Time To Plan Your Vacations

It’s only the beginning of summer and gas prices have already hit $4.00 per gallon! That makes vacations especially pricey this year for flying and driving. Are you looking for some ideas to keep you busy near home? Check out this new download called “Pack Your Bags, We’re Staying Home”. For less than the cost of a gallon of gas you get a whole ton of ideas for “staycations” (the latest word for vacationing near home or even at home). Here are some topics covered in the 33 page booklet:

 

The Rules
The Week Before
Treat Each Day as a Luxury Hotel Experience
We’re so Lucky!
International Travel
PJ Day
Family Olympics Day
Crossword Puzzles
Spa Day

 

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Counting By Fives

“The 5s Tag” I was sort of tagged by Tami :

10 years ago: I was ready for my first baby to be born! I hoped I wouldn’t have to miss Scott & Korby‘s wedding, and Hunter was glad to oblige arriving two weeks early on the morning of my baby shower.

5 years ago: We were living in North Carolina. Rob was just finishing his first year of law school, and starting a summer internship at a District Attorney’s office.

5 months ago: It was the beginning of the New Year and I made a few resolutions. One of which I can cross off as of last week: I got my passport.

5 things on my to-do list today: 1) go to park day 2) fold the laundry 3) do girls night with my daughters 4) sort the piles of papers and junk 5) pick up Emma from school

5 snacks I enjoy: Yoplait yogurt, a bowl of cereal, trail mix, grapes, M & Ms

5 things I would do if I were suddenly a billionaire: 1) pay off student loans!! 2) find Rob a more rewarding job 3) visit Italy 4) contribute to or start my own charity 5) Get a full time chef.

5 of my bad habits: 1) putting off the dishes 2) putting off starting dinner 3) not exercising 4) falling asleep on the couch at night 5) Taking really long naps whenever I can

5 places I have lived: 1) Central California 2) Central Utah 3) North Carolina 4) Los Angeles area 5) Orange County

5 things people don’t know about me: 1) In seventh grade my history class wrote a book about the Civil War 2) I was hoping the top three on American Idol would be David, David, and Brooke 3) I love to watch Masterpiece Classic on PBS, I bet that isn’t too surprising though 4) I bite my fingernails when they get too long and drive me crazy 5) I hide the Wii remote and tell people I don’t know where it is

5 people I tag: Erica, Kirsten, Ciel, Meshelle, Marea – I think some of you may have already done this one? Oh, well. Whatever…

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Have You Seen My Son?

When he left for school on Thursday morning he looked like this:

 

At dinner last night, this boy ate with us:

 

I think we may have gotten cousin Adler by mistake!

 

 

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Organizing My Food Supply

As you may have heard or noticed at the grocery store, the price of food is rising and it isn’t predicted to go back down any time soon. I decided it was finally time to take food storage seriously. Yes, my mother is the queen of this kind of emergency prep stuff, and I was still way behind. I blame it partly on moving around so often that I never wanted to get too much knowing that I would just have to move it all again.

I was trying to think of a place to store the food, because the garage gets pretty hot in the summer and my kitchen cabinet space is adequate for our family of six, but not to try to stuff in any extras. So of course I was discussing this with my mom on one of her visits here. We were sitting in the office at the time and she looked at the open closet that looked like this:

She suggested I move the storage boxes into the garage and I wondered why I hadn’t thought of that. So one day I took everything out, and looked in every box to make sure it was okay to store in the garage. There were some photo albums that I moved to my bedroom closet upstairs and a few things that I found I really wanted out where I could use them, not lost in the cardboard boxes. I then went to Sams Club and bought some cool shelves with bins, and then to Lowes to get a cabinet with doors for the garage. So now the office closet looks like this:

and the garage looks like this:

I’m working on getting paper products and nonperishables like soap, diapers, etc on these shelves. I also have our 72 hour kits on the top shelves so if we need to leave our home quickly we can grab and go.

It feels good to know that if the truckers go on strike or the inevitable big earthquake hits, my family will stay fed and clean, (even if we are living off of pasta and PB&J)… At least for a few weeks. I’m working my way up to three months eventually.

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A New Look

I was having a particularly trying day last week, and of course told Rob all about it that night.

The low point came when it was time to pick up Emma from school and the little girls did not want to come without shoes on. In spite of the fact that it is literally around the corner, and I was driving there, so shoes were really not necessary. Hannah finally found a matching pair she liked, but Sabrina could only find one of every shoe she has. Hannah put her shoes on the wrong feet, but at least she was ready to go. I finally handed Sabrina a pair of dress up shoes and said, “just wear these.” As soon as Hannah saw that, she had to have dress up shoes too.

“Mom! I don’t want these shoes! I want dress up shoes!”

“No, Hannah. You already have shoes on, I’m not going to look for dress up shoes right now.”

“Mom! I don’t want these shoes!” Wailing and flailing of limbs follows.

“You can look when we get back. Let’s go!”

Hannah is following behind me and Sabrina in bare feet repeatedly yelling, “I want princess shoes!” with tears and stomping as we head through the garage to the van. Sabrina slips and loses her shoe. “Gwass Swipper” she wimpers and starts to cry. Do you think I enjoyed the irony of her losing her glass slipper just like Cinderella? nope. I started my angry Mom voice.

“That’s it! Nobody is wearing any shoes.” And I pick up Sabrina, take her other shoe off and throw it on the ground next to the one that just fell off.

I buckle the girls in their seats while muttering to myself, and we drive the two blocks to the school. Both girls are crying and yelling out various things regarding their shoes, and I am seething. Emma isn’t quite out yet, so we wait a few minutes while the screaming continues and I start telling myself to calm down so I can be pleasant to Emma when she gets in the van. After all, it isn’t her fault. I manage to calm down and be normal to Emma and we have a brief exchange about her day while trying to ignore the noise behind us.

As soon as we pull in the driveway, I inform Hannah and Sabrina that they are both going straight up to their beds for naps, and there will be no stories. I walk them to their beds, watch them get in and close the doors to more screaming. I hear Hannah yell, “Mommy is so mean today!” And I say to myself, “That’s right, and I don’t feel bad about it…”

The next morning Rob gave me strict orders not to look at any emails from Amazon, and then on Mother’s Day I found out why. He ordered me a new camera lens. I’m not sure what it was about my experience that motivated him to get it, but I have been trying it out, and just love it. Maybe he knew I would be taking pictures of the kids and hoped I would remember why I love them so much. So here are some samples. I think I take pictures the same way I was before, but this lens makes them look better. Not sure why or how, but it’s cool:

 

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