Warm Fuzzies!!

I love warm fuzzies, don't you?

I'm finally back from Utah, which was a great visit, but we are all happy to be back at our own home with our normal routine and schedule.  Vacations are so much fun but take so much out of you at the same time, unless of course you are sunbathing on some amazing beach somewhere.  OH.... I wish!
(pretty isn't it, wish I knew where it was, I'd book a trip there immediately!)




Anyway, back to the warm fuzzies.  Sufficed to say, although we had some very good experiences on the flight home, we will (hopefully) NEVER be flying again!  So with that, I shall start my story!

To begin with, we got to the airport on time just to find out that our flight was delayed, and that even though it was delayed 2 hours that we should stick around in case they could fly out earlier.  Supposedly the flight was delayed because of weather, but Atlanta didn't have any bad weather, and they also said the plane was just plain (haha) delayed, couldn't figure it out. Well, we finally boarded the plane, but they made us check one of our carry ons because there wasn't enough overhead room.  The flight itself was really nice, we decided to treat ourselves to an in flight movie, and since the stewardess noticed my military ID, we were given complimentary head phones and some goodies for our daughter after she woke up!  The movie was Whip It, really good movie by the way, and pretty clean too!



The kids slept through most of the flight but enjoyed themselves when awake.  Then came the fun part.  We landed in Atlanta and had time to get to the next gate, and get some food.  Apparently there were 2 other flights at our gate, so no seats, and we had to go outside to board the plane, with a stroller, and there was NO RAMP!?!?!  I got to manuever the stroller and our luggage down two flights of stairs while Chad carried both kids, fun stuff.  Then we all board the plane and come to find out the plane not only was TINY!!!! I mean climb up stairs to get in it tiny, but they had overbooked the seats by 1, only 1.  I felt horrible, poor man was 3 hours from home at 1100 at night, and was gonna have to find a place to sleep.  So my hubby being the awesome man he is went up front and gave up his seat and for the 30 min plane ride the four of us sat wedged into 2 seats, although happily so.  And come to find out the man we gave our seat to was retired Air Force and his wife works at the post hospital, pretty cool!

So we went home with warm fuzzies and feeling all happy with ourselves, we got lots of compliments on the kids and asked if we needed any help when we got off as well, all was great with the world.  And then.... we went through the bag of ours that had been wedged at his feet the whole flight and as we rummaged through found something peculiar:

It was neither Chad's nor mine, so to the nice man who sat across from me on the flight from Atlanta to Augusta, thank you, you bought us dinner tonight!!  And it was DELICIOUS!!

Just goes to show there are still good people out in the world and grateful people as well.  (and you thought he'd done something bad, gotcha!)

Busy busy!

So, haven't had any time to share thoughts, packing for a trip to Utah!  So excited and anxious, our flight heads out at 540 am and I still can't get to bed!  We were able to pack everything in about 3 hours, which is a great record for us, especially when packing 2 kids!  So yeah, well I will see if I can find time to blog from deep within the Rockies, but who knows!!!

Have a great 2 weeks and I'll make contact for sure by the 24th!

Real vs. Imaginary

So I learned a lesson today, when men play video games, they take them very seriously.  So seriously in fact then when you can't perform at their standards, they get annoyed.  Now I understand why most women don't play the competitive online games that guys do, it's kinda pointless!  I mean, don't get me wrong, I love playing video games, especially with my hubby, and am proud to say I can keep up relatively well with the big dogs, but I do it for a totally different reason then my husband.  To me it is fun, helps me destress, get away from it all, apparently to him, it is a "mission" and he has to succeed or his manhood is at stake!  Guess it helps if you don't have any manliness to worry about huh!  But it would be nice if they could understand the woman's point of view on a lot of these things. 

Like football perhaps, I understand it is YOUR TEAM, and you've followed them for a long time, and they mean so much to you, but as the wife it is REALLY depressing when we see you get more emotional over a touchdown then when your first born child entered the world.  I also find it so odd to see the same expression of excitement on their faces when their baby walks, as when they beat the best online player on their video game!  I know how much it all means to them, but seriously???? 

PRIORITIES!!!

Oh well, I guess men will be men, and that's what makes the mystery, if we understood the opposite gender it would be too easy, right?  Oh the joys of relationships and marriage!

