On Location: The Hunger Games | District 12

Coincidentally, this is just in time for Halloween.... I know it's been awhile since the first Hunger Games movie came out, but I heard that part of the movie depicting District 12 was filmed near Charlotte.  One day this summer we decided to make a spontaneous trip. The drive was about an hour Northwest of Charlotte and it actually makes for a pretty good day trip. It's right near the town of Hickory which is a pretty cute place. We took the scenic route via Highway 321 and it was very pretty and very green. I recommend going that way if you are traveling from Charlotte. 

The location is called Henry River Mill Village. It's currently a ghost town {my first one!} but was built in the early 1900's and suffered several fires over the years.  It was a small mill town that manufactured fine cotton yarns. By the time it shut down in the 1960's, the mill had produced 12,000 spindles and fine yarn for creating lace. 

Recognize the Bakery from the movie? It's probably the only thing I actually recognized. If I go back and re-watch it, I'm sure it would all make sense but I think the most scenic part is the bakery. 

Legend is that this place is haunted. Doesn't it look the part? I would not want to be around these parts at night. But I'm also the person who never wanted to go graveyard hunting, etc. 

It looks so calm and peaceful now. 

The entire village is actually up for sale for a million bucks. What a steal, right? Well, there is no electricity and you have to keep the structures standing since they are on the register of National Historic Places. But, other than that... 

Aren't the broken windows eerie? 

We had such a fun time exploring this village and a few other people popped by while we were there. Technically, there are a bunch of no trespassing signs, so we probably weren't supposed to be there, but oh well. It was a fun adventure. 

Have you been? Do you want to visit? 

Travel Fully,

WEEKEND RECAP

Good afternoon everyone! Hope you had an enjoyable weekend. Sometimes when I have a 3 day weekend, I forgot what I did way back on Friday, so bear with me. I might also be rambling a tiny bit.

The succulents we planted this weekend

FRIDAY - After work, we went to Tom Douglas' Brave Horse Tavern for happy hour/dinner. I took some pictures on Jake's phone with instagram but forgot to send them to me. Blogger fail. In other news, only 8 days until the iPhone announcement which means I will soon have my own instagram. Stay tuned. 

The drinks were good (strawberry marg for me, some kind of beer for Jake) and the food was delicious. Let's just say we will be coming back soon. I got the house cured smoked ham and white cheddar on pretzel bread w/  dijonniase. Wow. Just wow. No words. Jake had a burger that was simple, but very tasty. He said you could tell that it was really fresh + good quality beef.

SATURDAY - We lounged around the house, watched TV, went to jcrew {I didn't buy anything - aren't you proud of me????}, caught a discount flick and went grocery shopping. In that order. I think. Then we made healthy orange chicken for dinner. Yum!

In case you are wondering, we went to Crest Cinema in Shoreline to catch Snow White and the Huntsman for only $3. It was truly a discount movie theater. We had a fun experience there and the movie was really good.

SUNDAY - We went to Home Depot to check out succulents (bad selection).  We then headed to The Palm Room in Ballard (I read they specialized in succulents). I purchased my first succulent here and she was only $7 {score!}.  Next, we headed to Magnolia Garden Center where I picked up two more tiny baby ($2-3 each) succulents.  At this point, I still hadn't found my dream pot to plant them all in. I looked online {etsy} and almost bought a cool wooden box to use. Alas it was $33... I kept looking! Even though I love it and still want to buy it now.

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We also watched a documentary about the end of suburbia. It was interesting but a little a lot to the left.

MONDAY - We got our new tenant moved into Jake's condo and went to Swanson's Nursery. This was the mother of all nurseries! I don't even know much about gardening and I knew that this was the place to be. It was ginormous! They had a huge, cheap, lovely succulent selection and they were affordable. 

Swanson's Nusery, Ballard

The succulent section at Swanson's!

More and more and more!

Some outdoor succulent arrangements

I also scored 3 yellow pots and some special cactus soil to plant my baby succulents in.  We "planted them" yesterday afternoon. I'm so happy that I finally got my succulents and was able to reproduce my "vision".

Our first succulent plant that we got from our housewarming a few years back!

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 What did you do over Labor Day Weekend? 

Magic Mike Movie Review

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In case you were wondering if we got in last night-- we did! The whole experience was actually really cool.  I arrived at the theater around 4:30 (movie started at 7:00). There were approximately 10 people in front of me in line. I was pumped because I knew we were getting in! One of my best friends Megan met me around 6:00 with some dinner from Chipotle. It had never had Chipotle before and it was actually really good. So, after about 40-50 people cut in front of us, they opened the theater doors around 6:30. There were a lot of seats saved for media/press but we ended up getting pretty good seats {middle, center}.  A big burly man told us to turn off our cell phones and if we didn't, we could face a fine of $2 million and prison time.  I guess this is more strict than a normal movie since its a pre-screening. 

Megan and I in front of the gigantic sign | @ Magic Mike

 A few notes:

1. There were so many weirdos that came out of the woodwork for the "free" event. Like old (aged 50+), guys with long white hair. Why in the world that guy wanted to watch CT in Magic Mike... I do not know.

