Graceland: Holiday Weekend

Wednesday, May 30, 2012

Holiday Weekend

Here's the run down of Memorial Day weekend.

Friday/Saturday- Rick and I cleaned the storage room. I wish I had before and after pics. You could barely walk in there before and now it is so neat and organized. Huge pile to DI. Huge pile to throw away. Feels good.

Late Saturday afternoon we headed to Provo. We picked up Rick's dad and niece, Michelle, and went to the Provo Cemetery.

Gene, Rick and Michelle at Rick's mother's grave.


My grandparents

We had a nice dinner at Rick's favorite Italian restaurant, La Dolce Vita. Then went to see Battleship (review on side bar). Michelle came home with us to spend a few days.

Sunday we were up early to go to Dustin's missionary homecoming. What a great experience. Dustin was a good friend in Orem. It took him a while to decide to go on a mission. He went when he was 24. Such an example of a very good person evolving into an amazing person. He gave up a lot to go, but obviously gained so much more with the experience. He is on fire with missionary work and serving the Lord.

We spent a little time after seeing old friends and neighbors. I think it made Rick and I little melancholy to remember how fun it was hanging out with all the neighbors. We've missed that and so have the boys.

Sunday night we barbequed teriyaki skewers. They were yummy. This will be a new standard for the fam this summer.

Monday started with a morning bike ride. My hardcore sister joined us- she had a baby 6 weeks ago. We've been helping her find a bike this Spring, and this was her first ride with the new bike. The road is quite rural and usually traffic free; although, we learned that holiday weekends it is used by people coming back from vacation.

Ride Stats-

Location: South end of Redwood Road

Miles: 30

Sunburns: all of us

Dead snakes on the road: about 20 (also a dead owl - is that bad to think that is cool)

Large trucks with trailers that scared the crap out of me: Too many

Fun rating: 10+

Rick accidentally took video instead of pics. So this is the only image of the 4 of us on the ride.

Danny and Rick. You can see a glimpse of the lovely scenery along Utah Lake.

Rick's niece and nephew spent Monday with us. After the ride we headed up to Salt Lake to the new mall. Michelle has an internship in NYC this summer so she needed some new clothes. We found her a few new things and Danny bought some pants as well. Very successful.

We came home and Danny and Michelle watched a movie- after the long bike ride in the morning and shopping in the afternoon, I was in bed and asleep very quickly. Party pooper.

Very satisfying weekend!

1 comment:

Afton said...: I love your bike ride stats. I just started riding myself about a month ago and on memorial day I hit a dog and crashed. The owners did not have it on a leash and they seemed to have it under control as I passed them, but at the last minute it jumped directly in front of me. I though it might have been old and blind and deaf, but I guess it was just young and stupid. And now I'm sore and painfully aware that I am no longer in my 20's.; May 30, 2012 at 1:05 PM

My Movie Reviews

Quiet Earth. B-. Another SciFi recommended by Netflix, although this one was actually interesting and enjoyable. A guy wakes up and everyone is gone. Made in New Zealand, it claims to be one of the top ten movies in the US in the year it came out (sometime in the 1970s). After it was over, we agreed that it was good, but the ending was a little confusing, so we watched the ending again with the directors comments. Lame. Apparently the whole movie was supposed to have an anti-nuclear message and the director takes credit for his movie making New Zealand nuclear free. So.... pretend you don't know that and enjoy the movie.
Sunshine. C-. Netflix. That's it. We are not trusting Netflix's rating of sci-fi movies again. The sun is dying so a crew is going with a nuclear missle to "re-start" it. I kept hoping aliens would show up or at least something would happen to draw me in. A lot of things almost happened, but when they did, it did not make much sense.
Warm Bodies. B. Red Box. I was surprised by this movie. I'm a fan of a good zombie flick, but when I heard about the plot, it seemed a bit too much. It turned out to be very entertaining. I'd rate it pretty high on the must see zombie film list and very high on the cheesy teenage romance film list.
Wolverine. B. I'm a fan of the X-Men movies. I'm also a fan of Hugh Jackman. It was hard to go wrong going in with those two biases. The fighting sequences were too long, but that was expected. If you've like the X-Men movies, you should like this one too.
The East. B. I forget how much I love the indie flicks at the Broadway. This also had an environmentalist-based plot, but was written well and I liked how it ended. A women goes under cover in an environmental terrorist group. It goes with the obvious plot of her having sympathies for members of the group and trying to balance that with her personal beliefs. Worth seeing.
World War Z. B. I was in the middle of the book and didn't want to see the movie until I finish, but I couldn't help it and saw it opening weekend. Not a big deal as they are very different. This is a different kind of zombie movie. While most are horror flicks, this was more of a suspense movie. They cut out the gratutious gore associated with most zombie movies and gave it more of a plot. Fun for zombie fans and non-zombie fans.
Silent Running. D. Netflix. I have no idea why this is rated so well on Netflix. Sci-fi movie made in the sixties with blatant environmental message. Forests have died on the earth so they are growing them in a space station orbiting Saturn. Earth decides to abandon the project and for some reason that means they have to blow up the forests. One man understands the impact of losing all our forests so he kills everyone. My description made it seem way better than it is. At one point, he programs his robot helpers to play cards and you watch them play cards for about 10 minutes. Skip this one!

