Cali Trip Part 1- Sea World

For the past 7.5 years Jared & I have been wanting to go to Disneyland. Maybe it's ridiculous that it took us so long to get there, but at least we finally did.

We drove 10 hours in our van with the three of us, Jared's parents, and his two teenage brothers. We stopped to eat dinner at my sis-in-law's house in St. George. Here is a pic of Megan with Uncle Tyler & her cousin Oriana with Papa:


Megan slept for about one hour the entire way to California because she was very excited to have so many of her favotire people surrounding her. She was quite good until the last hour or so.

We were lucky enough to stay with Jared's brother & his his wife, who live just 20 minutes from Disneyland. We left Utah on a Saturday, relaxed & went to church on Sunday, and went to Sea World on Monday. This post, obviously, is all about Sea World.

Here is a picture of Megan & I before the Dolphin Show began.


And, a picture of Megan & Jared before they got soaked by the dophins. Megan did not want to be covered with plastic and kept trying to get out- until the first soaking. Then she only wanted to be under the poncho. She was not a happy wet girl.


One very cool thing at Sea World was the tide pool where you could touch starfish and other sea animals. Of course, I was too scared to touch anything, but Megan didn't hold back. Here she is touching a starfish:

And, lastly, we took the kiddos on some rides at the park. Megan was apprehensive at first, but the apprehensiveness turned into anger every time a ride was finished. There was some definite "weeping, wailing, and gnashing of teeth" every time we took her off a ride. Here is Megan and Jared & Uncle Tyler:


That's it for my Sea World post. Honestly, I wasn't all the impresed with Sea World. I thought that the price of admission was really steep for what the park had to offer. In my head I imagined it to be this wonderul, awe-inspiring place. It probably is awesome to kids, though. I'm glad we went because now I know not to go again unless we can get cheaper tickets!

Stay tuned for my next post: Disneyland.
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Coupon Craziness

For the past 5 years or so I have been telling Jared that "someday I'd like to try doing that couponing thing."

Well, a few months ago Jared took me up on it. I went to a free class and the girl showed us how to easily organize coupons- which, by the way, is not a lot of clipping- and how to find the deals. I am using the website http://www.grocerysmarts.com/. Basically, you use coupons and buy things that are already on sale so that you are paying cents instead of dollars. I now get 5 copies of the Sunday newspapers so I can get 5 times the good deals. I don't care so much about the news as I do about the coupons.

The class was very exciting and I could not believe how easy it all seemed. Well, I finally had enough coupons this week to give this coupon-shopping thing a try. It definitely seems to have paid off, as evidenced below:

I paid about $14 for all of this, which costs at least $85 to your average shopper. (If you can't tell, that's 6 boxes cereal, 24 rolls TP, 5 packs fancy women's razors, one men's fusion Gillette razor, 1 toothbrush, 1 toothpaste, 1 box bandaids, 1 deoderant, 1 sunburn lotion). I could have gotten at least $36 more of free stuff, but the stores were out of them.

Though I got such great deals, it did come with a price. The price? My time. I spent easily 5-6 hours this week figuring out what I was going to buy and where I was going to buy it. (It shouldn't have taken so long but I am a novice). Then I spent at least another 2-2.5 hours traveling to stores, only to find that all the sale items were sold out. It seems that unless you get there at 4:00 a.m. you're not going to get the free stuff- even if you go on the day they get the shipments in.

I learned my lesson and I'm not going to try and get free stuff all the time. It's just not worth it. I'm going to shop when I shop and if they have the free stuff, great. If not, I'll still get great deals. Plus, I'm making sure to only buy things that my family will actually use, so I'm not going to be one of those people who takes home 85 bottles of free mustard. That's just rediculous.

Is all of this worth it? Probably. I'm sure that this will get easier for me. I really DO want to save money for our family and I'm going to try and make it work. I have a one-year subscription for the newspapers so I'm going to give this discount shopping thing a year's try. Then I'll re-evaluate.

And, I promise, this is not going to become a blog where I just tell you all the great deals I got. I merely wanted to say that I am now trying this new thing and it is taking up all my extra time. That is all.

Happy shopping. (or, stressful shopping, if you're me!)
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a ridiculous request

I think that loud vehicles should be outlawed. Isn't it illegal to disturb the peace? It seems like there are a lot of people in my neighborhood who sport loud motorcycles or thunderous trucks.