2. People are so annoying.  Waiting in line with people for 2+ hours is pretty interesting. There were a lot of annoying wives who had a million annoying stories to tell.  I overhead these exact words: {She wrote her name on the block of cheese. Why would I eat your regular cheese? I only eat soy cheese.} Riiiight.

3. The demographic I expected was way different than what actually showed up. Per my discussion/re-hash of the nights events with Jake when I got home from the movie, we think that has to do with the "free" part of the event than the subject matter. I was expecting mostly all women ages 20-30.  There was actually probably 25% males and a lot of older women. Cougars, I guess.

Oh man... now to the actual movie. It was amazing! Like... so so good! First, there is the Channing Tatum {CT} eye candy. He is such a good dancer. Today, I am seriously going to buy the Step Up BLU RAY {dang it, it won't be released until July 3rd} so I can watch him dance whenever I want in the privacy of my own home. Dang, he could be on So You Think You Can Dance (SYTYCD) for sure. I only wish there were more dance sequences.  He was definitely the star though. I was reading the wikipedia for Magic Mike and it says it is a comedy. I thought it would be more of a drama, but I think I am going to classify it as a "drama-dey" {See what I did there? I combined comedy and drama}. All the male dancers were amazing and really fun to watch.  The love story is a bit weak {I noticed Channing didn't kiss anyone during almost the entire movie}. I bet women wouldn't have liked that.  I know I wouldn't have! I highly recommend you go see this movie. The rotten tomatoes rating is currently an 86%! I am definitely planning to watch it again in the theaters. And probably buy the BLU RAY for that matter.

Right after the movie, I would say I look pretty happy!

 I would love to hear your comments!  Read Megan's review here.

Magic Mike

I have not felt this giddy about a male superstar since Justin Timberlake was in N'Sync.  Oh boy... am I excited to watch "Magic Mike" starring the one and only Channing Tatum...as a stripper. I think I am blushing and all I did was type his name.  So the movie is scheduled to open nationwide in theaters starting this Friday.

No, it does not matter what it's about.

But - here is where fate comes in, I scored two tickets to the pre-screening of the movie in Seattle tonight {as long as we get in, its first come, first served, so we need to get our butts there early, like "leave-work-kinda-early"}.  Does this count as an emergency? I think so!

Let me back up and tell you the full story.  I am kind of behind on updating our nextflix queue and "As Good As It Gets" staring Jack Nicholson came in the mail on Friday night. No, I have never seen it and thought I should watch it given how popular it was. We popped the BLU-RAY in on Saturday night and it was kind of entertaining, until Jack Nicholson started falling in love with Helen Hunt. YUCK! I was not impressed. So, I decided that I would look for Channing Tatum on Facebook. I came along a page called 'Channing Tatum Unwrapped' and "liked it" on Facebook. Then I proceed to find stalk him on twitter, look for his personal Facebook page, etc... you get the idea. Well, we finished the movie and went to bed.  The next morning, the second I open my eyes, I grab my phone and go on Facebook.  That is where the announcement was --- there was a post from the 'Channing Tatum Unwrapped' page that said "Free tickets to select pre-screenings of Magic Mike" in 17 cities nationwide. Click here." I was like well, Seattle is kind of a big city, but not that big. So, I clicked on the list.. and before I could even zoom in, I saw "WA" and I knew! I zoomed in and confirmed my suspicions - Yes, Seattle was on the list! Now, I love my phone but its tough to do a whole lot of anything on it, so I ran into the living room and grabbed the computer. At this point, Jake has spent quite a bit of time teasing me about CT and he was just laughing hysterically when I told him what I was up to.  I logged into the site after getting a few errors and reserved my {and my friend's} spots.  

Jake was like, "what would you do if he {CT} was at the pre-screening in Seattle?" I looked at him and said "I can't even think about that -- I would be WAY too excited to meet him in person. Let's just say I might not come home that night" *wink wink* Haha.... We have a lot of inside jokes about CT. The only bad part is that our spots are not guaranteed and I'm pretty sure I would be heartbroken if we didn't get in. So, the showing is scheduled for 7:00 and I am leaving work at 4:00 and heading straight there. Pray that I make it in time!  

{ CT } <3

Wowzers. Just wowzers.

Take Me Out to the...... Movies

Just a quick post today.  For some reason, one of my favorite things to do is to go out to the movies {at the movie theater}. It feels like such an adventure and it really takes me to another place. At the spur of the moment {working on my "being in the moment" that I posted about here}, Jake and I went to see Avengers in 3D and it was pretty fun! It was just such a long day and we didn't go home until after 9:30 pm which is way past our bedtime, but I definitely liked being spontaneous :) It was a fun adventure and I'm glad we did it! There are so many good movies out that I want to see: 5 year engagement, Magic Mike, {not out quite yet}, Snow White and the Huntsman, What to Expect When You're Expecting... etc. The list goes on and on.

From fandango

What is one of your favorite things to do during downtime?