My Book Reviews

The Rent Collector. B. I loved this book while I was reading it. Then the author's comments on the back disappointed me. It was fiction! I was so inspired by the "true" story of this woman living at the dump in Cambodia and learning to read. The whole way through I thought it was true. I was mad when it wasn't. Although toward the end, it started getitng a little unbelievable. It was based on real people which bothers me wondering how much is true and how much is fiction. I still recommend the book, but know what you're getting into.
Divergent. B+. Fun, quick read. YA fiction. Your basic strong female in post-apocolypic world fighting to make change. Even though the story's been told over and over, this one was very engaging. I can't wait to read the next in the series!
World War Z. B+. For staters, this is very different from the movie. It's 10 years after we won the zombie war. The book is a series of interviews with survivors. I was hesitant about the way it was written and that I wouldn't stay involved without a central character. However, the book created a very real world. So much so that when I was getting off the freeway one morning and saw some homeless people waking up under a bridge, for just second, I thought they were zombies. I also wanted to bring it up in conversation. Like when someone was talking about North Korea, I wanted to say, "Did you hear how they handled the Zombie Apocalypse?' It was a fun book. I've never read a zombie book before and I may never again, but I'm glad I read this one. It also was welcome to read a book that isn't a strong female character overcoming incredible odds. I'm seriously weary of that plot line.
Waiting to be Heard. B+. I've followed the Amanda Knox case for several years. I thought, since I knew most details of the case, this might be boring. I was surprised at how engaging and well written it was. She is a quirky girl and, while the complete lack of physical evidence makes me sure she is innocent, I can see why people think she is hiding something. The book was haunting to think the someone who doesn't understand a culture coupled with a corrupt prosecutor could put an innocent person in jail for years.
Girl Gone. C-. Maybe it was called Gone Girl. I don't remember. Book club book. I've never gotten into mysteries. This one took a while to get into, then I couldn't put it down, then it ended and I wished I never picked it up. Ridiculous ending.
The Kitchen House. B-. I have no idea how to rate this book. It was slow to start. Once things started to happen (murder), I found myself sucked in and not wanting to put it down; however, once I did put it down, I didn't look forward to picking it up again. I'm not sure why. Maybe because it's similar to a bunch of other books I've read. I'm just getting weary of the genre and need to mix it up a little. Overall, an interesting read. The story of a young white girl who is indentured when her family dies on the boat from Ireland to America. Her relationship with her new family (the slaves whom she is sent to live and work with) and how her life is different from them because of the color of her skin.
The Happiness Project. D. I'm reviewing the book, but I'm not going to finish it. I knew this wasn't my favorite genre, but it was the book club pick this month so I thought I'd give it a chance. I didn't see the point of reading someone's goals. I sometimes feel like these "self-help" books are an excuse for people to feel like they are doing something to be happier, when really they are an excuse to avoid working on yourself by living through someone else's experience. Instead of reading the book, how about spend that time working on your own "happiness project". As I read, I kept thinking it should have been a workbook for readers to complete their own project while reading hers. I'll be interested to hear how others in book club liked it.

Wednesday, May 30, 2012

Holiday Weekend

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