Another plea to my state government (yes, I have made previous requests from my blog... because the government folk read it often): please outlaw these vehicles during the morning hours, during naptime, and in the evening while my child is sleeping. That leaves about 8 hours that it is permitted to drive uproarious transportation. Eight hours is plenty. I don't see the problem.

When these totally obnoxious, self-serving people drive their prized posessions during Megan's sleeping hours, it turns this:



into this:





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a hoe is a great thing

In my first year of gardening I learned how to build a retaining wall.

In my second year of gardening I learned that a blend of turkey poo does wonders for my veggies.

In this, my third year of gardening, I learned how to use this:

I used to pull out every weed in the garden by hand before planting my veggies. Tonight Jared borrowed a hoe from the neighbors and I was astonished at the easiness of the job. You'd think I would have used one before but I guess I just forgot about it.

Now I look back at all that time I wasted pulling weeds and I think that time could have been much better wasted by blogging.

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Easter Bunnies

For Easter this year my mother gave us a set of 3 bunny ears for our family to wear. You see, it was kind of a "tradition" growing up (well, at least a tradition since High School, when my mom found the bunny ears at the store... curse you, Hallmark!).

Every year my mother would make us wear the bunny ears and smile for the camera. So embarrassing. Luckily, those years were before digital cameras and hopefully none will ever make it to the public.

My daughter, on the other hand? She's already public, and she'll continue to be humiliated for as long as I'm blogging. Or Facebooking, for that matter.

Now on with the show.

Jared was able to grab a picture of Megan before church, wearing the ears in her Easter dress. She's not smiling because she had to be bribed with an m&m, and wouldn't stop sucking on it long enough to smile. In fact, I love the expression she is making in this picture.

Later in the day we got another, more obliging shot:

We kept telling Megan that she was "so pretty" with her bunny ears on. (She'll keep anything on if you tell her she's pretty.) Here's another shot with her cousin, Kienan.

As if embarrassing my daughter for years to come with these bunny ears isn't enough, I also placed some on Jared's head and forced him to smile (he is so easygoing and wonderful).

And, lastly, a random from my Uncle Al. Ha!

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two of a kind

A couple weekends ago we had some visitors. By far the cutest visitor was Megan's cousin Tommy. I had the fun opportunity of babysitting the two of them for a day, and, boy, were they adorable!

Megan gets so bored around here she is happy to have anyone else around. I can't wait until we get some other permanent-or-not-so-permanent-kids around our house so Megan can enjoy the company of others more often.

Video #1: Star & Cheese


Photo with Aunt Lacey:

Video #2: Cute little dancers. FYI- I love how Tommy copies Megan when she falls onto the floor.


That's all, folks!

a lesson learned

So. When I was a kid I thought my mother was pretty. darn. embarrassing.

But, that's what your mother is for, right? You adore her until you're old enough to see that she is old and doesn't know anything about life. Then you grow up and realize she always knew everything and you were dumb for not soaking up her wisdom.

[My mother. Amazing woman. If you know her, you'll know what I'm talking about. Most selfless woman alive. Most generous and thoughtful person you've ever met. Her organizational skills are something to be admired. But, I digress.]

Unfortunately, when I was a kid I didn't see all of my mom's wonderful-ness. I saw other stuff. Like, "oh-my-gosh-she's-so-crazy-I-can't-possibly-be-seen-with-my-mother-while-she's-doing-this" -type stuff.

In particular, I couldn't stand going shopping sometimes. She would put groceries in the cart, and then open something and feed it to the baby before she paid for it!! I thought for sure that the Store Police were going to put her in jail, or at least that the important-and-mighty cashier would scold her about buying things before she uses them. I mean... come on, mom! Were you born on a bus?

(FYI- Mom wasn't born in a bus. She was born in a hospital.)

Well, kudos to my mother. She has taught me a life lesson I never realized until recently. Lesson is this:

Sometimes you just have to open up the Goldfish. Or the raisins. Or even the M&M's. It's just as easy to pay for a half-eaten carton as it is to pay for a full one.

I totally get it now, mom. And guess what? I've seen other moms do it, too. I guess you're not so crazy after all (and neither am I). ________________________________________________