Phone Photo Fun

I’m linking up with Savanah and Ashlee for Phone Photo Fun Monday!

Let's start with the photos I posted on Instagram. (My username is christinareads if you want to follow).

This is a view of my backyard at night.

I watched one of my favorite movies of all time, Empire Records, and shared this picture of Rex Manning.

We got some unexpected snow.  

Tired kiddo.

Playing at the park. 

I started the March Photo A Day challenge.

Day 1 - Up: A wall of wigs in Sacramento.

Day 2 - Fruit: Papayas at a fruit stand in Chinatown, San Francisco.

 Day 3 - Your Neighborhood: This is the view from Nolan's bedroom window.

I love that I snapped it just as the sun was going down.

Day 4 - Bedside: Stuff on my nightstand

 Day 5 - A smile: Good morning, Nolan!

Playing in the snow at night.

I took a quick trip to visit my BFF in Sacramento. This is Old Sacramento.

We also drove down to San Francisco and wandered around Fisherman’s Wharf.

This was the coolest/creepiest street performer I’ve ever seen. We were mesmerized by him for a long time.



We also spent a lot of time in Chinatown.

Flying over Mt Shasta on the way home.

Project 52 Update

It's the first of the month, so it's time for my Project 52 update!

COMPLETED

20. Take Nolan to his first hockey game. Nolan wasn’t interested with the game at all, but he had a good time and said he wants to go again. It was an intense game with lots of violence. I put him on my lap facing the crowd during the fights and he got distracted by the crowd and their cowbells. The entire way home he talked about how he wants to be a Zamboni driver when he grows up. Fail! He’s only three so we’ll keep working on him.

26. Go ice skating. A few days after the hockey game, we tried ice skating. He loved it, though he didn't have to do much of the work. He basically stood there while Jacob pushed him around the rink. I think we're going to practice with roller skates at home before we try again, but we definitely want to keep going.

35. Watch five Elvis movies before my trip to Graceland. I watched eight! Check out this post for my review.

36. Play in the snow with the kids. Again. It snowed Tuesday night. Since we weren’t sure how long it was going to stick around, we bundled up the boys and let them play past their bedtime.

 42. Take a child CPR class with Jacob. We took the class at our local fire station. I used to teach Kindergarten so I had to be CPR certified, but that was over ten years ago and so much has changed since then! If you haven't learned about CPR recently, I suggest a refresher course. Our firefighters are awesome and funny and it was a night well spent.

IN PROGRESS

2. Go on one date each month. Disneyland counts as a date, right? We had meals, we had a hotel, and we had tons and tons of child-less fun. That sounds like a date (or two, or three) to me!

3. Try five new restaurants. I tried three this month! We ate at The Bengal Barbecue in Adventureland at Disneyland. We were looking for something a little healthier than pizza or burgers, so we tried chicken, beef and vegetable skewers. I really loved the Bengal Beef Skewer in sweet zulu sauce and will definitely get it again on our next visit.

When we're hungry for a burger, we always go to our favorite place. I finally gave in and decided to try Five Guys. It was pretty good, especially the fries, but I'm ok not going back.

We also tried a little place called Boston's Deli & Pizza. Jacob and I split a calzone. I don't know what I was expecting, but a glob of feta cheese wasn't it. I wasn't a big fan of their pepperoni pizza either.

10. Read 24 books. I only read one book this month. ONE! And I'm still not done, so I don't even think it counts. I'm reading Stephen King’s 11/22/63. The beginning was so boring and it took me a long time to get into it. Plus it's 850 pages! I have 48 pages left. I will finish tonight. I will finish tonight. I will finish tonight.

18. Try one new recipe a month. My sister recommended this beef with snow peas stir fry recipe from The Pioneer Woman.  I didn't think it was good at all, but I don't really like any type of Asian food. My husband didn't mind it.

37. Have a weekly family dance party. We have been doing awesome with this one. I loaded up my old iPod with fun tunes and almost every day after dinner we turn  it on and dance in the dining room. It’s a nice transition between dinner and getting ready for bed and it helps the boys get their wiggles out. Milo absolutely loves it but Nolan gets so embarrassed! He’s not interested in dancing, but he will spin, run and slide all over the hardwood floor.

FAILING

14. Meet a blog friend. Leeann (from Join The Gossip) and I had plans to meet up while I was in Anaheim. She went above and beyond and drove up from LA for two hours in Friday night traffic. Unfortunately, because of the traffic, she was going to get to Downtown Disney a little too late for me. We had a 4:30am cab ride to the airport the next morning. Because we were so tired and I hurt my foot, I just couldn’t stay out that late. I know, I know. I’m totally lame and a horrible blog friend! She was so sweet to come all that way, but she insisted that her night wasn’t a total loss because she got to visit her parents instead. I still feel terrible. I should have just sucked it up!

15. Use our elliptical three times a week. I didn’t use it at all this month. In the beginning of the month, a few days before our trip to Disneyland, I felt like I pulled my right pec muscle rolling over in the middle of the night. It hurt to bend, twist, turn, pick up and hold my kids, etc. I got a strong anti-inflammatory and lots of Vicodin from my doctor, but she said it could take weeks to heal and to take it easy. It was pretty embarrassing holding my boobs down while riding Big Thunder Mountain Railroad at Disneyland! I also hurt my foot at Disneyland and it just started feeling back to normal a few days ago.