The Giving Tree, from child's view to parent's

So my daughter has a new favorite book that her awesome Aunt Avo gave her for Christmas.  She constantly is having me read it to her, and although it is long, she loves it.  The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein is the name of it, and I too remember loving this book as a child, but apparently, your view on certain books definitely changes once you are a parent.

As a child I remember loving how sweet the tree was to the boy and how she took care of him and loved him no matter what he did.  I also remember thinking how much she loved him to give him everything she had, and then that the boy was so sweet to return and spend time with her again at the end. 

Now... as a parent I see it quite differently.  I notice how much the tree does for the boy and how much he leaves and totally deserts her for long periods of time.  And how everytime he does show his face he tells her he NEEDS something and that what she has isn't good enough unless it provides him with what he wants.

How come the boy doesn't go out and get his own lumber to build a house, or go out and get a job and make money, and then when he was older he could buy a canoe?!!!  Why couldn't the tree have just been there to help him come up with ideas for jobs, or help him jump start his career, or be supportive?  Then when he needs a house he goes and builds one, and the tree can stay a full tree and be made into a swing for HIS kids.  Such a sweeter story don't you think?  It just seems like the tree does anything and everything to make this boy happy and he NEVER says THANK YOU!!!  Not once, he comes, takes, and leaves, and then waits forever to come back and visit, I guess this is all we should expect from our children?

I THINK NOT!!!!  So I will definitely keep reading this book to my daughter, because it is one of her favorites, but I tend to add thanks yous, and pleases, and could yous, and I hope that when she becomes a parent, she can't say that i was like the tree.  Because although I would do anything for my children, they can't become the productive acheiving adults like my parents raised just by having everything handed to them.  Sadly that happens a lot now a days, we so badly want our children to succeed that we are willing to give up everything and do everything for them so then can be great, but then it isn't them who's becoming great, it's us, and then when we are gone, they will have no stump to sit on, they will have no support, and surviving on their own will be so much more of a challenge then it should have to be.

Being a helicopter parent hurts your children more then you think, being protected from certain things is very important, but to build character, true character, they have to face most of their challenges alone.  Then they will truly be amazing adults and show this world what the next generation has to offer.

Meal Planning

I have successfully made myself a 4 week plan of meals including snacks, breakfasts, and lunches.  I finished earlier this week the grocery list as well, and then while my AWESOME friend Sarah had my kids (we swap babysitting for 3 hours once a week, I love it!) I went to the commissary and started my adventure.  I don't tend to shop at the commissary seeing as it is no longer near my house, it is closed on Mondays, and I have to tip the baggers or look cheap, which I am.  But I decided to give it another try, and after finding everything I needed, with some help, since I never understand why the olives or the pepperoni gets put where it does, I headed off to check out.  Now I did learn one thing from this experience, mass grocery shopping and WIC shopping at the same time is a REALLY BAD IDEA!!!  You try to keep milk, bread, baby food and cheese separate from everything else in an overflowing grocery cart! I got to the cash register and successfully found all my WIC items, but sadly, as I often find, the Commissary is the last place to have WIC figured out very well, and seeing as how they recently changed it, that didn't help.  She had to enter 31 bottles of baby food individually, and then all my other WIC, which consisted of milk, cheese, bread, 32 more jars of baby food and some produce.  Let me put it this way, it took me a total of 20 minutes to get through check out, way fun let me tell ya!  When the lady that bagged my stuff and I got outside it was raining, and a freezing cold rain too, so we got to run to my car and load it with all the stuff while trying not to get soaked, I definitely tipped well, and was grateful that I had a garage at home.  All in all it was successful, I just have to decide on a grocery store to consistently shop at, since here are my issues at the moment with each.

Publix - too far and like an Albertsons, so a bit pricier, but amazing service and wonderful coupon policy
Food Lion - close and cheap, but I can't drink their WIC milk, makes me nauseated
IGA - creepy!!!  And last time I went a package of crackers fell out of the box and the girl crammed them back in and put them in my bag, plus the bag boy just randomly stacked all my groceries and placed the eggs on top, scary.
Walmart - the one nearest to us is a test walmart, so they don't carry the more rare items I sometimes need, but other then that, they are my first pick.

