Help Save the Pride's Corner Drive-In!

I don't often shill for things here, or in my life ever, but long-time readers of this blog know that I am a HUGE fan of the Pride's Corner Drive In in Westbrook, ME.

My whole life I had always wanted to go to a drive-in movie and imagine my luck when I moved back to Maine and found one 10-minutes down the road!

Unfortunately after this summer, there's a good chance a lot of this country's drive-in movie theaters will go dark. Film distributors are largely shying away from 35mm film, which means that most Drive-Ins will need to convert to digital projection to be able to show new films. The cost to convert (about $75,000-$80,000) is a huge hurdle for these small businesses.

We've already taken Little Miss Cleaver twice this summer, and I'd love to be able to take her when she can remember the experience!

So my request here is two-fold:

1. If you live in the area - go patronize the drive-in!! This weekend they're showing a double-feature (it's always a double feature!) of Monsters University and Despicable Me 2. $15 per Car. Gates Open At 7pm. Show Starts At Dusk. (For more info, visit the Pride's Corner Facebook Page)

2.  Honda (yes, the car company) is sponsoring a "Save the Drive-In" contest, where the top 5 vote getters will receive a free digital projector. You can vote for Pride's Corner here: http://projectdrivein.com/#vote_68 or by texting Vote68 to 444999. You can vote once each way per day from now until Sept 9th.

That's all - this is just a place I love and would hate to see go away!

-Leah

 

Start 'Em Young

Whenever Mr. Cleaver and I talked about having kids, we talked about how much of we do already is pretty kid friendly (see: apple picking) and how we wanted to integrate Miss Cleaver into as much of what we love about our lives as possible.

As so, as she sleeps a lot still and is pretty portable, Miss Cleaver's been and mostly slept through a number of knit nights, neighborhood walks, trips to visit my co-workers, weekly visits to the local library for story time, and Record Store Day.

This past weekend she got a crash course in Mom's nerd loves as she celebrated (read: slept through) International Star Wars Day, Free Comic Book Day, and a viewing of Iron Man 3 at the Drive-in. (Fun fact: the first time we went to Pride's Corner Drive-In back in 2010, we saw Iron Man 2 - how time flies!)

I know it won't always be as easy or practical to take her along on all these things, but as long it is, we'll be bringing her along.

Let's Go To The Movies

Last night Mr. Cleaver and I took the first of what will be many trips to the Pride's Corner Drive-In Theatre in Westbrook, where it's always a double feature. It was a fantastically fun atmosphere, with tons of families and folks who were clearly old pros at the Drive-In Experience. And for $7 for two first-run movies with inexpensive concessions, it's a good bang for your movie-going buck.

Some of my favorite things were all the younger kids in their pajamas and the 60's-era intermission cartoons. And for those wondering, the picture quality is good after the first 15 minutes or so (when it gets dark enough) and the sound plays via your car radio. As for film reviews, we both really enjoyed How to Train Your Dragon, but found Iron MA 2 to be underwhelming. Other than that, the photos are pretty self-explanatory, so I'll leave it to them.

PS - in other news, I met with a physical therapist on Thursday and have been diligently doing my stretches and I can happily say I can fully bend my wrist with no pain! I'm not out of thw woods yet, but this is definitely a positive move forward :)