NOT GONNA HAPPEN

52. Get AC installed. Our tax return wasn't as much as we were expecting. Jacob got a promotion last year and even though we got to claim a new baby, we still had to pay quite a bit. Boo! Unless I find a really good deal, we'll probably skip it this year. I'd much rather go on vacation this fall. Sure, I say that now and we'll probably have the hottest summer on record!

Elvis Movie Mania

An item on my Project 52 list is to watch five Elvis movies before my trip to Graceland. After I booked the flights last month I got really excited for my upcoming trip in April and I watched eight! These were six I'd never seen before.

Love Me Tender This movie was so boring and Elvis was hardly in it, but because it was his first role, I wanted to watch. His character, Clint, stays home to care for his mom and farm while his three older brothers go off to fight in the Civil War. They are told that his oldest brother, Vance, was killed and Clint marries Vance’s girlfriend, but all three brothers come back. Awkward. Elvis looked good, I loved the singing scenes (especially the hip shaking), but it was a really slow and boring movie. Westerns are not my genre.

Random fact: The movie was originally called “The Reno Brothers” but advanced sales of Elvis’s single “Love Me Tender” hit one million and the name of the film was changed.

Clambake I really loved the ‘60s vibe of this movie. The clothes, the hair, the dancing! Scott (Elvis) an oil heir, meets Tom, a water skiing instructor. They decide to trade places to see what life is like in each other’s shoes. Scott works for a Miami hotel and meets a girl who’s looking to land a rich fella. Scott tries to help her but falls in love with her in the process.

Random Fact: Elvis wasn’t happy with the way his movie career was going and began overeating. Movie execs ordered him to lose 30 pounds in a hurry. This is when diet pills entered his life. He really wasn’t looking his best in this movie at all.

Viva Las Vegas I can totally see why people think this is Elvis’s best movie. Elvis plays Lucky, a race car driver who is in Vegas for the Grand Prix. He has to raise money for a new engine and meets a local swimming instructor. The movie is filled with tons of musical numbers, plus it has Ann-Margret who is just insane to watch. (See Kristin Wiig’s spot on impression here).

Random Fact: Elvis and Ann-Margret’s chemistry wasn’t just on-screen. They had a brief affair, but after it ended he continued to send her flowers and some say she was his true love. She was the only one of his co-stars to attend his funeral.

King Creole  Danny (Elvis) is a kid from a poor family who gets in a fight at school and is told that he will not graduate so he drops out and starts working as a bar singer. Everyone says this is one of his best performances, but I just couldn’t get into the movie. It was slow and serious and the music wasn’t that great.

Random Fact: Elvis deferred the beginning of his army career for two months to make this movie. He said this was his favorite role.

Girl Happy I watched this movie based on a recommendation from Christianna. Rusty (Elvis) and his band are sent to Fort Lauderdale to look after their boss’s daughter while she’s on spring break. Rusty woos two women and crazy comedy ensues. The ‘60s dancing was awesome, the beach scenes were fun, the leading lady was adorable, there was a song about every three minutes and I want some of the swimsuits I saw. What I don’t understand is why Elvis wore long sleeves the whole movie when it’s set on a beach!

Random Fact: Several of the songs are slightly sped up, making Elvis’s voice sounds higher than usual. It was done to give the songs and upbeat and youthful feeling. The original version of “Girl Happy” wasn’t released until the ‘90s.

It Happened At The World’s Fair I had to watch this one because it’s set in Seattle! Elvis rides the Monorail, eats in the Space Needle’s revolving restaurant and runs around what is now the Pacific Science Center. It’s amazing to me how similar it all still looks, almost 50 years later. Elvis plays a pilot named Mike. His business partner gambles away their crop-duster which will go up for auction if they can’t pay their debt. They hitchhike to Seattle, Mike spends the entire movie wandering around the fair with an abandoned little girl and looks for love…of course. The songs were boring, but I loved this movie because of the location.

Random Fact: Kurt Russell has an uncredited role as the boy who kicked Mike. He went on to play Elvis in the made for TV movie Elvis, voiced Elvis in Forrest Gump, and played an Elvis impersonator in 3000 Miles to Graceland.

I also re-watched two I’ve already seen.

Jailhouse Rock I watched this movie on tv years and years ago. Besides the awesome performance of “Jailhouse Rock,” it’s kind of slow. After Elvis’s character, Vince, gets in a bar fight, he is sentenced to prison. His cell mate is a former country singer and when he discovers Vince’s talent, he asks to go into business together. Vince is released, tries to get his career going, and meets a woman record executive along the way, fame gets to his head and his friends help bring him back down. It was a pretty risqué movie for the time. The hero is a bad boy and they say hell. Gasp! I like it because the songs are performed on purpose, in a recording studio or on stage, not like in most of his movies where he’s in a car, plane, train, or boat and just starts singing.

Random Fact: Judy Tyler, who played Elvis’s love interest died in a car accident two weeks after filming was completed. Because of his grief, Elvis never watched this movie.

Blue Hawaii Chad (Elvis) returns to Hawaii from the Army where he’s happy just hanging out with his girlfriend and friends on the beach. His mom wants him to manage their pineapple business, but he gets a job as a tour guide instead. I’ve always liked this movie. I’ve been to about every location and it has one of my favorite songs, “Can’t Help Falling In Love.” It also doesn’t hurt that he’s wearing tight white short shorts in half of the movie! I’ve always thought that Elvis looked and sounded the best in this era and after watching all these movies, I can say that hasn’t changed.

Random Fact: Elvis completed the fourteen song soundtrack in just three days. It was nominated for a Grammy, spent twenty weeks at number one and is his most successful album.

Have you seen any Elvis movies? Which one is your favorite?