So I think I will just have to find a happy medium, and shop commissary for WIC  and Walmart or Food Lion for everything else, we'll see.

Our Money Challenge, and a complaint.

I've found the most annoying thing in the world, well to me that is... a sinus headache.  Not only that, but a one sided sinus headache!  That's how I spent my day from about 2 pm on.  Still able to be social and go get some meds for it, but definitely not fun walking downstairs or dealing with happy yelling children! 

I love February, tax returns!! We got ours today and paid off the credit card, which was a relief for me, since this has been the first time we've had issues doing so.  But with buying a house this last year, putting a fence in, dental work, and a minor military debt (along with some "genius" money ideas from the mortgage company) we fell into the living from paycheck to paycheck hole!  OUCH!!!  Really hated it by the way, resolved to never do that again.

So for a long time we've known we'd eventually need a newer vehicle.  My hubby being a car guy would prefer something like this:

  Or this:

He's not a fan of minivans, but sadly, the truck would cost more then plane tickets to drive cross country, and the flex has a ridiculously small backseat that I would never stick a teenager in, much less an adult!  So after much talking and deciding the next family vehicle would be mostly what I drive, I decided on a minivan, prefferably a Kia Sedona or an Odyssey.  And then Chad can get a truck of his liking to drive to and from work, and to pick up items we need for projects (which with the new house there have been a lot of). 

Right now we'll just start off with getting the minivan though, and we've issued ourselves a money challenge, you ready?  Here it is:

We're gonna pay CASH IN FULL for next vehicle, no financing needed!

It'll be worth it just to see the looks on the salesman's face when we say it, that in and of itself motivates me!!  I assume it'll look a bit like this, but hopefully human, as it would be amazing if a monkey could sell a car.  Although I think it would definitely make the experience much more enjoyable and interesting, depending on how domesticated it was.  But it would definitely have to be potty trained or that would be a rather disgusting situation.  (yes, you have just had a look into how my brain works, and the tangents it veers off on, scary isn't it?  If you find it offensive, turn off your monitors now!) 

The beginning

So, first time blogging, we'll see if I can keep it up, and if I actually enjoy it!
First off, the two things I learned today that are major red flags when at a car dealership:
1: they don't put the prices of the used vehicles ON the vehicles
2: the vehicle doesn't come with a warranty because you won't need one until 10,000 miles

That last one still worries me, so yeah, now we have officially decided not to shop at the Honda out here as well as avoiding the Kia for a while too.

Got our white miniature schnauzer ready to go out for a haircut today, we went to a new place that was a first come first serve, but apparently they only take 12 dogs a day?  So yeah, no room for Rascal, tried checking a bunch of other places, but they were wanting me to pay $45 or more for the cut, sorry Rascal, you're no show dog!  So I did the dumbest thing, I decided to try to groom him myself, I dropped by the CVS on the way home and got some hair cutting scissors, and a poncho to avoid getting too much dog hair on me, and then headed home.  I was feeling very excited and empowered, especially since one of my neighbors grooms her own dogs, but they are mini poodles, VERY small.  So yeah, sufficed to say, Rascal's hair is thick, and our electric clippers complained quite a bit, even on the shortest setting, and although I cut out a good amount of hair, you really can't tell.  Which I guess is better then it being really obvious and really bad!  So I snipped around his face a little, and got it looking okay, and gave up on his body, I'll pay unless someone can give me lessons, maybe some day.

I still was a little clipper happy though, so as soon as I made eye contact with my son, I knew what I was gonna do... Quincy was born with almost black hair, and a good amount of it, it never fell out, but he has bad eczema and he has pulled out a bit of it scratching, not only that, but his hair is quite long for 6 months old and the hair growing in is light brown like my daughters.  So I have come to refer to his hair as a bad dye job, so I took this situation as an opportunity.  I stuck him in this bebe pod we have and then placed that on the cement, since I was outside shaving Rascal anyway, Quincy was so mesmerized by the cement itself, he didn't even bother to see what I was doing, or complain.  I cut it all down to 1/2 an inch, I love it, and he looks so manly! He is quite the stud now, and it's much easier to deal with his itchiness.













Also trimmed up Halli's bangs, but nothing much, she always likes having her hair cut.  Wish she was that way with everything!