanted to make fun of myself a little bit, and then talk about how freaking good the movie looks.

First things first, confession time. I started reading the first page of the first book on Saturday afternoon. I devoured that novel, all 500 pages of it, in less than 24 hours. Between Sunday afternoon and today at lunch, I read the other three books in the series. Which means I read over 2,000 pages in the last five days. You may be wondering if I remembered to eat and sleep, and the answer is yes, but I didn't do much besides that. Sometimes it's hard to explain my passion for reading. I love books. And I love a good book that sucks you in.... I haven't felt this way about a book series since Harry Potter. I didn't want to put it down, at all. *sigh*. It's always disappointing when a good book ends, but it was a satisfying ride. Really satisfying. However, it's always relieving when I finish books such as these, my head clears and I remember that I have a life and responsibilities and the real world to live in. I remember that I have work to do and people to talk to. I hate saying goodbye to the characters I fall in love with, but I'm sure Jon will be happy to have his wife back :)

Now, on to the good part! The Twilight MOVIE is coming out in November. It looks awesome and I can't wait to see it.

http://www.twilightthemovie.com/

Thanks for listening :)

This weekend was interesting to say the least. I spent about 18 hours in the car between Friday afternoon and Sunday evening. Of those 18 hours in the car, 6 of them were spent driving through traffic at less than 25 miles an hour. Now you may be wondering if I drove somewhere glamorous like California or Canada or somewhere that warrants an 18 hour drive, but no. I drove to Portland, and from Portland to Roseburg, then back to Seattle. I realize that it's the end of the summer and there is a lot of car traveling happening and a lot of accidents... but that was ridiculous. Needless to say, I am feeling quite restless sitting here at my desk today.

Other than the terrible car traveling that occurred this weekend, here is what happened.

• I met Uli, my family's German exchange student. He is hilarious and this may sound weird, but he honestly looks like he could be a part of our family. I'll put a picture up here later.
  
• I went to my cousin's wedding in Roseburg. It was an experience. Highlights include the following...
• All of the groomsmen walking around shirtless with beer in one hand and a cigarette in the other. (Not kidding, they were in this state until about 30 minutes after the wedding was supposed to start. They eventually pulled it together.)
  
• The wedding starting 45 minutes late.
  
• The bride almost forgetting her flowers and running back down the isle to grab them.
• The mother of the groom double fisting champagne bottles throughout the duration of the reception. Then being too incoherent by the end of the wedding to help with anything.
  
• Dinner at 8:30pm (30 minutes after the bride and groom were supposed to have left, and 30 minutes before the property was supposed to close).
  
• The groom throwing the ENTIRE TOP OF THE CAKE at the bride during the cake cutting. Cue mother of the bride bawling at the ruined cake (that she herself had expertly made.)
  
• The list could go on...
  
• Thanks to the unbelievable amount of time spent in the car, I read the first two books in the Twilight series. I am now officially obsessed. If you like Harry Potter and you're female, you'll like these books. If you like Harry Potter and you're male, I think you'll like these books, but I'm not making any promises.
  

I hope this week is quiet. Jon and I have been way too busy lately and I can tell it's completely wearing him down. I think all the driving this weekend was a breaking point of sort. We just need to relax and recover and spend as much time at home this week as we possibly can. However, I am going to see Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2 with Meghann tonight. Don't judge :)

Have a good week!

One Singular Sensation!

I saw A Chorus Line last night! It was SPECTACULAR! I love that show so much! The dancing was incredible, the singing was amazing, and finale invoked the exact emotions it should have. It was beautiful. I'm so glad I finally got to see that show.

Jon and I are going camping this weekend. Chris and Annie are joining us at Wenberg State Park, which is just north of Everett in Stanwood. We have a few other friends who will be popping in for a night or on Saturday for the afternoon. I'm really looking forward to spending quality time with friends. I really enjoy Chris and Annie and I'm hoping this weekend will be a good opportunity for us to get to know them better as a couple. We're brining lots of games, lots of books, and lots of food - so my expectations are high :) Thankfully I get off work at 3:00 on Fridays (at least for another three weeks), so Jon and I will be able to hit the road early and hopefully avoid at least some traffic.

My family is meeting their German exchange student today! He flies into PDX today and will be living with them for the next 9 months - so send a quick prayer their way. I think this is going to be an incredible learning and growing experience for my family. In a way, I'm jealous that we didn't have an exchange student while I lived at home. I think this will bring my parents and brother closer together, and that makes me sad, knowing I'll be even further disconnected with my family and the experiences they share together. I'm looking forward to meeting Uli though, and I'm excited for the incredible year my family has in front of them.

To my friends & family, have a wonderful weekend!

With love,
Kristin

A Chorus Line!

I'm going to see A Chorus Line tonight! As some of my close friends might know, Chorus Line is one of my favorite musicals/movies ever. I have watched the movie more times than I can count and I know the soundtrack backwards and forwards. I LOVE this show! BUT tonight is the first time I will get to see an actual REAL LIVE production of A Chorus Line! :::Fist Pump:::



My wonderful in-laws bought me tickets to the show as a graduation present.

I am SO excited!!!!!!

PS - Happy 21st Ciara!
PPS - Read a review about A Chorus Line!

Big Time Stuff

Today was my first *real* payday. My one paycheck for two weeks of work was over double of what I was making per month while I was in college. Boo yah!

Also, there is a 12k in Kirkland that I want to run in December. It's called the 12k's of Christmas and it's supposed to be super fun.

http://www.12ksofchristmas.com/

Ciara, if you're reading this, maybe we can actually do a race together this year! Heh heh.

In other news.... BATMAN TONIGHT!!! I hope today goes by quickly!

Batman

I'm seeing it in IMAX tomorrow. Yesssssssss.